What video game was invented in 1958?

The video game invented in 1958 is Tennis for Two, created by physicist William Higinbotham.

Tennis for Two (1958):

• Creator: William Higinbotham, a physicist at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York.
• Platform: Oscilloscope (an electronic test device used to display waveforms).
• Gameplay: The game simulated a game of tennis or pong, where two players controlled paddles and tried to hit a ball back and forth across a net. The ball's trajectory was influenced by a simple physics engine, and players used controllers to move their paddles vertically.
• Display: The game was displayed on an oscilloscope screen, which is very different from modern TV screens. The screen displayed a simple graphical representation of a tennis court, with a ball bouncing between two paddles.

Significance of Tennis for Two:

• Tennis for Two is often considered one of the earliest video games ever created, though it is not a "video game" in the modern sense because it was played on specialized equipment not designed for gaming.
• The game was developed as a demonstration to entertain visitors at the laboratory's public exhibition, not intended for commercial sale.
• Although Tennis for Two is older than Pong (which was released in 1972), it was not widely distributed and remains more of a historical curiosity than a commercial success.

Legacy:

• Tennis for Two is seen as one of the earliest examples of interactive entertainment and is considered one of the forerunners of the video game industry.
• It predates Pong (1972), which is often credited as the first commercially successful video game, by 14 years. While Pong is much more widely recognized as the first video game, Tennis for Two is an important milestone in the development of electronic games.

The game helped to lay the foundation for the video game industry by showing that interactive entertainment could be created with electronics, even if the technology was rudimentary by today's standards.