The humble board game has been a staple in many homes for decades, a classic of family fun that people can enjoy over and over again. However, games have evolved to an extent over the past few decades that the simple board game has almost completely been blown out of the water. But this expansion could not have occurred without the humble beginnings of gaming and the technological advancements that have brought it to the heights of today.
The evolution of these games feels fast and furious, but the journey has been a long one from the humble VHS to the technologically advanced Blu-ray of today’s games.
VHS Board Games
The first video game disc was, in all respects, not a disc at all. The technological boom in the 1970s and 1980s saw board game companies scrambling to keep up. They feared that no one would want to buy a simple cardboard game anymore, so the inclusion of a video tie-in to make the game more exciting to play became part of the norm. VHS board games relied on the gimmick in order to retain an audience, expand it and even to simply resell the existing board game.
Some VHS board games actually did away with the board game part of their gimmick altogether. For example, Cluedo became a murder mystery on screen which you had to solve instead of setting up the classic game with murder weapons and suspects. However, some people found that fast-forwarding to a specific point in order to continue their game was tedious. So, reliving these games in the modern era would feel like even more of a chore. Converting these videos to DVD in order to re-live the joy that these games produced, however, would be a great alternative to playing these games.
The interactivity of these games on televisions was a big step in the development of home entertainment. This meant a sharp advancement in the discs that these games were played on.
MiniDVD GameCube
However, the gaming industry soon moved on and technological advances meant that games were changing rapidly. The Nintendo GameCube was a console that first started using a unique disc in order to allow its players a unique experience. It was chosen in order to help reduce copyright infringement. It is a 1.5GB mini DVD, which reads at a constant angular velocity (CAV) which helped to reduce the loading times of the system significantly.
Another reason that this move was made by Nintendo was to prevent the GameCube from being used as a generic DVD player. However, they did find some downsides to this type of game disc. The disc had very limited storage, which meant that longer games had to be placed across two discs; which was often considered to not be a user friendly option Resident Evil 4 is an example of a game that had this problem. It also meant some features had to be removed altogether to make the game available on this platform.
These were considered a huge downside to this console, but also to this generation of consoles as a whole. So, the next generations saw great advancements in order to combat these issues.
Blu-Ray PS4
The current generation of video games has seen advancement that has occurred in leaps and bounds. The disc that has made these beautiful, realistic and fully immersive games come to life on our screens is known as the Blu-ray. It was originally designed in order to replace the widespread use of the DVD format. The high definition, ultra-high video resolution (2169p) was seen as a great improvement on this older format.
These amazing discs hold a staggering 50GB of data, spread between two layers, that is the industry standard for releases. It is possible, however, to have as much as 128GB on one disc. The name Blu-ray comes as a result of the ultraviolet light that is needed in order to read the discs, as opposed to the red lasers that are used to read DVD’s on a longer wavelength. The ability to store much, much, more data on these discs opened whole new worlds in the world of gaming as a result.
More high definition graphics, smoother loading and textures mean that gaming is as realistic and fully immersive as it has ever been. A far cry from the add-on VHS which added another layer of excitement to the humble board game. Which begs the question; where will the wonder of disc technology take the gaming industry next?Here at Video2DVD Transfers, we are dedicated to making your home videos come to life on DVD. We make them easy to watch and quick to enjoy with your family again and again.
For more information, contact us on 0800 592 433 and we will be more than happy to help!