2. 1970
Although the first computer games appeared in the
1950s,they were based around vector displays, not analog
video. It was not until 1972 that Magnavox released the
first home video game console which could be connected
to a TV set-the Magnavox Odyssey, invented by Ralph H.
Baer. The Odyssey was initially only moderately
successful, and it was not until Atari's arcade game Pong
popularized video games, that the public began to take
more notice of the emerging industry. By the autumn of
1975 Magnavox, bowing to the popularity of
Pong, cancelled the Odyssey and released a scaled down
version that played only Pong and hockey, the Odyssey
100
3. 1980
Throughout the early 1980s, other companies released
video game consoles of their own. Many of the video
game systems were technically superior to the Atari
2600, and marketed as improvements over the Atari 2600.
However, Atari dominated the console market in the early
1980 In 1983, the video game business suffered a much
more severe crash. A flood of consoles, low quality video
games by smaller companies (especially for the
2600), industry leader Atari hyping games such as E.T. and
an 2600 Pac-man that were poorly received, and a
growing number of home computer users caused
consumers and retailers to lose faith and interest in video
game consoles
4. 1990
Sega and Nintendo would be discontinued in 1996.
Nintendo released games like Donkey Kong Country
that could display a wide range of tones (something
common in fifth-generation games) by limiting the
number of hues onscreen, and games like Star Fox
that used an extra chip inside of the cartridge to
display polygon graphics.
5. 2000
Sony's PlayStation 2 was released in North America
on October 26, 2000 as the follow-up to its highly
successful PlayStation, and was also the first home
game console to be able to play DVDs. As was done
with the original PlayStation in 2000, Sony
redesigned the console in 2004 into a smaller
version.
6. 2001
Microsoft's Xbox, released on November 15, 2001 in North
America, was the company's first video game console. The
first console to employ a hard drive right out of the box to
save games, and had similar hardware specifications to a
low-end desktop computer at the time of its release.
Though criticized for its bulky size, which was easily twice
that of the competition, as well as for the awkwardness of
the original controller that shipped with it, it eventually
gained popularity due in part to the success of the Halo
franchise. The Xbox was the first console to include an
Ethernet port and offered high speed online gaming
through the Xbox LIVE service.
7. 2005
Microsoft kicked off the seventh generation with the
release of the Xbox 360 released on November
22, 2005 in the United States. It featured market
leading processing power until the Sony PlayStation
3 release, one year later. While the original Xbox 360
"Core" did not include an internal HDD, most Xbox
360 models since have included at least the option to
have one.
8. 2006
Sony's PlayStation 3 was released in Japan on November
11, 2006, in North America on November 17, 2006 and in Europe
on March 23, 2007. All PlayStation 3s come with a hard drive and
are able to play Blu-ray Disc games and Blu-ray Disc movies out
of the box.
The Nintendo Wii was released in North America on November
19, 2006, in Japan on December 2, 2006, in Australia on
December 7, 2006, and in Europe on December 8, 2006. It is
bundled with Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort in all regions
except for Japan. Unlike the other systems of the seventh
generation, the Wii does not support an internal hard drive, but
instead uses 512 MB of internal Flash memory and includes
support for removable SD card storage.
