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[edit]History

See also: History of computer and video games

[edit]Beginnings of sports games

Tennis for Two, the first game of its genre
In 1958, William Higinbotham created 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.^[2]
Computer 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 teletype machines and line printers, but later printed on single-color CRT screens.
In 1967, Taito released an early electro-mechanical sports arcade game, Crown Soccer Special. It was a two-player football game that simulated association football, using various electronic components, including electronic versions of pinball flippers.^[3] In 1969, Sega released an early electro-mechanical arcade racing game Grand Prix, which had electronic sound, a dashboard with a racing wheel and accelerator,^[4] and a scrolling road projected on a screen.^[5] In the 1970s, arcade video games began to appear, many of them centred around the sports genre, after it was popularized in 1972 by the commercial success of Atari's Pong, a two-player table tennis game that had similar gameplay to Tennis for Two.
In 1973, Taito released an early team sport video game, Davis Cup, a tennis doubles game with similar ball-and-paddle gameplay but played in doubles, with both players controlling two paddles each.^[6] That year, Taito also released another early team sport video game, Soccer,^[7] based on association football; it was also a ball-and-paddle game, but with a green background to simulate a playfield, allowed each player to control both a forward and a goalkeeper, and let them adjust the size of the players who were represented as paddles on screen.^[8] Both Davis Cup and Soccer were designed by Tomohiro Nishikado of Space Invaders fame.^[7] Early hockey video games were also released in 1973: Sega's Hockey TV,^[9] and Taito's Pro Hockey, which had similar gameplay to Pong but with boundaries around the screen and only a small gap for the goal.^[10] The first racing video game, Taito's Astro Race, was released in 1973,^[11] followed in 1974 by Taito's Speed Race,^[12] which was also designed by Nishikado^[7] and introduced scrollinggraphics,^[13] as well as Atari's Gran Trak 10. In 1976, the subgenre was extended into three dimensions, with the forward-scrolling third-person perspective of Sega's motorbike racing game Moto-Cross,^[14] soon re-branded as Fonz that same year,^[15] and with the first-person perspective of Sega's Road Race^[16] and Atari's Night Driver.
In 1974, Taito released Basketball, an early basketball game. It was an early example of a video game that displayed sprite images, both for the players and the baskets, and an early attempt at accurately simulating a team sport. Each player controlled two team members, a forward and a guard, both represented as sprite character images. The ball could be dribbled and passed between team members before shooting, and the ball had to fall into the opposing team's basket to score a point.^[17] That same year, Sega released an association football game, Goal Kick, which was played like an early vertical ball-and-paddle game.^[18] In 1975, UPL released an early four-player multiple-sports game, Video Action, which featured several different sporting minigames, including Pong-style variants of tennis, hockey, and association football, as well as an early volley ball game and a unique four-court tennis game. Video Action was also an early example of cooperative gameplay, as each sport could be played in teams of two.^[19] That same year, Nintendo released EVR-Race, an early horse racing simulation game with support for up to six players.^[20] In 1976, Sega released an early combat sport game, Heavyweight Champ, based on boxing and now considered the first fighting game.^[21] In 1977, an early black-and-white American football game, Sega's Super Bowl, was released by Gremlin Industries,^[22] followed in 1978 by Atari Football, which is considered to be the first video game to accurately emulate American football.^[23] Taito also released an early bowling game in 1978, Top Bowler,^[24] followed by an early baseball game in 1979, Ball Park.^[25]