Video game development
The history of game making begins with the development of the first video games, although which video game is the first depends on the definition of "video game". The first games created had little entertainment value, and their development focus was separate from user experience—in fact, these games required mainframe computers to play them. "OXO", written by Alexander S. Douglas in 1952, was the first computer game to use a digital display. In 1958, a game called "Tennis for Two", which displayed its output on an oscilloscope, was made by Willy Higinbotham, a physicist working at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. In 1961, a mainframe computer game called "Spacewar!" was developed by a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students led by Steve Russell.
Home video game console
Below is a timeline of each generation with the top three home video consoles of each generation based on worldwide sales. For a complete list of home video consoles released in each generation please see the respective article of each generation.Although the first video games appeared in the 1950s, they were played on massive computers connected to vector displays, not analog televisions. Ralph H. Baer conceived the idea of a home video game in 1951. In the late 1960s while working for Sanders Associates he created a series of "video game console" designs. One of these designs, which gained the nickname of the "Brown Box", featured changeable game modes and was demonstrated to several TV manufactures ultimately leading to an agreement between Sanders Associates and Magnavox.