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The first Video game
The first video game debuts at the World’s Fair in New York. Edward U. Condon invents a computer that plays a game, “Nim”, against human competitors. The computer won almost 90% of the time. -
The Nintendo Entertainment System launches
Nintendo, a company originally founded in Japan as a playing card company during the late 1880s, got into the video game business in the 1970s and revolutionized the industry with NES. NES games were graphically superior to their predecessors, and the extra memory allowed for multiple levels and storytelling. -
Gaming meets the real world
While games, in the 1980s, mostly starred fictitious characters and fantasy settings, developers started looking to the real world for new series. One example, the “Madden” football series—named after legendary NFL coach and broadcaster John Madden—has gone on to become one of the best-selling and longest-running franchises in America. But Madden wasn’t convinced at first. In fact, he demanded that the game’s quality be top-notch, or he wouldn’t sign on. -
Sega Genesis launches
Japan-based game company Sega released the Genesis. This introduced us to another classic character: “Sonic the Hedgehog”. Sonic was seen as a more mature counterpart to Mario, helping win over older gamers. -
Action Games
A lot of modern gaming, violence took the spotlight in the early 1990s. Fighting games and shooters like “Mortal Kombat” and “Doom” hit the market, and with their bloodshed and violent imagery, assisting the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board, an industry group that rates video games for age appropriateness and content. -
The PlayStation is born
The release of the Sony PlayStation was another generation-defining shift in gaming. The platform brought gaming into a new technological era. CD-based games could store massive amounts of data compared to cartridges, allowing developers to create longer, more sophisticated games. Classics like “Final Fantasy VII”, “Resident Evil”, and “Metal Gear Solid” exemplified the console’s then-newborn abilities. -
Playstation 2 come out
This console was the best selling console of all time, so it was a key point in the new age of digital games. It was also the first gaming console with a DVD drive that allowed storage space for very high resolution graphics. -
Microsoft Consoles appear out of the blue
When Microsoft stepped into the video game console industry, they had a serious impact on the way people played games. Their consoles were innovative, new and had cool designs everyone wanted or had one of these. The consoles were so good and innovative, it pushed the now predecessor companies to create even better consoles to beat Microsoft, and just for the ability to stay in the top ten from 2001, all the way to 2019. -
Release of the Nintendo Gamecube
At the start of the new year, many new consumers clustered to this gaming console at hopes of finding something revolutionary, which they did. The Nintendo GameCube was, although, not the first console to include a DVD drive, but all of the GameCube's game discs, were small compared to a normal DVD. -
Release of the Nintendo Wii
This was the video game console that greatly expanded the age range of video game players by introducing highly natural controls and simple, family friendly graphics.