Atari VCS/2600 (1977)

Atari changed console gaming forever in 1987 by creating the first popular console capable of accepting game cartridges. Before this, consoles (including Atari’s own Pong) only had self-contained games. The VCS 2600 let players use joysticks or paddle controllers to play several hit games like Pacman, Asteroids, and Frogger.

For a while, in the late 1970s, Atari was video games. After the success of its home Pong console in 1975, the company’s designers spent a year constructing a microprocessor-based system that could play games based on rom cartridges. During Christmas 1977, 400,000 machines hit US shelves and sold out almost instantly. The look of the machine, with its black fascia and wood panelling, and its simple eight-directional joystick, set the design ethos of the industry, while its games, with their beautifully illustrated boxes, were design classics in both form and function. Infiltrating pop culture via movies as diverse as Airplane! and Bladerunner, the Atari was more than a console – and even its failures, especially the botched film tie-in ET, became the stuff of legend.

Successors: Atari 5200 and Atari 7800

The Atari 5200 and 7800 had improved graphics and similar games. However it would be better to emulate these games using MAME if you want to see the originals in which they were inspired.

Intellivision (1979)

In 1979, Mattel Electronics released their own console as a direct competitor to the Atari 2600. The Intellivision (or intelligent television), never surpassed the Atari in popularity, but it did offer competitive audio effects and graphics. Popular games on the Intellivision included golf games, and Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack. 

With its brown and gold chassis, wood effect lining and retro-futuristic controllers, Mattel’s Intellivision screamed “It’s the 1970s!” from every angle. But, developed a year after the release of the Atari VCS, it was a much more sophisticated machine thanks to a 16-bit central processor and generous 16-colour palette. Famous for its pioneering use of licensed sports titles and its convincing arcade ports (Burger Time, Donkey Kong Jr, Bump N Jump …) there were also intriguing original titles such as the weird operating-theatre sim Microsurgeon and B-17 Bomber, which came with a voice synthesiser for, ahem, “realistic” speech effects.

Colecovision (1982)

Coleco Industries released their competitor to the Atari and Intellivision consoles in 1982. The ColecoVision offered the ability to play games like Nintendo’s Donkey Kong, Sega’s Zaxxon, and some less-popular games like Lady Bug and Cosmic Avenger. The Coleco also offered expansion modules that allowed gamers to play popular games from Atari, racing games, and more. 

With a Z80 processor three times more powerful than the Atari VCS and a huge 16KB of video ram, the Colecovision was a significant technological leap forward, allowing smooth animation and colourful visuals. Among its 125 games there were interesting original titles such as scrolling adventure Tarzan and Fortune Builder, an early SimCity predecessor. Later expansion modules let owners play Atari game carts and use a steering wheel controller. The machine is best known for excellent arcade conversions including Gorf, Zaxxon and Donkey Kong. Nintendo was so impressed that its head of R&D, Masayuki Uemura, used the Colecovision as inspiration for the NES.

Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System (1983)

• Shortlist Item! - Essential collectors item

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was first introduced in Japan as the “Famicom,” but the console was rebranded as the NES in 1985 and introduced to the U.S. gaming market. Super Mario Bros. launched the console into popularity. The NES was also the birthplace for many other legendary game franchises, including Nintendo’s Zelda, Metroid, and Square’s Final Fantasy.

It’s an oft-repeated fact, but always one worth remembering: throughout the 1980s in North America, you didn’t play “video games”, you played Nintendo. Like Hoover and Aspirin before it, the brand was so synonymous with the activity that it became genericised. This was down to the NES, a boxy, dated entry into the console market, which came with funny flat little joypads (heavily inspired by Nintendo’s successful Game & Watch handheld devices) and chunky carts. But the games, oh the games. Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda, Contra, Mega Man, Final Fantasy, Excitebike … This was where Nintendo’s (and specifically Shigeru Miyamoto’s) design genius originally flourished and where we learned the company’s maxim that old, well-used technology could be reformulated to realise amazing things.

Super Famicom/Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1990)

In 1990, Nintendo released their next generation of consoles, the Super NES or “Super Nintendo.” This console was actually released under a few different names around the world: in Japan, it was dubbed the Super Famicom, and in South Korea, it was called the Super Comboy. The Super Nintendo boasted upgraded 16-bit graphics over the original NES and even survived as 32-bit games became popular. The Super Nintendo was also the first console to ever include left and right “shoulder” buttons. More than 49 million Super Nintendo consoles were sold worldwide! Some of the most popular games for the console included Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: a Link to the Past, and Super Mario Kart. 

Whole days in front of Street Fighter 2, the living room crowded with mates, coffee table loaded with snacks and Coke cans. All-nighters on Legend of Zelda: a Link to the Past, Super Metroid and Secret of Mana. Sharing Yoshi’s Island and Harvest Moon with your younger sister. Blasting through the Super Star Wars series. Discovering Donkey Kong Country. Millions of us have these memories. The SNES arrived in an industry already changed by the Mega Drive, but Nintendo stuck with what it knew – solid tech and astonishing, fecund creativity. The machine produced beautiful, colourful visuals and lush sampled sounds, and it had the flexibility to allow enhanced cartridges later in its lifecycle. But really, the lasting influence was all down to the games – more than 1,700 of them – and the way they made us feel. That is, in the end, what it’s all about.

3. Sega Mega Drive/Genesis (1993)

Japanese-based Sega was one of the top five arcade manufacturers operating in the U.S. until the late 1980’s. As the market changed, Sega shifted away from arcade games and towards the home-gaming console market in Japan. After experimentation and development of other consoles, Sega launched the Mega Drive console in 1988 in Japan. In 1989, it was released in the U.S. as the Sega Genesis. The console trailed behind the Nintendo and NES and Famicom consoles, but still gained popularity through hit games like Sonic the Hedgehog and Mortal Kombat. 

By building an architecture capable of accurately converting arcade hits such as Golden Axe, Strider and Altered Beast, and bullishly marketing at teenagers, Sega made Nintendo look fusty and old-fashioned. This punk attitude was amplified further in 1991 by the arrival of Sonic the Hedgehog, a speed-obsessed, spiky-haired dude-bro perfectly in tune with early-1990s MTV culture. The Mega Drive would go on to sell 35m units and host a wide range of experiences from romantic role-playing adventures to real-time military sims. It wasn’t afraid to be weird and loud and rude, and some of us related hard to that. In the process, for better or worse, it invented the whole idea of console gaming as a lifestyle – an identity.

In 1993, Sega released an updated console. It was sold as the Mega Drive II in Japan and simply “Genesis” in the US. The new console was smaller than the original, lighter weight, offered AV stereo sound output, and had a less expensive mainboard. The console continues to have popularity with Sega-specific games like Streets of Rage, Mortal Kombat and Sonic the Hedgehog. 

PlayStation (1994)

By 1993, Sony had failed to enter the console industry through collaborations with Sega and Nintendo, so the company’s hardware genius Ken Kutaragi thought, screw it, let’s make our own machine. He designed an architecture that was powerful yet easy to develop for and focused on pushing 3D shapes around the screen as efficiently as possible. In 1995, the Sony PlayStation took the video game market by storm, selling out 100k units in presale and over 7 million by 1996. The CD ROM capabilities of the console allowed games to have 3D graphics and more complex games.

Sony solved its lack of development experience by purchasing UK studio Psygnosis and inking an exclusive deal with Japanese arcade veteran Namco. The resulting console ruled the 1990s, thrilling time-rich twentysomethings with titles such as Tekken, Gran Turismo and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. This machine changed everything. leading to popular a surge in new games like Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid, and Resident Evil. 

Nintendo 64 (1996)

The Nintendo 64 was one of the first game consoles to use a 64-bit processor, which gave gamers better graphics than ever before from a Nintendo system. Developed in conjunction with supercomputer specialist Silicon Graphics Inc and originally given the not-at-all hubristic codename Project Reality, the N64 was a contradictory beast – backwardly sticking with carts instead of embracing CD-roms but innovative in its use of an analogue joystick to allow accurate 3D movement. This, of course, led to Super Mario 64, the defining game of the era, but the console saw many other hit games including GoldenEye 007, Donkey Kong 64, Star Fox 64, Banjo-Kazooie, Wave Race 64 and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

PlayStation 2 (2000)

In 2000, Sony upped their game yet again with the PlayStation 2. The new console featured DVD playback abilities, which was a huge selling point at the time. It also offered backward compatibility, so gamers could still play their PS1 games. Some of the top games for this console included the Grand Theft Auto franchise, Shadow of the Colossus, and Kingdom Hearts.

It’s tough to win the console wars two generations in a row. PlayStation 2 didn’t just equal the success of PlayStation – it became the best-selling console of all time, shifting 155m units. Its utter dominance, its technical power and its familiar development environment allowed studios around the world to be extraordinarily creative. This was the golden era that saw mainstream blockbusters Grand Theft Auto, Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo, Pro Evo Soccer, Burnout and Ratchet & Clank come to fruition, but it also hosted idiosyncratic treasures such as Katamari Damacy, Ico and Okami, and through the Guitar Hero and Singstar titles it also became the post-pub entertainment platform of choice for a whole generation. This was where TV, movie and music creatives all woke up and realised, ah yes, games are the future, we’d better get in on this. And then everybody did.

Xbox (2001)

In 2001, Microsoft hopping into the console realm and kicked off what’s known as the “console wars.” To compete with PlayStation, they introduced the Xbox Live service that let players compete online.  Teased by Bill Gates himself at the 2000 Game Developers’ Conference, Xbox was conceived by the team behind Direct X (Microsoft’s middleware for PC game developers) as a technological Trojan horse to get the company’s products into the living room. From those slightly Orwellian foundations came a robust, powerful and exciting machine, its back catalogue of more than 600 games boasting one of the greatest console first-person shooters ever in Halo, as well as gritty brawler Ninja Gaiden, surreal adventure Psychonauts and Star Wars epic Knights of the Old Republic. From the beginning, Xbox understood the rising importance of online play, with its integrated ethernet port and robust Xbox Live infrastructure. The most significant US-designed console since the Atari VCS. The Halo franchise really kicked Xbox into gear when Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 launched into popularity.

Nintendo Wii (2006)

In the heat of the console war between Sony and Xbox, Nintendo released a family-friendly alternative. The Wii offered the ability to use motion to play games rather than simple buttons and joysticks. Players could bowl, play golf, and even duel with light sabers using a first-of-its-kind remote that helped get kids off the couch with active gameplay.

Plenty of games industry pundits saw the tech specs for the Wii in 2005 and wrote it off as “two Game Cubes taped together”. What they hadn’t figured on was the unique joypad, which used motion controls providing barrier-free access to simple, perfectly designed games such as Wii Sports, Wii Play and Wii Fit. Suddenly, whole families could compete together, from the youngest to the oldest – and Nintendo sold more than 100m units as a result. A victory for utilitarian design over technological obsession.