First Gen:
Year: 1972
Company: Magnavox
Console: Magnavox Odyssey
330000 sold worldwide.
No CPU
Used cartridges
Second Gen:
Year: 1976
Company: Fairchild
Console: Fairchild Video Entertainment System (VES)
8 bit microprocessor
Used Cartridges
250,000 units sold worldwide
Year: 1977
Company: Atari
Console: Atari 2600
Contained a micro-processor 1.92 MHz chip
Used ROM cartridges
61.91 million Units sold worldwide.
TITLE
RELEASE YEAR
COPIES SOLD
Pac-Man
1982
7 Million
Pitfall!
1982
4 Million
Asteroids
1981
3.8 Million
Missile Command
1980
2.5 Million
Third Gen:
Year: 1983
Company: Nintendo
Console: Family Computer (Famicom) or Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
8 bit, 2 MHz CPU
Sold 61.91 million units worldwide.
Used ROM cartridges
TITLE
AMOUNT SOLD
Super Mario Bros.
40.24 Million
Super Mario Bros. 3
18 Million
Super Mario Bros.2
10 Million
Tetris
8 Million
The Legend of Zelda
6.51 Million
Year: 1985
Company: Sega
Console: Master System
8 bit, 3.58 MHz CPU.
14.8 million units sold worldwide.
ROM cartridge and card.
Forth Gen:
Year: 1986
Company: Atari
Console: Atari 7800
8 bit, 1.79 MHz CPU
3.77 million sold
ROM cartridge.
Year: 1987
Company: NEC
Console: TurboGrafx-16
8 bit, 1.79 MHz
Sold 10 million units worldwide (predominantly in Japan)
HuCard, CD-ROM (only with the CD-ROM add-on)
Year: 1988
Company: Sega
Console: Mega Drive
16 bit, 7.61 MHz
41.9 million units sold worldwide
ROM cartridge
Game
Units Sold
Sonic the Hedgehog
15 million
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
6 million
Aladdin
4 million
NBA Jam
1.93 million
Mortal Kombat 2
1.78 million
Year: 1988
Company: Nintendo
Console: Super Nintendo (SNES) known as Super Famicom in Japan
16 bit, 3.58 MHz
49.10 million units sole worldwide
ROM cartridge
Game
Units Sold
Super Mario World
20.60 million
Donkey Kong Country
9 million
Super Mario Kart
8 million
Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior
6.3 million
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
4.61 million
Fifth Gen
Year: 1993
Company: Panasonic
Console: 3DO Console
32 bit, 12.5 MHz
Only sold 2 million, due to hefty price tag
Year: 1993
Company: Atari
Console: Jaguar
32 bit multi-processor console, working 26.59 MHz
Sold 250,000 units worldwide.
ROM cartridge, CD-ROM (add-on)
Year: 1994
Company: Sega
Console: Sega Saturn
First console to use CD Rom instead of cartridge.
Two 32 bit CPU’s running at 28.6 MHz.
Only 9.4 million sold worldwide, predominantly in Japan.
Year: 1994
Company: Sony
Console: Playstation
First game console sold by company
32 bit, 33.8688 MHz
Sold a record breaking 102 million units worldwide.
CD-ROM
Year: 1996
Company: Nintendo
Console: N64
Games distributed on ROM cartridges
Developers saw as hindrance – limitations in memory (64MB of data)
64 bit, 93.7 MHz
Sold 32 million units worldwide
Best-selling Nintendo Games
Units Sold
Super Mario 64
11.62 million
Mario Kart 64
9 million
GoldenEye 007
8 million
The Legend of Zelda
7.6 million
Diddy Kong Racing
5 million
Sixth Gen
Year: 1998
Company: Sega
Console: Dreamcast
64 bit, 200 MHz multi-processor.
Sold 10.6 million units worldwide
CD
Year: 2000
Company: Sony
Console: Playstation 2
Featured 128 bit processor – speeds of up to 299 MHz
Sold 150 million units sold, making it the best-selling home console to date.
DVD-ROM
Year: 2001
Company: Nintendo
Console: GameCube
First Nintendo console to feature optical media, instead of ROM cartridges.
Played 8cm optical disks instead of standard 12cm DVDs.
128 bit, 486 MHz multi-processor
Year: 2001 (North America), 2002 (Japan and Europe/Australia)
Company: Microsoft
Console: Xbox
DVD, CD, Download.
Seventh Gen
Year: 2005
Company: Microsoft
Console: Xbox 360
DVD-DL
3.2 GHz PowerPC tri-core codenamed “Xenon”
500 MHz
78.2 million sold worldwide
Year: 2006
Company: Sony
Console: Playstation 3
Blu-ray Disc
550 MHz RSX ‘Reality Synthesizer’
75 million units sold worldwide
Year: 2006
Company: Nintendo
Console: Wii
100.04 million units sold worldwide
Wii Optical Disc
729 MHz PowerPC based IBM “Broadway”
243 MHz ATI “Hollywood”
Hand-Held Gaming
Company - Nintendo
Years: 2004, 2006, 2009, 2010
Consoles: Nintendo DS, Nintendo DS Lite, Nintendo DSi, Nintendo DSi XL
153.93 million units sold worldwide
DS & DSL – 67 MHz ARM9 and 33 MHz ARM7
DSi – 133 MHz ARM9 and 33 MHz ARM7
Company – Sony
Years: 2005, 2009
Consoles: PSP, PSP Go
71.4 million units sold worldwide
MIPS R4000-based; clocked from 1 to 333 MHz
Eighth Gen
Year: 2012
Company: Nintendo
Console: Wii U
Wii U Optical Disc
320 shaders @ 550 MHz
Year: 2013
Company: Sony
Console: Playstation 4
Blu-ray DVD
1152 shaders @ 800 MHz
Year: 2013
Company: Microsoft
Console: Xbox One
Blu-ray DVD
768 shaders @ 853 MHz
Generation
Year
Console
Units Sold
1st
1972
Magnavox Odyssey
330,000
2nd
1976
Fairchild Video Entertainment System
250,000
2nd
1977
Atari 2600
30,000,000
3rd
1983
NES
62,000,000
3rd
1985
Sega Master System
15,000,000
4th
1987
TurboGrafx-16
10,000,000
4th
1988
Sega Mega Drive
42,000,000
4th
1986
Atari 7800
4,000,000
4th
1988
SNES
50,000,000
4th
1991
Neo Geo AES
150,000
5th
1991
3D0
2,000,000
5th
1993
Jaguar
250,000
5th
1994
Sega Saturn
9,000,000
5th
1994
Playstation
102,000,000
5th
1994
N64
32,000,000
6th
1998
Sega Dreamcast
11,000,000
6th
2000
PlayStation 2
150,000,000
6th
2001
GameCube
22,000,000
6th
2002
Xbox
24,000,000
