The Video Game Crash

Elsa

The man stops for a few seconds to take a drink and quench his thirst. Now he is ready to continue.

The video game crash of 1983 (known as the Atari shock in Japan) was a large-scale recession in the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985, primarily in the United States. The crash was attributed to several factors, including market saturation in the number of game consoles and available games as well as waning interest in console games in favor of personal computers. Revenues peaked at around $3.2 billion in 1983, then fell to around $100 million by 1985 (a drop of almost 97 percent). The crash abruptly ended what is retrospectively considered the second generation of console video gaming in North America.

Lasting about two years, the crash shook the then-booming industry, and it led to the bankruptcy of several companies producing home computers and video game consoles in the region. Analysts of the time expressed doubts about the long-term viability of video game consoles and software.

The North American video game console industry recovered a few years later, mostly due to the widespread success of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1986; Nintendo designed the NES as the Western branding for its Famicom console (originally released in 1983) to avoid the missteps which caused the 1983 crash and the stigma which video games had at that time.’ (Wikipedia)

“I didn’t even know that there was a video game crash,” Elsa thinks to herself. “That was in 1983, so her oldest child would have been 9 years old. Nope I can’t remember the game crash at all.”

Let’s continue here - The First Console War

Start at the beginning – Elsa goes to the game fair