Why Consoles?

How did the curious machine which helped you stay young even when you grew old come into being? Who were the forerunners? Read on and find out for yourself!

- 

Avid gamers may find this hard to digest, but there was a time when there was no such thing as a console, when people had to resort to more analog measures to find their fun.

Thankfully though, we now live in an era when the console, even though not ubiquitous, can still be bought online. And while we have a lot of fun twiddling our fingers and making characters on a screen move according to our body movements, it’s worth checking out how it all began. For as any superhero aficionado would tell you, the origin stories can be really interesting.

What made the console happen? 

The story of the console, sadly enough, doesn’t include any extra-planetary beings coming down to the earth and handing over an advanced piece of technology for the entertainment (if not the edification) of lesser mortals. Or something equally mind-blowing.

What it does involve is an American named Ralph Baer working earnestly to bring the first fully functional game console to life by 1966. However, another decade would pass before the game named ‘Pong’ made consoles rather

Made for fun, right from the beginning! common in living rooms across America. (Note that the arcade games were already something of a niche activity during the time, making it easy for at least some people to adopt consoles –a more personal device).

In other words, rather than anything drastic, it was just the machinery of commerce – something that necessitates new products that would be bought by more people to keep the cycle of business going – which led to the development of consoles. As far as origin stories go, it isn’t exactly up there with the origin tales of superheroes.