1970s . 1980s in video gaming . 1990s

Other events: 1980s . Games timeline

The 1980s in video gaming were a decade of some notable events and releases such as the crash of 1983. The decade was dominated by both Nintendo

Nintendo

is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....

 and Sega

Sega

, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...

 and their consoles.

Third generation consoles

Starting in 1983 the third generation began with the Japanese release of the Family Computer (later known as the Nintendo Entertainment System in the rest of the world). Although the previous generation of consoles had also used 8-bit processors, it was at the end of this generation that home consoles were first labeled by their "bits". This also came into fashion as 16-bit systems like the Mega Drive/Genesis were marketed to differentiate between the generations of consoles. In the United States, this generation in gaming was primarily dominated by the NES/Famicom.

Fourth generation consoles

Starting in 1987 and ending in 1996, the fourth generation of video game console

Video game console

A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...

s consisted primarily of games and systems programmed for the 16-bit era. During this generation, 2D graphics had improved over the previous generation

History of video game consoles (third generation)

In the history of computer and video games, the third generation began on July 15, 1983, with the Japanese release of both the Nintendo Family Computer and Sega SG-1000...

 and experimentation began to occur with 3D graphics, although 3D games were more prevalent on the PC

Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

 at the time. The fourth generation also was the first time Compact Disc

Compact Disc

The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

s were considered a viable port for video game retail sales with the CD-i

CD-i

CD-i, or Compact Disc Interactive, is the name of an interactive multimedia CD player developed and marketed by Royal Philips Electronics N.V. CD-i also refers to the multimedia Compact Disc standard used by the CD-i console, also known as Green Book, which was developed by Philips and Sony...

. Some of the most notable systems released during this generation were the Super Famicom/Super Nintendo Entertainment System

Super Nintendo Entertainment System

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...

 (1990), the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis (1988), and the Neo Geo

Neo Geo (console)

The is a cartridge-based arcade and home video game system released on July 1, 1991 by Japanese game company SNK. Being in the Fourth generation of Gaming, it was the first console in the former Neo Geo family, which only lived through the 1990s...

 (1990). Nintendo's Game Boy

Game Boy

The , is an 8-bit handheld video game device developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America in , and in Europe on...

 was also released during the fourth generation, which would later become the most popular series of handheld gaming systems during the 1990s. A rivalry between Sega and Nintendo occurred during this generation, starting the first ever console war

Console wars

"Console wars", also known as "System wars" is a term used to refer to periods of intense competition for market share between video game console manufacturers. The winners of these "wars" may be debated based on different standards: market penetration and financial success, or the fierce loyalty...

.

Video game crash of 1983

The North American video game crash of 1983 brought an abrupt end to what is considered the second generation of console video gaming in the English-speaking world. It almost destroyed the then-fledgling industry and led to the bankruptcy of several companies producing home computers and video game consoles in North America. It lasted about two years, and many business analysts of the time expressed doubts about the long-term viability of video game consoles. The video-game industry was revitalized a few years later.

See also

• History of video games
  History of video games
  The history of video games goes as far back as the 1940s, when in 1947 Thomas T. Goldsmith, Jr. and Estle Ray Mann filed a United States patent request for an invention they described as a "cathode ray tube amusement device." Video gaming would not reach mainstream popularity until the 1970s and...
  
  
• List of years in video games