Retro Classics That Built Gaming

The arcade spark

Pong, released by Atari in 1972, was the first commercially successful video game. Engineer Allan Alcorn built it as a training exercise for co-founder Nolan Bushnell, and it was so good that Atari put it into production. Space Invaders from Taito followed in 1978, designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and made the high score a reason to keep feeding the machine.

Pac-Man arrived in Japan on May 22, 1980. Designer Toru Iwatani wanted a game that appealed to everyone, not just fans of sports or space games, and the dot-munching hero became one of the most recognized characters in the world.

Nintendo takes over

Donkey Kong in 1981 was first-time designer Shigeru Miyamoto's arcade hit and the debut of Mario, then called Jumpman. Nintendo built its home console on similar hardware: the Family Computer, or Famicom, launched in Japan on July 15, 1983, and as the Nintendo Entertainment System in US test markets on October 18, 1985.

Super Mario Bros., released in 1985, defined the side-scrolling platformer and has sold about 58 million copies, one of the best sellers of all time.

Gaming in your pocket

The Game Boy launched in Japan on April 21, 1989, designed by Gunpei Yokoi's team to be cheap, tough and long-lasting on batteries rather than flashy. Bundled with Tetris in the West, it became a phenomenon, and with the Game Boy Color the family sold about 118.7 million units.

Those same ideas live on in the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, and in every retro collection that brings these classics back to new hardware.

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