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".
Alan Kotok
Martin Graetz, Stephen Russell and Wayne Wiitanen conceived the computer game "Spacewar!" while working at Harvard University in 1961. Inspired by Marvin Minsky's "Three Position Display" (which they dubbed the "Minskytron"), they had the first version running, with help from their MIT classmates Dan Edwards, Kotok, Stephen D. Piner, Samson and Saunders, by early 1962. Coded by Russell, "Spacewar!" was one of the earliest interactive computer games and is sometimes called the first video game.