Video Game Console

The very first game was a board game called “Senet” and it was played from almost the start of Egyptian civilization but its popularity fell in Roman times and the original rules are unknown today. Chess was developed in the middle ages and is still played today. Games in the 1800s were mostly based on the Christian religion. Arcade boxes appeared in the 1920s and in 1969 Sega’s “Missile” game introduced a joystick and fire button for the missile. In 1974 Dungeons and Dragons appeared as the first role playing game. Ralph Baer was born in Germany in 1922 and fled Germany with his parents in 1938 because of Hitler. He was interested in radio and electronics so he became a radio technician. After he was drafted for World War 2 he became a head radio technician. After the war, he went to work for a small electronics company and quickly rose to chief engineer. He moved through lots of jobs at different electronics company until he came to be vice president at Sanders Associated. It was at this job he designed the video game console. He knew that it was to iffy for his CEO to fund, so him and his friends made a prototype that they could use to move a dot on the TV screen. His boss liked it and agreed to fund it. The Magnavox Odyssey was the result of that funding. Atari entered the video game industry in 1977, and was the leader of the video game industry until 1983, when they released the horrible E.T. video game and caused the video game crash. In 1985 Nintendo came and revived the industry with the NES and is the leading video game