The Video Game Wars Essay Research Paper

The Video Game Wars Essay, Research Paper The Video Game Wars Brian Paik Expository Writing 10/8/96 Video games are a big market these days. Within the past few years, the industry has boomed into a very large business. Within this business, there are three big companies are fighting to be the best. Nintendo?s N64, Sega?s Saturn, and Sony?s Playstation are the three main systems in this huge market. Because there are so many games for these systems, and because it is such a big business, stores specializing in only these games are opening everywhere. A few days ago, I walked into one of these stores. My friend wanted to purchase the new nintendo machine. According to the reviews, the system was supposed to be able to have amazing polygon graphics. Video games coming out these

days are considered good if they consist of many polygonal graphics moving at a smooth and fast speed. From what he said, I thought that no other video game system could compare with it. When I entered the store, the walls were covered with many games for different systems. On one wall, there were Nintendo?s games, on another, were Sega?s games, and on the last, were Sony?s games. Surprisingly, Nintendo?s new games didn?t look much different than the other two companies?. On three corners of the room, there were television sets displaying the latest and greatest games for each popular console. While watching these new games, I was in awe. When I was younger, I remembered playing what those times considered, “high tech” video games. During those years, the games had little

blocky characters who looked more like a blob than a human being. The music wasn?t even music at all. It was more of a bunch of beeping at different pitches. These characters walked around and jumped over other blocky characters in a two dimensional environment. The new games that I observed, however, were being played right off a CD. The characters were digital images of real people, and the music was in CD quality. The game took place in a completely three dimensional environment. These days, companies are competing with each other to bring out cutting edge video games. The reason the games are so much more realistic than before, is because each company must bring out a better game than the other. Since they keep bringing out new games, they get better and better. And when they

can?t improve games any more for that particular video game machine, the companies will make a new machine which can handle better games. Already in my life time, both Nintendo and Sega have created three video game systems. As I mentioned earlier, while my friends new Nintendo machine was supposed to be amazing, both Sega and Playstation?s systems looked just as good. In a few years, however, all three of those systems will be obsolete, just as the systems in my early years are obsolete now. Although new and better systems are coming out all the time, they must stay cheap enough to buy. Already, the systems are way too expensive. All three retail for about $200 and that doesn?t include a game. Games are an additional $80. Those are big prices, considering that when I was

younger, systems were $80, with games around $20. Those prices, however, are only for the United States. In Japan, the country where these systems are made, the video game market is even bigger. In that country, the same three systems retail for around $400 with separate games for around $100. The funny thing is, the people actually buy it. Both Japan and The US are lucky because the systems are manufactured in both countries. In countries where they aren?t manufactured, the people there have to import, and that is a very expensive thing to do. When I lived in Korea, many people I knew, bought imported systems from Japan. They paid amounts up to $800 for a system with additional games being purchased for $150 apiece. Imports also occur in the United States. There, die hard video