In today’s market, the current home video console contenders are Nintendo, Sony’s PlayStations and Microsoft’s Xboxes. All of which you can find at any of Queen of PAWNS’ five locations*. Next week we will take a closer look at these three consoles comparing their operations to help you find which suits your entertainment needs best. In the meantime, let’s take a walk down memory lane. Are you ready? Because this can be a real trip.

Before the 1970’s there wasn’t much happening for home video games. The technology was being developed but really only looked like blips on special screens. In 1967 a German-born television engineer and his team designed the first video-game that worked on a standard television. There were a total of 12 games and a light gun accessory added to what they called the Brown Box. In 1972, Brown Box was the prototype for the Magnavox Odyssey - the first commercial video-game console. The Odyssey was still very basic and had overlays that were applied to the television screen to create different playing environments.

Most of us, whether we were around in the 70’s or not are familiar with the name “Atari.” It was pretty much the company that put home video games on the map. But before making home consoles, Atari manufactured arcade games. Founded in 1972, Atari made the arcade game Pong. It was a tennis game with a very pixelated, square shaped ball bouncing off of narrow, rectangular paddles that were controlled by players and could only be moved vertically. Three years later, Atari released Home Pong. It was ground breaking for home game consoles and the first entertainment system to keep score of the game. In 1977 Nintendo released their own Pong game and was the first console that was in color. That same year Atari released the revolutionary Atari 2600. Realizing a single game system’s popularity cannot last, Atari was the first manufacturer to produce a cartridge based system that could play multiple games. The system was an enormous hit with games like Space Invaders, Breakout, Combat and Pitfall. There was also the option of two different controllers to correlate with the games. Mattel stepped threw in their two cents in 1979 with their home console, Intellivision. Better graphics, hardware and a synthesized voice made this system the first serious threat to Atari.

1982 brought us Colecovision which came with Donkey Kong as it’s release title. Did you catch that? Donkey Kong is a Nintendo creation...this was back when Nintendo only made games. That was, until 1985 when they were only game developers no longer and released the Nintendo Entertainment System. It had the largest game library of the time and has come to be the best selling console of video game history. At the same time, Sega released their Master System, which played a big part in the slow fade of Atari and Coleco.

The next huge and global success for home consoles was the Super Nintendo in 1991. At this point, Sega Genesis and Nintendo are in the lead and brutal competitors. Nintendo had Mario Brothers and Sega invented Sonic the Hedgehog. Before long, Sega started to lose traction, giving Nintendo the opportunity to come out on top.

An event worth appreciating was in 1993, when Nintendo wanted to incorporate disc technology into their systems and hooked up with Sony. Together, these two birthed the first PlayStation. That’s right, Nintendo was part of the creating team for what has come to be known as PS4. The console, however, was released as a Sony product. Here, we get to see three dimensional gameplay for the first time. It was also the first time that a console fully utilized disc drives. Nintendo went on to release Nintendo 64 in 1996, the last mass market system to use cartridges. The company went on to develop hand held games very successfully and more recently, the Nintendo Wii home consoles.

Backwards compatibility - the ability to play older games from previous generation consoles within the same manufacturer - becomes a feature in 2000 with Sony’s PS2. It also introduced the concept of a complete home media system by playing DVD’s. With the PS2, we begin to see the rise in popularity of console games being played with high speed internet connections.

Where’s Microsoft in all of this? You might be wondering. In 2001, Microsoft steps into the ring with their console known as the Xbox. Since then, it has been PlayStation, Nintendo and Xbox dominating the home video scene.

We hope you enjoyed your stroll through video game nostalgia. Come back next week when Queen of PAWNS talks about the different generations within each of today’s manufacturers and their major differences.

*Call the QoP nearest you to check inventory when looking for something specific.

“A History of Video Game Consoles” a slide show by TIME Magazine online

Joakim Selfors, “The History of Video Game Consoles,” a documentary film

were referenced in the writing of this article.