Video Game Conversion - History

History

The earliest video game conversions were almost exclusively home versions of popular arcade games. The first known examples were conversions of Atari's Pong in the form of consoles with this one game built-in, as well as consoles that included a number of variations on the game. Atari produced their own "official" conversion of the game for home use, but a number of other imitators such as Sears' Telegames Pong IV were also on the market.

With the begin of the video game era, Atari released their 2600 console for which they licensed and produced a number of home conversions of popular arcade titles, including Pac-Man by Namco, Space Invaders and Defender. Later, other third-party developers and publishers such as Activision and Coleco became involved producing, among others, games like Donkey Kong for the Atari 2600.

Atari also sublicensed a number of their Atari 2600 conversions to be reproduced on home computers such as the Commodore 64, on which cartridge-based versions of games like Pacman and Pole Position were produced under the Atarisoft label.

In 1983, Nintendo entered the fray, producing the Nintendo Entertainment System which partly acted as a platform for bringing Nintendo's own arcade games to the home, firstly in the middle of 1983 in Japan, then later in the year in the United States. These games included Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Clu Clu Land, Punch-Out!! and Hogan's Alley.

In 1985, Sega released the SG Mark III, which was re-released in the United States in 1986 as the Sega Master System. This also was partially a platform for bringing conversions of Sega games to the home, which resulted in home versions of (among others) Shinobi, Out Run, Space Harrier and After Burner.

The mid-1980s and the mid-1990s saw a flurry of conversions of popular arcade games to home computers such as the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Commodore Amiga and Atari ST. These games were mostly developed and published by groups who were not involved with the original developers, but who had bought the rights to create faithful reproductions of these games. Console versions of these arcade games, however, were often produced by the original developers of the arcade title, leading to a higher degree of accuracy in translation. This was most prevalent in the 1991-1992 conversions of Street Fighter II. The Super Nintendo and Mega Drive versions produced by Capcom themselves were highly acclaimed. The home computer versions were, however, less successful, with US Gold converting the game, not having access to the original source code and being forced to "imitate" the game.

The arrival of the era of 32-bit consoles such as the PlayStation and the Sega Saturn ushered in a new era of video game conversions. The Amiga and Atari ST were, at this point, at the end of their commercial lives, and the only remaining home computer that was considered a viable gaming platform was the PC, specifically with the arrival of Windows 95 and the DirectX development platform. The dominance of these platforms, the tendency for arcade developers to convert their own titles, the photographic quality of the graphics and audio that they were capable of providing, together with the decline of the traditional arcade, meant that conversions of games from the arcade were not just "pixel-perfect" (an industry term to describe accurate one-to-one conversions), but also sometimes exceeded their original source material in terms of quality, adding extra features, enhanced graphics and higher-definition sound.

As the traditional arcade game continued to decline, a greater focus on converting games between the home computer and console platforms began to take shape. Whereas games for home computers have been considered to be more sophisticated in scope, console games tend to be simpler in nature. Some home computer games such as Command & Conquer and Civilization II have been ported to the consoles in a simpler form to accommodate the target audience and technical limitations, and a number of "console-style" games have also found their way onto home computer systems. With the decline of the traditional arcade, this is a trend that is likely to continue in the field of video game conversions.