The history of video games is a surprisingly long one. Most people believe that video games began with the creation of "Pong" for the the Atari game system in 1972, however this is not the case. The first true video game ever made was created by A. S. Douglas in 1952. Titled OXO, it was a recreation of the popular game tic-tac-toe and was played only against the computer. Shortly after this, in 1958, the first player vs. player video game was created by William Higinbotham titled Tennis for Two. Tennis for Two was played from the side view of a tennis court, rather than a helicopter type viewpoint. The ball needed to be shot over the net in order for points to be scored. The game, which was created to entertain visitors to the Brookhaven National Laboratory, was dismantled in 1959.
In1961 Steve Russel, along with fellow students at MIT, created a new game entitled Spacewar on hte new DEC PDP-1 computer system. The game featured two player controlled spaceships capable of firing missles, with a blackhole in the center to add difficulty. It's often credited as the very first influential video game.
The 70's quickly became known as the Golden Age of video games. In 1971, Galaxy Game, the first coin-operated game system, was installed at Stanford University. It was based mostly off the game Spacewar, and in 1972 was expanded to included extra controllers. In the same year, 1971, Nolan Bushnell heped create another coin-operated version of Spacewar called Computer Space. Computer Space was bought by Nutting Associates, who then proceeded to make and market 1,500 game systems in November that same year. However, the game was very difficult to master and because of this it sold very little.
It was after this that Bushnell and Ted Dabney, and associate who also helped create Computer Space, decided to found a new company called Atari, Inc. Atari in 1972 created the first arcade video game: Pong. It saw huge success, selling almost 19,000 systems. It is often regarded as the first video game, but in truth it's the first arcade game realeased. It wasn't until Space Invaders was released in 1978 that the truly Golden Age of the arcade began. Within only two years, many other arcade games would be created, from Asteroids to the first colored games such as Pac-man. An arcade could be seen anywhere from shopping malls, to convienent stores.
The very first gaming console was the Magnavox Odyssey. However, due to the explosion of the arcade scene, few were sold. During the early 80's, many video game consoles were released, however very few were actually sold. They couldn't keep up with the rapidly expanded market for the arcade, although this wouldn't last forever. The Atari 2600 was the last system released to have any kind of real marketing capability compared to the arcade, all this would change however in 1985 with the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Originally released as the Famicom, it became known as the NES elsewhere. It was released simultaneously with Super Mario Bros. which instantly became a hit. The era of the arcade was soon declining, and the birth of the home entertainment system began. Rather than using a joystick with a single button as previous game systems had, the NES had it's very own controller pad. The NES gave birth to many familiar titles such as, The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Metal Gear, and many others. The true video game era began with the NES, and from there many more systems would be born.
Within the 90's we would see the creation of the Sega Genesis, the Super Nintendo, the Atari Jaguar, The Nintendo 64-bit, the Sony Playstation, and many others. The 90's was the true innovation to video gaming, going from simply pixelated graphics, to full 3 dimensional textured landscapes and characters. This also helped spur many more computer related advances, such as better processors, memory, and graphics cards, as people demanded the next best system. Eventually, we would see this lead to the creation of many of the platforms we see today, such as Microsoft's Xbox, Nintendo's Wii, and the Next Generation playstations.
In retrospect, it's been a long hard journey for video games. From the simplest game of Tic-tac-toe and Tennis, to first-person shooters, role-playing games, and 3-d platformers. The next generations to come are sure to show us just how far we're willing to take video gaming, and possibly even games that can fully immerse ourselves into the game itself. Programmers and Scientists alike are currently working on the next generation of games, including the immersion of virtual reality systems. We'll just have to wait and see how long it is before we see the next big change to gaming worldwide.