Video Games Evolution 1993 - 2008

The first commercially viable video game was Computer Space in 1971, which laid the foundation for a new entertainment industry in the late 1970s within the United States, Japan, and Europe. The first major crash in 1977 occurred when companies were forced to sell their older obsolete systems flooding the market. Six years later a second, greater crash occurred. This crash—brought on largely by a flood of video games coming to the market—resulted in a total collapse of the console gaming industry worldwide, ultimately shifting dominance of the market from North America to Japan. While the crash killed the console gaming market, the computer gaming market was largely unaffected. Subsequent generations of console video games would continue to be dominated by Japanese corporations. Though several attempts would be made by North American and European companies, fourth generation of consoles, their ventures would ultimately fail. Not until the sixth generation of video game consoles would a non-Japanese company release a commercially successful console system. The handheld gaming market has followed a similar path with several unsuccessful attempts made by American companies all of which failed outside some limited successes in the handheld electronic games early on. Currently only Japanese companies have any major successful handheld gaming consoles, although in recent years handheld games have come to devices like cellphones and PDAs as technology continues to converge.
Early games used interactive electronic devices with various display formats. The earliest example is from 1947—a "Cathode ray tube Amusement Device" was filed for a patent on January 25, 1947 by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann.