So, The First and Second Generations of Console Gaming really weren't that great....

[ShadeStrider]

The First Generation started with the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. It... Wasn't that good. I don't think any of us have played a single Magnavox Odyssey game before, but AVGN has showcased it, and I think a lot of us got our knowledge on these old products because of AVGN. 

 

Atari Pong was released a bit later, and it was commercially successful. Still... I don't think it really compares to anything on the NES.

 

Then the gaming industry crashed due to an overload of these things. This was known as the Crash of 1977. I don't think the term "Video Game" existed back then. 

 

Atari would go on to start the second Generation of Video games with the Atari 2600. This put the Video Game Industry on life support. Magnavox would release a Magnavox Odyssey 2, which didn't suck as much. While there wasn't much wrong with these consoles themselves, Poor quality control led to nonfunctional or unfun video games being made. As a result, the Crash of 1983 happen.

 

Any gamer worth their salt knows about the Crash of 1983. Most like to blame it on a poor Pacman port to the Atari, or the movie licensed game E. T. the Extraterrestrial, based on Steven Spielberg's film. In retrospect, the Crash wasn't single-handedly caused by these two games: It was caused because people were tired of getting terrible games. There was no quality control over Atari games, meaning that companies could release whatever crap they wanted and consumers didn't have much education over what they were buying.

 

The Third Generation came, where Nintendo truly revived the console gaming industry, instead of merely putting it on life support. The NES was almost completely dominant during this part of video game history. Sega also made a console, the SG-1000, but it was a failure, just like every console Sega made except the Genesis.

 

The Third Generation was probably the most important generation in Video game history because it set standards for what Video games should be aiming for: Fun Gameplay, Atmosphere, visuals, and even story. So many games released on the NES are still regarded as classics because of what they did. Some of these titles were: Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Final Fantasy, Castlevania, Contra, Tetris, Mega Man... these were the games that set the Standards. And this is where Video games became more than just simple entertainment.

 

So, In all, I think Video Games weren't really great before the NES. And I think a lot of us can agree.

 

I think I'll make another retrospective like this sometime.