Table of Contents First generation: 1972 – 1983 Second generation: 1976 – 1985 Third generation: 1983 – 1990 Fourth generation: 1987 – 1996 Fifth generation: 1993 – 2002 Sixth generation: 1998 – 2005 Seventh generation: 2005 – 2013 Eighth generation: 2012 – 2020 Ninth generation: 2020 – present Video games are still a young medium in the grand scheme of things, but have been around for well over 50 years now.
After the arcade boom in the 70s, home consoles slowly took over the gaming landscape with Nintendo’s NES leading the charge.
The NES is one of the best video game consoles of all time, but it was far from the first console and certainly not the last with the likes of the PS5, Xbox Series X, and Switch 2 currently fighting for market dominance.
Currently, we’re in the ninth generation of consoles but how exactly did we get here, and what consoles were in the eight prior generations?
Let’s rewind time and look at what defined every console generation from the first up to today. If you want to look even further ahead, we can also tell you about every upcoming video game console and upcoming video game.