The first video game console, the $100 Magnavox Odyssey, was released 45 years ago in September 1972. The Odyssey had up to three square dots on its black-and-white screen controlled by wired controllers. Plastic overlays were used along with dice, cards, play money, poker chips, and other board game accessories along with 12 different game cards (the predecessor to game cartridges) for the 28 games it supported.
Its only peripheral was the first light gun, a rifle for the Shooting Gallery game, which was produced for Magnavox by Nintendo.
Odyssey’s ping pong game inspired Atari’s Pong arcade game. By the time it was discontinued on 1975, Magnavox had sold 350,000 units of the original Odyssey, quite a success for a device only sold through Magnavox retail stores.
Video games were here to stay.
First Generation Consoles
First generation gaming consoles used discrete components; microprocessors are a distinguishing characteristic of second generation and later consoles. Some were black-and-white only, while a few supported a very limited range of colors. Some had sound; some did not.
There were a total of 12 different Odyssey models prior to the launch of Odyssey2 in December 1978. They are all considered first generation consoles, along with TV Tennis from Epoch (1975) and Home Pong (1975), sold by Atari and also under the Sears Tele-Games brand, the Binatone TV Master (1975), Coleco’s Telstar consoles (1976), and the Nintendo Color TV-Game Console (1977-80).
Only available in Japan, Nintendo’s machine was the best selling first generation console, selling three million units.
Second Generation Consoles
The second generation began in late 1976 with the Fairchild Channel F and Radofin Electronics’ 1292 Advanced Programmable Video System. Channel F was the first gaming console to use ROM cartridges for its games and the first to use a microprocessor, the Fairchild F8. It was the first console with enough power to support player-vs-machine gaming.
A total of 27 “Videocarts” were produced for Channel F, some containing more than one game.
The Radofin 1292 was sold in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. It had only 43 Bytes of memory – compared with 64 Bytes in the Channel F.
Typical features of second generation gaming systems include use of a microprocessor, ROM-based game cartridges, and often support for up to 16 colors.
The third to market was the RCA Studio II, introduced in January 1977. It had 512 Bytes of RAM, five built-in games, and 11 game cartridges; it was a flop on the market. RCA discontinued it after the 1977 holiday season.
Atari VCS/2600
The runaway best selling second generation console was the Atari VCS (Video Computer System), later renamed the Atari 2600. It came to market in September 1977.
The VCS shipped with two detachable joystick controllers, a pair of paddles, and one game cartridge. The heart of the 2600 was the MOS Technology 6532, which combined the 6502 CPU used in Apple and Commodore computers with 128 Bytes of static RAM.
More games were available for the Atari 2600 than for any other second generation console.
Other Consoles
The Bally Astrocade was introduced in October 1977, a month after the Atari VCS, and initial sales were via mail order only. In 1978, it was also available through computer stores, but not through the mass market merchandisers that sold Atari. Bally sold off its Consumer Products Division in 1979, the unit remained on the market until the video game crash of 1983 and was missing in action by 1985.
The Bally system used the Zilog Z-80 CPU, which also made its way into Tandy/Radio Shack TRS-80 computers and CP/M systems. The Astrocade included 4 KB of memory – and up to 64 KB with expansion cartridges. It supported up to 8 colors.
Odyssey2 was initially seen as Atari’s leading competitor, building on the reputation of the original Odyssey series. It came to market in 1978 and was the first console with a built-in keyboard. Its “killer feature” was the add-on speech synthesis unit.
Toy maker Mattel entered the market with Intellivision, which wasn’t widely marketed until 1980. Sound and graphics were significantly better than those of the Atari 2600, and Intellivision became its chief competition. Intellivision was also rebranded as the Radio Shack TandyVision, GTE-Sylvania Intellivision, and, the real coup, Sears Super Video Arcade, where is sold head-to-head with the Sears branded version of the Atari.
It was replaced by Intellivision II in 1983, a more compact, less expensive to produce version of the original. Mattel had planned an Intellivision III, but the video game crash of 1983 killed that idea.
Less well known was the Arcadia 2001 from Emerson Radio. It launched in 1982 and died 18 months later. Emerson then licensed it to Bandai, which sold it in Japan.
In August 1982, ColecoVision arrived with graphics much closer to what arcade systems offered than the low-end Atari 2600. Donkey Kong and Zaxxon were two of its premier titles. ColecoVision recovered well from the video game crash of 1983, but Coleco left the market in late summer 1985, discontinuing ColecoVision.
In November 1982, Atari introduced its second second generation console, the Atari 5200. It was to go head-to-head with Intellivision and ColecoVision. What set the 5200 apart was that it was based on the same hardware as Atari’s home computers. In fact, Atari’s 8-bit home computers were based on a next generation video console design. When Atari saw how profitable the home computer business was, it modified that and turned it into a personal computer. The Atari 5200 brought things full circle.
Atari Pro-Line Trak-Ball
The Pro-Line Trak-Ball was a popular accessory used in games such as Centipede and Missile Command.
Unfortunately, the standard controller for the 5200 was a horrible design, combining an analog, non-centering joystick and a 10-key numeric pad – rated as the 10th worst video game controller ever.
The 5200 was discontinued after just two years on the market.
The last of the second generation consoles was the Vectrex, released in November 1992. Unlike other consoles that you attached to your television, Vectrex had its own built-in display.
To its detriment, that display was a black-and-white vector monitor in a market that had gone color. Introduced at $199, the Vectrex was slashed to $49 after the video game crash of 1983, and Vectrex left the market in early 1984.
One interesting footnote is that the Vectrex used the same 6809 CPU found in the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer.
Third Generation Consoles
Nintendo Sets the Standard
The third generation of gaming consoles arrived after the video game crash of 1983, starting with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES, also FamiCom in Japan), which was released in Japan on July 15, 1983. NES came to North America in 1985, Europe in 1986, and Australia in 1987. It remained available into 2008.
Like the Atari consoles and home computers, Apple II, and Commodore, the NES is also based on a version of the MOS Technology 6502. Nintendo ported three of its popular games to FamiCom: Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Popeye. By the end of 1984 it was the best selling console in Japan.
Nintendo showed the North American version at the June 1985 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). It would go on to single-handedly revitalize the video game market, which had been decimated by the video game collapse of 1983 that reduced the market by 97%.
What really set Nintendo apart from previous systems was its strict guidelines for approving new games that let it control what came to market. Third-party games would not run on NES due to its lockout chip, and only Nintendo would produce cartridges for NES software.
NES had a long life. It wasn’t discontinued in North America until 1995, ten years after it was introduced at the 1984 CES. Famicom remained in production in Japan until September 2003, over 20 years after it had first gone on sale in Japan, and Nintendo continued to offer repair through October 2007 due to a lack of replacement parts.
Enter Sega
Nintendo’s primary rival was Sega, a newcomer to the market. Its SG-1000 was introduced on the same date as Nintendo’s Famicom. However, the third generation console was not a commercial success.
Sega’s success came from its next design, the Master System, which was designed to go head-t0-head with Nintendo’s hardware by providing superior hardware. It was released in October 1985, replacing the SG-1000, and continued to sell in Brazil into 2015, making it the longest-lived game console to date at over 30 years.
Although Nintendo won in many markets, especially Japan and North America, Sega dominated in Europe, Brazil, and Oceana.
And Atari
Against NES and the Sega Master System, both retailing at $200, the Atari 7800 came in as the more affordable alternative at $140. It hit the US market in May 1986, and a PAL version was released to non-NTSC markets in 1987.
Perhaps the most significant feature of the 7800 was its almost total backward compatibility with Atari 2600 games – no need for any kind of adapter, just plug it in. The 7800 automatically downshifted its CPU from 1.8 MHz to the 1.2 MHz speed of the 2600. It’s a good thing the 7800 was backward compatible, because there were only 10 titles for it in 1986, compared to 20 for the Master System and 36 for NES.
Best data indicates that Atari sold 100,000 units in 1986, Master System 125,000, and NES 1.1 million – almost five times as many as Atari and Sega combined. By June 1988, Atari had sold 1 million 7800s. Atari discontinued the 7800, 2600, XE Game System, and its 8-bit home computer line on January 1, 1992.
Other Third Generation Consoles
Nintendo had 80% of the market, with Sega and Atari dividing most of the remaining 20% between them, but there were other players:
- Casio PV-1000, 1983, Japan only. Only 15 games were ever released, and it was apparently pulled just weeks after it was put on sale.
- Super Cassette Vision, 1984, see Wikipedia article for a brief overview.
- Dina/Telegames Personal Arcade, 1986, emulated ColecoVision and Sega SG-1000.
- Atari XE Game System, 1987, based on Atari 65XE home computer and compatible with its software.
- View-Master Interactive Vision, 1988. Games, and there were only 7, were stored on VHS video tape cartridges.
- VTech Socrates, 1988. Never caught on.
- Amstrad GX4000, 1990. Compatible with most software for the Amstrad CPC Plus computer. It was not a commercial success.
- Commodore 64 Games System, 1990. Take a Commodore 64, remove the keyboard, and only use cartridges for games, and you have this fiasco. Only sold in Europe, it never caught on.
Wrapping Up the Third Generation
These were all 8-bit machines, most based on Z-80 or 6502 architecture. The Atari 7800 sold 1 million units, Sega Master System 17.8 million, and NEX 61.9 million.
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Editor’s note: This was a previously complete article pulled out of our draft archives from 2017.
