From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Overview of the events of 1976 in video games
1976 had new titles such as
Road Race ,
Night Driver ,
Heavyweight Champ ,
Sea Wolf and
Breakout . The year's highest-grossing
arcade games were
Namco 's
F-1 in Japan and
Midway 's Sea Wolf in the United States.
Highest-grossing arcade games
Japan
In Japan,
Game Machine magazine published the first annual
arcade game earnings chart for 1976 in their February 1977 issue, listing both
arcade video games and
electro-mechanical games (EM games) on the same arcade chart.
Namco 's EM
racing game
F-1 was the highest-grossing overall arcade game of the year, followed by
Taito 's video game
Ball Park (originally released as Tornado Baseball by
Midway Manufacturing in North America). The following titles were the highest-grossing arcade games of 1976, according to the first annual Game Machine chart.
[1]
[2]
Note:
Medal games are listed on a separate chart, with
Nintendo 's
EVR Race being the highest-grossing medal game of the year.
[1]
[2]
United States
In the United States, RePlay magazine began publishing annual lists of top-grossing arcade games in 1976, covering both arcade video games and
pinball machines. The following titles were the top ten arcade video games of the year, in terms of coin drop earnings.
[3] Lifetime
arcade cabinet sales are also given in a separate column.
Rank
[3]
Title
Developer
Manufacturer
Genre
Lifetime
cabinet sales
1
Sea Wolf
Dave Nutting Associates
Midway Manufacturing
Shooter
10,000
[4]
2
Gun Fight (Western Gun )
Taito
Midway Manufacturing
Shooter
8,600
[5]
3
Wheels (Speed Race )
Taito
Midway Manufacturing
Racing
7,000
[6]
4
Indy 800
Atari, Inc.
Atari, Inc.
Racing
5
Breakout
Atari, Inc.
Atari, Inc.
Block breaker
11,000
[7]
6
Indy 4
Atari, Inc.
Atari, Inc.
Racing
Unknown
7
Bi-Plane
Fun Games
Fun Games
Shooter
8
Death Race
Exidy
Exidy
Racing
Demolition Derby
Exidy
Chicago Coin
Trivia
Ramtek
Quiz
Events
Business
Notable releases
Games
January –
Sega releases
Heavyweight Champ ,
[11] the first video game to feature
hand-to-hand fighting .
[12]
[13]
[14] It uses
controls that
simulate throwing actual punches.
[12]
February – Sega releases
Road Race .
[15]
April 1 –
Exidy releases
Death Race to video arcades. News of the game's existence breaks nationally in newspapers in the first week of July after a quiet nationwide rollout.
[16] The game sparks a public outcry over
violence in video games , and is
banned in many areas.
[17]
April – Taito releases
Speed Race Twin ,
[18] a sequel to Speed Race that allows simultaneous
two-player competitive gameplay
[19]
May 13
[20] – Atari releases
Breakout , whose prototype was designed by
Apple Computer cofounders
Steve Jobs and
Steve Wozniak , to
video arcades .
[8]
August – Sega releases
Man T.T. ,
[21] also known as
Moto-Cross , an early
motorbike racing game, using a pseudo-3D, forward-scrolling, third-person perspective,
[22] similar to Road Race .
[23] It also introduces
haptic feedback , causing the
handlebars to vibrate during
collisions .
[24] In the U.S., Sega re-brands it as
Fonz .
[25]
October – Atari releases
Night Driver ,
[26] a
first-person perspective racing video game.
October – Gremlin releases
Blockade , the first of what become known as
snake games .
While working at the
Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab ,
Don Woods discovers and expands
Will Crowther 's
Adventure . Later in the year,
James Gillogly
ports Woods's version of the
interactive fiction title from
Fortran to the
C programming language for
Unix -based computers.
[27]
Hardware
Fairchild Channel F
See also
Notes
References
^
a
b
"本紙アンケー 〜 ト調査の結果" [Paper Questionnaire: Results of the Survey] (PDF) .
Game Machine (in Japanese). No. 65.
Amusement Press, Inc. February 1, 1977. pp. 2–3.
Archived (PDF) from the original on May 14, 2021. Retrieved May 14, 2021 .
^
a
b
"調査対象5年間のベスト1" [Best 1 of the 5 Years Surveyed] (PDF) .
Game Machine (in Japanese). No. 159.
Amusement Press, Inc. February 15, 1981. p. 1.
Archived (PDF) from the original on February 1, 2020. Retrieved May 14, 2021 .
^
a
b "Profit Chart". RePlay . October 1976.
^ Steven L. Kent (2000),
The first quarter: a 25-year history of video games , BWD Press, p. 83,
ISBN
0-9704755-0-0 ,
archived from the original on January 17, 2023, retrieved April 9, 2011 , Sea Wolf, which was another creation of Dave Nutting, did solid business, selling more than 10,000 machines. (A later color version sold an additional 4000 units.)
^ Smith, Alexander (November 19, 2019).
They Create Worlds: The Story of the People and Companies That Shaped the Video Game Industry, Vol. I: 1971-1982 .
CRC Press . p. 262.
ISBN
978-0-429-75261-2 .
Archived from the original on February 9, 2023. Retrieved March 4, 2021 .
^
Baer, Ralph H. (2005).
Videogames: In the Beginning . Rolenta Press. pp. 10–3.
ISBN
978-0-9643848-1-1 .
^
Product: Total Build (PDF) .
Atari Games . 1999. Archived from
the original (PDF) on May 10, 2013. Retrieved March 4, 2021 .
^
a
b Thomas, Donald A. Jr (2005).
"–1976–" . ICWhen.com . Archived from
the original (shtml) on March 17, 2006. Retrieved February 18, 2006 .
^
TV Games Probed
Archived March 6, 2016, at the
Wayback Machine , Reading Eagle (December 21, 1976)
^
"The Replay Years: Enter 1976" . RePlay . Vol. 11, no. 2. November 1985. p. 150.
^
"Heavyweight Champ (1976) Release Information for Arcade Games - GameFAQs" .
Archived from the original on October 8, 2017. Retrieved November 4, 2014 .
^
a
b Spencer, Spanner,
The Tao of Beat-'em-ups
Archived February 5, 2020, at the
Wayback Machine , EuroGamer, February 6, 2008, Accessed February 23, 2009
^ Ashcraft, Brian, (2008) Arcade Mania! The Turbo-Charged World of Japan's Game Centers , (Kodansha International), p. 94
^ Nadia Oxford,
20 Years of Street Fighter ,
1UP.com , November 12, 2007
^
"Road Race, Arcade Video game by SEGA Enterprises (1976)" .
Archived from the original on August 28, 2020. Retrieved November 4, 2014 .
^ AP (July 2, 1976).
"It Offers That Run-Down Feeling" . The Minneapolis Star . p. 3A.
Archived from the original on April 16, 2021. Retrieved August 30, 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
^ Gonzalez, Lauren.
"When Two Tribes Go to War: A History of Video Game Controversy / The Major Offenders" . GameSpot .
Archived from the original on July 18, 2007. Retrieved February 18, 2006 .
^
"Speed Race Twin, Arcade Video game by Taito (1976)" .
Archived from the original on November 28, 2020. Retrieved November 4, 2014 .
^
Speed Race Twin at the
Killer List of Videogames
^
"Atari - 1972 - 1984" . www.atari.com . Archived from
the original on June 11, 2016. Retrieved August 30, 2017 .
^
"Ryu ga Gotoku Zero: Chikai no Basho, Sony PlayStation 3 disc by SEGA Holdings(2016)" .
Archived from the original on August 28, 2020. Retrieved November 4, 2014 .
^
Moto-Cross at the
Killer List of Videogames
^
Road Race at the
Killer List of Videogames
^ Mark J. P. Wolf (2008), The video game explosion: a history from PONG to PlayStation and beyond , p. 39,
ABC-CLIO ,
ISBN
0-313-33868-X
^
Fonz at the
Killer List of Videogames
^
"Night Driver, Arcade Video game by Atari, Inc. (1976)" .
Archived from the original on August 28, 2020. Retrieved November 4, 2014 .
^ Adams, Rick.
"A history of 'Adventure' " . The Colossal Cave Adventure page .
Archived from the original on May 17, 2011. Retrieved February 17, 2006 .
^
"Fairchild Video Entertainment System/Channel F" . ClassicGaming.com . Archived from
the original on June 10, 2007. Retrieved February 18, 2006 .
^ Winter, David (2006).
"Coleco Telstar" . PONG-Story .
Archived from the original on March 2, 2006. Retrieved February 18, 2006 .
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