Second generation consoles (1977–1983)

[Destroid™]

• The Video Computer System (VCS) ROM cartridge-based console, later renamed the Atari 2600, was released in 1977 by Atari. Nine games were designed and released for the holiday season. While the console had a slow start, its port of the arcade game Space Invaders would become the first "killer app" and quadruple the console's sales.^[12] Soon after, the Atari 2600 would quickly become the most po[CENSORED]r of all the early consoles prior to the North American video game crash of 1983. Notably, the VCS did this with only an 8-bit 6507 CPU,^[13] 128 bytes (i.e. 0.125 KB) of RAM, and at most 4 KB of ROM in each "Game Program" cartridge.

• The ColecoVision, an even more powerful machine, appeared in 1982. With its port of arcade game Donkey Kong included as a pack-in, sales for this console also took off. However, the presence of three major consoles in the marketplace and a glut of poor quality games began to overcrowd retail shelves and erode consumers' interest in video games. Within a year, this overcrowded market would crash.

The Intellivision, introduced by Mattel in 1980. Though chronologically part of what is called the "8-bit era", the Intellivision had a unique processor with instructions that were 10 bits wide (allowing more instruction variety and potential speed), and registers 16 bits wide. The system, which featured graphics superior to the older Atari 2600, rocketed to po[CENSORED]rity.

In 1979, Activision was created by disgruntled former Atari programmers "who realized that the games they had anonymously programmed on their $20K salaries were responsible for 60 percent of the company's $100 million in cartridge sales for one year". It was the first third-party developer of video games. By 1982, approximately 8 million American homes owned a video game console, and the home video game industry was generating an annual revenue of $3.8 billion, which was nearly half the $8 billion revenue in quarters generated from the arcade video game industry at the time.

Edited April 3, 2015 by ƒanτassy