It’s National Video Games Day! Let’s Look at the Evolution of Gaming

Today is National Video Games Day and since the launch of the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972, there has been a myriad of home consoles. From the popular NES to the latest PS5, technology has drastically improved in the last few decades. But just how much have video games and consoles evolved since the 1970s? Gaming experts at Crucial have looked into the evolution of consoles and games and compared data around retro vs modern gaming to find out the value of retro consoles over time, the evolution of video game storage, the largest video games by file size and the largest open world maps. Some retro consoles have increased in value by hundred of dollars, makes you want to go searching your attic for old consoles, doesn’t it?

Here are some key takeaways :

• The Neo Geo which was one of the most expensive home consoles at the time, retailing for $649, which would be $1,282 in 2022. The console is still one of the most expensive today, at an eye-watering $3,205!
• The Odyssey was $99, which, with inflation, would equal approximately $633 in 2022 — more than most modern-day consoles.
• The GameCube is one of the most modern consoles on the list with a massive increase in price, the console which retailed for $199 in 2001 is now worth close to $750
• The largest modern game by file size is ARK: Survival Evolved, which, when you’ve downloaded all the additional downloadable content (DLC), takes up a whopping 275GB of storage.
• The game with the biggest map is No Man’s Sky, which has 255 galaxies that are packed with stars and planets. It’s calculated that this map is around 31.7 sextillions km2 (a sextillion has 21 zeros).
• The oldest game in the list is Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters; released in 1992 and sitting third on the list, it’s another game based in space with 500 stars and 3,800 planets.
• Most games were stored on cartridges in the 90’s with capacities not exceeding 64mb, today, consoles can have internal storage of up to 2TB

Find out more here!