2. • 1958 - creation of "Ping pong" tennis on an oscilloscope screen by William Higinbotham at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
• 1961 - development of Spacewar on a PDP-1 at MIT for the Science Open House.
• 1972 - the first commercially available home videogame for TV was launched, called Odyssey - complex, with many electronic
components, and very expensive. • Video games have been
•
•
1972 - Nolan Bushnell forms Atari to develop games, and produces Pong, a simple tennis game for arcades.
1974 - Atari produce a home version of Pong.
around since the early
• 1974 - Nintendo, a Japanese toy manufacturer produce an electronic version of the Japanese game "Go".
1970s. The first commercial
• 1978 - Space Invaders is released by Tatio, and two micro computers are released for commercial sale - the Commodore PET
and the Atari.
arcade video game,
• 1980 - Pacman is released in Japan, to be played on a micro home computer. Computer Space by Nutting
•
•
1983 - Nintendo release their first computer, and Mario is released at the same time.
Associates, was introduced
in 1971. In 1972, Atari
1985 - Nintendo release the NES
•
•
1989 - First hand held machine from Nintendo, called "Game Boy". Tetris is produced for the Game Boy in Russia.
1989 - Sega releases the Sega Genesis
introduced Pong to the
• 1991 - Sonic is produced by Sega in response to Nintendo's Mario. arcades. An interesting item
• 1994 - Sony releases the Playstation in Japan
to note is that Atari was
• 1996 - Nintendo releases the Nintendo 64
formed by Nolan Bushnell,
•
•
1999 - Dreamcast - 128 bit processor - is released in the UK.
the man who developed
Computer Space. He left
2001 - Playstation 2 is released.
• 2001 - In September, Nintendo releases the Gamecube
• 2001 - In November, Microsoft enters the console market with the Xbox. Halo is released at launch, boosting sales. Nutting Associates to found
•
•
2005 - In November, Microsoft releases the Xbox 360
Atari, which then produced
Pong, the first truly
2006 - In April, Nintendo releases the Wii
• 2006 - In November, Sony releases the Playstation 3
• 2011 - In March of 2011, Nintendo releases the Nintendo DSI successful commercial
arcade video game.

3. • POSITIVE EFFECTS • NEGATIVE EFECTS
• Video games give
your child’s brain a
real workout. In many
video games, the
skills required to win
involve abstract and
high level thinking.
These skills are not
even taught at school.