Console evolution in pictures

by James Ransom-Wiley { Jan 4th 2007 at 11:25PM }

By Knuttz's count, it's taken 70 steps, including many retreads, to get from Odyssey to Wii. You can view each of these steps -- all 71 consoles -- in this scrolling gallery. (Note: handhelds have been omitted.)

Tags: 360, Atari, Colecovision, Genesis, Jaguar, N64, Neo Geo, NeoGeo, NES, Odyssey, PlayStation, PS2, PS3, SNES, Turbo Duo, Turbo Grafx 16, TurboDuo, TurboGrafx16, Wii, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox360

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

KC @ Jan 4th 2007 11:39PM

Damn.

I wonder is someone out ther owns them all.

Prior to the NES, I never touched a console. So many failures..... so many....

Avinash_Tyagi @ Jan 4th 2007 11:55PM

Wii is the pinnacle of gaming

Negativecool @ Jan 5th 2007 12:06AM

@ Avinash_Tyagi

There is no going UP from the pinnacle, look it up.
So basically what you are saying is gaming is dead after the Wii. That there will be a gaming crash worse than anything seen before, not even the 80's. Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft are all done after the Wii.

Negativecool @ Jan 5th 2007 12:07AM

I had 2 Atari systems before me and my brother convinced my parents that the Nintendo wouldn't break too.

I can't remember which Atari's they were though. I remeber my favorites on the first one were Space Invaders, Breakout, and Pac-Man, and then playing Pole Position all the time on the second Atari system.

Then my brother got a Sega, but I skipped that and went directly to the Sega CD. I had to take out a loan with my parents to buy the Sega CD-X (it was $400, took a while to pay back with my allowance. It became my first "portable" CD player).

Then it goes PS1, and 2, and I dabbled in a bit of PC gaming back when Medal of Honor was popular. Not sure where to go from here.

Kudos to Knuttz for taking me down memory lane.

BklynKid @ Jan 5th 2007 12:07AM

We've come so far.

The NES pretty much gave birth to the modern controller.

NintendoFanbot @ Jan 5th 2007 12:12AM

As much as I love the Wii being at the pinnacle, skeptics could also be justified that not it's not very stringent to the 'evolutionary' line moreso than the chronological releases of the respective consoles (which Wii would still be at the end having come after PS3), and while I'm too lazy to check the dates on some of these consoles, the SNES2 appears in the middle and even after some 32-bit consoles.

I didn't even know the Oddesey had successors!

The Tim @ Jan 5th 2007 12:57AM

He forgot the Panasonic Q:

http://www.ntsc-uk.com/feature.php?featuretype=hdw&fea=PanasonicQ

The Tim @ Jan 5th 2007 1:11AM

Oh, furthermore, as pointed out by a Digg commenter, it appears that this isn't even original material. The version found at http://www.thegameconsole.com/ has exactly the same pictures along with a few paragraphs of text describing each console.

Pomme @ Jan 5th 2007 1:23AM

Wonder if someone actually owns these consoles ? Maybe you could...

Check here :

http://preview.tinyurl.com/y8rnts

Kevout @ Jan 5th 2007 1:59AM

There is no Atari 800XL on that list,, for shame

Avinash_Tyagi @ Jan 5th 2007 2:22AM

@Negativecool:

I actually meant in terms of right now it is the pinnacle, in the future it may be surpassed, perhaps I phrased it wrong

Manu @ Jan 5th 2007 4:28AM

Majority of those are just different variations of Pong, of which the only historically worthwhile ones are the first Magnavox Odyssey and the first Atari Pong. The rest I have in my collection, give or take a few.

Keef @ Jan 5th 2007 8:02AM

XaviX = Wii.......

SMS HIdden Game @ Jan 5th 2007 9:15AM

Wow I had a vectrex in grade school! I remember the SMS, you could power it on with no card/cartridge and I forget which buttons you would have to press but it would give you a "easter egg" game of a snail that you would have to navigate in a maze.

But I dont understand why altered beast is pictured with it as that wasnt like a "release title" they didnt even have a coin-op version when the SMS was out.

Space harrier was great though.

poke50uk @ Jan 5th 2007 10:22AM

omg.. he nicked those exact pictures off another site i found ages ago! naughty naughty

David @ Jan 5th 2007 1:06PM

How about a popup warning? Dang.

Ken Seang @ Jan 5th 2007 1:11PM

Where's pippen?

Drew @ Jan 5th 2007 1:27PM

They forget turbografx!! How could they forget Turbografx!?

David @ Jan 5th 2007 1:39PM

No crazy popups the second time there. Double dang.

dyer @ Jan 5th 2007 2:57PM

@18 They had the TuroboGrafx 16. What they missed was its successor, the SuperGrafx(maybe wrong on the name). Anyway they also forgot the Genesis/TurboGrafx combo machine, forgot what that was called. Maybe it was called the MegaDuo??? Really not sure.