Ralph Baer has passed away at the grand age of 92.

Rip Ralph and thanks for the world of gaming.

Youtheman!

Show this man some respect people, if it wasn't for good old Ralph you wouldn't have xboxs ps4s and nintendos.

Never had one, never want one !

I've got better things to do than fritter away my time with that nonsense. It's because of games like those that we're raising a generation of obese idiots.

Fazakerley !!

Has this thread been edited? Some of the comments don't make any sense.

I don't see any lack of sense. Apart from the O.P. all the comments are bemoaning the existence of the products for which he was responsible (according to O.P.).

That's due to the fact there's a lot of people that don't know who he is Chris.

He invented the first ever home games console and paved the way for Atari and the like.

The magnavox odyssey 1972

Yes, the first home console was invented by this guy, not Atari as most people think.



wiki link

Also a wiki link about the legend himself.

Rip Ralph.

Ralphs wiki link

O.K., he may have been a clever guy and first in the field; I'm just saying that I regret the existence of these devices which keep kids (and a lot of adults) sitting on their increasingly fat ars*s and getting no exercise. Still, I suppose that if he hadn't invented them, someone else would have done.

You can't blame him for the (mis)use of his technology today. We were early adopters of games consoles in my house - the old Grandstand TV games console of the 70s, then the Atari 2600 and then computers.

Despite it being groundbreaking it didn't stop me going out and playing, and it actually got me into computers and I now have a pretty well paying job because of it.

The guy who died invented Simon - a game that aids memory.

By your logic, anyone who played with toy trains is wasting their time, regardless of whether their hobby was a precursor to a career.

Same with an ex school pupil I knew. He played flight simulators all through his teenage years. He's now one of Easyjet's youngest pilots.

So maybe the onus should be on the parents who should restrict how long their kids play on these things.

Well said Gibbo.

I collect a lot of gaming machines, I also have arcade machines namingly Atari Star Wars, Atari asteroids, deco astro fighter, Nichibutsu moon base/rolling crash and a few others.

I work hard and I also play on these systems when I get the chance and inbetween all that I work on them and cars as a hobby.

I'm not an obese person nor am I lazy so your comment is ludicrous Chris.

In the mean time, type in "Obesity and Overweight in kids" and see how much money has been spent on people doing researches on this "ludicrous comment". The list is endless, maybe there is some truth into it.

It's the parents fault, if they cannot be bothered to put a time limit on their children's gaming activity because they are irresponsible parents then it's not the fault of the gaming company's.

Most consoles come with timers and parental settings nowadays so it's not hard.

I've grown up with systems right from Atari 2600, colecovision, NES, sega, upto computers, Commodore 64, Amiga, Archimedes onto pc now Mac, inbetween it all I've worked since I was 15 years old, was an active swimmer and runner, went out all the time and never been overweight.

So yeah, it is a ludicrous comment, blame the irresponsible parents not the console or games or phones or anything for that matter.

I've never heard so much trash spouted out of an intelligent mature mans brain as I have today

Blaming the gaming consoles? Tehhh

Next you will be blaming Popeyes, finger lickin chicken and McDonald's!

If you would re-read my last post you'd see that I'm not "blaming" games consoles: I'm simply regretting their existence. Of course it's the parents' fault that kids spend so much time on them, but kids have historically been good at manipulating parents. I also blame people, rather than products, for the obesity epidemic while still regretting the proliferation of fast food outlets, which makes it easy to indulge.

I wonder why these researches were done then, if there was no truth in them.

you sound familiar, do i know you?

Anyroad, these "researches" are a profiteering lark most of the time, they would research fly acid if they had an excuse to.

I typed "Benefits from video games" into Google and got loads of studies claiming their benefits:

http://theweek.com/article/index/241121/7-health-benefits-of-playing-video-games

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/02/video-game.aspx

http://www.ocmodshop.com/10-benefits-of-video-games/

http://sheu.org.uk/sites/sheu.org.uk/files/imagepicker/1/eh203mg.pdf

The whole argument is akin to when people blame McDonalds for litter or obesity.