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".
1980s
The 1980s also was prominent for spawning several popular children's cartoons such as "The Smurfs", "ThunderCats", "Voltron", "The Transformers", "Masters of the Universe", "", "Inspector Gadget", "Muppet Babies", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", "DuckTales", "Garfield and Friends", "The Raccoons", "Heathcliff" and "Beetlejuice".Popular video games include: "Pac-Man", "Super Mario Bros.", "The Legend of Zelda", "Metroid", "Donkey Kong", "Frogger", "Digger", "Tetris", and "Golden Axe".
"Pac-Man" (1980) was the first game to achieve widespread popularity in mainstream culture and the first game character to be popular in his own right.
Handheld electronic LCD games was introduced into the youth market segment.
The primary gaming computers of the 1980s emerged in 1982: the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum.
Nintendo finally decided in 1985 to release its Famicom (released in 1983 in Japan) in the United States under the name Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It was bundled with "Super Mario Bros." and it suddenly became a success. The NES dominated the American and Japanese market until the rise of the next generation of consoles in the early 1990s, causing some to call this time the "Nintendo era".
Sega released its 16-bit console, Mega Drive/Genesis, in 1988 in Japan and in North America in 1989.
In 1989, Nintendo released the Game Boy, a monochrome handheld console.