1975 in video games explained

1975 had new titles such as Western Gun, Dungeon and dnd. The year's best-selling arcade game was Taito's Speed Race, released as Wheels and Wheels II in North America.

Financial performance in the United States

The "paddle game" trend came to an end in arcades around 1975, with the arcade video game industry entering a period of stagnation in the "post paddle game era" over the next several years up until 1977.^[1]

Best-selling arcade games

The following titles were the best-selling arcade video games of 1975 in the United States, according to annual arcade cabinet sales figures provided by Ralph H. Baer.^[2]

Rank	Title	Arcade cabinet sales	Developer	Manufacturer	Genre
1	Wheels / Wheels II (Speed Race)	10,000	Taito	Midway Manufacturing	Racing
2	Tank / Tank II	6,000	Kee Games	Kee Games	Maze
3	Flim-Flam	4,000	Meadows Games	Meadows Games	Pong
	Gran Trak 20	4,000	Atari, Inc.	Atari, Inc.	Racing
5	PT-109	1,500	Mirco Games	Mirco Games	Shooter
6	Avenger	1,000	Electra Games	Electra Games
7	Crash 'N Score	500	Atari, Inc.	Atari, Inc.	Driving
	Gun Fight (Western Gun)	500	Taito	Midway Manufacturing	Shooter
	Jet Fighter	500	Atari, Inc.	Atari, Inc.
	Shark Jaws	500	Atari, Inc.	Atari, Inc.	Action
	Steeplechase	500	Atari, Inc.	Atari, Inc.	Racing

Highest-grossing arcade games

In the United States, RePlay magazine published the first annual chart of top-grossing arcade games in March 1976, listing both video games and electro-mechanical games (EM games) on the same chart for the previous year. The following were the highest-grossing arcade games of the previous year, in terms of coin drop earnings.^[3]

Rank	Arcade video games			Arcade electro-mechanical games (EM games)
	Title	Overall rank	Genre	Title	Overall rank	Genre
1	Tank / Tank II	1	Maze	Super Shifter	4	Racing
2	Wheels / Wheels II (Speed Race)	2	Racing	Air Hockey	6	Air hockey
3	Gun Fight (Western Gun)	3	Shooter	Wizard	7	Pinball
4	Indy 800	5	Racing	Skee Ball	9	Skee-Ball
5	Gran Trak 10 / Gran Trak 20	8	Racing	F-114	10	Shooter
6	Twin Racer	11	Racing	OXO	15	Pinball
7	BiPlane	12	Shooter	Rifle Range	16	Gun
8	Racer (Speed Race)	13	Racing	Crown Basketball	18	Sports
9	Demolition Derby	14	Racing	Amigo	19	Pinball
10	Street Burners	17	Racing	Grand Prix	20	Racing

Events

• In Fall, Magnavox discontinues the original Odyssey video game console.^[4]
• On April 21, Zanussi obtained the license to implement Pong from Sanders Associates.^[5]
• Sega (formerly Service Games), who at the time made a arcade game called "Bullet Mark" which was released this year changes their 1956 logo^[6] to their current logo on October 11.^[7]

Business

• New companies: Cinematronics, Enix

Notable releases

Video game consoles

• September 12 – Epoch releases Japan's first home video game console, the TV Tennis Electrotennis dedicated home video game console. Its most unusual feature is that the console (including the controller) is wireless, functioning through a UHF antenna.^[8]
• December – Atari and Tele-Games (a division of Sears, Roebuck and Company) release the first official home version of Pong (called Home Pong) through Sears department stores.^[9]
• Magnavox releases two new models of their Odyssey console: the Odyssey 100 and the Odyssey 200.
• Philips released the Philips Tele-Game ES 2201 dedicated home video game console, the first system of the Philips Tele-Game series.

Games

• February – Midway releases Taito's 1974 arcade racing video game Speed Race, the first video game in the Speed Race series designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, in North America as Wheels^[10] and Racer.^[11]
• February – Horror Games, founded by Nolan Bushnell, publishes its only game, Shark Jaws, intended to cash-in on the popularity of Steven Spielberg's film Jaws.^[12]
• Taito releases Western Gun, the first video game to depict human-to-human combat.^[13] Designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, the game had two distinct joystick controls per player, with one eight-way joystick for moving the computerized cowboy around on the screen and the other for changing the shooting direction.^[14]
• November – Midway releases Gun Fight, an adaptation of Taito's Western Gun and the first microprocessor-based video game.^[15] Taito's Western Gun used TTL-based hardware, which Dave Nutting Associates ported to the Intel 8080 microprocessor for its North American release.^[16]
• Don Daglow develops Dungeon, an early role-playing video game, for the PDP-10.^[17]
• William Crowther develops Adventure (also known as Colossal Cave and ADVENT), the first interactive fiction game, for the PDP-10.^[18]
• Rusty Rutherford develops pedit5, the first dungeon crawl game, for the PLATO system.^[19]
• dnd, the first video game to include a boss, and arguably the first computer role-playing game, wrapped up initial development. Some sources list the game as 1974; it is unclear exactly when it became playable.
• Nürburgring 1, the first first-person racing game, was developed in Germany by Dr. Reiner Foerst.^{[20] [21]}

See also

• 1975 in games

Notes and References

1. Special Report: Tom Petit (Sega Enterprises) . RePlay . January 1991 . 16 . 4 . 80, 82 .
2. Book: Baer . Ralph H. . Ralph H. Baer . Videogames: In the Beginning . 2005 . Rolenta Press . 978-0-9643848-1-1 . 10–3 .
3. The Nation's Top Arcade Games . RePlay . March 1976.
4. Web site: Winter, David . 2006 . Magnavox Odyssey: The first home video game console . pong-story.com. February 17, 2006 . https://web.archive.org/web/20060221124902/http://www.pong-story.com/odyssey.htm. February 21, 2006 . live.
5. Web site: pongmuseum.com - Newsblog. pongmuseum.com. 2019-05-20. April 27, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140427044750/http://pongmuseum.com/news/?content=detail&id=86. dead.
6. https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/logopedia/images/b/bf/Sega_%281956%29.svg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/800?cb=20200917052944
7. https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/logopedia/images/c/ce/Sega.svg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/800?cb=20210722154852
8. Martin Picard, The Foundation of Geemu: A Brief History of Early Japanese video games, International Journal of Computer Game Research, 2013
9. Web site: KCTS-TV . KCTS-TV . History of Gaming / Interactive Timeline of Game History . . February 17, 2006 . https://web.archive.org/web/20060218080821/http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/history/timeline_flash.html. February 18, 2006 . live.
10. Web site: The Golden Age Arcade Historian: Video Game Firsts??. November 22, 2013. November 4, 2014. November 5, 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20171105041440/http://allincolorforaquarter.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/video-game-firsts.html. live.
11. Bill Loguidice & Matt Barton (2009), Vintage games: an insider look at the history of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the most influential games of all time, p. 197, Focal Press,
12. Web site: Thomas, Donald A. Jr. . 2005 .  - 1975 - . February 17, 2006 . https://web.archive.org/web/20060312080525/http://www.icwhen.com/book/the_1970s/1975.shtml . March 12, 2006 . dead .
13. Web site: Cassidy . William . Gun Fight . https://archive.today/20130124064335/http://uk.gamespy.com/articles/491/491634p2.html . dead . January 24, 2013 . . September 14, 2012 . May 6, 2002 .
14. Web site: Stephen Totilo. In Search Of The First Video Game Gun. Kotaku. August 31, 2010. March 27, 2011. January 24, 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180124133826/https://kotaku.com/5626466/in-search-of-the-first-video-game-gun. live.
15. Web site: Bousiges, Alexis . 2005 . Gun Fight . February 17, 2006 . November 27, 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20201127213519/https://www.arcade-history.com/index.php?page=detail&id=1040 . live .
16. Web site: Western Gun . Emulation Status . February 19, 2006 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150123095723/http://emustatus.rainemu.com/games/westerngun.htm . January 23, 2015 . dead . mdy-all.
17. Web site: Maragos, Nich . 2004 . Talking: Don Daglow . https://web.archive.org/web/20041013061213/http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3133666&did=1 . dead . October 13, 2004 . February 17, 2006 .
18. Web site: Adams, Rick . A history of 'Adventure' . February 17, 2006 . May 17, 2011 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110517000635/http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/a_history.html . live .
19. Web site: Rusty Rutherford. The Creation of PEDIT5. June 10, 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110707162725/http://armchairarcade.com/neo/node/1948. July 7, 2011. dead.
20. News: Meet The Doctor-Engineer Who Basically Invented The Modern Racing Game. Torchinsky. Jason. Jalopnik. 2017-07-30. en-US. January 3, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190103082310/https://jalopnik.com/5906386/meet-the-doctor-engineer-who-basically-invented-the-modern-racing-game. live.
21. Web site: Reiner Foerst's Nürburgring - The world first 3D arcade car race game, made in Germany!. Oliver. Christian. weltenschule.de. 2017-07-30. February 13, 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210213121807/http://weltenschule.de/vgames/Nuerburg/Nuerburgring.html. live.