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Tennis for Two
William Higinbotham, a former Los Alamos scientist, created a tennis video game using the computers at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. He used an oscilloscope screen as a display. -
Spacewar!
A space combat game developed by Steve Russel with the help of Martin Graetz and Wayne Wiitanen, while at MIT, on the PD1 computer, a computer the size of a large closet. This was a two player game. Two triangular shape ships, in a starfield, battle against one another -
Atari Founder Plays Tennis for Two
While attending college, Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, had a chance to play Tennis for Two by William Higinbotham. -
Magnavox Odyssey
A first generation console featuring a ping pong game. This game may have inspired Atari founder Nolan Bushnell to create Pong. -
Pong is Born
Atari Releases Pong - the first commercially successful video game. It was the genesis of video games and of the video game industry. Video games had already existed in a crude form, but they required large computers. With the development of consoles that could be hooked up to a regular TV screen, suddenly they could be in every home. -
TRS-80
The TRS-80 was an early home computer manufactured by the Tandy Corporation through Radio Shack. It was the best selling PC until 1982 because of its low cost, small size and the wide variety of software available including games. -
Atari 2600
This top-selling second-generation console gave players the ability to swap cartridges, a ROM container programmed with a game. First-generation consoles restricted players to built-in games. The 2600 featured 160 x 192 resolution, 128 bytes of RAM and a 1.19 MHz CPU. -
Pac-Man
Pac-Man is one of the most iconic video games of all time. It was released in the golden age of arcades, but it has been adapted for virtually every gaming system since. It helped popularize the maze chasing genre. -
Video Game Crash of 1983
A flood of consoles and cheaply made games caused a major crash in the video game world. Industry revenues went from 3.2 billion to 100 million by 1985. -
Mario Brothers
Although not a great success on its own, the sequel Super Mario Brothers, would become one of the top games of all time. The protagonists, brothers Mario and Luigi, are plumbers investigating weird happenings in New York's sewers. -
SG-1000
This was Sega's first entry into the console market. It had 1KB of RAM, 16 colours, and a 3.58MHz processor. -
Tetris
Created by Soviet Russian game designer Alexey Pajitnov, this tile building game would become the best selling game of all time with 170,000,000 sales. Originally a PC and Commodore 64 game, it is now available on most every platform. -
Nintendo Entertainment System
One of the best selling consoles of all time, it helped revitalize the game market after the crash of the early 1980's. It was a remodeled version of Nintendo's Famicon console, sold in Japan. -
Sega Master System
The Master System was Sega's second attempt at a console. It used cartridges and credit card sized Sega cards. Accessories included 3D glasses and a light gun. -
Sega Genesis
Sega's fourth-generation 16 bit console. The popularity of the Sonic the Hedgehog series would boost the console's popularity in North America. -
Game Boy
The Nintendo Game Boy was a popular pocket-sized gaming device. It gave gamers a taste of mobile games, which were still decades away. -
Super Nintendo
Nintendo's fourth-generation Super NES console featured 64 KB of RAM, 64 KB video RAM, 8 KB audio RAM and a 3.58 MHz CPU. This was also the dawn of the 16 bit era. -
PlayStation
The Sony PlayStation was significant in two ways - for the first time games were delivered on CD's rather than cartridges, allowing for more complicated games. At the same time, with the games delivered on CD's, piracy became possible. The PlayStation led the fifth-generation of 64-bit consoles in sales and was the first console to reach 100 million units sold. -
Grand Theft Auto
One of the most successful game franchises in history. This is an open world game where players take on the role of car thieves on various adventures. Originally a PC game, it was ported over to the PS1. -
PlayStation 2
The sequel to the PlayStation, the PS2 would become the best selling console of all time with 155 million units sold. One of its strengths was its ability to play all of the original PlayStation games. The PS2 was a 6th-generation 128bit console. -
Xbox
Microsoft's initial console offering dominated the market when it arrived, outdoing the PS2 and Nintendo Game Cube. Its marquee game was Halo: Combat Evolved. The game and the console would feed off of each other's successes. The Xbox was a 6th-generation 128bit console. -
Steam
Created by the Valve Corporation, Steam offered PC gamers a way to purchase their games online as well as to get updates. -
World of Warcraft
One of the most successful massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). This type of game allows users to play with each other over the internet. -
XBox 360
Xbox's seventh-generation console. It had a beefy 3.2 GHz CPU and a hot selection of game titles. One of its main advantages was the creation of the Xbox Live Service. This allowed players not only to download games, but also to play games in a multiplayer arena. -
PlayStation 3
The PlayStation 3 most innovative feature was its connectivity with the PlayStation Network. Here gamers could watch movies, download games, and socialize. -
Nintendo Wii
The Nintendo Wii's remote allowed users to interact with games by gesturing. Players could interact with onscreen objects by pointing and swinging the controller. They could even play a game of tennis and swing away as if holding a real racket. -
iPhone announcement
When Steve Jobs announced the introduction of the iPhone, few could have predicted its full impact. The iPhone would rattle the gaming industry as well. The major players had built up gaming ecosystems relying on expensive consoles and games. Now they had to figure out how to make money from apps worth a dollar or two with a device built by Apple. -
Farmville
Farmville helped popularize social media gaming. Originally a Facebook game, players raise a farm and gain XP points. With the help of their Facebook friends, they can accelerate the process. At its peak, 34 million people were playing Farmville at once. -
Angry Birds
Angry Birds is the most downloaded freemium game of all time with over 3 billion downloads. -
Minecraft
This multiplayer sandbox game allows players to "mine" 3d building blocks. The game has already reached 154,000,000 sales. -
Pong World
Atari celebrated 40th Anniversary of Pong with the release of Pong World -
Xbox One
Xbox's eighth-generation console is a full entertainment system. It enables users to stream video onto their television from the internet as well as Skype or surf the web -
PlayStation 4
Sony's 8th-Generation Console has sold over 90 million units. Beneath the hood, it is a very powerful computer with an 8 core 1.6Ghz CPU, and 8GB of RAM. Its motion-sensing camera and VR headset accessories allow for a more immersive gaming experience. -
Oculus Rift
The Rift sparked the VR or Virtual Reality Era. Using VR headsets and motion trackers, players feel as if they are immersed in a virtual gaming world. -
Pokémon Go
Pokémon Go was the first game to successfully harness the power of augmented reality (AR). Using their mobiles phones, players go on a real-world quest for Pokémon. The software makes use of a phone's GPS system and camera to superimpose Pokémon characters over video of the physical world. -
Deadline for Victor's Pong Genius Hour
As part of his Brock Teacher Education program, Victor Vukosavljevic is creating a pong video game. He hopes this will help him in his future career as a communication technology teacher.