Released in the arcades in april 1974, Basketball was a landmark title, notable for several firsts in video gaming. It was the first basketball video game, the first video game to use sprites, and the first to represent human characters. It is also the first known Japanese-developed game to be released in North America.
Two players use paddles to knock a ball back and forth on a screen; uses an overlay of a basketball court. This cart has 2 different spots games: bowling and basketball. Be the king of the alley or the court. Bowling is up to 4 players while basketball is 2.
Taito's fifth game and the second developed in house. The game is another ball-and-paddle variation, like three of Taito's previous four releases, but with the added functionality of four players being able to play doubles. This was an important innovation during the 1973-1974 Pong craze first introduced in Allied Leisure's Tennis Tourney.
Soccer is Taito's third ever video game release and the first developed internally. The game was designed by the highly influential Tomohiro Nishikado, who would later go on to create Space Invaders.
Soccer is a ball-and-paddle game like Pong, but with a green background to simulate a playfield, allowing each player to control both a forward and a goalkeeper. The players can adjust the size of the players, who are represented as paddles on screen. It also has a goal on each side.
Soccer is likely to be Japan's first original domestically produced video game, in comparison to Japanese Pong clones released earlier, including Sega's Pong Tron and Taito's Elepong. Since it was exported to Europe in 1973 it may also be the first Japanese video game to be released on the European continent.
Sega's first "video" arcade game. Unlike their earlier amusement games, it uses discrete logic as opposed to being electro-mechanical. The game used boards imported from the United States mounted in a Sega-produced cabinet.
Allied Leisure's second game was a four-player version of Paddle Battle. It was the first four-player Pong-style game, predating Atari's own Quadrapong by two months.
Taito's attempt at the arcade ping-pong game genre, and likely their first ever arcade game release. It uses imported Pong PC Boards in a Taito-produced cabinet.
The first video game produced by Allied Leisure. It is a clone of Atari's pong, and was created by electronics firm Universal Research Laboratories more-or-less copying the board from a Pong machine Allied had purchased from a distrubutor.
Extra games released for the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. Came in a six pack with Wipeout, Volleyball, Fun Zoo, Invasion and Baseball. Could be bought separately. Worked with Cartridge #8.
Magnavox Odyssey launch title, sold separately. Two players use paddles to knock a ball back and forth on a screen; uses an overlay of a volleyball court, and players must knock the ball over the net for scores to count. Uses game card number 7.
Hockey is one of the 12 original games that were shipped with the Magnavox Odyssey system. It runs on Cartridge No.3 and uses a stadium scoreboard with an overlay.
Play Ball was produced by Gremlin in 1972.
From flyer:
"It's the most versatile, smoothest-action wall game - completely programmable with plug-in serviceability.
Pitcher can throw Fast Ball, Curve, Slider or Change Up. Better scores points for Home Run, Triple, Double or Single. A Strike scores a point for the other team.
Play Ball has proven to be a true contest of skill and it simulates interest and competition in both players and spectators. "
Baseball is a baseball sports game that was created on a PDP-10 mainframe computer at Pomona College in 1971 by student Don Daglow. The game (actually spelled BASBAL due to the 6-character file name length restrictions) continued to be enhanced periodically through 1976. The program is documented at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. It was the first interactive Baseball simulation game, allowing players to manage the game as it unfolded.
At the start of each inning the batter's and pitcher's names were listed, and the player in the field could enter a number to choose whether to pitch to the batter, walk him intentionally, warm up a reliever or change the pitcher. In a later version the options for a pitchout and for a visit to the mound were added. The player controlling the batter could choose to put in a pinch hitter. If runners were on base the player could direct them to try to steal. Once the players had entered the desired orders, the game would print out the result of the at-bat, update t
A game of pool (billiards) developed by William George Brown and Ted Lewis in 1954 on the MIDSAC computer, intended primarily to showcase the computing power of the MIDSAC.
"The game displayed a 2-inch rendition of the pool cue for the players to line up their shots and ran a simulation of the colliding and ricocheting balls in real-time, implementing a full game of a cue ball and 15 frame balls for two players. Graphics were drawn in real-time on a monochrome 13" point plotting X-Y display, the screen being updated by the program 40 times a second (that is, in a normal in-game situations with 2 to 4 balls moving at once). However, for time constraints, the table and its pockets weren’t drawn by the computer graphics, but were rather drawn manually onto the display using a grease pencil."
- Norbert Landsteiner for masswerk.at