When considering the evolution of video game audio, of the three components of audio, sound effects, music and speech, those components were introduced into video games in that order. The earliest video games generated simple tones and noise to produce simple sound effects. Music chips were well developed by the late 1970s, bringing a slightly more sophisticated method of sound generation to video game players. Speech, which requires the utilization of more complex sounds to be intelligible, tended to be brought to home consoles and computers in the form of specialized speech chips. In this article we will trace some of the lineages of speech in early video games.
