2000s
Telling video game history also means asking what was preserved
A timeline offers milestones; archives and scholarship let us ask who documents them, which materials survive, and where the limits of what we can claim lie.
Video games and the ways of playing that stayed with us
Latest additions
1970s
When the games came inside the console
Early home consoles explored different ways to deliver games: many were built into the machine, while the Magnavox Odyssey also introduced interchangeable cartridges and separate controllers.
1970s
From Computer Space to the Archive: Telling the Story of Arcade Games
The sources identify Computer Space as an early commercial milestone. From there, arcade history can be followed through machines and venues, but also through specialist archives, databases and public-history projects. The available evidence also makes clear where claims must stop.
1970s
Computer Space and the move to coin-operated games
Commercialized in 1971 as an arcade adaptation of Spacewar!, Computer Space offers a way to examine a key shift: video games began to be presented as public, commercial experiences. The available evidence also shows that some milestones in this history remain disputed.
2000s
Preserving Video Games Means Preserving More Than Games
A look at archives, museums, and projects that treat video games as material and digital culture: games, machines, documents, software, and the decisions that shape their public memory.
1990s
23 June 1996: Nintendo 64 arrives in Japan
Nintendo dates the Japanese launch of Nintendo 64 to 23 June 1996. The date offers a way to examine a console defined by 64-bit branding, cartridges, and an unusually shaped controller, without treating generational labels as an automatic explanation of its importance.
1990s
Nintendo 64: the 64-bit console Nintendo launched in Japan on 23 June 1996
A contextual technical sheet for Nintendo 64 based on the available verifiable data: its Japanese launch on 23 June 1996, its position as a 64-bit console, and its place in a specific period of Nintendo history.
Contemporary
Retro Doesn’t Return Unchanged: It Adapts to the Present
Commercial nostalgia rarely means bringing an object back exactly as it was. The available sources point to a more contemporary process: recovering familiar forms and references and connecting them to present-day needs, functions and desires.
2000s
Preserving a Video Game Means More Than Saving the Game
Video game history is distributed across software, hardware, documentation and experience. Preservation projects show why saving only one part cannot tell the whole story of the medium.
1980s
Destroyer and the Scattered Traces of Spanish Arcade History
Starting with Destroyer and more recent documentation projects, this article explores what can be reconstructed—and what remains difficult to verify—about arcade games made in Spain.
Contemporary
The past returns to the market, but never quite as it was
Nostalgia helps explain the appeal of retro products, but the sources also point to present-day needs: standing out, reinterpreting objects and bringing familiar design languages back into circulation.
1970s
Video game history cannot be reduced to a single date
Available accounts place video games in different contexts: computer research, electronic entertainment and the home market. Comparing them helps distinguish documented milestones from familiar simplifications.
