Gaming history is messy. If you're looking for a list of all video game systems, you probably expect a neat timeline starting with the NES and ending with the PS5. But that's just the surface level. Honestly, if we only talk about Nintendo, Sega, and Sony, we're ignoring about eighty percent of the hardware that actually exists.
The industry didn't just appear out of nowhere. It crawled out of research labs and smoky bars. It’s a graveyard of failed experiments and bold ideas that were ten years too early.
The Dawn of the Home Console (1972–1977)
It all started with the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. Ralph Baer, the guy they call the "Father of Video Games," basically figured out how to turn a TV into an interactive toy. It didn't have a CPU. No sound, either. You had to stick plastic overlays on your TV screen to pretend you were playing football or tennis. It was primitive, sure, but it changed everything.
Then came the "Pong" era. Everyone and their mother wanted a piece of the pie. We saw systems like the Atari Pong consoles and the Coleco Telstar. These weren't "systems" in the modern sense because you couldn't swap games. The game was built into the hardware. You bought the box, you played Pong, and that was it. If you wanted a different game, you bought a different box.
Most people forget about the Fairchild Channel F. That's a shame. Released in 1976, it was the first machine to use actual programmable ROM cartridges. Before the Channel F, "consoles" were fixed-function devices. Jerry Lawson, one of the few Black engineers in the industry at the time, led the team that made cartridges a reality. Without him, the list of all video game systems would look more like a list of dedicated appliances.
The 8-Bit Explosion and the Crash
The late 70s gave us the Atari 2600. It was the king. It stayed the king for a long time. But the 1980s were when things got weird and then very, very quiet. We had the Intellivision with its weird gold-disc controllers and the ColecoVision, which actually looked like arcade games.
Then 1983 happened.
The market flooded with garbage. Too many consoles, too many terrible games (look up E.T. if you want a laugh), and a total loss of consumer trust. The industry in North America literally collapsed. People thought home consoles were a fad that had finally died.
But Japan didn't get the memo.
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)—or the Famicom, if you're in Japan—saved the world. It’s that simple. When we look at a list of all video game systems, the NES is the divide between "experimental toy" and "cultural powerhouse." Nintendo introduced strict quality controls. They made sure games didn't suck. Mostly.
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During this 8-bit era, we also had:
- The Sega Master System (huge in Brazil, strangely enough).
- The Atari 7800 (too little, too late).
- The NEC PC Engine (known as the TurboGrafx-16 in the States).
The PC Engine is an interesting case because it was technically an 8-bit CPU with 16-bit graphics chips. It’s where the "bit wars" started to get confusing. Marketing teams realized they could just throw numbers at kids to make hardware sound more powerful.
The 16-Bit War and the CD Transition
This is where things get nostalgic. The Super Nintendo (SNES) versus the Sega Genesis. It was a bloodbath. Sega had Sonic and "Blast Processing," which was basically a made-up marketing term for a faster clock speed. Nintendo had Mario, Zelda, and the Mode 7 graphics that allowed for pseudo-3D effects.
But don't forget the weird stuff. The Neo Geo was the "Rolls Royce" of consoles. It cost $650 in 1990. Adjust that for inflation, and it's over $1,400 today. The cartridges were the size of VHS tapes because they contained the actual arcade boards. It was incredible and totally unaffordable for a normal human being.
Then there was the Philips CD-i. It wasn't really a game system, but it tried to be. It gave us some of the worst Zelda games in history because Nintendo gave Philips the rights as part of a failed hardware deal. That failed deal, by the way, is exactly why the Sony PlayStation exists. Sony was originally building a CD-ROM drive for Nintendo. Nintendo backed out, and Sony decided to release their own console just to spite them.
Talk about a revenge story.
Entering the 3D Era (The 32/64-Bit Years)
By the mid-90s, everyone was obsessed with polygons. The Sega Saturn was a beast for 2D sprites but a nightmare to program for 3D. The Nintendo 64 stuck with cartridges while everyone else moved to CDs, which meant games like Final Fantasy VII jumped ship to the PlayStation.
This era's list of all video game systems includes a lot of "lost" hardware:
- The 3DO Interactive Multiplayer (another expensive disaster).
- The Atari Jaguar (the "64-bit" console that wasn't really 64-bit).
- The Casio Loopy (marketed exclusively to girls in Japan).
- The Apple Pippin (yes, Apple made a console, and yes, it was a flop).
The PlayStation eventually won because it was cheap to develop for and used CDs, which were cheap to manufacture. It changed the demographic of gaming from "kids in bedrooms" to "college students in dorms."
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The Turn of the Century and the Big Three
The Dreamcast was Sega's last stand. It was a beautiful machine. It had a built-in modem for online play in 1999! But Sega was broke, and the hype for the PlayStation 2 was too strong. When the PS2 arrived, it became the best-selling console of all time, partly because it was the cheapest DVD player on the market.
Microsoft entered the fray with the original Xbox in 2001. It was basically a PC in a giant black box with a controller nicknamed "The Duke" because it was the size of a dinner plate. This solidified the "Big Three" dynamic we still have today: Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft.
Handhelds: A Parallel Universe
We can't talk about a list of all video game systems without mentioning the portables. The Game Boy was a monochrome brick that outlasted much more powerful competitors like the Sega Game Gear and the Atari Lynx. Why? Battery life. The Game Boy lasted 30 hours on four AAs. The Game Gear lasted about 3 hours on six AAs.
You can't play games if your console is dead.
We've seen waves of handhelds since then:
- Game Boy Advance (basically a portable SNES).
- Nintendo DS (the dual-screen wonder).
- PlayStation Portable (PSP) and the ill-fated Vita.
- Nintendo 3DS.
- The mobile phone (the elephant in the room that killed the low-end handheld market).
Modern Times and the Hybrid Shift
Today, the lines are blurring. The Nintendo Switch is both a handheld and a home console. The Steam Deck and the ROG Ally are essentially handheld PCs. We're moving away from the "generation" model toward a "platform" model.
The current heavy hitters—PS5 and Xbox Series X—are technical marvels, but they feel more like incremental upgrades compared to the massive leaps of the 90s. We're seeing 4K resolution, ray tracing, and SSDs that eliminate load times. It's impressive, but it lacks the "wild west" energy of the early 2000s.
The Systems Nobody Mentions
If you want the truly exhaustive list of all video game systems, you have to look into the regional oddities. In South Korea, Japanese imports were banned for a long time, so Hyundai released the Nintendo 64 as the "Hyundai Comboy 64." In Brazil, Tectoy is still making versions of the Sega Genesis today.
There are also the "micro-consoles" like the Ouya, which was a Kickstarter darling that ran on Android and failed spectacularly. Or the Zodiac, a PDA-gaming hybrid. Or the Nokia N-Gage, the "taco phone" that required you to take the battery out just to change a game cartridge.
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Gaming history is littered with these "bad" ideas that were actually quite brave.
Taking Action: How to Explore This History
If you actually want to experience this massive list, you don't need a warehouse to store 50 years of plastic.
1. Focus on Emulation (Legally)
Many of these systems are now "abandonware." While the legalities are a gray area, companies like Nintendo and Sega offer classic libraries through subscription services. It’s the easiest way to see what 8-bit gaming actually felt like without dealing with blown capacitors and yellowing plastic.
2. Visit a Retro Arcade or Museum
Places like the National Videogame Museum in Frisco, Texas, or the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, have these machines set up and running. Seeing an original Magnavox Odyssey in person is a completely different experience than looking at a JPG.
3. Check Local Retro Shops
Don't just look at eBay. Local retro gaming stores often have the "weird" stuff sitting on the back shelf. Ask the owner about the PC Engine or the Saturn. They'll probably talk your ear for an hour.
4. Start Your Own Small Collection
Don't try to buy everything. Pick an era—maybe the 16-bit era or the early 3D era—and find one console that speaks to you. The hardware is part of the art. The click of a cartridge, the whirl of a disc, the feel of a controller that wasn't designed for human hands—that's how you really understand the history.
The list of all video game systems is still growing. With cloud gaming and VR headsets like the Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro, the definition of a "system" is changing again. But the core remains the same: it's just a box that lets us play. Whether it's a wooden-panelled Atari or a sleek white PS5, they all exist for the same reason.
To keep track of every single variation, you'd be looking at over 1,000 distinct hardware revisions. From the GP32 to the WonderSwan, the diversity is staggering. The best way to learn is to pick a "family" of systems and start digging. You'll find that the "losers" of the console wars are often just as interesting as the winners.