History of
Game
Consoles
Today’s Agenda
Introduction
A Brief History of Gaming
1st Generation
2nd Generation
Contents
3rd Generation
4th Generation
5th Generation
6th Generation
7th Generation
Conclusion
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History of
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A Brief History of Gaming
 1947: Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device
 1950-1951: Chess
 1951: NIM
 1952: OXO / Noughts and Crosses (Tic-Tac-Toe)
 1958: Tennis for Two
 1966: Odyssey
 1971: Galaxy Game
 1971: Computer Space
 1972: Pong
1st Generation
 First Game console ever invented was by Sabeel Asghar
 In 1972, Magnarox created the 1st Video Game Console
which could be connected to TV Set called Magnavox
Odyssey
 Popularity of Pong influenced the creation of Magnavox
Odyssey II(Odyssey 200) in 1975
2ND Generation
 Fairchild released the Fairchild Video Entertainment
System (VES) in 1976.
 The VES contained a programmable microprocessor so
its cartridges only needed a single ROM chip to store
microprocessor instructions.
 Atari dominated the console market in the early 1980s.
 Atari released a conversion of the arcade hit Space
Invaders in 1980 on Atari 2600
3rd Generation
 In 1983, Nintendo released the Family Computer (or
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Famicom) in Japan.
Like Space Invaders for the 2600, Nintendo found its
breakout hit game in Super Mario Bros.
Famicom supported high-resolution sprites and tiled
backgrounds, but with more colors.
Famicom used a front-loading cartridge port similar to a
VCR.
Sega's Master System was intended to compete with the
NES, but never gained any significant market share in the
US and was barely profitable.
4th Generation
 Sega regained market share by releasing its next
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generation console, the Mega Drive/Genesis
Mega Drive then became truly successful with the 1991
Sonic the Hedgehog.
Nintendo also released Super Nintendo Entertainment
System(SNES)
Sega extended the Mega Drive with the Mega CD/Sega
CD
Other Consoles are NEC's TurboGrafx-16 and SNK
Playmore's Neo Geo.
5th Generation
 The first fifth generation consoles were the Atari Jaguar
and the 3DO.
 It was not until Sega's Saturn, Sony's PlayStation, and the
Nintendo 64 were released that fifth generation consoles
started to become popular.
 PlayStation spawned a whole lineup of consoles from
generation to generation and has earned Sony great
respect as a video game company, becoming the first
video game system to sell over 100 million consoles.
 CDs were used by PlayStation as Storage Medium while
Nintendo 64 still used Cartridges.
6th Generation
 PC-like architectures and DVD’s were the major
improvement in this generation
 PlayStation 2, Dreamcast and Gamecube were the main
consoles of 6th Generation
 140 million PlayStation 2 units have been sold until now
which makes it the best selling console of all time.
 Microsoft also entered the console market 1st time with
Xbox in 2001
7th Generation
 This generation introduced motion as input, and IR
tracking as well as Blu-Ray as a new storage media
 Nintendo introduced Wii, while Sony and Microsoft
released PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
 Unlike the previous two generations there was no
dominant platform this generation and both Xbox 360
and PS3 continue to sell equally well.
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