History of Nintendo
In 1972, the first commercially available video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, had a light gun accessory, the Shooting Gallery. This was the first involvement of Nintendo in video games. According to Martin Picard in the "International Journal of Computer Game Research": "in 1971, Nintendo had -- even before the marketing of the first home console in the United States -- an alliance with the American pioneer Magnavox to develop and produce optoelectronic guns for the Odyssey (released in 1972), since it was similar to what Nintendo was able to offer in the Japanese toy market in 1970s".
Shoot 'em up
The genre's exact origins are a matter of some confusion. Video game journalist Brian Ashcraft pinpoints "Spacewar!" (one of the very earliest computer games) as the first shoot 'em up, but the later "Space Invaders" is more frequently cited as the "first" or "original" in the genre. "Spacewar!" was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1961, for the amusement of the developers; it was, however, remade four times as an arcade game in the early to mid-1970s. The game featured combat between two spacecraft.