Wired’s photo album of game consoles

Wired Magazine has posted a collection of 40 years worth of video game goodness, highlighting consoles through 47 images of hardware, ads and screenshots.

Beginning with Baer’s Brown Box through the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii, it includes body shot of most of the main systems including NES, Neo-Geo, SNES, Famicom, Sega, Intellivision, Colecovision… oh, you get the picture(s).

Aside from console images, the collection also includes:

• The man himself, Ralph Baer, posing with an Odyssey box
• Atari force comic book cover, published by DC Comics
• Intellivision print ad featuring George Plimpton. Uber groovy, dude.
• Sega Genesis ad with big, bold print: “Genesis does what Nintendon’t.”
• Screenshot of the infamous – and horrible – ET game.
• ESRB poster: “Video game rating make choosing games simple. And for a parent, simple is good.”
• An interview with Pac Man conducted by Atari Age magazine (I hope that is a coffee smudge on the page)
• Sega Saturn naked woman ad: “[In case you didn't notice,] there is a naked woman on this page.”
• Screenshot of Seaman (yes, Seaman) from the first voice recognition game of the same name.

Noticeably missing are the Microvision, the first game system with removable cartridges (though it was a handheld system) and Vectrex, a game system with built-in controllers and a monochromatic screen.

Read [Wired]