History of video game consoles

Most people are surprised to learn just how long the history of video game consoles actually is. While they are generally thought of as a product of the eighties they actually go back much further than that. Over the years video games have had several peaks and values of popularity, mainly due to the changing nature of technology. While it was Atari who made video games popular it was really Nintendo who made the industry what it is.

The first video games started to appear in arcades in the early seventies, by far the most successful of these was Pong. This was a very simple game that was produced by Atari and it was the game that would lead to home video game consoles. A few companies tried to create game consoles for home use but it was not until Atari released a home version of Pong in 1975 that they really became successful. The early version offered only one game but they still sold very well and helped to prove that there was a market for video games.

The first true video game console came out in 1977 when Atari released the 2600. This was the first one that offered games on cartridges. That meant that you could play several different game on the same system. That being said the limitations of the system meant that the games were all pretty much the same. A game in which tanks shot each other played the same as a game where spaceships shot each other. Over the years the quality improved and a wider variety of game became available, the peak of popularity occurring in the early eighties with the release of Pacman.

Despite the early popularity of game consoles they started to fall out of favour in the early eighties. The problem was that the limitations meant that the games were falling further and further behind the arcade versions in quality. The result was that arcades became very popular as people preferred to play there rather than at home. At one point the future of game consoles looked very bleak, but this was all about to change when Nintendo came along.

In 1985 Nintendo introduced its first gaming system and almost single handedly saved the industry. The main reason for this was that it was the first time that the games matched those in the arcade in terms of quality. The Nintendo also introduced a pad controller replacing the joystick for use on games. One further innovation that Nintendo brought was the realization that the money was in producing games not in selling consoles. As a result they sold the console at a very low price and the started offering a huge variety of games. This dramatically improved sales and with the Nintendo modern gaming consoles as we know them were born.