It is also worth noting, Bayer managed to modify TV Game Chassis.
The second version of TV Game Chassis worked as chief engineer at Sanders Associates and after creating and betting the first game console in the world, he took it to the court of Herbert Campman, the head of his company. After the presentation, Campman approved the financing and development of this activity of the company. And in 1967, a formal project of the game appeared, for which a light rifle was developed and a little later, the third game Ping Pong. On the basis of these games, the first official prototype of the BROWN BOX game console was created. The prefix was the opportunity to play two players, using a light rifle and switches to choose the game, there were 16 of them, they were mainly there a game of sports topics - football, hockey, volleyball, etc.

Brown Box.

First generation (1972-1977)

In 1969, Bayer to switch to mass production, agrees with Magnavox, which in turn makes adjustments to the component console. After improving the console company Magnavox, the console is deprived of the game switches, switching becomes software, the console is also deprived of the lighting gun, thereby trying to reduce the cost of production. In May 1972, a console called Magnavox Odyssey appears on the light.

For the year of sales, almost 100 thousand game consoles Magnavox Odyssey were implemented, and by the time the Magnavox Odyssey game console series appears about 350 thousand. The appearance in 1975 the whole series of Magnavox Odyssey game consoles, was due to the task of cheaper and simplify production. There are many models of the consoles, with several games from 3 to 24.

In 1975, Atari issues its version of the game console called Atari Pong.

In 1976, the Coleco Gaming Console appears on the light. The prefix was called Telstar.

From 1975 to 1976, Philips manufactures the first console using cartridges - Philips Tele-Spiel ES-2201. But the cost of the console was excessively high, and its production stopped in 1976 ...

At that time, the gaming console market only gained turnover, and in 1976 the Calculators manufacturer, APF Electronics Inc, releases its Ping-Pong-type Console - APF TV FUN. But the prefix lasts not long - until 1977.

Second generation (1976-1984)

August 1976 - Fairchild Semiconductor publishes the second in the world with replaceable game cartridges and the first with the cartridge containing the program - Fairchild Channel F. It is worth noting that the prefix was based on the Fairchild F8 microprocessor, developed by Robert Noyce, in the future, Robert He left Fairchild Semiconductor and founded his own, calling her Intel.

The leader of the second generation of the Atari 2600 consoles appeared on sale for Christmas 1977.
In 1979, Atari 2600 became the best-selling console, about a million consoles were sold. After that, Atari buys a license to the Space Invaders arcade, which significantly increases its popularity. The release of the game took place in May 1980, he increased the sales console twice, up to 2 million copies per year. Moreover, during the next two years, sales increased by the same pace and 1982 already sold 8 million consoles. The Sunset of the popularity of Atari 2600 is 1983, when the appearance of cheap home computers leads to the crisis of the game console market.

Magnavox Odysseyі - the console release took place in 1978, at the time Magnavox already belonged to North American Philips. And therefore, in some countries, the staple was named differently - Philips VideoOpac G7000, Philips Odyssey and Magnavox Odysseyi. Innovation of the console can be considered the appearance of the keyboard.

Mattel also struggled for the buyer in the field of gaming systems in 1978 to 1983. The main weapon in this struggle was the Intellivision brand, under this brand the company released 3 different modifications of consoles. But as well as the crisis of the game consoles market did not regret such giants as Atari and Coleco, he forced to sell the company and Mattel, and the company's buyers became its former employees.

In 1982, atari 5200 comes to replace the superpopular Atari 2600, the prefix took a lot of in herself from the Atari 400/800 computers, but did not receive such popularity as its predecessor.

In the same 1982, Milton Bradley represents Vectrex - the only game system using a vector graphics monitor included in the console. To this day, none of the manufacturers never repeated this feat.

All the same 1982, the popularity of Atari 2600 does not give rest also by Emerson Radio Corporation and to bite off his piece of such a profitable pie. It produces Arcadia 2001. But the idea and sale turned out to be failed, because By then, new developments of Atari and Coleco - Atari 5200 and Colecovision have already begun to appear.

In general, 1982 was very prolific in terms of the emergence of new developments, ColecoCo Colecovision appeared in the same year. From 1982 to 1985, 170 games were issued for this system.

The first game console of the company SEGA, was called Sega Game 1000, its release took place in 1983, and the release lasted for about 2 years.

Third generation (1983-1992)

1983 Nintendo manufactures console to the Japanese market called Famicom, and after 2 years in Europe and the USA, it appears under the name Nintendo Entertainment System or simply NES, unfortunately, in our country such a name is familiar, but we all know it well under the name dendy. In total, according to official data, more than 60 million consoles and more than 500 million games were sold to it. You can also easily purchase its copies and now on the radio rolls and on the Internet. In the early 90s, in connection with the appearance of 16 bit consoles, its popularity began to fall. But not in Russia, where her Chinese clone called dendy was sold.

In 1986, SEGA also presented its 8-bit game system of the third generation of Sega Master System. This gaming system has become popular in Europe and Latin America, but in the USA and Japan, she lost the struggle for the buyer Nintendo. In Brazil, the console is also produced at present.

In June 1986, Atari attempts to correct his errors and replacing Atari 5200 produces Atari 7800. The new console has become almost completely compatible with more than popular Atari 2600 and was cheaper.

Fourth generation (1987-1996)

On October 30, 1987, NEC unfolds 4 rounds of the history of development and competition in the game console market, releaseing a PC Engine console in Japan, and a little later on the territory North America called Turbografx-16. It is also worth noting that NEC is the first to start the release of games on CDs, but for this it was necessary to use an additional device called Turbografx CD. Unfortunately, such innovations did not allow the company to repel most of the market from Nintendo and Sega in North America, but it was popular and excellent sales in Japan.

October 29, 1988 in the country ascending sun Sega's release is released called Sega Mega Drive, lies later than the sale also started in North America, but already called Sega Genesis. Well, the players from Europe had to wait until November 30, 1990.
In 1991, SEGA released its Sonic brand game.
After a series of unsuccessful moves, on the part of the company's management, the popularity of the prefixes in most countries began to fall, and the company undertook the development of the 32-bit Sega Saturn system. Games for this console produced up to 1998.

Super Nintendo The third representative of the 16th bit and fourth generation of game consoles appeared on 12 November 1990 in Japan, and in August 1991, a slightly changed prefix design, players could buy in the United States. In Russia, the prefix appeared in 1995. In 1996, the era of 16-bit consoles ended, the appearance of the next fifth generation of consoles, including Nintendo 64, the popularity of SNES began to fall. In America, the production of the console has ceased in 1999, and in Japan in 2003.

Fifth generation (1993-2002)

From 1993 to 1995, on the proposed concept of The 3Do Company, the 3Do Interactive Multiplayer game console is produced, it entered the mass called 3Do. Multiple companies Goldstar, Panasonic and Sanyo were released. But the existence of this console turned out to be very short, despite its impressive characteristics, this was also a high price ($ 699) and the presence of many more popular competitors.

In September 1993, the release of Amiga CD32 took place. The prefix was created on the basis of the Amiga 1200 computer, there was also the ability to connect the keyboard and mouse.

November 1993 was marked by the appearance of Atari Jaguar. But Atari and this time did not manage to conquer their buyer, 500 thousand copies were sold. And the emergence of Sony PlayStation and the installation of a new higher quality bar at the end of 1995 made the company atari gaming consoles.

170 thousand copies of the Sega Saturn consoles were sold on the first day of sales - November 22, 1994 in Japan. Six months and with the worst sales results, the console appeared in the United States and Europe.

On December 3, 1994, the first prefix of Sony Computer Entertainment - Sony Playstation appears, despite the small experience in the development of Sony's consoles, it was possible to provide a prefix very much popularity, more than 100 million copies were sold worldwide. The production of the prefix lasted 11 years, and this period is one of the longest periods of production in the gaming industry. On March 23, 2006, production was completed, in Sony, this was explained only to the need to release space and capacities for the production of PlayStation 3.

The new generation compiler from Nintendo appeared only in 1996, unlike most competitors at that time in Nintendo 64 was used as carriers of the cartridges with a capacity of up to 64MB. But it did not prevent her off her second place after the PlayStation in the struggle for consumers, it turns into the Sega Saturn.

We all played gradually
In anything and somehow
Unknown gameimer

Today we will talk about one of the most popular and successful series of Sony PlayStation game consoles and remember how it developed. The history of the development of gaming consoles as such began in the 70s with Magnavox Odyssey, later - Atari Pong. In the 1980s, the Japanese company Nintendo has been actively and successfully taken to releasing its first 8-bit game console Family Computer (Famicom), which was released in 1985 in the US called Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), later - in Europe . By the end of the 80s, Nintendo tightly occupied the leading position. Meanwhile, Sony tried to get to the market of personal computers with the MSX platform developed by Microsoft and ASCII Corporation and the Kingdom of Nintendo did not climb. The situation began to change in 1988.

How it all began

Designed by Sony B. Cooperation with the Dutch company Philips Standard CD-ROM actively gained popularity. Was a new CD-ROM Xa technology has been developed, which is the extension of the CD-ROM format, which allowed compressed audio, video and computer data on one disk. Nintendo has already collaborated with Sony in the field of consoles: the latter supplied for SONY SPC700 SNES SNES. In many respects contributed Ken Cutaragi - Former Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Sony Computer Entertainment. Thanks to his efforts, the Sony Board of Directors approved the development of PlayStation and it was born.

Nintendo became interested in CD-ROM XA and decided together with Sony to develop media for games called "SNES-CD". All relevant documents were signed and companies began to develop. Sony built rainbow plans for the release of its console, which was supposed to support Super Nintendo cartridges, and compact disks of the format SNES-CD. Thus, the company planned to enter the market of consoles and discourage some of Nintendo. Next, the situation has developed on a detective scenario. At Consumer Electronics Show (CES ) 1989 companies should have announced their cooperation and submit to the public a new standardSNES-CD. However, the third president of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauti, was not a fool and decided to explore detail of the details of cooperation.

He realized that Sony in a more winning position, including she received control over product licensing on SNES-CD. Yamauti decided that this was not climbing into any gate and canceled all plans for the production of a joint product. On the opening day of CES, instead of an announcement of collaboration with Sony, director of Nintendo of America, Howard Lincoln, reported that his company stops cooperation with Sony, turns all joint projects and starts working with Philips. On the eve of Sony in the evening, Sony presented the public's own project "Play Station" and such a surprise for the next morning somewhat stolen the company.

Development of the first PlayStation.

After those events, the Sony leadership wanted to turn all the development in this direction, but thanks to Chan Kutaraga did not happen and Sony continued to create its own console. By 1991, Sony has already been ready for the launch of the first option of the prefix, but due to the rights and licensing Nintendo filed and achieved a ban. Rock all legal issues managed only by the end of 1992: Sony had the right to implement Support for SNES games, Nintendo received part of the profits, and SNES used Sony's sound chip. Nevertheless, Sony realized that SNES is obsolete and it's time to do something radically new. In early 1993, Sony began to develop a completely new console.

The first PlayStation went on sale on December 3, 1994 in Japan, in the United States on September 9, 1995 and September 29, 1995 in Europe. By the beginning of world sales, a decent number of games was already available, including Sony itself and Namco. Battle Arena Toshinden, Doom, Twisted Metal, were available, Wipeout Ridge Racer and so on. A CD was used as carriers, and the memory cards were used to save, no longer needed to record the code on a specific checkpoints to start from the right place. Memory cards were used in PS2.The price was $ 299 dollars. The console quickly gained popularity. In just 11 years of production, more than 100 million consoles were sold, during the period from 1998 to 2006 was the most sold in the world. Among the additional functions was to play audio and videocd (in some embodiments). A lot of console options were released: depending on the region, with a different layout of the internals and other small differences. In 2000, a more cardinal update came out: PSONE, which was essentially compacting and easier (Sony practices such solutions to this day).

Psone

Despite the skeptical ratio of Nintendo to optical drives, together with PlayStation, the process of refusal of manufacturers with cartridges on CD (later DVD) has begun. Cartridges were limited in volume, with the development of new games and the development of graphics, the refusal of them was a worthwhile decision. Piracy developed: "chipped" consoles appeared, who read discs of different regions and simply copied to the blank.

Further development and subsequent models

PS2.

In 1999, Sony announced the development PlayStation 2 (PS2)Sales in Japan began on March 4, 2000, the rest of the world saw the prefix in the fall of the same year. She became the best selling and most popular gaming console in history. At the third quarter of 2011, almost 155 million copies were sold in the world, and the console itself became in 2006. PS2 has already supported the CD and DVD and was back compatible with PlayStation games (for rare exception). By this time, Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo Gamecube competitors appeared.

PS2 Slim.

The console was produced up to the beginning of 2013, only 13 years old, which is very impressive life cycle in the gaming industry. Since 2007, version was produced PlayStation 2 SLIM, which was significantly smaller in size and already had a built-in network adapter for online games (in the first version it was optional).

PS3

Sony PlayStation 3, PS3- The third stationary prefix Sony, competitors of the Xbox 360 from Microsoft and Wii. The development of the console was somewhat delayed and instead of the 2005 planned PS3 went on sale at the end of 2006 in Japan, and global sales began in 2007. The console has already been able to know much: in addition to the games, you could listen to music, watch movies and wander through the Internet. The online store PlayStation Store was launched. Blu-ray discs are used as media, there is a built-in HDD (or flash memory).

PS3 Slim.

In different versions, hard disks of different volumes were installed, their replacement is possible. Again there are backward compatibility with PS and PS2. In November 2013, the total number of console sold exceeded 80 million. The first version "was famous for" overheating, in 2009 the version of SLIM was released, and in 2012 - Super Slim.

PS3 Super Slim.

A variety of all accessories is available, including the answer to Wii - Move controllers:

The console is popular and produced to this day until no information on the end of production.

Sony PlayStation 4., PS4. - the last and newest on this moment Stationary game console Sony. The official announcement of PlayStation 4 took place at the PlayStation Meeting 2013 conference on February 20, 2013, sales began in November 2013. The console is running the ORBIS operating system, which is a modified version of FreeBSD 9.0. Considering the excessive specificity of previous platforms and, as a result, the complicated development of games, Sony (as well as a competitor Microsoft Xbox One) decided to use closerly to computer and more universal "iron". An 8-core central AMD Jaguar / Kabini X86-64 and 8 GB GDDR5 is used. Such changes have affected the consequences in the form of incompatibility with old games: they are only available in the "cloud" mode. Inside, a hard disk with a volume of 500 GB is installed (replacement, including SSD), 6-speed Blu-ray and 8-speed DVD drive, USB 3.0, Ethernet, HDMI ports and optic. Plus wireless modulesWi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1.

Mobile consoles

PlayStation Portable. (PSP) was announced on E3 2003, and shown a year later. Sales of the console began in Japan on December 12, 2004, the remaining regions were able to buy it in 2005. PSP has become the first portable console with optical drives as carriers. Using own Universal Media Disc (UMD) format is used, there is a Memory Stick Pro Duo memory card connector (again your format). It was equipped with an LCD display, standard mechanical buttons, two triggers and one stick, lost (besides games) video and music, had a Wi-Fi module and could connect to PlayStation 3 and another PSP. Several different options were released, the most exotic and unsuccessful - PSP GO in the form of a slider:

PSP Go.

PSP Vita.

The next generation is announced on January 27, 2011 Sony PlayStation Vita.Famous early as Next Generation Portable (NGP). She got much more powerful than stuffing: 4-core Arm Cortex-A9 processor,. Graphic processor: PowerVR SGX543MP4 + with support for OpenGL 2.0 and 512 megabytes RAM. In addition to the usual controls, the second stick appeared here, the screen became sensory and increased to 5 inches in size and the touch back panel appeared. There are Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 + EDR and an optional 3G-modem. There are a couple of cameras, three-axle gyroscope and accelerometer, Remote Play function allowed to use VITA as a gamepad to a stationary console. Media - PlayStation Vita Card.

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History of game consoles

Not so long ago, Apple iPhone was ranked gaming consoles. The desire to make a business-oriented phone, of course, commendable, but against the markets of the market to go anyway what to write in a known direction. Especially since, with the advent of the App Store Apple, you can say, released an iPhone in open swimming, even more reducing your influence on the further development of the device.

So, what is the game console (prefix)? Not other than the device developed and created for video games, the video output video device for which is usually the TV.

What were the first gaming consoles? Monstrous ones at today's standards, and, in principle, according to any. Naturally, they were displayed only two colors - black and white / green / red, in fact - only one. They were absolutely irresistible in relation to the peripheral devices and was generally great luck if there were interchangeable cartridges, media. In our case, of course, games.

Magnavox Odyssey.

Magnavox Odyssey can rightfully be called the first gaming prefix. Her development started back in 1966. It was then that Ralph Bereva came to the head a bright thought - to make a device on the light, with which it would be possible to kill home leisure. Naturally, through games. The console was developed with the calculation of two players, in parallel the thought of the genius of modernity worked in the direction of controllers, and literally a year later, Ralph creates the world's first light gun.

Next - just a few years on the resolution of patent issues, signing a contract with Magnavox, solving technological and production issues, and in 1972, mass production started. The prefix appeared in stores at a price of $ 99.95, which at the time was considered a round sum. In 1975, an updated Odyssey 100 was published, which was supplied to Nintendo Japan, until we had its own implemented projects in this direction.

The prefix could display the lane in the middle of the screen, two moving points, subject to players and one, subordinate to any, but still the laws of physics. Why am I saying "Prefix", not a "graphics processor"? Yes, it is easy to simply because it was not. However, like any other. Name the first game console with a digital device can be very conditionally, since it consisted of forty transistors and the same number of diodes.

Cartridges were nothing but ordinary jumpers that closed the chain to one or another game of a small set, which is stitched directly into the console, there was no sound, which is not difficult to assume, based on the amount and quality of parts. To simulate color graphics, complete with the prefix walked special transparent plastic "screens" that needed to apply on TVs. Also these lining were used to change the rules in individual games.

Atari Pong.

However, we turn our eyes on the giant of the global gaming industry - Atari. In 1973, the company's engineer proposed "to shove the Pong gaming apparatus in a small box and make it possible to make it a home appointment with a TV." And they did, and at the end of 1974 the miniature device was ready for production, but suspended due to the fall in demand for the Magnavox console. Holding the horses, the company, however, agreed to sign a contract with Sears for the supply of 150 thousand consoles and, having seen unprecedented demand, in 1976 he decided to release consoles under his own brand. Over the next years, there is still no one modification of the console, the release terminates only with access to the new model market - Atari 2600, which marked the beginning of the second generation era.

Atari 2600.

The second generation of game consoles saw the light with the advent of ATARI 2600 in December 1977, which took the leading position in the late 70s - early 80s of the last century. At the turn of these two decades, Somewhere "Atari" immediately caused a substation with ATARI 2600.

And everything began very simple and, you can even say, standard. In 1975, Atari bought a Cyan Engineering research company with one sole purpose - to use the potential of the latter in the development of the game console of a new generation. By the time the console's readiness for serial release, the costs reached an astronomical amount of $ 100 million.

The prefix went to free sale at a price of $ 199 per set and at first did not even gain minimal popularity. In 1977, 250 thousand boxes were sold, but it was only in the last days of the outgoing year, which can be considered even success. A truly failure was the year 1978, in which 800 thousand from the conveyor came out from the conveyor was only 550. This was due, first of all, with a lack of games. The consumer was not surprised by the usual PONG and PACMAN, something new was required. Atari also constantly interfered with a direct competitor, Fairchild, shortly before the release of 2600 released his own, no less wonderful, Channel F. But in 1979, Fairchild leave the game console market at 1979, it is not clear how there is a seizure of the industry, and sales of Atari 2600 take off to 1 million per year. .

Channel F.

In 1980, Space Invaders enters that exactly twice revealed sales of Atari consoles, and at the expense of sales of even the cartridges of 2600, the company brings a total income of two billion dollars, and this is only the 80th. In the next two years, sales regularly multiply two - in 1982 it was sold about eight million consoles. Thus, one of the direction of the company brought more than half of the income.

However, in the company during the general lifting, there was obvious discontent of individual employees. Programmers who understood that they for their work, in comparison with the super-profits atari, get crumbs, left the company, organized their studios. The long-liver here can be considered Activision, founded in 1980. Not only long, but also the most good project. After all, it is their games that have become popular for the Atari themselves, in a woman in every possible way, trying to slow down and even prohibit the existence of third-party developers and their projects. But it is good that absolutely no avail.

1983 can be called the year of the final care of Atari 2600 from the scene. Commodore and Apple, who produced their inexpensive home computers, ruthlessly close "substructors". Unrealized, nobody needs consoles and cartridges to them were literally "sund on concrete" under Alamgordo, New Mexico. But on the horizon, the new heroine of Sagi - Nintendo Entertainment System, who did not have competitors who had conquered a fifty-tonic beauty, who had conquered many millions of hearts and saved the world from the "console crisis," with a new force reviving the home electronic entertainment industry.

Famicom

The birth of the console can be considered its appearance on the Japanese market called Famicom (Family Computer - Family Computer) in 1983. But, like all the good, appearing in Japan, the prefix officially debuted in the United States two years later, in 1985, with a new title - Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The face of the console became all the well-known macaronic brothers Mario, who even considered her talisman.

After the sale of a small number of slot machines at the very beginning of the 1980s, Nintendo thought about the release of their own home gaming system, able to replace all existing consoles and, first of all, to press the ATARI 2600 scrambled turns. Presented by the general public on July 15, 1983, Famicom at first everyone Very surprised and joy did not cause. The prefix was full of surprises and mistakes, the first batch had to withdraw to refine. Replace the motherboard, actually - complete rework. But already by the end of 1984, Famicom was published for the first place on sales in Japan, which was the main reason for the appeal to the Western market in search of new sales channels.

Nintendo Entertainment System

Having released the NES trial batch with a circulation of 50 thousand copies in New York and specially failing the market, Nintendo in February 1986 began a massive Western expansion and until the end of the eighties remained leaders in the group of manufacturers of gaming consoles in the United States and Japan. Sales of cartridges were even more incredible and brought even big money than the consoles themselves.

Speaking that the console did not occupy the leading position in Europe, do not forget that Nintendo had no official representation in the old world at the time. Even considering this, NES is still the most-selling console in the entire history of video game. In just ten years of the production of the console, more than 60 million NES and about 500 million cartridges were implemented.

With change of decades, consoles changed. SEGA has released a sixteen-bit Mega Drive, to which Nintendo responded with no less bit SUPER NINTENDO ENTERTIAINMENT SYSTEM (SNES). Naturally, the number of NES owners began to decline sharply. The views of the heads of companies that have released a huge number of not the necessary eight-bit systems, turned into unoccupied, less developed markets, but on Russian, as you know, it was already nowhere to come. Yes, and where there was enough gaze, everywhere got pirated copies of NES. It would be wrong to say that only Russia used the dandy. Copies and analogs appeared worldwide - in Europe, America, Australia ... and everywhere Nintendo participated in the judicial processes in the unenviable as the plaintiff.

Dendy

The US division in 1995 fully turned out the release of NES, however, Nintendo in Japan continued to produce Famicom in small circulations up to the fall of 2003. Surprisingly, but the fact. Now anyone can, if there is an emulator, play in loved and have become almost native games. The benefit that emulators are available for almost all platforms, including for iPhone.

After NES / Famicom / Dendy, there were all the already famous Sega Mega Drive, Sony Play Station, first the first, which made a new coup, then the second, even more raised the bar, its direct competitor - Microsoft Xbox. And finally, very modern representatives, about which there is nothing to tell - Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the triumphant return of Nintendo - Wii.

Such it, relatively long and difficult history of game consoles.

Each of us had game consoles in the childhood, and someone have them still. Computers then there was no gaming industry just started to master. In this post, I want to tell you about the history of game consoles, which companies started their production at the time and what game consoles are available at the moment.

Game console (It is more correct to the game console, from English. Video Game Console) - a specialized electronic device developed and created for video games. The most commonly used output device is a TV or, less often, a computer monitor - therefore such devices are called consoles, as they are attached to an independent display device. Portable (pocket) gaming systems have their own built-in display device (for nothing), so calling them slightly incorrectly.

The first generation of consoles:

Magnavox Odyssey (1972)

Magnavox Odyssey - The world's first home game console. Released in May 1972, ahead of the PONG system from ATARI for three years.

The story of Magnavox Odyssey began in the summer of 1966, when Ralph Baer began working on the prefix to TV with which it would be possible to play at home. In September, he had already had a plan of his actions and a block diagram of a game for two people. In parallel, he was engaged in the development of accessories to the console (for example, in 1967 created a prototype of the light gun).
On January 15, 1968, the Baer received the first patent for the video game, in October of the same year presented a working device that could already be used to play ping pong, volleyball and football. In January 1969, the "Brown Box" prototype was presented to manufacturers of televisions. After long negotiations, an agreement was signed with Magnavox.
Since March 1972, Magnavox Odyssey has become sold in stores at a price of $ 99.95. From 1972 to 1975, about 350 thousand consoles were sold, in 1975 the production of Odyssey was minimized and the model was replaced with Odyssey 100, a simple pong-shaped console.
In addition, Odyssey was sold by Nintendo (which had no own developments in this area) in Japan in 1975.

PONG (1975)

Pong. - ATARI gaming prefixer series, produced from 1975 to 1977. The consoles were sold under the ATARI and Sears Tele-Games stamps.

In 1973, the ATARI engineer Harolde Lee offered to create a homemade version of the Pong gaming machine. The development of the Code name of Darlene was launched at the beginning of 1974 by three designers: Harold Lee, Alan Alcorn and Bean Brown, and at the end of the year the console was created. However, due to the fall in demand for Magnavox Odyssey, sellers did not want to distribute the Atari console. In the end, an agreement was signed with Sears for the supply of 150,000 consoles for Christmas 1975 for sale under the Tele-Games brand owned by Sears. Sales were high (in some stores, buyers stood in the queues for several hours), and in 1976, Atari enters the market under its own brand. For two years (1976-1977), Atari creates and produces several modifications of the prefixes both under its own brand and under the sears brand. In addition, the company begins to produce other types of consoles - racing and pinbole. The release of all these gaming systems was discontinued at the end of 1977, when Atari introduced its second generation console - Atari 2600.

Coleco Telstar (1976)

Telstar - A series of game consoles made by Coleco, the foundation was the clones of the Pong console of Atari. The first modification of Telstar was released in 1976.

In 1975, two engineers of the Scottish branch of General Instruments developed a gaming chip. This chip had several advantages: first, he was a practically finished product (very few additional components were required to create a full-fledged gaming console), and secondly, he allowed to run six games with several levels of complexity.
Ralph Barae, the creator of the world's first game console Magnavox Odyssey, has become aware of this development; In addition, he knew that President Coleco Arnold Greenberg was looking for new ideas and design solutions. Baer told Greenberg about this chip, and soon Coleco began to purchase AY-3-8500 and use it in their prefixes called Telstar.
The prefix quickly became popular; Coleco has created and released 15 console modifications, of which 11 are based on the AY-3-8500 chip (and its versions 8510 and 8512). The differences between them were only in the number of games and levels of complexity, configuration of the consoles, as well as in the image output method, which could be colored or black and white.
Ultimately, the neorigability is a very numerous model range, as well as a gradual decline in interest in Pong-type game filiers almost brought Coleco to bankruptcy in 1980.

Second generation:

Fairchild Channel F (1976)

Fairchild Channel F. - The world's second game console with replaceable cartridge games and the first prefix with a cartridge containing the program. The first prefix using cartridges was Magnavox Odyssey, but its cartridge consisted only from the jumper set. The prefix was released by Fairchild Semiconductor in August 1976 called Video Entertainment System (VES) at a retail price of $ 169.95. Next year, after Atari released VCS, the prefix was renamed.

The prefix is \u200b\u200bbuilt on the Fairchild F8 microprocessor created by Robert Neis (Robert Noyce) before he left Fairchild to establish his own company - Intel. The F8 processor was quite complicated compared to typical integral chips of that time, and had more inputs / outlets than other chips of that time. Due to the inaccessibility at that time of the housings with the necessary number of conclusions, the F8 was released in the form of two separate chips, which together constituted the full-fledged central processor of the device. The graphics were quite simple, but color, which was a step forward compared to the prefix PONG of the same time. The sound was played through the inner speaker, and not through the TV.
The game controller was like a joystick without reason: the body was needed to hold in his hand, a triangular "hat", which was moving with the second hand, was elevated. The controller could be used as a joystick or Paddl, on the "Hat" could be pressed both on the gay or press it up. In the case of the device there was a special compartment for storing controllers when moving the console - it made sense because the controller wire was too thin and was known for its vulnerability.
Despite the initial popularity, only 26 cartridges were released for the console (but some cartridges contained more than one game), which were usually sold at a price of $ 19.95. These were large cartridges of yellow color, usually with a full-color sticker. The console contained two built-in games: Clone Pong and Hockey ("Hockey"). Hockey was more complex form PONG, reflecting the racket could change in diagonal and move forward and back.
The greatest effect of the appearance of Channel F on the market was that this was pushed by Atari to the release and improving its next-generation console, which was then in development (it wore the code name "Stella"). The new ATARI machine also used cartridges, and after they saw Channel F, they realized that the new console should be released before the market would be flooded with consoles on cartridges. Given the reduction in profits from no longer so popular Pong-systems, Atari had to sell Warner Communications in order to get the necessary money resources. When the ATARI VCS gaming system was released later, the ATARI VCS gaming system was released (called this to select the popularity of VES), it provided already significantly better image quality and sound.

RCA Studio II (1977)

RCA Studio II. - The gaming console, developed by RCA and released in January 1977. Console graphics were black and white and reminded the graphics of earlier Pong type systems. The console did not have a joystick or such a game controller, instead of the console body two 10-button keyboards were built into the case.
Among the features of the console was the presence of five built-in games and the console power through the cord for connecting to the antenna jack of the TV (power and television signal were divided in a separate device at the end of the cord). This connection method was rare and subsequently did not meet before the output of the Atari 5200 game console.
The console did not receive commercial success. At the time of the exit, it was already obsolete compared to the previously released Fairchild Channel F. Ten months later, an even more perfect ATARI 2600 console was also published. The release of RCA Studio II was discontinued in 1979.
Device I. specifications Consoles are similar to the COSMAC VIP microcomputer released by the same manufacturer in the same year.

Atari 2600 (1977)

Atari VCS, later named Atari 2600. Appeared for Christmas 1977 and became the dominant game prefix of the late 1970s - early 1980s. She became the first successful console with games on cartridges. In the 1980s, in the US, the word "Atari" was perceived as Synonym for ATARI 2600. The model was usually supplied with two joysticks or two paddle controllers, and one game - first it was Combat and then PAC-MAN.

In 1975, Atari acquires a Cyan Engineering research company to develop new generation gaming systems. For some time, work was carried out on the creation of a prototype, known under the name "Stella" (so called the bike of one of the engineers). Unlike the systems of previous generations containing several games programmed in the form of a set of logical elements, the STELLA kernel was a real central processor, which was used by MOS Technology 6502 in the reduced version, known as 6507. It was associated with a memory chip and input / output. Mos Technology 6532 as well as with video and sound chip TIA (Television Interface Adaptor) of its own development. In addition to these three chips, the first version of the car contained another one - the standard CMOS buffer chip. Thus, the number of chips was very small and the cost of construction remained relatively low. In later versions of the console, the buffer chip was removed. First, the use of the cartridge was not supposed, but seeing the likeness of the cartridge on another system, the engineers understood that they could put the cartridge games only adding a connecting socket and packaging.
In August 1976, Fairchild Semiconductor releases its VIDEO Entertainment System based on a microprocessor. Stella is not ready for production, but it becomes apparent that it needs to be released before the series of products in the style of "I, too,", as happened after the release of Pong. Atari simply lacks money to quickly complete the development of the system, since sales PONG are already going to no. As a result, Nolan Bushnell goes to Warner Communications and sells them a company for 28 million dollars with a promise that Stella will be released as quickly as possible.
The key contribution to the success of the console was the hiring of Jay Mainer, a microcircuit developer, which was able to simplify schematics in such a way that Tia was placed in one chip. After it was done, and the system was tested, it was ready for release. At the time of release in 1977, the cost of developing the console amounted to about 100 million dollars.

Magnavox Odyssey² (1978)

Magnavox Odyssey² - Game console, released in 1978. In Europe, it is known as Philips Videopac G7000, in Brazil - Philips Odyssey, in the USA - Magnavox Odyssey² and Philips Odyssey², as well as under several other names.
In the early 1970s, Magnavox was an innovator of the home video game industry. They began very well, presenting the gameSsey game prefix on the market, followed by several models with some technological improvements. In 1978, Magnavox (at that time she had already become a subsidiary North American Philips) released Odyssey², his second game console, which belong to the second generation of gaming systems.
In the first model Odyssey, the cartridge was essentially the map with the jumpers scheme, which included one of the built-in games that were 10 in European / Asian and 12 in the American version of the console. Odyssey², following the Fairchild Channel F and Atari 2600, used cartridges with a programmable ROM. With this improvement, each new game offered really new sensations, new graphics, gameplay, sound and their own rules of the game. The potential of the console has become much larger: each new game is now sold separately, the player can now draw up his own collection of games that corresponds to his own interests. Unlike many systems of that time, the odyssexy had a full-fledged alphanumeric membrane keyboard, which was supposed to be used to select options for learning games and programming.
Odyssey used the design of the joystick, which became standard in the 1970s - early 1980s: Initially, a silver medium-sized controller was supplied with the console, with a square base, the controller knob was moved in 8 directions; This joystick connected to the console through the connector. Later versions were supplied with a similar black controller, which was already harshly tied to the console. At the top of the base of the controller, one action button was located, silver in the original version and red in the black model.
One of the strongest sides of the console was a speech synthesis module, which was produced as an additional module for speech / musical / sound effects.

Intellivision (1980)

Intellivision - Game console, issued to the market by Mattel in 1979. The development of the console began in 1978, less than a year after the release of its main competitor - Atari 2600. The name "Intellivision" is made up of the words "Intelligent Television" - "Intellectual Television".

The creation of Intellivision began, as in the case of many other game consoles of the 80s, under the influence of high sales atari VCS. Mattel intended to reset the king from the throne with the help of a fairly advanced schedule, good games (most of the sports) and the main "option" - an additional keyboard, which turned a children's toy into a full-pitted home computer.
It cannot be said that the idea was crowned with a complete failure. The first batch of 200 thousand copies was sold out in a very short time, and the above-mentioned keyboard played above, which Mattel promised to release a little later. However, those who expected "count on Intellivision taxes" (quotation from the commercial) expected disappointment, since the expected 90-button keyboard did not see the light. The production of the keyboards was minimized after a short period of trial sales due to frequent breakdowns and inconvenience to use. Instead, in 1982, a device called IntellivoICE was released. Being connected to the console, this module gave some playments voice support that then it was a thing that is quite unique. At the same time, the second revisions of the console itself fell on the shelves of the stores, not too ingeniously called Intellivision II. From the original option, it was distinguished by a changed design of the building and a smaller price (the purpose of the rework actually was a decrease in the cost of production). Another curious feature was the presence of special instructions in the ROM system that did not allow the use of Coleco's Catridges.
Another year later, at Consumer Electronics Show, the Intellivision III prototype was presented to the general public. The new prefix had a tripled voice module, an unlimited color palette, a 6-channel sound, a large amount of memory and compatibility with all the games of the original Intellivision. Later, the announced system was renamed the Entertainment Computer System, and the printer was added to the list of promised features, the keyboard (finally) and the adapter, allowed to run games from Atari 2600.
But this ambitious idea after a few months after the presentation fell victim to the "gaming collapse of 1983", as a result of which such giants like Atari and Coleco were gone from the market. For example, Mattel followed them, selling all the rights to their console company INTV, organized by her (Mattel) former coar. The latter released another modification of the prefix, calling it Super Pro System, which was not sufficiently sold until 1990, having time during this time, among other things, to release 35 new games for it.

Vectrex (1982)

Vectrex - 8-bit gaming console developed by General Consumer Electric (GCE), later purchased by Milton Bradley Company. "Vectrex" is unique in that this is the only game system using a vector graphic monitor; No other system neither before, nor after it, did not use a similar configuration. "Vectrex" was sold to consumers since 1982 at a price of 199 dollars; Development devices stopped in 1984 during the recession in the gaming console market.
Unlike most other game consoles connected to a household TV to transmit a raster image (i.e. gaming consoles), "VECTREX" had its own built-in monitor depicting vector graphics. The monitor was monochrome, but a translucent painted film was imposed on the screen, its own for each game, which gave the illusion of colors, and also reduced the effect of flickering an image inherent in vector monitors.
One game was built into the system - "Mine Storm" (some similarity of the classic arcade game Asteroids), other games were supplied on cartridges.

Long than how the progressive part of mankind began to dream Makintosh, was Vectrex - a vector game system, according to the principle of everything in one. Vector graphics were used in the arcade automata in the distant 1980, starting with CineMetronics Space Wars in 1978. Probably the most famous game that uses vector graphics was Asteroids on ATARI. In 1981, Mike Purvis and John Ross from Western Technologies / Smith Engineering, attempted using quite cheap cathode-ray tubes of screens, create a home game system using vector graphics. Jay Smith, the head of this company ordered to continue the project, which was subsequently called the name of Mini Arcade. In the spring of 1981, Kenner's toy manufacturing company became interested in mini arcade, and was already planned to put it on release with a 5-inch screen and a black and white tube. However, in July, it was decided not to do this. In September, the same year, General Consumer Electronis (GCE) decided to rent a mini arcade project, and after the president of GCE, Greg Krakuer saw the concept design and early games, he immediately realized that it was goldmine. A few more modifications were performed, for example, the screen size was increased to 9 inches. The system was called "Home Arcade". In 1981, work on the prototype began with the aim of creating a hardware and 12 games by June 1982. John Ross took up the hardware, and Harry Car and John Hall began to create software (code name of the project "Execution"). In January 1982, another number of changes occurred.
In Vectrex, the MOS 6502 processor was supposed to use, but it was recognized too slow. And it was replaced by Motorola 6809. Also, John Hall finished work on one of the 12 games (subsequently called Mine Storm). Most of these games were similar (part just with accurate copies) of games from the arcade machines of that time. WT / SE concluded a contract with a famous developer of arcade machines - CinemeTronics, which gave access to all their games. The full source code has become available to the VECTREX programmers, and Cinematronics decided to make the full vescens of their arcade hits on Vecrex. 2 months later, when the vecrex prototype was already designed, the development moved to the S100 computer containing 2 drives - one for the CPM of the operating system, and the other for the data. In April, SCRAMBLE, MINE STORM (Asteroids clone), Bezerk, Rip Off and Star Trek were completed. The work immediately moved to other games for Vectrex, one of which was Cosmic Chasm (subsequently it was ported to arcade - perhaps the only case when the console game was ported on the arcade machine). Soon there is a decision on the use of colored layers. The idea of \u200b\u200busing layers was also borrowed from arcade (in which the layers were used for different purposes). Early 70s were black and white. If you wanted colors, then you had to stick to the screen the cellophane film, as it was in Breakout on Atari or in the famous Space Invaders. Also, the layers were used to smooth out some graphics defects.
For these reasons, it was decided to use the layers in the vectex system, and Miva Philosset began their development. His first work is a layer in Bedlam. However, there were annoying flashes, all because for some reason Miva decided to make a layer after the development of the game. These mistakes initially scared other developers, but soon, when Miba demonstrated all their capabilities, the layers became an integral part of the game. Soon Lena Carlson came up with how to add music and sound in many original games. The climbing of Vecrex'a on top of glory continued, Walter Nakano and Colin Munch, together, gave a unique view of Vecrex'y for 2 years, before the arrival of Makintosh computers, this species was unique. The next task was to develop a controller. It was decided to make it look like arcade. He had 4 buttons, and at the top of the joystick handle. To vecrex'y could be connected 2 joysticks, which made it possible to play two people at once.
In June of the same year, GCE home arcade and her 12 games were fully completed and prepared to show at the Summer exhibition Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, and the interest in it was great.
In the summer of 82nd, before the start of release, it turned out that another company had already given its project a home arcade name, so I had to change the name on Vectron. GCE did not like this name, and it was changed first on the VECTER-X, and then on Vectrex. Subsequently, the name is Vectrex and fixed for this console.
As with all the consoles of that time, Mine Storm games were sold on one cartridge, Vectrex was no exception. True, Vectrex'a one game (Mine Storm) was already built. It was a funny bug, allowing to get to the stage, which even the developers of the game did not guess. Subsequently, the bug was eliminated, and the new version of the game was released on one cartridge.
Vectrex entered American stores in November 1982 just before Christmas holidays. A box with a console, which includes one built-in game - Mine Storm and one joystick cost $ 199. The price was not small, even for Americans, but the demand for the system was huge.

Arcadia 2001 (1982)

Arcadia 2001. - 8-bit second-generation gaming console, issued by Emerson Radio Corporation in 1982.
The name of the console is not related to the Arcadia Corporation of the Starpath Supercharge extension device for ATARI 2600. Emerson filed to Arcadia Corporation due to a trademark violation, forcing it to change its name on Starpath. Emerson licensed Arcadia 2001 to various companies around the world, which led to the release of more than 30 versions of the console.
The original version of the console was originally uncompetitive at the time of its appearance in the United States. Almost at the same time, more advanced Atari 5200 and Colecovision consoles came to the market. In addition, Atari has had exclusive rights to many popular games, which made their appearance on Arcadia 2001 almost impossible.

Atari 5200 (1982)

Atari 5200 SuperSystem or simply Atari 5200. - ATARI's play console, released to the market in 1982 as a replacement of ATARI 2600 wide fame. Model 5200 was created to compete with Mattel Intellivision, but soon after the release of the prefix it turned out that she rather competes with Colecovision. Some of the flaw made during the design had a strong impact on the convenience of using the system, which is why the model as a whole can be recognized as unsuccessful.
Atari 5200 is largely based on 8-bit ATARI 400/800 computers, and the internal device is almost identical to them. Nevertheless, due to a number of problems, the prefix did not save software compatibility.
Models 5200 did not have enough compatibility with 2600, although later, in 1983, the adapter was released to launch games from 2600, which made it possible to use more reliable game controllers for old games. Another problem was in the lack of attention that Atari paid a new console - most of the resources were given atari 2600.

Colecovision (1982)

Colecovision. - The game console of the second generation of Coleco Industries, issued in August 1982. Colecovision offered graphics and gameplay at the level of slot machines, the ability to use games from other game systems (mainly from Atari 2600), as well as the expandability of the system's capabilities. The system was released at the same time with 12 games for her, and 10 games were planned to exit during 1982. During the time from 1982 to 1985, about 170 games (on cartridges) were released.

Externally, the console was a rectangular plastic case with a size of 14x8x2 inches, in which there was a console electronics. The cover of the cartridge slot was on the upper right side of the housing. The external power supply and the antenna cord connected to the connector behind the console. Gaming controllers were placed in a special recess in the housing, in the upper left side.
The Colecovision game controller design was similar to the Mattel Intellilation controller (released in 1979), but had a short 1.5 inch joystick handle instead of a rotating disk. The joystick was in the top of the controller, above the rectangular numeric keypad. Two side buttons and keyboard provided additional control capabilities, such as jump, shooting, or set of numbers sequence. Also attended a very thin slot to insert plastic linings containing a description of the use of buttons for a specific game. The console package included two such gaming controllers.
Coleco has entered into a license agreement with Nintendo, according to which the version of the game Donkey Kong has been included in each Colecovision. The transfer of this game with a slot machine on Colecovision was performed excellent, graphics and sound effects had a great similarity with the original.
Most of the other games released for Colecovision were also transferred games from slot machines (many of them were not very popular at the time).
Outside US Colecovision has been distributed by CBS Electronics, called CBS Colecovision.

Third generation:

Nintendo Entertainment System (1983)

Nintendo Entertainment System (NES in the United States, Famicom (Family Computer - Family Computer) in Japan, Dendy (Unofficial Clone in the post-Soviet space) - an eight-bit game console, popular in the second half of the 1980s and early 1990s. The Ricoh processor is used in the PAL version RP2C07 with a clock frequency of 1.66 MHz (1,662,607 Hz), and in the NTSC version of the RP2C02 processor with a clock frequency of 1,789,773 Hz. Maximum resolution - 256 × 240, palette of 52 colors, of which 26 are simultaneously displayed on the screen. 5-channel sound is supported.
For the first time, the console appeared in the Japanese market in 1983 called Famicom, and then, renamed NES, reached Europe and the United States in 1985. The novelty was solely successful, and managed to conquer almost the entire American and Japanese market. The console appeared with a large package of games, among which the most famous and sold became the family of games Super Mario Bros. Mario became Nintendo Talisman. In total, according to official data, more than 60 million consoles and more than 500 million games were sold. Since the console's output occurred shortly after the crisis of the game industry, many criticism of it attributing to her the revival of the game market and the opening of the third generation of video applicants, as successful hardware characteristics and a rich library of games were aroused by both consumers and developers who turned away from the gaming industry after Crash.
Since the early 1990s, NES began to decline steadily to be steadily due to the appearance of more advanced sixteen-bit consoles, primarily Sega Mega Drive and the next generation of consoles from Nintendo - SNES / SUPER FAMICOM. Nevertheless, the console issue continued until 2003.
Since 1993, NES has appeared in Russia in the form of a hardware clone of the named Dendy, illegally produced in China, the company STEEPLER was engaged in its distribution. The production of the console was officially discontinued in 1995. However, the NES game library is available to most modern users. computer Systems With emulators. Also in the NES games can be played in Wii Virtual Console.

Atari 7800 (1984)

Atari 7800. - The game console, released by Atari in June 1986 (trial release took place two years earlier). The 7800 model was designed to replace the unsuccessful Atari 5200 and to return ATARI superiority in the game console market, which she divided with Nintendo and Sega. In this system, Atari eliminated all the drawbacks atari 5200: instead of analog joysticks, she had simple digital joysticks, was almost fully compatible with Atari 2600 and it was even cheaper - the initial price was $ 140.
The 7800 became the first ATARI game system developed by the external company (General Computer Corporation; after that, atari Lynx and Atari Jaguar were developed outside the company). The system was designed so that it can be complemented to a full-fledged home computer - a keyboard has been developed, which also had an extension port (it was a SiO port from an 8-bit ATARI family) to connect the periphery - such as a flexible disk drive or printer.

SEGA MASTER SYSTEM (1986)

Sega Master System - 8-bit game console, released by SEGA in 1986 in the United States, and in 1987 - in Europe and Japan.
* Console history in development *

Fourth generation:

PC Engine (1987)

PC Engine. - Game console issued by NEC in Japan on October 30, 1987, in North America at the end of August 1989 under the name Turbografx-16. There was no official PAL-version of the console, but in the form of a gray import it was available in the UK and continental Europe in 1990 under the name Turbografx.
PC Engine was an 8-bit console with a 16-bit graphics processor, with the ability to display 482 colors at the same time.
PC Engine at that time was a new generation system. The carriers were Hucard cartridges. Thanks to the graph, the console dominated the Japanese market at that time. NEC The first began to produce games on CDs in which you could play using an additional device - Turbografx CD.

Sega Mega Drive (1988)

Sega Mega Drive. - 16-bit game console, issued by Sega in 1988 in Japan, and in 1990 - in Europe and other countries. In North America, the prefix was released under the name of Genesis, as Sega could not register the MEGA DRIVE brand there.

In Japan, the prefix was released on October 29, 1988. Initially, it was planned that atari will be engaged in the spread of the new console in the United States, but the sides could not come to a mutually beneficial agreement, as a result of which SEGA decided to deal with the spread of consoles on his own. The first batch of consoles were brought to New York and Los Angeles on August 14, 1989, in other cities of deliveries came somewhat later.
In Europe, sales began only on 30 November 1990. By that time, the previous console released by SEGA - Sega Master System took a solid market share, thanks to this Sega Mega Drive quickly won popularity. In addition, immediately after the appearance of a new console in European markets, the most powerful advertising campaign started. At that time, a lot of games were released for a new platform, many were ported from slot machines - Alterated Beast, Golden Axe, Ghouls' N Ghosts, but there were also many independent projects. The Sonic The Hedgehog game has diverged by record essays in North America, Brazil, Japan, as well as a number of European countries.
Initially, Sega Mega Drive competed only with the NES console released by Nintendo. By the time NES strongly outdated in technical terms and could not oppose the new console. The only advantage of NES was the low price, which made the console available to most potential users. Thanks to this, the console was not bad for sale in Japan until the end of the nineties.
Super Famicom Prefix (also known as Super NES), released in early 1990, was positioned as the most powerful 16-bit console. But in some parameters, Super Famicom exceeded SEGA MD, and in others a lot lagged. A vivid example of this is the Super Famicom processor, which was weaker SEGA MD more than twice. Nevertheless, Nintendo began to capture the market. Thanks to the support of many companies of developers (including Electronic Arts), Sega MD long enough and unsuccessfully competed with the new creation of Nintendo.
The fate of the console was predetermined after a series of extremely unsuccessful marketing moves. In particular, additional devices, such as SEGA MEGA CD (a device for reading CDs), demanded considerable costs in production, which as a result did not justify themselves, the victims of considerable losses, SEGA engineers engaged in the development of a new 32x-bit console - Sega Saturn . Despite the fact that in the mid-nineties, SEGA actually stopped supporting Mega Drive, the games for her were published until 1998, and on the territory of Brazil she took about 75% of the market, even after the release of 32x-bit consoles, such as Sony Playstation, Sega Saturn And Panasonic 3Do.

Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1990)

SUPER NINTENDO ENTERTINMENT SYSTEMAlso known as Super Nintendo, Super Nes and SNES - 16-bit game console, released Nintendo in the USA, Brazil, Europe and Australia. In Japan, it is known as Super FamiCom (Super Family Computer). In South Korea, she was called Super Cowboy and distributed Hyundai Electronics.
Super Nintendo Entertainment System has become the second home console Nintendo, following the NES (in Japan produced as Famicom). The system has gained great popularity in a large part of Asia, but nevertheless could not achieve the popularity of its predecessor in Southeast Asia and North America because of the great competition from Sega Mega Drive. Despite its late start, SNES has become the most well-selling console of a 16-bit era, but only after SEGA left the 16-bit system market, focusing on the 32-bit market.

When the original NES / Famicom was on top of its popularity, other companies developed their own game consoles. In 1987 and 1988, respectively, NEC and SEGA have released their consoles: PC Engine (known in the States as Turbografx 16) and Mega Drive / Genesis (one of the first 16-bit home consoles). Although NES could continue to dominate the video game market, by that time it is already outdated technically. At first, Nintendo managers did not express any interest in the development of a new system, but the growing market for SEGA Mega Drive and NEC PC Engine console market forced Nintendo to change their mind.
Masyuki Uemura, a few years previously responsible for the development of Famicom, was raised at the head of the development of Super Famicom. She was released in Japan on November 12, 1990 at a price of 25,000 ¥. Instant sales of 300,000 pieces in a few hours attracted the attention of Yakuza, which led to a solution to deliver the console at night to avoid robbery. In Japan, Super Famicom became much more popular than its main opponent, Mega Drive, and Nintendo retained control over 85% of the Japanese console market. Partially it was due to the fact that with it there were third-party developers of Famicom games, including Capcom, Konami, Tecmo, Square Co., Ltd., Koei, and Enix.
Nine months later, in August 1991 (early sources indicate a date on August 13, but the exact definition of the date is impossible due to the non-ordinance of North American video game providers at the time), Nintendo released Super Famicom in the United States. For the American market, a fire redesign was performed, and the system itself received the name Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Sailed at $ 199 dollars, the North American kit included the Super Mario World game. SNES was released in England and Ireland in April 1992 at a price of 150 pounds, the German release followed several weeks later. The PAL version of the consoles look identically Japanese Super Famicom, with the exception of logos.
The victory of Nintendo in the Japanese market was not repeated in America and Europe. By the time of launching SNES in these countries, Sega Mega Drive has already won most of the market, mainly due to the lower price of the console and games, as well as aggressive Sega marketing, and the great popularity of the console itself. In addition, many players expected from the developers of the backward compatibility of new consoles with old games (as it was in the case of Atari 2600 and Atari 7800), but SNES had no support for NES games.
Rivalry between Nintendo and Sega led to the most uncompromising console war in video game history. Nintendo so never managed to receive leadership in the Pal region, and did not try to achieve this in the USA until 1994, while SEGA did not leave the 16-bit console market.
Super Nintendo appeared in Russia in 1995, and distributed through the same dealer network, which also sold Dandy. Simultaneously with licensed cartridges were also sold and pirated, which did not differ in price.
In 1996, the era of 16-bit consoles ended, and with the advent of a new generation of consoles, including Nintendo 64, the popularity of SNES began to fall. In October 1997, Nintendo issued an updated console version, SNES-2, in the US, at a price of 99 dollars (the Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island) was included in the kit. As in the case of NES-2, the new model was smaller and easier than its predecessor, but lost S-VIDEO and RGB outputs. At the same time, Super Famicom Jr was released for the Japanese market, which had similar changes.
Nintendo of America stopped production SNES in 1999. In Japan, Super Famicom continued to be made until September 2003 (new games came out until 2000). In recent years, many SNES games have been ported to the Game Boy Advance Pocket Gaming Console, which has similar to the video system. Some critics call the Era SNES "Golden Age of Video Games", pointing to a large number of Popular games designed for the system.
In 2005, it was announced that Super NES games will be available on the new Nintendo Wii console through the Virtual Console service. At the moment, all games for SNES developed by Nintendo will be available for the American market. No official information on the possible availability of games from third-party developers and games issued for Japanese and European markets.

NEO-GEO (1991)

NEO-GEO. - Game console (originally gaming machine), created by the Japanese company SNK in 1991. Unlike the slot machine, the prefix version was not popular because of the high price. Later, a version with a CD drive was released, but it was also not gained popularity due to long downloads of games. The issue was discontinued in December 1997.
Games that have been produced under this console, offered users quite high-quality 2D graphics and high-quality sound.
In the console, the Motorola 68000 central processor was used with a frequency of 12 MHz (or its clones), as well as the Zilog Z80 coprocessor with a frequency of 4 MHz. Sound processor: 15-channel Yamaha YM2610.
The main memory (RAM) is 64 KB, video memory 68 KB, memory under sound - 2 KB. Screen resolution - 320x224.

Fifth generation:

Amiga CD32.

Amiga CD32. - 32-bit game console based on CD-ROM. It is often referred to as the first home 32-bit game system, but it does not quite match the truth (see FM Towns Marty). Its launch took place at the London Museum in London (United Kingdom) on July 16, 1993. Sales in Europe began in September 1993. As the basis of CD32, the AGA chipset from Commodore was used, and its characteristics were similar to the characteristics of the AMIGA 1200 computer. It was possible to additionally add a CD32 keyboard, drive, and a mouse manipulator, which turned it into a personal computer. MPEG video decoding module is also available for video CD playback.

Atari Jaguar.

Atari Jaguar. - The game console, released in November 1993 by ATARI as an estimated competitor to Sega Mega Drive / Genesis and SNES [Source not specified 112 days]. At one time, it was a powerful plaffam of the next (fifthly) generation of television gaming consoles. I went on sale at a price of $ 249.99. Advertised as the "first 64-bit system", which was a tricky advertising move.

However, a limited number of games was released for the console, most of which were poor quality, which had a negative impact on the sales console. For reasons, there is also a failure of the selected medium (cartridge) and price policy. Exit to the market at the end of 1995 PlayStation, which used the carrier of an incomparable greater capacity (CD), which has a decent starting set of video games and sold at the price of only 300 dollars. Atari jaguar perip. In the period from the end 1993 to the end of 1995, only 125,000 copies were sold. And although the manufacturer was made attempts to attract buyers' interest in the console, having released the ATARI Jaguar CD CD adapter in a rush order, the device for saving the Memory Track game status and a joint game device on two CDs Jaglink, these actions could not increase sales. Prederpev Serious losses, Atari was forced to leave the game console market.

Despite the economic failure, later the console received among the fans of the video game the status of a cult, mainly due to the decent base of amateur games written for her by the players.

Sega Saturn.

Sega Saturn. (Yap. セガサターン Saga Sata: H?) - Game console with a bit of 32 bits. She was released on November 22, 1994 in Japan, in May 1995 in the USA and July 8, 1995 in Europe. 170,000 copies were sold on the first day of launch in Japan. But only 5,000 copies were sold in the weekend in the United States. The most popular console was in France.

Playstation.

Sony Playstation. (Yap. プレイステーション) - Game console, developed by Sony Computer Entertainment under the leadership of Caen Kutaragy and released in the mid-1990s. PlayStation is a 32-bit system that has become the first in a series of widely spread game systems. The release of PlayStation in Japan was held on December 3, 1994, in the United States, the prefix appeared on September 9, 1995, and in Europe - September 29, 1995, the prefix was very popular, providing a Sony breakthrough in the gaming industry, where Nintendo and SEGA. To date, more than 100 million copies of PlayStation are sold in the world.
The first conceptual ideas relating to PlayStation are dating in 1986. Nintendo made attempts to apply discs starting with NES (Famicom Disk System), but with the carrier there were problems. The record made on the magnetic disk is easily erased, and there was a danger of pirated copying. Therefore, when the CDROM / XA specification appears (extension of the CD-ROM standard, allowing you to write to the disk as a compressed sound and arbitrary binary data), Nintendo became interested in it. CDROM / XA was developed by Sony and Philips. Nintendo applied to Sony to develop an add-on having a preliminary name "SNES-CD". A contract was concluded, and the work began. The choice of Sony as a partner was made due to previous transactions: Ken Kutaragy, a person who will later call the "Father PlayStation", was those who at one time persuaded Nintendo to use the Sony SPC700 processor as a sound synthesizer for SNES, making an impressive demonstration of opportunities chip.

Sony also planned to develop its gaming console compatible with Nintendo, such that could play games with both Super Nintendo cartridges and the format CDs that will be designed in Sony. This format should have become the format used for SNES-CD discs, which would give Sony some share of the video game market control, despite the leading position of Nintendo.

In 1989, SNES-CD was to be shown at Consumer Electronics Show (CES). However, when Hiroshi Yamauti read the 1988 contract between Sony and Nintendo, he realized that the agreement gives Sony full control over any products that are coming in SNESCD-ROM format. Yamauti was treated: considering the contract completely unacceptable, he secretly canceled all plans for the production of a joint product. On the opening day of CES, at 9 am, instead of an announcement of collaboration with Sony, the director of Nintendo Howard Lincoln (Howard Lincoln) came out to the stands and reported that his company begins cooperation with Philips and ejects all the developments made in conjunction with Sony. In front of this, Lincoln and Minor Arakawa secret from Sony visited Philips headquarters in Europe and formed the Alliance on completely different conditions given Nintendo full control over all licenses.

The morning announcement on the CES became shock not only for the organizers of the exhibition (the previous evening Sony was optimistic about the project called "Play Station"), but also for many representatives of the Japanese business community who considered the refusal as a heavy betrayal: one Japanese company humiliates another Japanese company in The benefit of the European company - for Japanese businessmen it looked unthinkable.
After the collapse of the Alliance, Sony decided to stop the development, but ultimately the company decided to use what was worked out at the moment, and create a complete, completely independent console. This led to the fact that Nintendo filed to Sony for violation of the contract and tried through the US Federal Court to receive a legal ban on the production of the prefix, on the grounds that Nintendo has the right to its name. The federal judge, who defeated the case, decided to impose a judicial arrest on a new console. Thus, in October 1991, the Sony PlayStation's first reincarnation was stopped.

By the end of 1992, Sony and Nintendo came to the agreement for which Sony Play Station was able to still play the ported games from SNES, but Nintendo became the owner of the rights and received a part of the profit from the Games, and SNES still used the sound chip from Sony. Nevertheless, at that time, Sony had already understood that SNES technology would soon leave the past, and the appearance of the next generation of consoles is not far off. In early 1993, Sony began to work on the refinement of the "Play Station" concept until the next generation of hardware and software; During this process, the SNES cartridge port was thrown out, the space between the names of the name of the name was removed - the PlayStation is suitable.

Nintendo 64.

Nintendo 64.(Ultra 64, N64) - 64-bit game console. Developed by the Japanese company Nintendo together with Silicon Graphics. It was released in 1996 (June 23 in Japan and September 29 in the USA) and became the answer to the prefixes of Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn competitors. The clock frequency of the central processor is 93.75 MHz, graphic - 62.5 MHz. Equipped with rAM The volume of 4.5 MB. The maximum resolution was 640 × 480 at a 24-bit color depth. Thanks to the participation of Silicon Graphics, a mass of innovations associated with three-dimensional graphics appeared in this console: smoothing textures, MIP-Mapping, etc. The cartridge of up to 64 MB was selected as a gaming medium.

Along with the Nintendo console released the first 3D Super Mario 64 platformer, which demonstrated its innovations in all its glory. This gave the initial impetus. However, the first time of the games for Nintendo 64 was extremely small: not everyone was given the features of programming for her, in addition, many frightened the outdated format of the carrier (both major competitors were then switched to CDs that had a large capacity and were more convenient and cheaper). Nintendo herself was not ready to fully ensure their console game projects. But by 1998, the situation was recovered, and N64 ranked second in the market of game consoles after PlayStation (the Saturn project then could already be considered failing).

Sixth generation of game consoles:

PlayStation 2.

PlayStation 2. (PS2) (Yap. プレイステーション 2 Pureceuthe: Son Tsu :?) - The second game console, released by Sony, Heirection PlayStation and PlayStation Precedentation 3. On the start of development was announced in March 1999, the sale of the console in Japan began on March 4, 2000 G., in North America - October 26, 2000 and in Europe - November 24, 2000.

PS2 - the sixth generation gaming console, which has become the most quickly sold and, possibly, the most popular game console in the history of computer games. For 2008 in the world
More than 140 million PS2 instances were sold.
"Father" PlayStation is called Ken Kutaraga, who stood at the head of the group engaged in the development and marketing to the market first PlayStation (in 1994), and then PlayStation 2.

In the first year of release, Sony faced serious problems associated with low volumes of production of consoles on factories, and with constant shortages of consoles in the retail network. The developers constantly complained about the difficulties in obtaining documentation and support, as well as the fact that the system is very complex for programming [the source is not specified 123 days]. By the end of 2000, only a few million people were able to purchase the prefix. A popular way to quickly obtain the prefix was the acquisition of it on Internet auctions, such as eBay. The successful start of sales of the console was provided by the Sony brand power, as well as backward compatibility with the previous model, which made it possible to sell 900 thousand consoles only for the first week of sales in Japan.

One of the most notable features of the advertising campaign was the PS9 advertising video, which has portrayed events so that the release of PS2 is another step towards the final, 9th version of the console. The same roller was used in the PlayStation Portable advertising campaign.

Many analysts predicted three-way rivalry between PS2 and its competitors - Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo Gamecube (the latter was the cheapest of three and had an open market of games [Source is not specified 123 days]). However, the yield of several blockbuster games during the 2001 Christmas holidays season gave PS2 a strong impulse, sufficient to break away from competitors.

Although in the early years of Sony did not pay much attention to online games, the situation has changed after the Xbox exit, in which this opportunity was initially. Sony adapted to this at the end of 2002, having released several popular games (such as SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals) with the support of multiplayer online mode. Sony was actively advertised and her online model was supported by Electronic Arts. In Sony, as in Nintendo, later thought about the support of online games. Although both of these firms went along the path of use for such games of a decentralized model, when responsibility for providing game servers lies on the developer, however, Sony's attempt to ensure this opportunity has become one of the key points in the success of sales PS2.

In September 2004, before the release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (the best-selling game of the New Year's season of 2004) Sony presented a new, reduced version of the console. When preparing for the start of sales of a new model (SCPH-70,000), in the summer of 2004, Sony stopped the production of old (SCPH-5000X), so that the current reserves were empty in the warehouses. Later in some cities, this led to a delay in sales of a new model. For example, it happened in the UK, due to the fact that the Russian oil tanker was stuck in the Suez Channel, while blocking a ship from China with a load of PS2 consoles, intended for the United Kingdom; For one of the weeks of November, sales of the prefix in this country amounted to 6,000 copies, at 70,000 sales for the previous week. The supply deficit was also felt in North America on Christmas Eve.

Xbox

Xbox- Game console, developed and manufactured by Microsoft. For the first time went on sale on November 15, 2001. This is the first independent performance of Microsoft on the game console market after a project to develop a version of the Windows CE operating system for the game prefixer DreamCast. Microsoft Xbox directly competed with Sony PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Gamecube. The Xbox 360 prefix was the heirement of the XBOX.

Nintendo Gamecube.

Nintendo Gamecube. [Nintendo Game Kube] (Yap. ゲーム キューブ; Initially, Dolphin was called Dolphin; the official GCN abbreviation) is the fourth game console of Nintendo, which belongs to the sixth generation of gaming systems. Gamecube itself was the most compact and cheapest game prefix in the sixth generation. Gamecube was released on September 14, 2001 in Japan, November 18, 2001 in North America at a price of $ 9.95; May 3, 2002 in Europe; and May 17, 2002 in Australia.

Gamecube was first mentioned in No. 145 issue of Nintendo Power magazine. Luigi's Mansion was the first game (Issue No. 150).

GameCube is the heiress Nintendo 64 and the Wii predecessor, which retains backward compatibility with games, game controllers and GameCube memory cards.

This gaming platform has several exclusive projects, such as the remake of the first Resident Evil with fully recycled graphics, animation and sound. After the modifications, the game gained significantly better, in comparison with the original, modified engine. Another exclusive - Resident Evil Zero, the events of which begin the day before the development of the story line of the first Resident Evil. This list also includes Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes - a significantly revised version of the game Metal Gear Solid.

A mini-dvd format with a diameter of eight centimeters was used as a carrier.

Dreamcast.

Dreamcast.- The fifth and last game console of the company SEGA and the heir to Sega Saturn. As an attempt to win the market during the sixth generation of game systems, Dreamcast was designed to compete with PlayStation and Nintendo 64. The prefix was released in fifteen months before the release of PlayStation 2 and three years before the Gamecube with Xbox. However, she failed to collect enough popularity before the release of PlayStation 2, and SEGA decided to close the project and leave the game console market.

Seventh generation of game consoles:

Xbox 360.

Xbox 360. - The game console of the seventh generation from Microsoft. [The source is not specified 125 days] developed in collaboration with IBM, ATI and SIS companies. [Source not specified 125 days] Xbox Live service allows you to play on the network, download diverse content like demo version, trailers , music, TV shows, etc. [The source is not specified 125 days] positioned as the main competitor Sony PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii. Three options of the publication of the console: Arcade, Pro and Elite (Core and Premium versions are removed from production, they were replaced by Arcade and Pro, respectively). [Source not specified 125 days]

On November 22, 2005, official launch in the United States took place. In the first two weeks since the start of sales in the United States, more than 400 thousand kits Xbox 360 were implemented. Until the end of 2005, the system launches were followed in Europe and Japan. The release in Japan was failure - for a year and a half, only 420 thousand consoles were sold.

The name of the Xbox 360 in Microsoft was not chosen immediately. The Xenon, Xbox 2, Xbox NEXT and NEXTBOX options were discussed. The Xbox 2 variant refused due to the title of the main competitor - PlayStation 3.

Wii.

Nintendo Wii. (Nintendo UI) - Game console (MFA: [Wiː], pronounced English. Property WE (We)) 7th generation, 5th home console of Nintendo and Heir to Nintendo Gamecube. Until April 27, 2006, when the official name of the console was announced, it wore the Revolution code name. As the Gaming System of the 7th Generation, is a direct competitor of Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony Play Station 3. Although Nintendo does not position its Wii console as a rival PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, it is ranked to the seventh generation by the output time (the period between the releases of Xbox 360 and PS3), as well as innovative gaming controllers. Nintendo argues that its console is focused on a wider audience than both competitors. A distinctive feature of the console is the Wii Remote wireless controller that responds to the player's movement.

PlayStation 3.

Sony PlayStation 3, PS3(Yap. プレイステーション 3 Pureisuthe: Syon Suri :?) - Seventh Generation Game Poster, Third (Formally), but fourth taking into account PSP (PS1, PS2, PSP and, then, PS3) in the PlayStation Game Systems Systems. Using PS3 you can play, watch movies, listen to music, send mail and open web pages. Also from the moment the PS3 starts, most games for PlayStation and PlayStation 2 support.

The main competitors of the console are the XBOX 360 from Microsoft and Wii from Nintendo. The PS3 yield in Japan took place on November 11, 2006, on November 17, the prefix appeared in North America (including Mexico in the first quarter of 2007), and in March 2007 - in Europe. Originally there were two configurations of the system, the main difference of which was in the volume hard disk: 20 GB in a cheaper version and 60 GB - in full configuration. The model with 20 GB was relatively popular in Japan, but in North America, its sales were discontinued on April 11, 2007 due to small demand. On July 9, 2007, Sony announced the start of the sales model from 80 GB of memory in North America in August 2007. On October 5, 2007, a version with hard disk 40 GB, not supporting games from Sony PlayStation 2 and without a built-in card reader. On August 20, 2008, the update of this version with a hard disk on 80 GB appeared. It is equipped with DualShock 3 joystick and, as well as the previous model on 40 GB, has only 2 USB connections and does not support PlayStation 2 format.

At the moment [when?] Sales of the Console with a disk at 60 GB in Russia officially discontinued. Thus, three versions of the console remained on the Russian market - with rigid discs at 40, 80 and 160 GB (sales of the latter began on October 31, 2008).

At the Gamescom exhibition in Cologne, held from 20 to 23 August 2009, a new version of the console was announced, the name world was called PS3 SLIM (the official name of PlayStation 3 120 GB), which is characterized by smaller dimensions and less power consumption, works quieter, but Does not install other OS (such as Linux). At the same conference, a decline in the price of the prefix was announced. [Source not specified 24 days]

The appearance in PS3 SLIM stores caused a huge splash of interest in the Sony console. In Japan, she even managed to beat their own record. Thus, in the first two days of sales of the original PS3 in Japan, 88,000 copies of the prefix were reappeted in Japan, while PS3 SLIM was separated in an amount in an amount exceeding 150,000 units. For the UK, similar data - analysts celebrate sales growth by 999%.

Nintendo ds.

Nintendo ds. (Abbreviated NDS or DS) - the next generation of Nintendo's pocket gaming consoles after Game Boy Advance Sp. The console was released in 2004 in Canada, the USA and Japan.

Nintendo DS has the design of "clamshells" with two liquid crystal screens, and the bottom screen is sensitive to pressing (eng. Touch-Screen) stylus or finger (it is recommended to use the stylus) that is used in many games. Special screen coverage provides wear resistance, and the stylus attached to the console is attached to the rear panel. The console has a built-in microphone, which is used in some games to feed voice commands or sharing voice messages with other consoles. Nintendo DS supports IEEE 802.11 wireless communication standard (Wi-Fi), which allows you to organize a simultaneous connection of 16 consoles that are at a distance of 10-30 meters from each other. For many games, several players require only one game cartridge. The console also has a clock and alarm clock.

Nintendo DS stereo sound ensures the "sound around" effect (eng. Surround Sound), the use of stereo handphones is supported.

From January 26, 2006, a new version of the console is available - Nintendo DS Lite, characterized by smaller dimensions, improved design, as well as brighter screens.

On October 2, 2008, Nintendo DSI was announced in Tokyo - the third model of the Nintendo DS family. Less device thickness, the GBA slot disappeared, 2 cameras, 256 MB of internal flash memory and an SDHC slot appeared.

PlayStation Portable.

PlayStation Portable. (Official PSP abbreviation, also known as PSP-1000 and PSP FAT) - Portable Gaming Console manufactured by Sony Computer Entertainment. PlayStation Portable is the third product of Sony in the PlayStation Line. The PSP announcement was held at E3 2003, and the first console was demonstrated to the public on May 11, 2004 at a press conference held by Sony within E3 2004. The first sales of the console were started in Japan on December 12, 2005, in North America on March 24, 2005, And in the Pal regions on September 1, 2005.

PlayStation Portable is the first portable gaming console, which uses the Optical Drive Universal Media Disc (UMD), as the main media. Forward distinctive features of the game console are: a large widescreen LCD display, extended multimedia capabilities and the possibility of connecting to PlayStation 3, Internet and Another PSP.

GP2X.

GP2X is a portable computer that uses open source software based on Linux, which is a tuning game console and multimedia player. Gamepark Holdings (GPH) is made, founded by former Game Park workers. Its predecessor can be considered the GP32 which was developed by Game Park.

GP2X can emulate systems such as Game Boy Advance, Mega CD, Neo Geo, Sega Genesis, Master System, Game Gear, Commodore 64, Nes, PC-Engine / Turbografx 16 and others.

Nintendo DS Lite.

Nintendo DS Lite. (Sometimes it is reduced to DSLITE) - a portable gaming console with two screens, developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It is a more easy, thin, improved version of Nintendo DS with a more "smooth" design (elements of which are borrowed from Game Boy Advance SP), designed for a wider audience.

As of December 31, 2008, the global sales volume of Nintendo DS Lite amounted to 75.74 million copies.

PlayStation Portable Slim and Lite

PlayStation Portable. (Official abbreviation PSP) - Portable Gaming Console manufactured by Sony Computer Entertainment. At the E3 2007 Sony announced a new PSP version, which went on sale in September 2007.

Long ago, to play video games, children and adolescents had to go to the game halls. Now everything has changed - the children play their favorite video games, sitting on the sofa at home. What did everything start?

And it all started with the engineer Ralph Baire. Developing TV in 1951 in New York, he first thought about interactive television. And in 1966, the Baer creates a simple video game for two players, Chase. An ordinary TV was used to display the image of the game. In this simple game, two points chased each other on the screen.

In 1968, the first prototype of the video prefix "Brown Box" comes out. He had two controllers, a light gun and sixteen switches that could be chosen game to play.

Baer tried to negotiate with several manufacturers. As a result, an agreement was reached with Magnavox in 1969. Already in May 1972, Magnavox Odyssey comes out - one of the first gaming consoles in which the cartridges were used.

In August 1976, Fairchild Semiconductor produces the world's first microprocessor game console with the possibility of using games on cartridges - Fairchild Ves.

However, a truly "home" game console becomes in 1977, when Atari has released a Gaming video to the VCS prefix (Video Computer System), known later as Atari2600. In the same year, Nintendo released its TV Game 6 game console. However, Atari2600 quickly became the most popular of all early gaming consoles.

In 1978, Magnavox manufactures its Microprocessor Console Odyssey in the United States and Canada. Philips Electronics releases the same console in Europe called Philips G7000. Prior to this, Philips also developed a family of more powerful Interton VC 4000 consoles.

In those days (however, arcades were very popular. And Midway releases its first game that could save. What was it called? World famous "Space Invaders"!

In 1979, Activision is formed from the programmers who left Atari. She became the first third-party video game developer. In the next few years, there are several new developers going in the Foots of Activision.

In 1980, a huge number of classical arcades were created. For example, all the well-known video games from Atari 'Asteroids' or from Namco 'Pacman', which can now be easily played on portable game consoles such as Nintendo DS.

In the same year, Mattel produces an Intellivision console. She had a unique processor with 10-bit width instructions and 16 bits registers. However, it was more expensive than Atari's prefix. And besides, Atari has owned exclusive rights to porting games from most popular slot machines. So she remained the leader in the video console market.

In 1982, the market was already fightered with game consoles. Shelves of stores began to fill down poor-quality games from new third-party developers. Personal computers have become more and more accessible to a simple person. As a result, in December 1982, a crisis arises, which continues the entire 1983 year.

Magnavox and Coleco closed their divisions for the production of games and finally left the market. Atari was sold, the rest went bankrupt. Those who remained afloat had to change. So, Activision survives and continues to develop due to restructuring. Only the name remains from the initial company. For several years, the video game industry has become unprofitable. The strongest companies are the strongest companies - Nintendo, Sega and Atari are the leading market competitors.

In 1983, Nintendo releases a "entertainment system" - NES "Nintendo Entertainment System" known in Japan as Famicom (from English. Family Computer is a family computer). It is with the release of this console that the revival of the video game industry is associated. By 1985, this prefix wins the American market.

However, in spite of NES dominance, there were other popular consoles on the market - Sega Master System and Atari 7800. In addition, in 1987, sales of the SHARP X68000 console began in Japan.

At this time, the first role-playing computer games and two-dimensional games with the type of "side", such as Super Mario Bros, appear. And Sonic The Hedgehog. And the first parts of many famous game series are published: Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Dragon Quest, Metroid, Mega Man, Metal Gear, Castlevania, Final Fantasy, Phantasy Star and Bomberman.

On October 30, 1987, the 16-bit Nec PC Engine prefix (known as Turbografx-16 in North America's market). Gaming consoles are becoming popular again. The main competitors are the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Mega Drive console. The struggle for the market between the two largest companies in the gaming industry of that time, Nintendo and Sega, has become one of the most significant chapters in the history of video game.

By 1995, Atari does not withstand competition and leave the game console market. However, a new competitor arises - Sony, whose popularity increases and breaks into leaders among manufacturers of gaming consoles. This year, Sony releases 'PlayStation' - 32-bit game console with CDs, Sega releases 'Saturn', and Nintendo - 'Nintendo 64', which were the last game consoles with cartridges.

November 27, 1998, comes out of Sega Dreamcast. The first game 128-bit console. However, in March 2001, Dreamcast was discontinued.

In March 2000, Sony releases PlayStation 2 and becomes an absolute leader in the gaming console market, selling over 100 million game consoles. PlayStation 2 has become the first game prefix, having the opportunity to go to the game of its predecessor.

Over the next years, Nintendo released GameCube. Nintendo has become leading in the release of portable game consoles, representing the Gameboy Advance to the market, which could play with Gameboy and Gameboy Color cartridges.

In 2006, a new leader in the gaming console industry is lit - Microsoft, which has released the next generation console, ahead of Sony and Nintendo. 'Xbox 360' is a higher schedule and the possibility of multiplayer online games. This console was presented to Christmas 2005. However, many consoles were returned due to faults.

Sony has released PlayStation 3 in November 2006 instead of the stated period (spring 2006) due to copyright complications. They say that Sony has invested over 800 million dollars in the development, research and production of this gaming console.

Well, Nintendo manufactures its 'Revolution' app, renamed in 'Wii' to Christmas 2006. Undoubtedly, the end of 2006 was a swivel in the development of gaming consoles.

By 2008, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are left in the game console market. Moreover, in recent times, interest in portable accrehensions increases.

It is possible that the future of the gaming industry is behind their development.