DunDunDunpachi
Patient MembeR
This intro / brief history isn't meant to be authoritative or definitive. I thought it would help catch anyone up if you didn't happen to know what 'tate' is.
The old CRT TV that we know and love was in 4:3 aspect ratio. TV programming was shot in 4:3, but videogames were more experimental, even in the early days of the arcade. Some machines used mirrors in conjunction with multiple monitors to display one large image (Darius), and other games rotated the screen 90 degrees.
Galaga, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong are three well-known arcade games utilizing tate orientation:
Since home TVs were 4:3 and Little Timmy wasn't likely going to convince his dad to put the TV on its side for a videogame, what happened next was predictable. When porting to home consoles, videogame developers converted their tate arcade games to fit the 4:3 orientation, cutting play-area off the top or adding in a side-bar with icons. As gaming shifted from the arcades into the living room, 4:3 aspect ratio solidified as the norm.
Even though tate survived in the arcades, playing tate at home wasn't much of a thing from the 80s up to the mid-90s. A handful of PS1 and Saturn games included the option to rotate the image and controls to imitate true tate (shmups, mostly). This trend wasn't very prevalent. The PS2 and Dreamcast had some more shmups that offered an optional tate mode, but by the early 00s tate was pretty much dead.
Then this came along:
And this:
In a few short years, tate became a normal thing to an audience that had probably never heard the term (it's called 'portrait mode' now). DS games often pushed a sense of verticality by using the two screens, and smartphones naturally lent themselves to vertical games and video content. Many puzzle games and city-building games are natively tate.
And now there's stuff like this:
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And this:
www.neogaf.com
I'm certainly not suggesting that tate will take over. It was never the prevalent format even during the heyday of arcades. However, it nearly vanished from gaming for a stretch of years, and now it's back here to stay, at least on smart phones and certain console and PC titles.
I think it would be quite cool to explore gameplay design in tate orientation. Tate is a forgotten part of videogaming's history that should be considered more often. PC monitors are easy to pivot. Handhelds and smartphones can be put into portrait mode. The only people left out in the cold would be those who use massive home TVs, but I never said this feature was meant to be universal. Tate would just be a nice option to have for certain genres, and I do wish more "meaty" games were designed around it instead of just smartphone titles.
The old CRT TV that we know and love was in 4:3 aspect ratio. TV programming was shot in 4:3, but videogames were more experimental, even in the early days of the arcade. Some machines used mirrors in conjunction with multiple monitors to display one large image (Darius), and other games rotated the screen 90 degrees.
Galaga, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong are three well-known arcade games utilizing tate orientation:
Since home TVs were 4:3 and Little Timmy wasn't likely going to convince his dad to put the TV on its side for a videogame, what happened next was predictable. When porting to home consoles, videogame developers converted their tate arcade games to fit the 4:3 orientation, cutting play-area off the top or adding in a side-bar with icons. As gaming shifted from the arcades into the living room, 4:3 aspect ratio solidified as the norm.
Even though tate survived in the arcades, playing tate at home wasn't much of a thing from the 80s up to the mid-90s. A handful of PS1 and Saturn games included the option to rotate the image and controls to imitate true tate (shmups, mostly). This trend wasn't very prevalent. The PS2 and Dreamcast had some more shmups that offered an optional tate mode, but by the early 00s tate was pretty much dead.
Then this came along:
And this:
In a few short years, tate became a normal thing to an audience that had probably never heard the term (it's called 'portrait mode' now). DS games often pushed a sense of verticality by using the two screens, and smartphones naturally lent themselves to vertical games and video content. Many puzzle games and city-building games are natively tate.
And now there's stuff like this:
And this:
The Vertical TV is finally here - Samsung Sero
https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/29/18522287/samsung-sero-vertical-tv-price-release-date-millennials The latest addition to Samsung’s TV range is the Sero, a 43-inch TV that was designed with the millennial generation in mind and therefore pivots between horizontal and vertical orientations...
I'm certainly not suggesting that tate will take over. It was never the prevalent format even during the heyday of arcades. However, it nearly vanished from gaming for a stretch of years, and now it's back here to stay, at least on smart phones and certain console and PC titles.
I think it would be quite cool to explore gameplay design in tate orientation. Tate is a forgotten part of videogaming's history that should be considered more often. PC monitors are easy to pivot. Handhelds and smartphones can be put into portrait mode. The only people left out in the cold would be those who use massive home TVs, but I never said this feature was meant to be universal. Tate would just be a nice option to have for certain genres, and I do wish more "meaty" games were designed around it instead of just smartphone titles.
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