A sports video game is a video game that simulates the practice of sports . Most sports have been recreated with video games, including team sports , track and field , extreme sports , and combat sports . Some games emphasize playing the sport (such as EA Sports FC , eFootball and NBA 2K ), whilst others emphasize strategy and sport management (such as Football Manager and Out of the Park Baseball ). Some, such as Need for Speed , Arch Rivals and Punch-Out!! , satirize the sport for comic effect. This genre has been popular throughout the history of video games and is competitive, just like real-world sports. A number of game series feature the names and characteristics of real teams and players, and are updated annually to reflect real-world changes. The sports genre is one of the oldest genres in gaming history.
93-785: SSX Tricky , also known as SSX 2 or SSX 2: Tricky , is a snowboarding video game , the second game in the SSX series published by Electronic Arts under the EA Sports BIG label and developed by EA Canada . A direct sequel to SSX , the game was originally released in 2001 for PlayStation 2 , GameCube , and Xbox , It was later ported to the Game Boy Advance in October 2002. SSX 3 followed in 2003. In SSX Tricky , players can choose among twelve characters, participate in races or trick competitions, and earn rewards. It
186-585: A basketball court , a crowd, cheerleaders , four periods, the ability to rough up an opponent, and big dunks capable of backboard shattering . Konami's Punk Shot (1990) is an arcade basketball game with an element of violence, allowing players to physically attack each other, which CU Amiga magazine compared to the film Rollerball (1975). The success of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in North America led to
279-631: A female sports game based on high-school track & field, The Undoukai , and a dirt track racing game Buggy Challenge , with a buggy . Other dirt racing games from that year were dirt bike games: Nintendo 's Excitebike and SNK 's motocross game Jumping Cross . Nintendo also released a four-player racquet sport game, VS. Tennis (the Nintendo VS. System version of Tennis ). That same year, ice hockey games were also released: Alpha Denshi's Bull Fighter and Data East's Fighting Ice Hockey . Data East also released
372-441: A lawn sports game Haro Gate Ball , based on croquet , while Nichibutsu released a game based on roller derby , Roller Jammer . Meanwhile, Technos Japan released a game based on sumo wrestling, Syusse Oozumou , and the first martial arts combat-sport game, Karate Champ , considered one of the most influential fighting games. In 1985, Nintendo released an arm wrestling game, Arm Wrestling , while Konami released
465-447: A table tennis game that attempted to accurately reflect the sport, Konami's Ping Pong . On home consoles, Mattel released Intellivision World Series Baseball ( IWSB ), designed by Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower , in late 1983. It is considered the earliest sports video game to use multiple camera angles to show the action in a manner resembling a sports television broadcast. Earlier sports games prior to this had displayed
558-625: A New York City-based downtown area, and Tokyo Megaplex, a course resembling a giant pinball machine, plus two new tracks, Garibaldi and Alaska. It features twelve characters: the returning Elise Riggs, Mackenzie "Mac" Fraser ( NTSC version), Kaori Nishidake, Zoe Payne, Moby Jones, and Jean-Paul "JP" Arsenault, plus new ones like Psymon Stark, Edward "Eddie" Wachowski, Seeiah Owens, Luther-Dwayne Grady, Marisol Diez Delgado, Broderick "Brodi" Ford, Martin "Marty" Stieber ( PAL version), who replaces Mac, and Kim Yuri (NTSC Korean version), who replaces Kaori. Hiro Karamatsu and Jurgen Angermann did not return, which
651-509: A brand name used for sports games they produced. EA Sports created several ongoing series, with a new version released each year to reflect the changes in the sport and its teams since the previous release. Sega launched its own competing NFL series on the Sega Genesis. The gameplay of Sega's earlier 1987 Master System title Great Football (1987) was the basis for Joe Montana Football (1991), developed by EA and published by Sega for
744-409: A continuous action. For example, football games may distinguish between short and the long passes based on how long the player holds a button. Golf games often initiate the backswing with one button-push, and the swing itself is initiated by a subsequent push. Arcade sports games have traditionally been very popular arcade games . The competitive nature of sports lends itself well to the arcades where
837-858: A game called Tennis for Two , a competitive two-player tennis game played on an oscilloscope . The players would select the angle at which to put their racket, and pressed a button to return it. Although this game was incredibly simple, it demonstrated how an action game (rather than previous puzzles) could be played on a computer. Video games prior to the late 1970s were primarily played on university mainframe computers under timesharing systems that supported multiple computer terminals on school campuses. The two dominant systems in this era were Digital Equipment Corporation 's PDP-10 and Control Data Corporation 's PLATO . Both could only display text, and not graphics, originally printed on teleprinters and line printers , but later printed on single-color CRT screens . Ralph Baer developed Table Tennis for
930-604: A horizontal side-scrolling format, depicting one or two tracks at a time, a large scoreboard that displayed world records and current runs, and a packed audience in the background. Despite the industry's hype for laserdisc games at the time, Track & Field became the most well-received game at the Amusement Machine Show (AM Show) in Tokyo and the Amusement & Music Operators Association (AMOA) show in
1023-613: A menu where players may select a strategy while play is temporarily suspended. Association football video games sometimes shift gameplay modes when it is time for the player to attempt a penalty kick, a free shot at goal from the penalty spot, taken by a single player. Some sports games also require players to shift roles between the athletes and the coach or manager. These mode switches are more intuitive than other game genres because they reflect actual sports. Older 2D sports games sometimes used an unrealistic graphical scale, where athletes appeared to be quite large in order to be visible to
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#17327719232211116-499: A number of actions, including a back heel, power kick , high kick, sliding tackle , super shot, and fouling other players (kicking, punching, and pulling shirts), which the player can get away with if the referee isn't looking, or get a yellow or red penalty card for if he is. In 1991, the American football game Tecmo Super Bowl was the first mainstream sports game to feature both the league and player association licenses of
1209-496: A personal move if the character is using a board that matches their style. If a player successfully performs six Uber moves, spelling out TRICKY on the boost bar, they will have infinite boost for the remainder of the race. Also introduced in the game is a rivalry system in the World Circuit mode. If the player is friendly with another artificial intelligence (AI) character, they will treat the player favourably; however, if
1302-454: A remake of SSX Tricky . In 2020, Steven Rechtschaffner, the producer of SSX Tricky , expressed his interest and the possibility of a remake of the game. When the game's successor SSX 3 was re-released for Xbox One in 2018, he was impressed, saying that a remake of SSX Tricky could work. Rechtschaffner said that it is not his decision but rather of the developers and EA, who own the intellectual property . In 2021, Rechtschaffner said he
1395-503: A season mode with nearly the entire NFL roster. Tecmo Super Bowl is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential games of all time, as it was the first mainstream sports video game with both the league and player association licenses, with ESPN ranking it the greatest sports video game of all time. Sega also developed American football games for their competing Master System console, Great Football in 1987 and American Pro Football ( Walter Payton Football ) in 1989,
1488-496: A simpler " arcade-style " approach to its gameplay, ISS Pro introduced more complex simulation gameplay emphasizing tactics and improvisation, enabled by tactical variety such as nine in-match strategy options. In 1997, Electronic Gaming Monthly reported that sports games accounted for roughly 50% of console software sales. At the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century, extreme sport video games began to appear more frequently. Namco 's Alpine Racer (1994)
1581-462: A single game. Wii Sports and Nintendo Switch Sports are recent examples. A popular sub-genre are Olympic video games , including Track & Field and other similar titles. Multi-sport tournaments are becoming the basis for computer games. Sports video games have origins in sports electro-mechanical games (EM games), which were arcade games manufactured using a mixture of electrical and mechanical components, for amusement arcades between
1674-521: A stadium or arena with clear boundaries. Sports games often provide play-by-play and color commentary through the use of recorded audio. Sports games sometimes make use of different modes for different parts of the game. This is especially true in games about American football such as the Madden NFL series, where executing a pass play requires six different gameplay modes in the span of approximately 45 seconds. Sometimes, other sports games offer
1767-412: A trend where presentation would play an increasingly important role in sports games. Magic Johnson's Fast Break (1988) by Arcadia Systems had detailed characters and audio clips of Magic Johnson 's voice. Midway, who had not released a basketball game in sixteen years since Taito's TV Basketball in 1974, released Arch Rivals (1989), a two-on-two game featuring large players with distinct looks,
1860-485: A video game review aggregator . It was a runner-up in GameSpot ' s annual award categories for the best Xbox game and best alternative sports console game , losing to Halo: Combat Evolved and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 , respectively. Most reviews hesitated before calling the game a true sequel, since it shared a large amount of content with the original SSX , which was published in 2000, and all but two of
1953-547: A wing for audio compositions, and a quality assurance department. There are also facilities such as fitness rooms, two theatres , a cafeteria , coffee bars , a soccer field, and several arcades. EA Vancouver is a major studio of the American gaming software giant Electronic Arts (EA) which has many studios around the globe. EA, based in Redwood City, California, had acquired Distinctive Software in 1991 for $ 11 million and renamed Distinctive Software to EA Canada. At
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#17327719232212046-669: Is a game engine which was created and developed by EA Canada. It is the main engine used in some of EA 's games, notably the Need for Speed series, and was also used in a few sports titles from EA Sports . Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 and Need for Speed: Underground used the first version of the EAGL engine, (EAGL 1) Need for Speed: Underground 2 uses EAGL 2, Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Need for Speed: Carbon uses EAGL 3, Need for Speed: ProStreet and Need for Speed Undercover uses EAGL 4; Need for Speed Undercover uses
2139-514: Is considered to be the first video game to accurately emulate American football ; it also popularized the use of a trackball, with the game's developers mentioning it was inspired by an earlier Japanese association football game that used a trackball. Atari Football was the second highest-earning arcade video game of 1979 in the United States, below only Taito's shoot 'em up blockbuster Space Invaders (1978), though Atari Football
2232-448: Is named after Run-D.M.C. 's " It's Tricky ", a song that is featured throughout the game. Additionally, the game includes a behind-the-scenes making-of video, which is labelled DVD Content in the main menu. One of the major new features is the addition of Uber Tricks, absurdly unrealistic and exaggerated tricks, often involving detaching the board from the snowboarder's feet. The player can gain access to Uber Tricks during play after filling
2325-563: The Sensible Soccer series (1992 debut). Several sports laserdisc games were released for arcades in 1984, including Universal 's Top Gear which displayed 3D animated race car driving, while Sega's GP World and Taito's Laser Grand Prix displayed live-action footage. Sega also produced a bullfighting game, Bull Fight , and a multiple-watersports game Water Match (published by Bally Midway ), which included swimming, kayaking and boat racing ; while Taito released
2418-433: The Nintendo VS. System titles VS. Tennis and VS. Baseball , Taito's golf game Birdie King II , and Data East 's Tag Team Wrestling . 10-Yard Fight in 1983 had a career mode , where the player progresses from high school , to college , professional , playoff , and Super Bowl , as the difficulty increases with each step. Irem's waterskiing game Tropical Angel had a female player character , and
2511-501: The PlayStation console. The following year, Square 's popular role-playing video game , Final Fantasy VII , included a snowboarding minigame that was later released as an independent snowboarding game, Final Fantasy VII Snowboarding , for mobile phones. In 2000, SSX was released. Based around boardercross , the game featured fast downhill races, avoiding various objects whilst using others to perform jumps and increase
2604-491: The Pong market crashed around the mid-1970s. Sports video games would not regain the same level of success until the 1980s. In 1976, Sega released an early combat sport game, Heavyweight Champ , based on boxing and now considered the first fighting game . In March 1978, Sega released World Cup , an association football game with a trackball controller. In October 1978, Atari released Atari Football , which
2697-428: The arcade video game industry, so they began turning to sports games. The arcade industry began producing sports games at levels not seen since the days of Pong and its clones, which played a role in the recovery of the arcade market by the mid-1980s. There were initially high expectations for laserdisc games to help revive the arcade industry in 1983, but it was instead non-laserdisc sports games that ended up being
2790-587: The highest-grossing arcade sports game of all time. FIFA International Soccer (1993), the first game in EA's FIFA series of association football video games , released on the Sega Mega Drive and became the best-selling home video game of 1993 in the United Kingdom. In contrast to the top-down perspective of earlier association football games, FIFA introduced an isometric perspective to
2883-624: The history of the Nintendo Entertainment System , as they were the earliest NES games released in North America, initially in the arcades and then with the console's launch. Nintendo's arcade version VS. Baseball (1984) was competing with Sega's earlier hit Champion Baseball in the arcades. On home computers, Track & Field spawned similar hit Olympic games for computer platforms, such as Ocean Software 's Daley Thompson's Decathlon (1984). Electronic Arts produced their first sports game for home computers,
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2976-400: The wrestling game Tag Team Wrestling . In the field of association football games , Alpha Denshi's Exciting Soccer (1983) featured digitized voices and a top-down overhead perspective, which was later popularized by Tehkan World Cup (1985) from Tehkan (later Tecmo). Tehkan World Cup was a multiplayer association football game with a trackball controller, where a button
3069-494: The " Console Sports " award. The PS2 version sold over 800,000 units worldwide, earning the Platinum status. In predicting the sales for the game, PSX Extreme [ pl ] said: "It's quite unfortunate if I do say so myself, because a AAA title like SSX Tricky won't be getting the sales it really deserves." SSX Tricky remains decades later one of the best games in the extreme sports genre. In 2016, IGN called it
3162-661: The 1940s and 1970s. Examples include boxing games such as International Mutoscope Reel Company 's K.O. Champ (1955), bowling games such as Bally Manufacturing 's Bally Bowler and Chicago Coin 's Corvette from 1966, baseball games such as Midway Manufacturing 's Little League (1966) and Chicago Coin's All Stars Baseball (1968), other team sport games such as Taito 's Crown Soccer Special (1967) and Crown Basketball (1968), and air hockey type games such as Sega 's MotoPolo (1968) and Air Hockey (1972) by Brunswick Billiards . The earliest sports video game dates backs to 1958, when William Higinbotham created
3255-436: The 95th best PS2 game. The staff cited its improvements over its predecessor, including "flashier Uber moves". SSX Tricky is noted to have increased the popularity of Run-DMC 's song " It's Tricky ", which is used as the game's main theme. The renowned song's connection to the game and its fans led to its inclusion in the 2012 reboot SSX . Into the 2020s, amid a number of games getting remade, fans have been clamoring for
3348-539: The Best 150 Games of All Time, the highest ranking sports game on the list. International Superstar Soccer Pro ( ISS Pro ), released for the PlayStation in 1997, was considered a "game-changer" for association football games, which had been largely dominated by rival FIFA on home systems for the last several years. Developed by Konami Tokyo , ISS Pro introduced a new 3D engine capable of better graphics and more sophisticated gameplay than its rival. Whereas FIFA had
3441-511: The Genesis. Sega then released their own sequel without EA's involvement, Joe Montana II: Sports Talk Football (1991), which became the first American football game with audio commentary. After Sega acquired the NFL license, they shortened the title to NFL Sports Talk Football Starring Joe Montana , which later became known as Sega's NFL series. Due to strong competition from Madden , the series
3534-596: The Mattel Intellivoice module. The game was sophisticated for its time, but was a commercial failure, released around the time of the video game crash of 1983 when the North American home video game market collapsed. Nintendo released a series of highly successful sports games for the Nintendo Entertainment System console and the arcade Nintendo VS. System , starting with Baseball (1983) and Tennis (1984). They played an important role in
3627-497: The NBA Playoffs (1989), the latter ported to the Genesis in 1991, which added more simulation aspects to the subgenre. In the arcades, Midway followed Arch Rivals with NBA Jam (1993), which introduced digitized sprites similar to their fighting game Mortal Kombat (1992), combined with a gameplay formula similar to Arch Rivals . In its first twelve months of release, NBA Jam generated over $ 1 billion to become
3720-620: The United States, the best-selling arcade video game of 1973 was Pong , followed by several of its clones and variants, including Pro Tennis from Williams Electronics , Winner from Midway Manufacturing , Super Soccer and Tennis Tourney from Allied Leisure (later called Centuri), and TV Tennis from Chicago Coin . In Japan, arcade manufacturers such as Taito initially avoided video games as they found Pong to be simplistic compared to more complex EM games, but after Sega successfully tested-marketed Pong in Japan, Sega and Taito released
3813-788: The United States. The game sold 38,000 arcade units in Japan, became one of the top five highest-grossing arcade games of 1984 in the United States, and the top-grossing arcade game of 1984 in the United Kingdom. It was also the basis for an organized video game competition that drew more than a million players in 1984. The success of Track & Field spawned other similar Olympic video games . Numerous sports video games were subsequently released in arcades after Track & Field , including American football games such as 10-Yard Fight (1983) by Irem and Goal to Go (1984) by Stern Electronics , boxing video games such as Nintendo's Punch-Out! (1984), martial arts sports fighting games such as Technōs Japan 's Karate Champ (1984),
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3906-517: The adrenaline bar; performing six Uber Tricks earns the player unlimited boost for the rest of the race. Another added feature is the rivalry system, where knocking down an opponent will make them more hostile. SSX Tricky was the first game in the series to be released on multiple consoles, as the original SSX was one of the PS2's launch games . Its PS2 version received a 92% score on Metacritic , sold over 800,000 units worldwide, and like other games in
3999-433: The arcades, and subsequently served as the prototype for later baseball video games . It had a split-screen format, displaying the playfield from two camera angles , one from the outfield and another close-up shot of the player and batter, while also giving players the option of selecting relief pitchers or pinch hitters, while an umpire looks on attentively to make the game calls. The game also had digitized voices for
4092-429: The basketball title Dr. J and Larry Bird Go One on One (1983), which was the first licensed sports game based on the names and likenesses of famous athletes; the inclusion of famous real world athletes would become one of the most important selling points for sports games. One on One became Electronic Arts' best-selling game, and the highest-selling computer sports game, having sold 400,000 copies by late 1988. In
4185-555: The clones Pong Tron and Elepong , respectively, in July 1973, before the official Japanese release of Pong by Atari Japan (later part of Namco ) in November 1973. Tomohiro Nishikado 's four-player Pong variant Soccer was released by Taito in November 1973, with a green background to simulate an association football playfield along with a goal on each side. Another Taito variant, Pro Hockey (1973), set boundaries around
4278-506: The courses appear in the original. Peter Suclu reviewed the PS2 version of the game for Next Generation , rating it four stars out of five, and stated: "If you haven't played SSX , this is a must-buy, but if you already own the game, the full-price 'expansion pack' is hardly revolutionary." Reviews like that of IGN ' s Aaron Boulding complimented the added features, such as Uber tricks and rivalry with other boarders. Some reviewers, such as Shan Satterfield for GameSpot , thought that
4371-494: The early 2000s. A rivalry subsequently emerged between FIFA and PES , considered the "greatest rivalry" in the history of sports video games. PES became known for having "faster-paced tactical play" and more varied emergent gameplay , while FIFA was known for having more licenses. The FIFA series had sold over 16 million units by 2000, while the PES series had sold more than 10 million units by 2002. The sales gap between
4464-629: The emphasis being more on realism than on how fun the game is to pick up and play based from the competitive seasons of each sport. The simulation-style tends to be slower and more accurate with normal rules while arcade games tend to be fast and can have all kinds of ad-hoc rules and ideas thrown in, especially pre-2000s. Examples of this include the EA Sports FC , NHL , EA Sports WRC , F1 , MotoGP , PGA Tour , PGA Tour 2K , MLB The Show , Madden NFL , EA Sports College Football and NBA 2K series. A sports management game puts
4557-405: The entire field on screen, or scrolled across static top-down fields to show the action. IWSB mimicked television baseball coverage by showing the batter from a modified "center field" camera, the baserunners in corner insets and defensive plays from a camera behind the batter. It was also one of the first sports video games to feature audibly speaking digitized voices (as opposed to text), using
4650-574: The environments, the detail of the graphics, and the trick system also received plenty of recognition from reviewers. In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of 32 out of 40 for the GC version, 30 out of 40 for the PS2 version, and three sevens and one eight (29/40) for the Xbox version. During the 5th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards , the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated SSX Tricky for
4743-495: The fast-growing Sega Genesis. In 1990, Orr and Hilleman released Madden Football . They focused on producing a head-to-head two-player game with an intuitive interface and responsive controls. Electronic Arts had only expected to sell around 75,000 units, but instead the title sold around 400,000 units. In 1990, Taito released Football Champ , an association football game that allows up to four players in both competitive and cooperative gameplay . It also let players perform
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#17327719232214836-457: The final game, with multiple behind-the-scenes making-of videos found in the main menu under DVD Content. A version for Game Boy Advance was developed by Visual Impact. The PlayStation 2 (PS2) version received universal acclaim, and the GameCube (GC) and Xbox versions received favorable reviews, while the Game Boy Advance (GBA) version received average reviews according to Metacritic ,
4929-472: The first video game console , the Magnavox Odyssey , released in 1972. While the console had other sports-themed game cards, they required the use of television overlays while playing similarly to board games or card games . Table Tennis was the only Odyssey game that was entirely electronic and did not require an overlay, introducing a ball-and-paddle game design that showcased the potential of
5022-417: The following year. Ramtek later released Baseball in October 1974, similarly featuring the use of character graphics. In 1975, Nintendo released EVR-Race , a horse racing simulation game with support for up to six players. It was a mixture between a video game and an electro-mechanical game, and played back video footage from a video tape . After the market became flooded with Pong clones,
5115-593: The genre. International Superstar Soccer (1994), the first game in Konami 's International Superstar Soccer ( ISS ) series, released for the SNES. A rivalry subsequently emerged between the FIFA and ISS franchises. In the 1990s, 3D graphics were introduced in sports games. Early uses of flat-shaded polygons date back to 1991, with home computer games such as 4D Sports Boxing and Winter Challenge . However, it
5208-541: The improvements over the original were so good that SSX Tricky was billed as the best snowboarding game to date. IGN ' s Peer Schneider wrote: "Overall, the PS2 SSX Tricky delivers the best control setup for returning players, but if you've never played SSX before you might as well go for the best-looking and sounding version: SSX Tricky for Xbox." The voice acting, which included Lucy Liu , David Arquette , Macy Gray , Oliver Platt , and Billy Zane ,
5301-462: The late 1980s, basketball video games gained popularity in arcades. Konami's Double Dribble (1986) featured colorful graphics, five-on-five gameplay, cutaway animations for slam dunks , and a digitized version of " The Star-Spangled Banner " theme. It was considered the most realistic basketball game upon release, with fast-paced action, detailed players, a large side-scrolling court, innovative cinematic dunks, and detailed sound effects, beginning
5394-510: The latter very well received by critics at the time. The late 1980s is considered the "Golden Age" of baseball video games . Namco 's R.B.I. Baseball (1986) and the Atlus title Major League Baseball (1988) for the NES were the first fully licensed baseball video games. SNK 's Baseball Stars (1989) was a popular arcade-style NES game, while Jaleco 's NES title Bases Loaded (1987)
5487-511: The main objective is usually to obtain a high score . The arcade style of play is generally more unrealistic and focuses on a quicker gameplay experience. However the competitive nature of sports and being able to gain a high score while competing against friends for free online, has made online sports games very popular. Examples of this include the NFL Blitz and NBA Jam series. Simulation games are more realistic than arcade games, with
5580-469: The most well-received hits at amusement arcade shows by late 1983. In March 1983, Sega released Alpha Denshi 's arcade game Champion Baseball , which became a blockbuster success in Japanese arcades, with Sega comparing its impact on Japanese arcades to that of Space Invaders . Champion Baseball was a departure from the " space games " and "cartoon" action games that had previously dominated
5673-516: The name of EA Black Box . EA Black Box later became an independent EA studio in 2005. After its acquisition, EA Black Box became the home of several franchises, such as Need for Speed and Skate . The studio was later shut down in 2013, after a series of restructurings and layoffs within EA. In 2011, EA Canada acquired Bight Games, a maker of freemium games. Games developed for publishing by EA Sports : Games developed for publishing by EA Sports BIG : EA Graphics Library or EAGL
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#17327719232215766-415: The new video game medium. This provided the basis for the first commercially successful video game, Pong (1972), released as an arcade video game by Atari, Inc. Numerous ball-and-paddle games that were either clones or variants of Pong were released for arcades in 1973. Atari themselves released a four-player cooperative multiplayer variant, Pong Doubles (1973), based on tennis doubles . In
5859-400: The original game. They also intended to have more interaction during races, redesigned character models, celebrity voice work, character specific cutscenes and more in-game music. At some point in development it was decided to make the title into a full-fledged sequel, renaming the game SSX: Tricky. The intended features of SSX: DVD such as celebrity voiceovers and level redesigns made it into
5952-488: The platform becoming a major platform for American sports video games. Basketball games included a port of Double Dribble , with a halo mechanic signifying the optimum release for shots, and Tecmo NBA Basketball (1992). American football video games included Tecmo Bowl (1987), which was ported to the NES with the NFL Players Association license, and Tecmo Super Bowl (1991), which introduced
6045-468: The player ends up annoying other AI characters, generally by attacking them during the race in order to fill the adrenaline bar, they will become hostile towards players in future events. There are four modes of gameplay: SSX Tricky was developed by EA Canada and created by Steven Rechtschaffner, who had worked as a producer for EA 's FIFA Soccer 96 and the Triple Play baseball series, and
6138-465: The player in the role of team manager . Whereas some games are played online against other players, management games usually pit the player against AI controlled teams in the same league . Players are expected to handle strategy, tactics, transfers, and financial issues. Various examples of these games can be found in the sports management category . Since Track & Field (1983), various multi-sport video games have combined multiple sports into
6231-423: The player's speed. In 1997, Sega released one of the first mainstream skateboarding games, Top Skater , in the arcades, where it introduced a skateboard controller interface. Top Skater served as a basic foundation for later skateboarding games. The following year saw the release of the console skateboarding game Street Sk8er , developed by Atelier Double and published by Electronic Arts . In 1999,
6324-532: The player. As sports games have evolved, players have come to expect a realistic graphical scale with a high degree of verisimilitude. Sports games often simplify the game physics for ease of play, and ignore factors such as a player's inertia. Games typically take place with a highly accurate time-scale, although they usually allow players to play quick sessions with shorter game quarters or periods. Sports games sometimes treat button-pushes as continuous signals rather than discrete moves, in order to initiate and end
6417-458: The players and the baskets, and attempted to simulate basketball . Each player controls two team members, a forward and a guard ; the ball can be passed between team members before shooting, and the ball has to fall into the opposing team's basket to score a point. The game was released in North America by Midway as TV Basketball , selling 1,400 arcade cabinets in the United States, a production record for Midway up until they released Wheels
6510-479: The screen and only a small gap for the goal. Tomohiro Nishikado wanted to move beyond simple rectangles to character graphics, resulting in his development of a basketball game, Taito's TV Basketball , released in April 1974. It was the earliest use of character sprites to represent human characters in a video game. While the gameplay was similar to earlier ball-and-paddle games, it displayed images both for
6603-467: The second highest ranking for any sports game in that 1981–1996 period (after FPS Football ). The 1990s began in the 16-bit era , as a wave of fourth generation video game consoles were created to handle more complex games and graphics. The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive in particular became renowned for its sports video games, as it was more powerful than the NES and with Sega targeting an older audience than Nintendo's typically younger target demographic at
6696-449: The series achieved Platinum status. Though reviewers felt that the game was more an improved version of SSX rather than a true sequel, it was critically acclaimed for its added features, voice acting, and general improvements, leading to calls for a remake into the 2020s. Gameplay continues the same basic method introduced in the original SSX . The main tracks are remixes from the previous game like Merqury City, which takes place in
6789-480: The series are the Uber moves. If players are able to fill their boost bar to the maximum, they will be able to perform Uber moves, which involve characters taking their feet off their board and doing over the top moves. If a player successfully lands an Uber move, they are given a short amount of time for infinite boost, which can be topped off by performing more Uber moves. Each player can perform five Uber moves, including
6882-468: The sport it emulated; previous titles either had one license or the other, but Tecmo Super Bowl was the first to feature real NFL players on real teams. Orr joined EA full-time in 1991 after the success of Madden on the Sega Genesis, and began a ten-year period of his career where he personally supervised the production of the Madden Football series. During this time EA formed EA Sports ,
6975-510: The subgenre was further popularized by Tony Hawk's Pro Skater , an arcade-like skateboarding game where players were challenged to execute elaborate tricks or collect a series of elements hidden throughout the level. Tony Hawk's went on to be one of the most popular sports game franchises. Association football games became more popular in the 2000s. Konami's ISS series spawned the Pro Evolution Soccer ( PES ) series in
7068-521: The time of the business acquisition, Distinctive Software was noted for developing a number of racing and sporting games published under the Accolade brand. Since becoming EA Canada, EA Canada has developed many EA Games, EA Sports , and EA Sports BIG games. EA Seattle , formerly Manley & Associates, was closed in 2002. Half the jobs were moved to EA Vancouver. EA acquired Black Box Games in 2002 and Black Box Games became part of EA Canada under
7161-634: The time. Basketball video games included EA's Lakers versus Celtics and the NBA Playoffs (1991), which launched the NBA Live series. World Series Baseball (1994) introduced the "catcher-cam" perspective, launching the World Series Baseball series and becoming the first game in the Sega Sports line. In 1989, Electronic Arts producer Richard Hilleman hired GameStar's Scott Orr to re-design John Madden Football for
7254-518: The two franchises had narrowed by the mid-2000s. EA Canada EA Vancouver (formerly known as EA Burnaby , then EA Canada ) is a Canadian video game developer located in Burnaby , British Columbia . The development studio opened as Distinctive Software in January 1983, and is also Electronic Arts 's largest and oldest studio. EA Vancouver employs approximately 1,300 people, and houses
7347-551: The umpire, and individual player statistics. Sports games became more popular across arcades worldwide with the arrival of Konami 's Track & Field , known as Hyper Olympic in Japan, introduced in September 1983. It was an Olympic-themed athletics game that had multiple Olympic track-and-field events (including the 100-meter dash, long jump , javelin throw , 110-meter hurdles , hammer throw , and high jump ) and allowed up to four players to compete. It had
7440-481: The world's largest video game test operation. It is best known for developing a lot of EA Sports and EA Sports big titles, including EA Sports FC (formerly FIFA ), NHL , SSX , NBA Street , NFL Street , EA Sports UFC, and FIFA Street titles. As well as a number of NBA Live and NCAA Basketball titles between 1994 and 2009. The campus consists of a motion-capture studio, twenty-two rooms for composing, fourteen video editing suites, three production studios,
7533-416: Was a simulation game with statistics. In 1988, EA released Earl Weaver Baseball , developed by Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower, which for the first time combined a highly accurate simulation game with high quality graphics. This was also the first game in which an actual baseball manager provided the computer AI . In 1996 Computer Gaming World named EWB the 25th of its Best 150 Games of All Time,
7626-478: Was a skiing winter sports simulator that became a major success in arcades during the mid-1990s. This led to a wave of similar sports games capitalizing on its success during the late 1990s, from companies such as Sega , Namco, Konami and Innovative Concepts. In 1996, two snowboarding video games were released: Namco 's Alpine Surfer in the arcades, and the UEP Systems game Cool Boarders for
7719-530: Was cancelled in 1997. Licensed basketball games began becoming more common by the early 1990s, including Sega's Pat Riley Basketball (1990) and Acme Interactive 's David Robinson's Supreme Court (1992) for the Sega Genesis, and Hudson Soft 's Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball (1991) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). EA followed Jordan vs. Bird: One on One (1988) with Lakers versus Celtics and
7812-516: Was featured in the Intellivision ads, which showed the parallel games side by side. Both Atari and Intellivision fielded at least one game for baseball, American football, hockey, basketball and association football. Atari's sports games included Activision Tennis (1981). Sports video games experienced a resurgence from 1983. As the golden age of arcade video games came to an end, arcade manufacturers began looking for ways to reinvigorate
7905-510: Was justified as suffering off-season injuries. Winning medals in a variety of events unlocks new courses, characters, and boards, as well as improved the boarder's abilities. New outfits may be earned by completing a character's trick book, by doing a number of specific tricks during play. Three kinds of boards are available to players: trick-oriented Freestyle boards, all-around BX boards, and racing-oriented Alpine boards, which are not meant to be ridden backwards. The important new feature added to
7998-477: Was not until the mid-1990s that 3D polygons were popularized in sports games. Sega 's arcade title Virtua Striker (1994) was the first association football game to use 3D graphics, and was also notable for its early use of texture mapping . Meanwhile, Sierra Online released American football title Front Page Sports Football in 1995 for the PC. The following year, Computer Gaming World named it twelfth of
8091-490: Was one of the two most well-received games at the September 1983 AM Show (along with Hyper Olympic ) for its graphics and gameplay. Another sports game with female player characters was Taito's Joshi Volleyball ( Big Spikers ) , which topped the Japanese table arcade cabinet chart in December 1983. Kaneko 's Roller Aces was a roller skating game played from a third-person perspective, while Technōs Japan released
8184-425: Was praised by reviewers, including GameSpy ' s Michael G. Moen, who commented that the use of celebrities like Liu helped bring the outrageous characters to life. The music system received much acclaim, as it was able to adapt to suit the situation. Each course had specific songs paired with it to match the mood and when riders reached maximum boost or were knocked down, the music reacted accordingly. The size of
8277-413: Was produced by Larry LaPierre and Adam Mackay-Smith, the latter of whom was working on EA's Need for Speed racing series at that time. The game was originally called SSX: DVD and was intended to be a remixed, enhanced version of the original SSX , capitalizing the on the success of the original game. EA Canada intended to add new areas, shortcuts, and subtly change the landscape of the environments of
8370-560: Was released for the ZX Spectrum computer in 1982. Between 1981 and 1983, the Atari's VCS (2600) and Mattel's Intellivision waged a series of high-stakes TV advertising campaigns promoting their respective systems, marking the start of the first console wars . Atari prevailed in arcade games and had a larger customer base due to its lower price, while Intellivision touted its visually superior sports games. Sports writer George Plimpton
8463-651: Was the only sports game among the top ten highest-earners. In 1980, Mattel 's Basketball for the Intellivision was the first basketball video game to be licensed by the National Basketball Association (NBA). On home computers, Microsoft 's Olympic Decathlon (1980) was one of the first sports-related programs to mix game and simulation elements, and was an early example of an Olympic track-and-field game. The first association football management simulation, Football Manager ,
8556-466: Was used for kicking the ball and the trackball used for the direction and speed of the shot, with gameplay that was fairly realistic. It was a landmark title for association football games, considered revolutionary for its trackball control system, its top-down perspective that allows players to see more of the pitch, and its trackball-based game physics . It provided the basis for later association football games such as MicroProse Soccer (1988) and
8649-520: Was working on a spiritual successor of SSX , revealed to be Project Gravity , a free-to-play live service snowboarding game from Rechtschaffner's team at Supernatural Studios. Sports video game Sports games involve physical and tactical challenges, and test the player's precision and accuracy. Most sports games attempt to model the athletic characteristics required by that sport, including speed, strength, acceleration, accuracy, and so on. As with their respective sports, these games take place in
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