Video Games have been around longer than you would expect. Early games were developed in the 1950 and 60's by a man known as Joe Snell. These video games ran on some very interesting devices, known as Oscilloscope and EDSAC. In 1958, William Higinbotham who helped in the process of creating the first Atomic bomb, created Tennis for Two at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York. His purpose for making this video game was to entertain visitors at the lab's annual open house. In 1962 Steve Russel created Spacewar! Running on a PDP-1 mini-computer the game quickly proved to be quite popular, spreading to universities and research facilities around North America. In 1967, Ralph Baer, created a ping-pong game which was a lot like Tennis for Two. He later invented the first video game console in 1968 named Television Gaming and Training Apparatus. He later worked with an electronics company called Magnavox to produce the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. More recently Ralph has been deemed by fans "Father of Video Games"; for creating for first video game console. He also received the National Medal of Technology in 2005 from US President George Bush himself.

The 1970s marked a lot of 'interesting' events for fashion and music. But it also marked the Golden Age of Arcade Games. In 1971, Nolan Bushnell created the first coin-operated arcade game called Computer Space. Players controlled a rocket ship and were up against a pair of flying saucers, players had to fire rockets in order to destroy the flying saucers. For a lot of people the gameplay was far too hard to grasp, because of this, it was not very big success in bars and taverns, although it did pretty well in college campuses. In 1972, Nolan Bushnell created a company named Atari, later in 1977 Atari's first home video game console 'Atari VCS' was released, later renamed to the Atari 2600. Selling 25 million units worldwide, this console was the first of its kind to be a successful plug-in cartridge system. In 1978, Taito Corporation released the highly popular arcade game Space Invaders; controlling a space ship armed with a laser cannon, players had to destroy as many aliens as they could before getting overrun or winning the game. Most recognized in Fish N' Chip shops around New Zealand, Space Invaders was the ideal pass-time while waiting for your chips. In 1980, the legendry game Pac-Man was released on most major Arcade systems, also including the Atari 2600. The year 1983 marked the sudden crash of the video game business; bankruptcy ambushed a number of companies which produced home computers and video game consoles. There was a three year gap during which there was no significant development in technology for video games. This was put to a end in 1985, when Nintendo released the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The NES was first released in Japan in 1983 and originally called the Famicom which meant "Family Computer". Selling 60 million units worldwide, the NES was a huge hit all around the world. Featuring a number of popular game titles, including the legendary Super Mario Bros, which next to Tetris is the biggest selling video game title of all time. Selling a whooping 40 million copies worldwide. Nintendo continued to create some of the most recognizable game characters around; including: Mario, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Samus, Link, and many others.

In 1986, Sega released its Master System, although never reaching the popularity of Nintendo's NES; only selling 19 million units worldwide. In 1989 Nintendo released one of the first popular handheld gaming device, the Gameboy; selling a massive 70 million units worldwide. Tetris proving to be a very popular puzzle game, became a huge hit on the Gameboy. Various other handheld systems were released at this time also, including Sega's Game Gear, although Nintendo's Gameboy held the top spot. Finally in 1989, Sega released its next generation video game console, named the Sega Genesis, selling 35million units wordwide, and featuring the ever so popular Sonic the Hedgehog. Shortly after, in 1991, Nintendo fired back at Sega; by releasing its next generation console, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Selling a huge 49 million units worldwide. In 1994 Sega released the Sega Saturn, selling a tiny 10 million units. 1994 also saw Sony's debut into the video games market with the release of the hugely popular Sony Playstation. Selling a whooping 102 million units worldwide! Both Sega's and Sony's new console's had 32-bit technology which was all video games needed to become 3D. This started the 3D era. Nintendo finally hit back at Sony and Sega in 1996, by releasing its Nintendo 64 (N64). Selling a huge 1.5 million units within the first three weeks of release, eventually selling 35 million units worldwide. Although it's an impressive figure, it fails in comparison to Sony's 102 million Playstations sold. Sony was now king. In 1998, Sega determined to get back into the driver's seat again, released the Sega Dreamcast. While it was a good console and was very "next generation" it failed to become popular enough before Sony released its Playstation 2 (PS2) in March 2000. Therefore the Dreamcast only sold 11 million units before being withdrawn from the market in 2002. When Sega announced they would now only become a 3rd Party Developer (making games for other video game console companies).

In 2001, Microsoft for the first time entered the video game industry, by releasing the Xbox. Featuring the extremely popular game Halo: Combat Evolved as a launch title. While it only sold 5 million copies, it set the stage for the squeal Halo 2 which sold $125 million dollars worth within the first day of release; at $50 dollars each, that's 2.5 Million copies sold in the first day, later on, reaching 6.4 million copies. 2001 also saw the release of Nintendo's Gamecube. Although the Gamecube looked promising before launch, on release it never really 'took off'. With a lack of DVD and online support, poor launch titles, and barely a handful of good games. Nintendo's future looked grim. But Nintendo always had its trump card, Gameboy. With the release of the Gameboy Color in 1998, and the Gameboy Advance in 2001. Gameboy was comfortably keeping Nintendo above the water's edge, where Sega had sadly drowned. With Xbox being the new kid on the block, and Nintendo not at its best, Sony's Playstation 2 sold a whooping 108 Million units worldwide, compared to Microsoft's Xbox's 24 million, and Nintendo's Gamcube's 21 million. Sony was once again King of the mountain.