History of Video Games Consoles

Next-generation video game consoles are also known as "seventh generation". Let's take a brief journey through video game history to see how video games turned from an ultra-geeky student pursuit practised in secret on university supercomputers to an entertainment industry worth over 10 billion dollars worldwide and rivalling the motion picture industry as the most profitable entertainment industry on the planet.

The first generation of video game consoles (1972 -1977)
Although students had been clandestinely writing and playing video games on expensive university equipment since the 60s, video games, as a form of popular entertainment, really began in 1972 with the launch of the Magnavox Odyssey. This was quickly followed up by the PONG, Coleco Telstar and the APF TV Fun. Such consoles plugged directly into your TV set and allowed you to play simple 2-player games such as ping-pong, bat and ball, football, and some shooting games, where a light gun was an option. Despite their simplicity - the sport titles involved two bars and a dot for a ball, all white - the games were addictive and great fun to play, and the consoles today are collector's items.

The second generation of video game consoles (1976 - 1983)
The previous generation had been greatly limited by the fact that you could only play the selection of video games that came hard-wired into the console. The second generation overcame this hurdle by inventing CPU-based machines that read game data from hard plastic ROM cartridges that were inserted into the console. Thus, the ever expanding video game library was born and reams of exciting titles began to appear. The Atari 2600, by far the most popular machine of this era, was launched with 9 titles in total, becoming the most popular Christmas present in 1979 and selling over a million units that year alone. Soon, more and more titles began to appear along with competing consoles, however this was ultimately to be the industry's undoing. Third-party developers brought the standard of games down, consumers lost faith in an increasingly complex marketplace overburdened by choice without guarantee of quality, and by 1983 the entire industry had crashed. An entire New Mexico landfill, dedicated solely to defunct cartridges of E.T., marked the end of the era and the beginning of a long history of dodgy movie/video game tie-ins. The shattered market place was left wide open for home computers, such as the Sinclair Spectrum and Commodore 64, which could play video games and offered an educational resource - doubtless making them more attractive to despairing parents of the day.

The third generation of video games consoles (1985-1989)
Three years passed by until anyone considered marketing another video game console in the West. As a result of the crash, the bankruptcies, and the consumer shift to home computing, when a new video game console did arrive it was Japanese and not American.

To prevent itself becoming a victim of poor quality gaming content like its predecessors, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) only allowed licensed content to be produced for its platform. Although initially challenged in court, this measure has been taken up by every video game console to be made since. The NES, already hugely popular in Japan, found enormous success in the USA where it was estimated to be present in one house out of every two; in Europe, however, the Sega Master System dominated overall. This is the era where video games as we know them now began and many of the in-game heroes survive today in their own TV shows and continuing landmark titles. Think of characters and titles such as Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, Metal Gear and Castlevania.

The fourth generation of video game consoles
The next generation built on the successes of the previous. 8-bit machines were replaced by 16-bit and marketing wars boasting of a console's power began, with the Sega Mega Drive and Super Nintendo pitted against each other. The video game franchises that began in the third generation continued to flourish in greater splendour, and Sega came up with Sonic the hedgehog as the brassy antithesis to Nintendo's cutesy mascot Mario. A couple of other consoles - the PC Engine (which was a great success in Japan) and the technologically superior (but very expensive) Neo-geo failed in their attempts to win a spot in the UK marketplace, leaving Sega and Nintendo as the only video game consoles of choice.

The fifth generation of video games consoles
This generation was noted for having many contenders and one clear winner. More than anything it proved that video gaming is about the games and the people who play them, and not about the consoles. The Atari Jaguar, Amiga CD-32 and the 3DO fell by the way-side and the Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64 enjoyed only limited success compared to a new contender - the Sony PlayStation video game console.

Sony cleverly positioned themselves as the mature gamers' choice, while their competitors mascots featured in banal Sunday morning cartoon strips for the very young. Teenagers and students alike rushed to purchase the PlayStation, and publishers took to this growing market share and the cheaper manufacturing costs of CDs (compared to Nintendo's cartridges). The Sony PlayStation's worldwide sales figures outstripped that of its competitors combined and ensured that games would forever more be provided on optical disc.

The sixth generation of video game consoles
The survivors of the previous generation were joined by Microsoft's invention, the Xbox, which wowed gamers with its title launch Halo. With its already strong online presence, Microsoft were able to introduce a new era of online gaming to consoles - something that had previously only been available on PCs. However, with the PS2 consolidating its position as the mature gamers' console and securing exclusive rights to the ground breaking Grand Theft Auto franchise it once again sold more than its competitors combined, putting the final nail in Sega's coffin. The demise of the Sega Dreamcast saw Sega stop making hardware and switch to making only games, while the Nintendo Gamecube held on to a small market share just behind the Xbox.

Video games had by this point grown up and the industry soon started to receive a lot of bad press relating to violent, profane and sexual content within games. The best selling Grand Theft Auto (GTA) series with its unique mixture of amoral violence, crime and aspirational life-style values featured at the centre of this controversy, and the discovery of a secret in-game sex mission hard coded by the programmers found GTA San Andreas temporarily banned from every high-street retailer in America. This did nothing to dent its popularity, however, and the franchise continues to glorify crime - in exclusive preview trailers, the next installment promises to feature an ex-human trafficker as its central character.

The seventh generation of video games consoles
The seventh and current generation of video game consoles features three new machines, two of which - the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 - are so technologically advanced and multi-functional, that they have to be sold at a loss of hundreds of dollars per unit with the manufacturers hoping to recoup their losses with games sales. Featuring the latest cutting-edge hardware, the seventh generation is bound to be the most ground breaking and exciting of all. Expectation among gamers is running high and with video game consoles that can connect to the Internet wirelessly, play music, and display movies in HD more people than ever are buying video game consoles for the first time.