History of Video Game Consoles (third Generation)

History Of Video Game Consoles (third Generation)

In the history of computer and video games, the third generation (sometimes referred to as the 8-bit era) began on July 15, 1983, with the Japanese release of both the Nintendo Family Computer (later known as the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES, in the rest of the world) and Sega SG-1000. This generation marked the end of the North American video game crash of 1983, a shift in the dominance of home video games from the United States to Japan, and the transition from single-screen or flip-screen graphics to scrolling graphics, which was a pivotal leap in game design.

The best-selling console of this generation was the NES/Famicom (which remained the best-selling home console up until the PlayStation), followed by the Sega Master System (which dominated the European and South American markets) and then the Atari 7800. Although the previous generation of consoles had also used 8-bit processors, it was at the end of this generation that home consoles were first labeled by their "bits". This also came into fashion as 16-bit systems like the Mega Drive/Genesis were marketed to differentiate between the generations of consoles. In the United States, this generation in gaming was primarily dominated by the NES. The end of the 3rd generation of video games comes as 8-bit consoles become obsolete in graphics and processing power compared to 16-bit consoles.