Timeline of game systems

Neo-Geo CD. Neo-Geo CDZ. Commodore CDTV. Satellaview Japan Only. Super Game Boy. Super Game Boy 2. Pioneer LaserActive. Virtual Boy. Apple Pippin. Atari Jaguar CD. Net Yaroze. PS one. Amiga CD Casio Loopy. Tiger Electronics. FM Towns Marty. Neo Geo Pocket. Game Boy Color.

Nintendo 64DD. Apex Digital. Atari Flashback. Game Boy Advance. Game Boy Advance SP. Game Boy Micro. N-Gage QD. Neo Geo Pocket Color. IQue Player. Panasonic M2. PlayStation 2. The video game industry had a few notable milestones in the late s and early s, including:.

Lasting a couple of years, the crash led to the bankruptcy of several home computer and video game console companies. 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 , released a number of important video game franchises still around today, such as Super Mario Bros. Additionally, Nintendo imposed various regulations on third-party games developed for its system, helping to combat rushed, low-quality software.

In , 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.

With its technological superiority to the NES, clever marketing, and the release of the Sonic the Hedgehog game, the Genesis made significant headway against its older rival. The early- to mids 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.

In response to the violent game as well as congressional hearings about violent video games , Sega created the Videogame Rating Council in to provide descriptive labeling for every game sold on a Sega home console. The council later gives rise to the industry-wide Entertainment Software Rating Board, which is still used today to rate video games based on content. Numerous movies based on video games have been released since.

With a much larger library of games, lower price point, and successful marketing, the Genesis had leapfrogged ahead of the SNES in North America by this time. But Sega was unable to find similar success in Japan. With a leap in computer technology, the fifth generation of video games ushered in the three-dimensional era of gaming. In , Sega released in North America its Saturn system, the first bit console that played games on CDs rather than cartridges, five months ahead of schedule.

The following year, Nintendo released its cartridge-based bit system, the Nintendo 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 and able to play original Playstation games, would become the best-selling game console of all time.

Sega pulled the plug on the system in , becoming a third-party software company henceforth. 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. Invented by Ralph H.

Baer, the Odyssey was the first home video game console that could be connected to a TV set. After Nolan Bunshell founds Atari in , the company has its first big hit with the arcade game Pong. In , Atari sells a home version of Pong in Sears stores. More on Pong. Aug 8, While there had been previous game consoles that used cartridges, either the cartridges had no information and served the same function as flipping switches the Odyssey or the console itself was empty and the cartridge contained all of the game components.

The VES, however, contained a programmable microprocessor so its cartridges only needed a single ROM chip to store microprocessor instructions. Oct 14, Atari was a cartridge-based stystem that played multiple games. It was typically bundled with two joystick controllers, a conjoined pair of paddle controllers, and a cartridge game—initially Combat and later Pac-Man. The Atari was wildly successful, and during much of the s, "Atari" was a synonym for this model in mainstream media and, by extension, for video games in general.

More info on the Atari May 10, The Intellivision featured slightly better graphics than the Atari , as well as the first synthesized vocies in video games. Although the Intellivision was more powerful, it was never as popular as the Atari Intellivision Commercial. Nov 10, The Atari SuperSystem, Atari , is a video game console that was introduced as a higher end complementary console for the popular Atari The was based on Atari Inc. The 's controllers have an analog joystick and a numeric keypad along with start, pause and reset buttons.

Oct 18, The Sega Master System is an 8-bit cartridge-based video game console that was manufactured by Sega and was first released in Its original The Genesis is a fourth-generation video game console released by Sega in Japan in and Europe in The console was released in Europe and The hardware featured It was the third commercially available color The Atari Jaguar is a video game console, released by Atari Corporation in In Japan, it was distributed under the name