游戏机史

Origins

Home consoles

The first video games were created on mainframe computers in the 1950s, typically with text-only displays or computer printouts, and limited to simple games like Tic Tac Toe or Nim. Eventually displays with rudimentary vector displays for graphics were available, leading to titles like Spacewar! in 1962. Spacewar! directly influenced Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney to create Computer Space in 1971, the first arcade video game.

Separately, while at Sanders Associates in 1966, Ralph H. Baer conceived of the idea of an electronic device that could be connected to a standard television to play games. With Sanders' permission, he created the prototype "Brown Box" which was able to play a limited number of games, including a version of table tennis and a simple light gun game. Sanders patented the unit and licensed the patents to Magnavox, where it was manufactured as the first home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, in 1972. Bushnell, after seeing the Odyssey and its table tennis game, believed he could make something better. He and Dabney formed Atari, Inc., and with Allan Alcorn, created their second arcade game, Pong.……

Handheld consoles

The origins of handheld game consoles are found in handheld and tabletop electronic game devices of the 1970s and early 1980s.……

Console generations

Like most consumer electronics, home video game consoles are developed based on improving the features offered by an earlier product with advances made by newer technology. For video game consoles, these improvements typically occur every five years, following a Moore's law progression where a rough aggregate measure of processing power doubles every 18 months or increases ten-fold after five years. This cyclic market has resulted in an industry-wide adoption of the razor-and-blades model in selling consoles at minimal profit margin while making revenue from the sale of games produced for that console, and then transitioning users to the next console model at the fifth year as the successor console enters the market. This approach incorporates planned obsolescence into the products to continue to bring consumers towards purchasing the newer models.

Because of the industry dynamics, many console manufacturers release their new consoles in roughly the same time period, with their consoles typically offering similar processing power and capabilities as their competitors.……

Home console history timeline by generation

The development of video game consoles primarily follows the history of video gaming in the North American and Japanese markets. Few other markets saw any significant console development on their own, such as in Europe where personal computers tended to be favored alongside imports of video game consoles. The video game clone in less-developed markets like China and Russia were not considered here.

The following table provides an overview of the major hardware technical specifications of the consoles of each major generations by central processor unit (CPU), graphics processor unit (GPU), memory, game media, and other features.

While there is no similar distinction of generations for handheld consoles, they are included in the sections below based on which home console generation they were released.

First generation (1972–1983)

The first generation of home consoles were generally limited to dedicated consoles with just one or two games pre-built into the console hardware, with a limited means to alter gameplay factors.……

Console sales

Below is a timeline of each generation with the top three home video consoles of each generation based on worldwide sales.