History of game consoles by generation- 1972 to today – see how far we’ve come

It’s very easy for us to take the hardware that our games run on for granted. We expect it to get better and better, giving us more immersive, realistic and enjoyable experiences year on year. As we sit here in 2024 it can be hard to image a time when games didn’t work the way they do now.

If you’ve been playing around with retro consoles, either on original hardware, or using emulation you’ll know that games have progressed a hell of a long way since the very first consoles came onto the market. So, let’s take a look at just how far this journey has taken us and we’ll use the development of racing games to show each step of the way.

Console Generations

There’s been a lot of research over the years into the progress of computers and consoles. I did make a video recently looking at how personal computer technology has advanced and how the latest Apple Macs are over 1 billion times more powerful that the first Apple II computers. Please do have a look at that one.

But games consoles have also developed side by side with the technology that drives them. This allows us to break down the process into a number of distinct phases or Console Generations.

Again there is some debate on how this should be broken down but the Wikipedia version makes great sense to me, so that’s what we’ll be using in this video.

First Generation (1972 – 1980)

The whole process started over 50 years ago in 1972 with the launch of the very first home games console, the Magnavox Odyssey. This was a purely analogue electronics console with no processor, memory or storage. It could only generate simple rectangular shapes on a cathode ray tube based TV with no sound. The players used a very simple games controller with a couple of buttons and two spinners, one to control horizontal movement, the other vertical. The games mostly involved moving blobs around the screen over which you would mount a coloured overlay. Even with this basic setup the designers still managed to create the very first racing game, Wipeout.

The player has the move their square car around the track, staying between the lines and avoiding the timing block that shoots across the middle of the screen. Score had to be kept manually,  with points deducted for coming off the track, yes that too was judged manually, or hitting the moving block.

Each player took turns at navigating the course and their score was than used to move counters around a real board, as in a piece of card, as in a board game, to win the race.

Today this sounds totally alien to the gaming concept, but this was state of the art for 1972.

The console even had the first form of interchangeable cartridges where you could plug in extra circuitry to change the operation of the console.

Apart from the Odyssey pretty much everything else on the market for the next four or five years was a variation on the Pong game, including the first Atari branded console which actually was called Pong.

Second Generation (1976 – 1992)

In 1976 Fairchild moved the games industry on to the Second Generation with the launch of the Fairchild Channel F.

This was the first console to use a microprocessor, the F8, which was based on Fairchild’s modified version of the Intel 8080. It also introduced the idea of interchangeable ‘Videocarts’ to load the games. These contained ROM based memory boards with the game code burnt onto them that simply plugged into a slot on the console. This scheme was then copied by pretty much every system for the next 15 years.

By using a microprocessor the console was able to create bitmapped graphics, although we’re taking about a resolution of 128 x 64 pixels, which allowed the programmers to create on screen sprites with collision detection and all the other features a system with code and memory can produce. With 8 colours games consoles finally got away from the monochrome, analog, pong games and the home gaming industry started to take off.

It took about a year for the competition to catch up with the Atari 2600 launching in 1977 followed by a range of others like the Mattel Intellivision, Bally Astrocade, Coleco ColecoVision and more.

At this stage of console development companies were still working out what the best controller scheme was. Even arcade gaming was still in its infancy. Space Invaders didn’t get written until 1978. So people hadn’t yet worked out what sorts of computer games were going to come. But quickly the 8 way movement offered by joysticks caught on, with great help from the Atari 2600 and by the end of the generation that became the standard.

As you can see from the games the graphics and sound capabilities were still quite limited but at least we were starting to see the game genres developing. Even with the racing games we already had the top down view, isometric at an angle view and the pseudo 3D third person view.

So by the end of the second generation we have microprocessors, rom cartridges, joysticks, bitmapped colour graphics and sound boards. Practically everything needed for the next phase.

Third Generation (1983 to 2003) 8 bit era

The marker for the start of the Third Generation consoles was July 15^th 1983. Sega and Nintendo both released their first home games consoles on that day to the Japanese market. Sega with the SG-1000 and Nintendo with the Family Computer or Famicom.

Although gaming technology had been progressing, particularly in the home computer market with the likes of the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum, these two consoles marked the step up to arcade like performance in the home. Better graphics and sound chips gave these machines more colours at higher resolutions with more sprites and hardware scrolling making full use of the 8 bit processors of the day. Although these 8 bit processors had been used in other machines, this console generation became known as the 8 bit era and started the trend of using data bus width to signify the computing power of the devices.

Again the games were pushing the limits of the consoles but still using the basic game formats, just with better, faster and more exciting gameplay. We did however start to see the sort of 3D view characterised by the Outrun style games becoming more and more realistic with the use of the new sprite hardware manipulation. This allowed the consoles to move and scale the slices of scenery fast enough to give that real feeling of speed.

Nintendo’s Famicom, rebranded as the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES outside Japan, lead the market closely followed by the Sega Master System, the updated SG-1000, with Atari still performing well with its 7800 console.

Fourth Generation (1987–2004) : 16 bit era

In 1987 NEC launched the first 16bit console, the PC Engine or TurboGrafx-16 and this started the move into the Fourth Generation consoles of the 16 bit era.

By this time Nintendo and Sega were well ahead of any other competition with their 8 bit consoles and they quickly built on that success with their own 16 bit machines, the Sega Megadrive or Genesis, and the Nintendo Super Entertainment System.

Along with their 16 bit processors providing increased performance these machines tended to have their own, dedicated Graphics Processors providing hardware sprite manipulation including scaling and scrolling with much higher resolutions and thousands of on screen colours.

This power was enough to allow the first attempts at real 3D modelled gameplay rather than the pseudo effects from the 8 bit generation. The models were still at a very polygon count, but they did work well enough for a few games, including some great driving titles such as Virtua Racing.

Pretty much all the standard driving game formats were still in use but getting better and more detailed graphics, with more on screen objects and better AI competition from the improved processing capabilities.

There were a number of other consoles launched in this generation including the Neo Geo which was basically the circuitry from SNK’s arcade machines in a home console. But the dominance of Nintendo and Sega was starting to take hold.

Fifth Generation Consoles (1993–2006): The 3D Revolution

By this time the bit count wars were in full swing. Machines were being marketed as having higher and higher bit counts to prove their superiority. The fifth generation moved from 16 bit to, well essentially, more than 16.

It started in late 1993 with the 3DO console. This used an ARM 32 bit RISC processor with its own brand video and sound co processors, but also started the trend towards CD ROMs rather than memory cartridges for game storage.

This was followed by Sega’s Saturn and Sony’s entry into the console market with the original PlayStation, both again using CD ROMs. This move to disk based storage gave these consoles much more storage space for not only the game code, but for associated files such as images, sound and now video.

 

Atari took the bit count to heart launching its Jaguar console as the first 64 bit machine, although this was only partially true as it used 32 bit processors but a 64 bit blitter. Nintendo launched the first, true 64 bit machine, the Nintendo 64, a couple of years later but that still used the older ROM cartridge format. As a comparison this meant that the N64 had a maximum of 64MB of game data, whereas the CD ROM based system had up to 650MB to play with. This meant that the PlayStation and Saturn especially could incorporate more detailed textures, CD quality sound tracks and video cut scenes to expand the game depths.

However, the big gameplay change was in the move to full 3D graphics. With the extra processing power and higher resolutions, the consoles were capable of modelling full 3D worlds at sensible framerates for the first time. This came through loud and clear in the driving games where pretty much every title gave you a third or first person view of the action.

This 3D move was also paired with greater real world physics simulations within the games to make the action even closer to the real world. Car damage effects, weather, road surface grip etc. all started to be modelled and built into the games.

We also started to get the first analogue joystick controllers to provide finer control of the gameplay rather than the four digital or d pad switch arrangements. Again, the Nintendo 64 lead the way with it’s single analogue stick on the central arm of the handset. Pretty much every console after it incorporated analogue controls.

Sixth Generation (1998–2013): Online Play and Multimedia

By the end of 1998 the bit wars had come to an end. Once 64 bit processors had been reached there wasn’t a need to go any further. Indeed today’s processors are still mostly 64 bit architectures.

Having said that in between 1998 and 2000 the first two sixth generation consoles, the Sega Dreamcast and Sony PlayStation 2, couldn’t help themselves from shouting about their 128 bit graphics. Not quite the same as a 128 bit processor but sounds impressive.

Again we got another jump in processing power and graphics capabilities with a lot of work being done to increase the 3D rendering speed. For example the PlayStation 2 was capable of rendering 75 million polygons per second on its 1280×1024 pixel screen in 16.7 million colours. This meant that these consoles were generating quite realistic images, in real time at DVD quality.

These consoles were then joined by the Nintendo GameCube and Microsoft’s entry console, the Xbox.

Apart from the general increase in computing and graphics power the stand out feature of the Sixth Generation consoles was the start of online play. All of the major consoles had an online feature with the Xbox Live service setting the standard. This allowed players to play with other gamers from around the world, greatly expanding the gameplay beyond the normal AI competition.

On the driving side you were now able to drive realistic cars, on realistic tracks and compete against real people.

This online feature also opened the possibility of downloading software directly from the manufacturer. This started with the Xbox which had a built in hard drive unit to store data, a feature that the other manufacturers soon copied with either addons for their sixth gen consoles, or in their next iteration.

Seventh Generation (2005–2017): HD Graphics and Motion Controls

By 2005 console development was becoming more incremental rather than taking great jumps forward. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 was able to render games in native 720p. It did provide full 1080p resolution, but most games rendered scenes in the lower HD resolution and scaled up to the full 1080p. This same approach was used by Sony with its PlayStation 3 and Nintendo with the Wii.

Following on from the Original Xbox all the consoles now started to incorporate some sort of internal drive storage as standard. The Xbox and PS3 used hard drives, the Wii cut costs by using a 512MB Flash card. But all consoles could now save game progress, download updates and the Xbox and PS3 could download games from their respective online stores.

However, the big feature of the Seventh Generation was motion control.

This started with the Nintendo Wii. Nintendo deviated from the normal console progression with this device. Instead of going for out and out power as with the other two it aimed it’s console at family gaming by developing a unique motion and position sensitive controller, the Wii Remote or Wiimote.

This was a wireless device with traditional buttons and d pad inputs but it also had a built in 3 axis gyroscope accelerometer to sense its orientation in space along with an infra red camera that was used in conjunction with two IR LEDs positioned on top or underneath the TV screen. When the Wiimote was pointed at the screen it could see the two IR LED dots and work out its angle of rotation, distance from the screen and where on the screen it was aimed at. These sensors allowed the game developers to add gesture recognition to their code so that you could for example play on screen tennis by simply swinging at the ball with your controller.

This motion control did however create a serious issue. The controllers came with a wrist strap, but people didn’t always put it on. In the heat of a game many Wiimotes ended up embedded into TV screens, mine included!

The success of the Wii prompted the other manufacturers to create their own gesture controllers. Sony came up with the PlayStation Move system that used gyroscopic sensors and a Tv mounted camera to effectively mimic the Wii setup.

Microsoft went a completely different way with their Kinect sensor. This was a very ambitious project that used both a visible light camera and a depth sensing infra red camera to allow it to build a 3D image of what it was looking at. This camera unit was mounted on the TV looking at the player who simply had to move and make gestures to control the game.

Although the Kinect sensor gets a lot of bad press I actually think it was and is a great device. Maybe slightly ahead of it’s time but great fun and one that never managed to reach its full potential.

At this point consoles were basically everything that we have in our current models, just with less power and lower resolution graphics. Games had reached very acceptable levels of realism and all of the game genres had settled down into the games we now know and love. This is one of the main reasons I love these seventh gen machines. Not only can they play most of the games you want, but they are very cheap to buy and expand and you can hack them very easily. If that’s not something you know much about please do check out my console hacking playlist.

Eighth Generation (2012–Present): 4K and VR

From here on in we basically increase computing power with each generation.

From 2012 the Eighth Gen machines such as the Nintendo WiiU and Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One all increased processor and graphics power. We now get full 4K resolutions giving ultra realistic gameplay with plenty of processing power to model entire worlds down to minute levels of detail.

With Gen 4 we also get the start of VR gameplay with the PlayStation VR headset bringing a new fully immersive experience to the scene.

Online services expand as well with Microsoft introducing the Xbox Pass with online game streaming.

Ninth Generation (2020–Present): Next-Gen Performance

Finally in 2020 we get to the current crop of consoles. Again we’ve moved up another notch in the performance stakes with full ray tracing capabilities and particle modelling effects to completely simulate the real world down to extraordinary levels.

At this point it becomes very hard to tell gameplay from HD video.

 

So let’s see what comes in the Tenth Generation which should be fairly soon!

 

Image Credits

First Generation (1972)

Magnavox Odyssey 1972
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17168362

By Jesmar – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15390406

By Allstone – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76524320

Atari Home Pong (1975)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18298735

Coleco Telstar 1976
By Evan-Amos – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18894790

Nintendo Color TV-Game 6 (1977)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18301347

Second Generation (1976)

Fairchild Channel F (1976)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18291553

Magnavox Odyssey 2 (1978)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17722734

Atari 2600 (1977)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38731073

Mattel Intellivision (1980)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17891260

Coleco ColecoVision (1982)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11421149

Milton Bradley Vectrex (1982)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17735833

Third Generation (1983) – 8 bit era

Sega SG-1000 (1983)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18273359

Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicom (1983)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11408666

Atari 7800 (1986)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18312472

Sega  Master System (1985)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14249084

Fourth Generation (1987) – 16 bit era

NEC PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18269320

Sega Mega Drive/Genesis (1988)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17288445

Super Famicom/Super Nintendo (1990)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17748368

SNK Neo Geo (1991)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18260465

Fifth Generation (1993) – Bit Wars – 3D era

3DO Interactive Multiplayer (1993)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18370417

Sega Saturn (1994)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17351664

Sony PlayStation (1994)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31719221

Nintendo 64 (1996)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12814264

Sixth Generation (1998)

Sega Dreamcast (1998)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20590003

Sony PlayStation 2 (2000)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12821919

Nintendo GameCube (2001)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11934764

Microsoft Xbox (2001)
By Evan-Amos – PNG versionPNG versionPNG version, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=140533581

Seventh Generation (2005)

Microsoft Xbox 360 (2005)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33220305

Sony PlayStation 3 (2006)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50763779

Nintendo Wii (2006)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11314509

Eighth generation (2012)

Nintendo Wii U (2012)
By Takimata　(edited by:Tokyoship) – File:Wii U Console and Gamepad.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23214469

Nintendo Switch (2017)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61648855

Sony PlayStation 4 (2013)
By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29652103

Microsoft Xbox One (2013)
By Evan-Amos – This file has been superseded by Xbox One Console Set.png. It is recommended to use the other file. Please note that deleting superseded images requires consent., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31257131

Ninth Generation (2020)

Sony PlayStation 5 (2020)
By Howardcorn33 – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=133893528

Microsoft Xbox Series X and S
By Der. Bellemer – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=98185322