For quite some time it has been difficult to point out which was the first video game, mainly due to to the multiple definitions that have been established of this, but you can consider Nought and crosses as the first video game, too called OXO, developed by Alexander S. Douglas in 1952. The game was a computerized version of tic tac toe that ran on the EDSAC (computer of the time) and allowed to face a human player against the machine.
Today, video games make up a $100 billion global industry, and nearly two-thirds of American homes have household members who play video games regularly. And it’s really no wonder: Video games have been around for decades and span the gamut of platforms, from arcade systems, to home consoles, to handheld consoles and mobile devices. They’re also often at the forefront of computer technology
In 1958 William Higginbotham created, using a program for calculating trajectories and a oscilloscope, Tennis for Two: a table tennis simulator for entertainment of visitors to Brookhaven National Laboratory. Four years later Steve Russell, a student of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, dedicated six months to create a computer game using vector graphics: Spacewar!. In this game, two players controlled the direction and speed of two fighting spaceships between them. The game worked on a PDP1 and was the first to have a certain success although it was hardly known outside the field academic.
The video game industry had a few notable milestones in the late 1970s and early 1980s, including:
In 1983, the North American video game industry experienced a major “crash” due to a number of factors, including an oversaturated game console market, competition from computer gaming, and a surplus of over-hyped, low-quality games, such as the infamous E.T., an Atari game based on the eponymous movie and often considered the worst game ever created.
Lasting a couple of years, the crash led to the bankruptcy of several home computer and video game console companies.
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.
Nintendo, a Japanese company that began as a playing card manufacturer in 1889, released a number of important video game franchises still around today, such as Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid.
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).
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.
Also in 1989, Sega released its 16-bit Genesis console in North America as a successor to its 1986 Sega Master System, which failed to adequately compete against the NES.
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.”
With a leap in computer technology, the fifth generation of video games ushered in the three-dimensional era of gaming.
In 1995, Sega released in North America its Saturn system, the first 32-bit console that played games on CDs rather than cartridges, five months ahead of schedule. This move was to beat Sony’s first foray into video games, the Playstation, which sold for $100 less than the Saturn when it launched later that year. The following year, Nintendo released its cartridge-based 64-bit system, the Nintendo 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.
Simply put: Sony dominated the video game market and would continue to do so into the next generation. In fact, the Playstation 2, released in 2000 and able to play original Playstation games, would become the best-selling game console of all time.
The Playstation 2, which was the first console that used DVDs, went up against the Sega Dreamcast (released in 1999), the Nintendo Gamecube (2001), and Microsoft’s Xbox (2001).
In 2005 and 2006, Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Sony’s Playstation 3, and Nintendo’s Wii kicked off the modern age of high-definition gaming. Though the Playstation 3—the only system at the time to play Blu-rays—was successful in its own right, Sony, for the first time, faced stiff competition from its rivals.
The 8th and current generation of video games began with the release of Nintendo’s Wii U in 2012, followed by the Playstation 4 and Xbox One in 2013. Despite featuring a touch screen remote control that allowed off-TV gaming and being able to play Wii games, the Wii U was a commercial failure—the opposite of its competition—and was discontinued in 2017.
In 2016, Sony released a more powerful version of its console, called the Playstation 4 Pro, the first console capable of 4K video output. In early 2017, Nintendo released its Wii U successor, the Nintendo Switch, the only system to allow both television-based and handheld gaming. Microsoft will release its 4K-ready console, the Xbox One X, in late 2017.
With their new revamped consoles, both Sony and Microsoft currently have their sights set on virtual reality gaming, a technology that has the potential to change the way players experience video games.