| 1947 – First analog interactive electronic game called Missile Simulator created by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann. |
| 1951 – First original chess playing computer program written by Dr. Dietrich Prinz. |
| 1951 – First instance of a digital computer designed specifically to play a game was the Nimrod computer. The game was called Nim, a mathematical game of strategy played since ancient times. |
| 1952 – First computer game to use a digital graphical display written by Alexander S. Douglas. It was called OXO aka Noughts and Crosses. It was a tic-tac-toe computer game. |
| 1962 – First digital computer video game was called Spacewar!. Created by Steve “Slug” Russell, Martin “Shag” Graetz and Wayne Witaenem. |
| 1971 – First coin-operated video game called the Galaxy Game was created by Bill Pitts and Hugh Tuck. A single game cost 10 cents or three games for 25 cents. |
| 1971 – First video arcade coin-operated video game to be commercially sold. Computer Space was created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, the founders of the Atari Company. |
| 1972 – First home video game console released by Magnavox called the Odyssey. The first working prototype was created by Ralph Baer in 1968. The Magnavox Odyssey prototype is also known as the Brown Box. This was the very first home video game console that could be connected to a television. The original Odyssey video game console came with 6 standard video game cartridges: #1 Table Tennis, #2 Ski, Simon Says, #3 Tennis, Analogic, Hockey, & Football (passing and kicking), #4 Cat and Mouse, Football (running), Haunted House, #5 Submarine, #6 Roulette, States. A total of 28 video games were available in all: Analogic, Baseball, Basketball, Brain Wave, Cat & Mouse, Dogfight, Football, Fun Zoo, Handball, Haunted House, Hockey, Invasion, Interplanetary Voyage, Percepts, Prehistoric Safari, Roulette, Shooting Gallery, Shootout, Simon Says, Ski, Soccer, States, Submarine, Table Tennis, Tennis, Volleyball, Win and Wipeout. |
| 1970’s – Most popular video arcade games: Space Invaders, Asteroids, Galxian and Lunar Lander. |
| 1980’s – Most popular video arcade games: Battlezone, Berzerk, Centipede, Defender, Missile Command, Pac-man, Phoenix, Rally-X, Star Castle, Tempest, Wizard of Word, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Scramble, Galaga, Ms. Pac-man, Qix, Gorf, Burgertime, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong Junior, Joust, Moon Patrol, Pole Position, Q’bert, Robotron 2064, Time Pilot, Tron, Xevious, Zaxxon, Dragon’s Liar, Elevator Action, Gyruss, Mappy, Mario Bros., Spy Hunter, Star Wars, Tapper, 1942, Paperboy and Punch-Out!! |
| 1977 – First Atari 2600 video game console released by Atari. |
| 1982 – First Atari 5200 SuperSystem (aka Atari 5200) video game console released by Atari. |
| 1983 – First Nintendo (aka NES) video game console released by Nintendo. |
| 1983 – First Sega video game console released was the SG-1000. |
| 1984 – First Atari 7800 ProSystem (aka Atari 7800) video game console released by Atari. Shelved in 1984 and then re-released in 1986. |
| 1986 – First Sega Master System video game console released by Sega. |
| 1989 – First Sega Genesis (aka Sega Mega Drive) video game console released by Sega. |
| 1991 – First Super Nintendo (aka SNES Super NES) video game console released by Nintendo. |
| 1994 – First PlayStation (aka PS or PS1) video game console released by Sony Computer Entertainment. |
| 1994 – First Sega Saturn video game console released by Sega. |
| 1996 – First Nintendo 64 (aka N64) video game console released by Nintendo. |
| 1998 – First Dreamcast video game console released by Sega. The last video game console made by Sega. |
| 2000 – First PlayStation 2 (aka PS2) video game console released by Sony. |
| 2001 – First Xbox video game console released by Microsoft. |
| 2001 – First GameCube (aka GCN) video game console released by Nintendo. |
| 2005 – First Xbox 360 video game console released by Microsoft. |
| 2006 – First PlayStation 3 (aka PS3) video game console released by Sony. |
| 2006 – First Wii video game console released by Nintendo. |
| |
