Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. spent the better part of his life working with electronics. In high school and during college at Furman University he was obsessed with crystal radio technology. He attended Cornell University in 1931 for a Ph.D. in physics, where he spent his time researching the cathode-ray tube. Goldsmith was later hired to Allen B. DuMont’s small New Jersey laboratory as the lab’s head of research, where he developed early color television in the late 1930s. During World War II DuMont’s laboratory would aid in manufacturing military technology like radar and missile launching systems. After the war Dumont attempted to transfer its previously developed military technology into consumer products. One such application was the Goldsmith’s cathode-ray tube amusement device. Utilizing radar applications, electromagnetic beams, and a closed-circuit television, the player would use a controller to guide a beam of light on the screen to hit various targets such as pictures of airplanes manually placed on the tube. Goldsmith would patent the device in 1947; however, the game itself would remain largely forgotten in the decades to follow.

Josef Kates fled Austria during the Third Reich in 1938. He was sent to Canada by way of England. While interned at a refugee camp, he studied for a high school equivalency and was ranked the highest scorer in all of Quebec. When he was released, he moved to Toronto and joined the University of Toronto’s Mathematics and Physics program. There Kates led, with electrical engineer Alfred Ratz, a team building the University of Toronto Electronic Computer (UTEC). Kates designed the computer’s memory and control systems which at the time required nearly a dozen radio vacuum tubes for binary addition, making the UTEC far too large, cumbersome, and expensive to be practical. To address this issue, Kates would invent a new tube that would fit inside a conventional electronic vacuum tube to handle the binary addition, which Kates named the Additron Tube. This device would be able to replace the network of ten interconnected radio tubes to do the same calculations, helping to make computers smaller and less expensive. For the 1950 Canadian National Exhibition, the UTEC team would create Bertie the Brain to demonstrate the possibilities of the Additron tube. The game of tic-tac-toe was chosen as it was an excellent display of Bertie’s electrical agility. With long lines from the first day of the Expo, Kates had designed the game with varying levels of difficulty. When set at full difficulty Bertie was unbeatable, though Kates would often lower it for most attendees, particularly children. Shortly after its run at CNE, Bertie the Brain would be dismantled and forgotten. In the following decade solid-state devices would render the Additron tube obsolete.

Created by University of Cambridge student Alexander Sandy Douglass in 1952, OXO was used as an example to prove his theories on human-computer interactions for his Ph.D. thesis. Th game was programmed on the first stored-program computer, the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC). The game itself was an electronic rendering of Tic-Tac-Toe that pitted the player against a computer. The player played as “X” with the EDSAC playing “O.” The player would select which square to occupy by dialing the corresponding  number into the EDSAC’s telephone dial.  Despite OXO being one of the first video games, like its predecessors, it too was overlooked at the time. The EDSAC computer at the University of Cambridge was the only unit in existence and was not made accessible to the public.

In the spring of 1962, Spacewar! was completed, created by a team of eight MIT students: Martin Graetz, Steve Russell, Robert Saunders, Steven Piner, Wayne Wiitanen, Dan Edwards, Peter Samson, and Alan Kotok. Developed on the Digital Equipment Corporation’s PDP-1 computer, Spacewar! was created to get people who might otherwise avoid the machine to engage with the large, imposing computer . The game pits two players controlling two torpedo armed spaceships in orbit around a central deadly star; the background was a black void with randomly generated stars. In the first iteration of the game the physical forces were limited to the ships’ thrusters and avoiding the obstacle was little trouble. In subsequent updates Peter Samson would replace the randomly generated stars with a backdrop taken from the night sky. The star map would update based on the amount of time the game was played. Dan Edwards’ update would free up memory to enable additional calculations allowing the central star to have a gravitational pull and giving the player limited fuel. This created a more tense and challenging game experience. The development also introduced a hyperspace function that would allow novice players the option to quickly get away from their opponent by being randomly moved to a different part of the map while running the risk of respawning on top of an obstacle. When the game was finished, the MIT team demoed the game for the Digital Equipment Corporation, who were so impressed with the software that DEC would preload all subsequent PDP-1 units with the game. Soon the game would be played in university computer labs across the country. With modified versions of the game including invisible ships (called Minnesota Spacewar!), a version with a view from the cockpit, and even an early VR version played at Harvard. The features of this game characterize the best examples of what makes a great game popular. Unique and challenging gameplay paired with an original style that utilizes everything the hardware system has to offer.

 While working at Sanders Associates Inc. in 1961, engineer Ralph Baer began working on interactive games as way to develop new television technologies. By 1967 Baer had created his first of several prototype gaming units called TV Game Unit #1 (TVG#1). When used in conjunction with an alignment generator the TVG#1 would produce a dot on the screen that could be controlled by the user. This initial prototype would be the basis for Baer’s development of more sophisticated interfaces and future intellectual property lawsuits.

Later in 1967 Ralph Baer would produce the TV Game Unit #7, a prototype for the first multiplayer, multiprogram gaming system. Better known by its nickname “The Brown Box” the system had a variety of games that included ping-pong, checkers, a target game complete with light gun, four sports games, ang golf putting. Sanders Associates would license the “Brown Box” to Magnavox, releasing it as the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972.

Based on the Spacewar! game previously developed at MIT, youthful entrepreneur Nolan Bushnell would give Nutting Associates the idea for Computer Space, which Nutting would release for arcades in 1971. Due, however, to the game’s overly complex gameplay mechanics, it was not a hit.

The very first commercially released gaming system, the Magnavox Odyssey suffered from poor marketing by Magnavox’s salespeople. Many consumers assumed the device would not work on non-Magnavox TV sets and in hopes of selling more TVs, the company’s sales reps did not correct this mistake. As a result, the Odyssey under performed upon its initial release. The Magnavox Odyssey also had very primitive graphics capable of producing only squares. The Odyssey came with plastic graphic overlays that would be placed over the TV set to play certain games. Also the unit did not keep score users would have to keep track themselves.

Undeterred by the failure of Computer Space, Nolan Bushnell would set out to create an arcade version of the Magnavox Odyssey’s table tennis game, which he had witnessed at a demonstration in May 1972. With his business partner Ted Dabney, the two founded Atari in June 1972, releasing their version Pong that same year. Following the huge success of the game on the arcade platform, Atari partnered with Sears, Roebuck’s & Company in 1975. This prompted Magnavox to sue for patent infringement, with Atari settling with Magnavox to avoid a costly and likely futile court case.

During the latter part of the 1970s several companies had gotten into the games console market. Around the same time that Atari was releasing its Atari 2600, Mattel had its Intellivision and Coleco its ColecoVision. This generation of consoles would utilize game cartridges sold separately from the console unit rather than the preloaded consoles for yesteryear. This would allow gamers to collect their own game libraries. However, with more and more retail systems and cartridges, an oversaturation of consoles and games would eventually lead to the industry crashing in the mid-1980s.

The advent of the personal computer,  with the releases of the Apple II, the Radio Shack TRS-80, and the Commodore 64, made computing more accessible. The newly discovered functionality of personal computing for gaming meant that demand for specialized gaming consoles began to dwindle. This technological shift was paired with an overdevelopment of subpar cartridge games such as the video game adaptation of E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (widely considered to be one of, if not the, worst game ever released commercially) led to a massive drop in video game sales between 1983 and 1984.

Released in 1981 Donkey Kong was developed in about five months by first-time game director Shigeru Miyamoto. Donkey Kong introduced the world to Mario, who has since become the mascot for Nintendo’s video game business. During the game’s production Miyamoto would spend nearly all his time on Nintendo’s company property. The game was produced to replace the failed arcade game Radarscope, which had left Nintendo of America with hundreds of unsold cabinets laying fallow in company warehouses. Miyamoto thought up much of the game’s design in the Nintendo company bathtub. The game pitted the character Mario against the title character Donkey Kong, who has kidnapped the Princess Peach and locked her in a cage. The player must ascend a series of platforms, jumping over a constant series of barrels being thrown by the gorilla Donkey Kong, until the player can get Mario to the top platform and reunite with the princess. At this point, Kong would take the Princess away to the next level, and Mario would then fight his way to the top again and again. Donkey Kong wound up becoming a massive hit for Nintendo, selling an estimated 132,000 cabinets in total. Popularizing the platformer style of video game which would become a fixture of the video game landscape of the 1980s and 90s. Donkey Kong would go on to spawn some 29 sequel games and the spin-off franchise Mario Bros.

In July of 1983 Nintendo released its Famicom system in Japan, with plans to release it in the U.S. via a distribution agreement from Atari. However, Atari withdrew from negotiations at the last minute following the 1983 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), where Atari executives had seen a port of Nintendo’s Donkey Kong game on the Coleco Adam computer. When Atari returned to the bargaining table, the video game crash of 1983 had decimated the American market. Two years later Nintendo would showcase its own system to the American market at the 1985 CES: the Nintendo Advanced Video System (AVS). An impressive piece of hardware for its time, the AVS came with controllers, a light gun, and cassette drive, all interfaced wirelessly through an infrared system. Unfortunately, the American video game market was still recovering and an expensive system such as this garnered a tepid reception at its public showing at CES.

Nintendo would, however, continue to develop the system into the Nintendo Entertainment System, which struck a balance between hardware performance and a relatively inexpensive cost of components. To avoid the issue of third-party developers flooding the market with NES games, which had doomed many console companies in the years leading up to the crash in 1983. Nintendo required third party developers to be licensed to produce games for the Nintendo system. These licensing terms would prohibit developers from releasing games for other systems and allowed them to release only two games per year. To ensure that games released for the NES system would be released under these conditions the NES was built with the proprietary lockout hardware 10NES. A chip on the cartridge circuit board would interface with a chip on the console’s motherboard and allow the game to run. Tengen, a subsidiary of Atari, would attempt to circumvent this by using Nintendo’s copyright documentation to reverse engineer the 10NES and create its own compatible chip, the “Rabbit.” Nintendo would then sue Tengen for patent infringement, with the judge ruling in favor of Nintendo. Nintendo chose to quietly launch the product in the New York market in October of 1985. While the system launched with 17 games upon its initial release, the system only sold roughly 50,000 units that holiday season–half of what Nintendo manufactured. Nonetheless Nintendo would continue to pursue the American market, opening offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco in 1986. By the end of that year the NES had gone national, bundled with the American version of Super Mario Bros.  Nintendo had successfully brought back video games to the US and remained the industry leader, eventually selling 61.9 million NES units. Nintendo would dominate the video game market for the rest of the decade, largely unchallenged until Sega’s US release of the Genesis three years later.

Play Super Mario Bros.

In July of 1989 Nintendo released the Game Boy, an 8-bit handheld system with interchangeable cartridges, the screen only supported four shades of gray. At release, the Game Boy was bundled with a port of the Russian-developed Tetris (originally released in 1984). A moving puzzle game, Tetris challenges the player to erect walls from a set of geometric shapes built around cubes. At the time, the U.S. would also see the release of Super Mario Land for the Game Boy, yet Tetris was significantly more successful, selling 35 million copies. It was the best-selling game for the Game Boy system.

When Sega released its Mega Drive system in Japan in 1988, Nintendo dominated the video game console market with 95% of the market share at the time. Despite being the world’s first 16-bit gaming system at its launch, the Sega Mega Drive was not widely successful in Japan at the time. Still, Sega’s American co-founder David Rosen was determined to make the product a hit in the US. The console was technically superior to the Nintendo Entertainment system: with its 16-bit processor, the Mega Drive had superior color, sound, and processing power to support accurate arcade ports. To get American gamers on board, Rosen renamed the console the Sega Genesis, which he thought would appeal to gamers, but which also reflected the rebirth of the Sega Brand. Rosen brought Michael Katz on as CEO, an aggressive executive who had years of experience with major companies such as Proctor & Gamble, as well as a brief tenure at early console company Coleco. Katz would conduct a brash advertising campaign with the slogan “Genesis does what Nintendon’t.” Sega then went after celebrity endorsements, outbidding Nintendo by a couple of hundred thousand dollars to license Joe Montana Football. The advertising blitz paid off, and the Sega Genesis would become the best-selling console in the United States despite launching with only five video game titles. A year later the Sega library would expand to some thirty titles and a dozen or so third-party games. The Genesis would go on to sell 38.7 million consoles worldwide, proving to be a legitimate contender to Nintendo. Sega had kicked off the first of many console wars. Just two years later Nintendo would join the 16-bit revolution with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. By the mid-90s Sega had wasted its goodwill with consumers by releasing poor performing add-on peripherals to boost the capabilities of the aging Genesis. These missteps, along with the failures of the Sega Saturn being released a year ahead of Sony’s PlayStation in 1994 and the Sega Dreamcast release a year before the PlayStation 2 in 1999, would see the ambitious gaming company leave the console market entirely.

Nintendo’s second home console system is released in the US, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). While still quite the successful, the SNES never reached the level of popularity of the original NES system, selling 49.1 million SNES consoles worldwide.

 In 1992 Midway releases Mortal Kombat as an arcade game. It was later ported to Nintendo Super NES and Sega Genesis in September of 1993, just a few months after the release of its sequel Mortal Kombat 2. A highly controversial video game series, the first iteration of Mortal Kombat went directly after the audience of Capcom’s Street Fighter series. Its use of real actors performing moves using a process that digitized video footage for the game distinguished it from the cartoon-like animations of the widely popular Street Fighter series. Its use of blood and gore infatuated young gamers at the time, while horrifying parents and politicians alike, with Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman testifying before Congress in a hearing on video game violence and minors. Nintendo would wind up entirely censoring the game’s violence in its port of the game, while Sega censored the game but included a cheat code allowing for the more grisly scenes to be unlocked. The game’s sequel Mortal Kombat 2 and its subsequent legislative controversies would lead the video gaming industry to create its own ratings board with the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB).

Try Mortal Kombat (1993)

The Super Mario Bros. movie adaptation was the first live-action cinematic adaptation of a video game ever. With a star-studded cast including Bob Hoskins (famous in part for his role in Who Framed Roger Rabbit), John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper, the film was produced under the Disney subsidiary Hollywood Pictures. However, despite its major $40 million budget, the film’s dark, dystopian take on the source materials’ colorful fantasy world failed to connect with audiences. The film would only garner a box office take of roughly $20 million, resulting in directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel (previously of Max Headroom fame) becoming outcasts of mainstream Hollywood cinema. Nintendo for its part would not greenlight another of its properties for a live-action film adaptation for over 20 years, until the appearance of Detective Pikachu in 2019.

Back in 1988 Nintendo partnered with Sony to develop a CD-ROM-based add-on to Nintendo’s upcoming Super NES console, the PlayStation. However, after a contract dispute, Nintendo pulled out of the deal and partnered with Phillips Electronics instead. Sony would continue to develop the PlayStation into its own standalone console system. The Nintendo-Phillips deal would also fall apart, and Nintendo would seek to curtail the PlayStation’s development when they caught wind that Sony was using the technology developed under their previous deal. Nintendo sued Sony, with the case being decided in favor of Sony.

• The PlayStation was a 32-bit system that utilized CD-ROMs to package its games, which were far superior to cartridges in their ability to render 3D graphics and audio. CD-ROMs also made it far cheaper to produce games at a high volume. However, because PlayStation was late to the console market, they had not formed an in-house development studio for games. Nonetheless, Sony’s choice of CD-ROM based games made third-party development highly accessible to interested companies, with whom Sony partnered early on. So, with a relatively small library of now mostly forgotten games, the PlayStation had its US launch in 1995.  The 3D console would quickly become home to some of the most successful and influential games of the 1990s, with titles like Resident Evil in 1996, Final Fantasy VII in 1997 and Metal Gear Solid in 1998–all games that would spawn franchises that are still producing titles to this day.

While the film Mortal Kombat received mixed reviews amongst critics, it was a box office success. On a budget of roughly $20 million, it garnered $122 million in box office worldwide. Unlike the Super Mario Bros. adaptation, Mortal Kombat stayed largely true to the lore set forth by its video game source material. While not the most sophisticated film, it adheres to a straightforward hero’s journey where the game’s main characters Liu Kang, Johnny Cage and Sonia Blade are mentored by the thunder god Raiden in their battle against the evil sorcerer Sang Tsung. Each character has their own motivations for pursuing the Mortal Kombat tournament and must overcome their own struggles, making for largely satisfying character arcs.

The Nintendo 64 console system was a significant milestone in gaming technology. It was the first console to incorporate an analog control stick. With its 1997 title Golden Eye, Nintendo made first-person shooters a mainstay of consoles. Star Fox 64, which was bundled with the Nintendo Rumble Pack, introduced controller shake, which has become standard on all future consoles. The N64 also supported four controllers, where previously gaming consoles were limited to two players. Unfortunately for Nintendo the N64 was not the major hit of fifth-generation gaming consoles, with only about 33 million units sold. This was in large part due to Nintendo’s longstanding policy of restrictive licensing agreements with third-party developers. In the early years of the NES this protected Nintendo’s business model by ensuring game quality and standards. However, by the mid-90s, Nintendo was no longer the dominant gaming company and third-party developers had more options in the way of consoles to release their games. Without the hot third-party titles that Sony was quickly releasing, Nintendo lost its hold on the console gaming market.