Video Games

The first video games were made for the computer. Pong, released in 1972, was the first commercially successful game. The Atari 2600 was released in 1977 and became one of the first successful home game consoles.

35,000:
Total number of Pong arcade machines sold

$189:
Cost of an Atari 2600. That’s equal to $850 today!

The video game arcade was the place to be! Pac-Man was released in 1980 and earned $8.1 million per week—all in quarters! By the mid-1980s, more than 1.5 million arcade cabinets were in use across the U.S.!

25¢:
Cost to play each game

$3,000:
Cost of an arcade cabinet

A console you could use at home became the go-to, with the release of the Super Nintendo in 1990, the Sega Saturn in 1994, and the PlayStation in 1995. They all stored games on CDs or cartridges, and launched series like Sonic the Hedgehog and Pokémon.

1991:
Year Sonic the Hedgehog debuted

Going online meant you could play with friends or buy digital copies of games. The PlayStation 2 became the best-selling console of all time. The 2007 release of the iPhone led to a boom in mobile gaming.

500,000:
Number of PlayStation 2 consoles sold the first day it hit stores

$3 million:
Sales of mobile games the first year the iPhone came out

Introduced in 2016, the Oculus Rift was the first virtual reality headset. It fully immerses players into the game. And today, you can literally step into the game at the new Super Nintendo World theme park at Universal Studios Hollywood, in Los Angeles, California.

145 million:
Number of Oculus Rift headsets sold in its first 3 months

$109:
Cost of an entry ticket to the Super Nintendo World theme park