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Pong
October 1958: Physicist Invents First Video Game.In October 1958, Physicist William Higinbotham created what is thought to be the first video game. It was a very simple tennis game, similar to the classic 1970s video game Pong, and it was quite a hit at a Brookhaven National Laboratory open house. -
Space War
In 1962, Steve Russell at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology invented Spacewar!, a computer-based space combat video game for the PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-1), then a cutting-edge computer mostly found at universities. It was the first video game that could be played on multiple computer installations. -
The Brown Box
In 1967, developers at Sanders Associates, Inc., led by Ralph Baer, invented a prototype multiplayer, multi-program video game system that could be played on a television. It was known as “The Brown Box.” -
Home Made Pong
In 1975, Atari released a home version of Pong, which was as successful as its arcade counterpart. Magnavox, along with Sanders Associates, would eventually sue Atari for copyright infringement. Atari settled and became an Odyssey licensee; over the next 20 years, Magnavox went on to win more than $100 million in copyright lawsuits related to the Odyssey and its video game patents. -
Space Invaders
is an arcade game created by Tomohiro Nishikado and released in 1978. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed in the United States by the Midway division of Bally. Space Invaders is one of the earliest shooting games; the aim is to defeat waves of aliens with a laser to earn as many points as possible. -
Pac-Man
t was created by Japanese video game designer Toru Iwatani. It was licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway Games and released in October 1980. Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, and an icon of 1980s popular culture. -
Donkey Kong
The games of the first genre are mostly single-screen platform/action puzzle types, featuring Donkey Kong as the opponent in an industrial construction setting. Donkey Kong first made his appearance in the 1981 arcade machine called Donkey Kong, in which he faced Jumpman (Mario), now Nintendo's flagship character. -
Mario bros
The video game home industry began to recover in 1985 when the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), called Famicom in Japan, came to the United States. The NES had improved 8-bit graphics, colors, sound and gameplay over previous consoles. Its was one of Nintendo's biggest games -
Nintendo's gaming consoles
In 1989, Nintendo made waves again by popularizing handheld gaming with the release of its 8-bit Game Boy video game device and the often-bundled game Tetris. Over the next 25 years, Nintendo would release a number of successful successors to the Game Boy, including the Game Boy color in 1998, Nintendo DS in 2004, and Nintendo 3DS in 2011. -
Early 1990s
The early- to mid-1990s saw the release of a wealth of popular games on both consoles, including new franchises such as Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat, a fighting game that depicted blood and gore on the Genesis version of the game. -
Sonic the Hedgehog
With its technological superiority to the NES, clever marketing, and the 1991 release of the Sonic the Hedgehog game, the Genesis made significant headway against its older rival. In 1991, Nintendo released its 16-bit Super NES console in North America, launching the first real “console war.” -
Mario 64
Though Sega and Nintendo each released their fair share of highly-rated, on-brand 3D titles, such as Virtua Fighter on the Saturn and Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64, the established video game companies couldn’t compete with Sony’s strong third-party support, which helped the Playstation secure numerous exclusive titles. -
Third party games
Additionally, Nintendo imposed various regulations on third-party games developed for its system, helping to combat rushed, low-quality software. Third-party developers released many other long-lasting franchises, such as Capcom’s Mega Man, Konami’s Castlevania, Square’s Final Fantasy, and Enix’s Dragon Quest (Square and Enix would later merge to form Square Enix in 2003). -
Microsoft
The Xbox 360, which had similar graphics capabilities to the Playstation 3, was lauded for its online gaming ecosystem and won far more Game Critics Awards than the other platforms in 2007; it also featured the Microsoft Kinect, a state-of-the-art motion capture system that offered a different way to play video games (though the Kinect never caught on with core gamers or game developers).
