It depends on what your museum is trying to convey. If it’s moments of gaming history and games and consoles of significance, I’d go with:
For the earliest video games, I’d show the Tennis for Two on the DuMont Lab Ocilloscope, released in 1958.
You should also include the life of Warren Robinett, because he was the first ever game programmer to receive in-game credit for a game he made, because Atari never gave their programmers credit, but he snuck one in as an easter egg. He then went on to found the Learning Company which made all those Reader Rabbit games.
For the Crash of 1983, you have to include ET for the Atari 2600 as the posterboy, but “Pitfall!” should also be included. Pitfall was a good game, but it was the breakout hit of Activision and therefore proof that third-party video games were viable, leading to the glut of video games which, in combination with ET being such a colossal failure, caused the crash.
For the resurgence after the crash, the Nintendo Entertainment System, but specifically the one that came with the little robot to help you play games. It’s essential that you convey that Nintendo intended to sell it as a toy rather than a games console because the games market in the US had completely died in the crash, but the toy market was very much alive.
It depends on what your museum is trying to convey. If it’s moments of gaming history and games and consoles of significance, I’d go with:
For the earliest video games, I’d show the Tennis for Two on the DuMont Lab Ocilloscope, released in 1958.
You should also include the life of Warren Robinett, because he was the first ever game programmer to receive in-game credit for a game he made, because Atari never gave their programmers credit, but he snuck one in as an easter egg. He then went on to found the Learning Company which made all those Reader Rabbit games.
For the Crash of 1983, you have to include ET for the Atari 2600 as the posterboy, but “Pitfall!” should also be included. Pitfall was a good game, but it was the breakout hit of Activision and therefore proof that third-party video games were viable, leading to the glut of video games which, in combination with ET being such a colossal failure, caused the crash.
For the resurgence after the crash, the Nintendo Entertainment System, but specifically the one that came with the little robot to help you play games. It’s essential that you convey that Nintendo intended to sell it as a toy rather than a games console because the games market in the US had completely died in the crash, but the toy market was very much alive.