Top 5 Oldest Video Games In The World

The video game industry is one of the biggest industries in the world amounting to billions of dollars of revenue each year. This revenue comprised consoles, PC games, and even the mobile platform.

Interestingly enough, the gaming industry has grown exponentially over the years and only existed roughly 60 years ago. It was believed to have started in the 1950s and became more popular as we witnessed the advancement of technology over the years.

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We believed most gamers out there are quite intrigued by the video games that will be on this list and here we would like to share with you the top 5 oldest video games to have existed in the world.

5. Magnavox Odyssey Games (1972)

You might think that companies like Nintendo or Sony were among the earliest to produce the first video game consoles in history. I'm afraid that would not be the case as the Magnavox Odyssey developed by Ralph H. Baer together with Bill Harison and Bill Rusch was the first video game console ever released.

The console made its first appearance in 1972 and it also came with 12 different games for you to try. There were several other games for gamers to purchase years after that and Magvanox was known for selling the first-ever video game light gun that comes as a unique peripheral controller.

4. Galaxy Game (1971)

Galaxy Game is an example of an arcade video game that was inspired by the Spacewar! video game. This video game was developed by Bill Pitts and Hugh Tuck from Standford University as it took them around $65,000 to create their first prototype of the game.

It was assembled in the university and it quickly got the attention of all the students there. Unfortunately, they did not manage to market this video game all over as they put too much emphasis on the development of the game.

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The second console produced that still remains functional to this day is currently displayed in the Computer History Museum.

3. Computer Space (1971)

Computer Space was the first arcade and commercial video game in the world. It is one of the video games inspired by the Spacewar! game. Computer Space was developed in 1962 and it was the works of two geniuses namely Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney.

They both established the Syzygy Engineering company in order to create this cool video game. Their company then worked together with Nutting Associates to develop the first prototype of this game which will run on coins.

1,500 units of Computer Space arcade machine managed to be sold and this success was considered the breaking point of the video game industry.

2. Spacewar! (1962)

The Spacewar! video game was created in 1962 and it quickly raises in popularity among the programmers' community in the 1960s. What made it interesting is that this video game comes in two-player mods and has become a great inspiration to other arcade video games.

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This video game was developed by Steve Russell with the help of Martin Graetz, Wayne Wiitanen, Bob Saunders, and Steve Piner. This game was created using a DEC PDP-1 computer and it was built at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT).

After this video game was fully completed and distributed, many students and university staff continued to improve and develop this video game further.

1. Tennis for Two (1958)

Generally speaking, Tennis for Two is the first video game to ever be created in the world. It is the first video game created solely for the purpose of entertainment and not for academic purposes.

This video game was developed by an American scientist named William Higinbotham who worked for the Brookhaven National Laboratory. From the start, he got the idea to create a video game after reading a manual book on an analog computer, Donner Model 30.

He found that the computer had the capacity to measure a ballistic missile trajectory and the strength of the bouncing ball by taking into account the air resistance factor. He then used an oscilloscope to display this game in visual form.

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