 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "List of association football video games" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(May 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Association football or soccer video games are a subgenre ofsports video games. The earliest examples appeared on video game consoles in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Early home computer versions of such games also appeared during the 8-bit era in the early to mid-1980s.
The first arcade system labeled as "Soccer" came out in 1973, being a variation ofPong in the guise of a soccer game: Taito'sSoccer.[1] The first home video game console was theMagnavox Odyssey, which received an association football game with the titleSoccer in 1974.[2] This game was controlled by paddles, similar to the Pong games of the time, and relied on a transparent overlay that simulated a soccer pitch on the television. It was essentially a table tennis game with a soccer skin overlaid on it.
In 1977, the launch of theAtari VCS (also known as the Atari 2600), based on the inexpensiveMOS 6502 microprocessor architecture, brought video gaming to many homes. This was the first successful mass-marketmodular video game console, and it made it possible to play a variety of different games on the same console. In 1980, Atari'sPelé's Soccer/Championship Soccer became the first console association football game to be playable at home.[3] It resembled an actualfootball pitch much more than previous games, featuring a scrolling field, and it also had a celebration screen, a novelty for video games at the time. The graphics, although still crude by modern standards, were considered much better than in the Pong variants that preceded it. The 1983 updated AtariRealSports Soccer improved the graphics and gameplay, under the RealSports brand of updates to several sport video games. Its release happened around the time of thevideo game industry crash of 1983.
In the early 1980s, the 8-bit home computer market, also based on the MOS 6502 microprocessor architecture, was going well. In 1982, the first successful home computer version of an association football game, called simplySoccer, was launched byThorn EMI for the Atari 800 range of computers, both on cartridges and on 5¼-inchfloppy disks.[4] The launch of the Commodore 64, also in 1982, brought home computers to many more households, and the development of association football video games really took off. The 16-bit home computer era of the latter 1980s continued the trend.
The first association football arcade game was released one year after Atari'sPong machines: Taito'sSoccer (1973).[1] It resembled a 2-player Pong game in both graphics and gameplay. Over the decades that followed, many more arcade association football game machines were produced.
Note: consoles are listed in chronological order (first handhelds, then home consoles), while individual games or series are in alphabetical order.
The biggest association football video game franchise isEA Sports FC (formerlyFIFA) byElectronic Arts (EA). Its major competitor isKonami'seFootball (formerlyPro Evolution Soccer orWinning Eleven).FIFA is also the most successful sports video game franchise overall.[21]