Timeline of Arcade Video Game History - Golden Age (1978-1986)

Golden Age (1978-1986)

See also: Golden age of video arcade games and List of best-selling arcade games

1978

• Taito releases Space Invaders, the first blockbuster arcade video game, responsible for starting the golden age of video arcade games. It also sets the template for the shoot 'em up genre, and influences nearly every shooter game released since then.

• Sega releases Secret Base, which allows two-player cooperative gameplay.

1979

• Atari releases Asteroids, a major hit in the United States and Atari's best selling game of all time.

• Namco releases Galaxian, which helps popularize graphics in RGB colour.

• Nintendo releases Sheriff, a run & gun multi-directional shooter with dual-stick controls (one joystick for movement and other for aiming) and many enemies shooting many bullets, influencing dual-stick shooters like Robotron 2084 and Geometry Wars.

• Nintendo releases Radar Scope, which introduces a three-dimensional third-person perspective, imitated years later by shooters such as Konami's Juno First and Activision's Beamrider.

1980

• Namco releases Pac-Man, its biggest-selling game. One of the most influential games, it had the first gaming mascot character, established the maze chase genre, opened gaming to female audiences, and introduced power-ups and cutscenes.

• Namco releases King & Balloon, which is the first game to feature synthesized voices. It is also an early example of dual-core processing, using two Z80 microprocessors, the second to drive a DAC for speech.

• Namco releases Rally-X, the first game to feature background music, multi-directional scrolling, and a radar to show the car's location on the map.

• DECO releases DECO Cassette System, the first standardized arcade platform, for which many games were made.

• Williams Electronics release Defender, a more challenging shoot-em-up space game with control configuration of five buttons and a joystick.

1981

• Nintendo releases Donkey Kong, which was one of the first platform games. It was also the game that introduced Mario (named simply "Jumpman" at the time) to the video game world.

• Sega releases Eliminator, a space combat multi-directional shooter notable for being the only four-player vector game created. It featured a colour vector display as well as both cooperative and competitive multiplayer.

• Konami releases Scramble, the first side-scrolling shooter with forced scrolling and multiple distinct levels,.

• Konami releases Frogger, a popular arcade action game.

• Namco releases Bosconian, introducing a free-roaming style of gameplay where the player's ship freely moves across open space that scrolls in all directions and a radar that tracks player & enemy positions on the map.

1982

• Moon Patrol was created by Irem and released in the U.S. by Williams. It is the first game to use parallax scrolling.

• Namco releases Pole Position, one of the most popular racing games of all time.

• Sega releases Star Trek, a space combat sim featuring five different controls, six different enemies, and 40 different simulation levels. One of the most elaborate vector games ever released.

• Konami releases Time Pilot, which features a time travel theme and a free-roaming style of gameplay where the player's plane could freely move across open air space that scrolls indefinitely in all directions.

• Atari released Quantum, an early arcade game to use a 16-bit 68000 CPU, for more detailed and smoother graphics.

1983

• I, Robot, the first commercially produced 3D-polygonal game is released.

• Bally Midway releases Journey, the first game with digitized sprites.

• Dragon's Lair, the first video game to use cel-animated video instead of computer generated graphics.

• Libble Rabble, is released by Namco. This is Namco's first game to have a 16-bit processor.

• Atari brings Star Wars to the arcades in the form of a 3D vector graphics simulation of the movie's attack on the Death Star sequence and featuring digitized samples of voices from the movie.

1984

• 16-bit processors are increasingly used in arcade machines, resulting in much more detailed and faster graphics.

• Marble Madness and Paperboy are released by Atari Games.

• Namco releases Pac-Land, an influential side-scrolling platform game.

1985

• Gauntlet is released by Atari Games

• Gradius (Nemesis in some countries) is released by Konami. Also released by Konami the same year is Yie Ar Kung-Fu, which was the basis for modern fighting games.

• Space Harrier is released by Sega

• Vs. Super Mario Bros., the arcade version of Super Mario Bros. originally on the Nintendo Entertainment System (Famicom in Japan), is released into arcades.

• Tehkan World Cup, the father of soccer games with an above view of the field, is released by Tehkan, who also release its stablemate, Gridiron Fight.

1986

• Sega releases Out Run.

• Chiller by Exidy is released and is an early example of blood and gore.