The history of video game consoles: a blast from the past

Every time I start playing some games on my Xbox 360, I can’t help but wonder how it all came to be. My parents always tell me that video games weren’t exactly popular in those days and that it was considered an idea of ​​the future. With this in mind, I started to recall my earliest childhood memories when it comes to video games. And since I had nothing good to do today, I decided to do some research on the entire history of video game consoles. To my surprise, I realized that the first console I owned as a kid wasn’t exactly the “first game console.” I had the idea that my old console was the first one produced, so I guess video game consoles were worth researching.

In any case, let’s begin our blast from the past as I take you back to the humble beginnings of our beloved video game consoles.

The idea of ​​playing in front of the television was considered absurd and a thing of the future. All except Ralph Baer who conceived an absurd idea; the ability to interact with his television, including playing games on it. This was in 1951 while he was building television sets for Loral in the Bronx, New York. In 1966, he successfully developed a game called “Chase”, in which two dots were chased around the screen. He showed the idea to his new boss, R&D owner Herbert Campman, they gave him some funding and the company took the project from him as an official one. A few years later, Ralph Baer successfully manufactured the “Brown Box”, which is considered to be the great-grandmother of all video game consoles.

A few years later, Magnavox decided to invest in video games and made the first video game console called the Magnavox Oddysey. In fact, it was an innovation, since it was the first video game that could be connected to a television. It was also a first when it came to console peripherals as you can buy a light gun that you can plug into the console when playing shooting games.

In 1975, Atari came up with their own game console along with Pong, a game that would remain a popular concept to this day. However, the console does not have any controllers; in fact, the console looks like a controller itself, so you could probably say it’s the granddaddy of all handheld TV games. Then, the Atari 2600 arrived. Released in 1977, it would become so popular that it was the only console aside from Magnavox to survive the first game console crash of 1977. Both companies continued to make games for their respective game consoles until the second game console crash of 1983. Atari and Magnavox suffered from having too many poorly developed games, which explains why Nintendo became such a popular gaming brand in this era. It was in this year that the Nintendo Entertainment System was developed and launched.

In Japan, it was called the “Famicom”, while in North America it was called the “NES” or simply “Nintendo”. This was my first video game console and as far as I can remember I played a lot of games with this console. Super Mario Brothers, Legend of Zelda, Contra, Megaman and a bunch of other games filled my cabinet instead of Barbie dolls and other girly things. Nintendo’s success continued until Sega rose to challenge its game console with the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis console. Released in Japan in 1988, the Sega console gained popularity from the video game’s titular character and Sega’s mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog. In fact, the only reason I begged my parents to buy me a Sega Mega Drive was because I wanted to play Sonic the Hedgehog.

Nintendo felt that Sega was becoming popular, so two years after the release of the Sega Mega Drive, Nintendo released the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, or SNES. The SNES was also popular with children at the time. In fact, most of my friends are confused as to which console they would like to buy for Christmas.

Then, in 1995, the era of 16-bit and 32-bit gaming was overshadowed by the Sony Playstation. The video game console sported better graphics, better hardware and software support, a new set of handy controls, and the memory card, a device that allows gamers to store their game saves. It was really revolutionary as it no longer uses cartridges, but disk drives. Sega and Nintendo responded with the Sega Saturn and the Nintendo 64, but when it comes to the fifth generation of video game consoles, the Sony Playstation is king.

Years passed and by 1999, PCs were now designed for gaming as well. Sega released the Sega Dreamcast in 1999, but it was poorly received and was eventually discontinued in 2001 because they tried to implement a type of disk drive called a GD-Rom. It was a move to prevent software piracy, but instead led to poor sales. The Nintendo Gamecube suffered the same fate when it released the Gamecube; the console only plays 8mm drives and was discontinued in 2007. Sony, on the other hand, experienced huge success with the Playstation 2, while Microsoft released the Xbox in 2001.

And the rest, as they say, is history.