This year, 2007, marks the 30th anniversary of the Atari 2600 release, which is what many consider to be the very first commercial video game console. And since then, the gaming populace has been privy to 21 major home consoles. To celebrate this momentous year, I have painstakingly researched and categorized each of the 18 home consoles’ logos. Yes, I have nothing else better to do with my time. So, with that in mind, let’s take a quick stroll through history, shall we?
Atari 2600: Here we have the granddaddy of them all: the Atari 2600. I don’t really understand what this logo stands for, but it must mean something cool, as it can still be seen on t-shirts and stickers everywhere. If you’re trying to convey the fact that you’re a retro gamer, you probably have the Atari logo somewhere in your gaming bordello. Interesting bit of trivia: the logo was even featured in the cult classic, “Blade Runner.” After four major company restructuring periods, the main focus of the logo still stands strong today.
Nintendo Entertainment System: Although the NES is regarded as possibly the most popular console ever made, the logo probably wasn’t the reason why. You have the generic logo that Nintendo uses for itself, and “Entertainment System” written beneath it. Yeah, not much to look at, really. I love you Nintendo, but this just isn’t what we expect from you. I’m sure it was the fact that no one gave a damn about video games when the NES came out, so a more subdued logo was the only way to get consumers to give you a chance. Apparently it was successful.
Coleco Vision: Some will be amazed that I even listed this, but hey, I had one and that means it gets listed. Like the NES, there’s really not much to see. “Coleco Vision” in rainbow lettering wouldn’t be my first choice, but it was always more of an actual toy than a gaming console, so whoever made the logo hit the nail on the head.
SEGA Master System: The Master System was the very first SEGA console in America. It was basically SEGA’s answer to the NES. Sadly, it never really caught on, as most people seem to only remember the Genesis. And as we can see, SEGA was apparently still holding back on that edgier attitude that we would come to see from the company in the next few years, as the logo is as boring as the NES logo.
SEGA Genesis: Now we’re talking. The Genesis was the system that put SEGA on the map. For all those gamers out there that were getting sick of the cute games that were being released on the NES and SNES, SEGA brought to the industry an attitude that some still swear by. You can kind of see it in this logo, what with the metallic plaque surrounding the very sharp and jagged Genesis lettering.
Super Nintendo Entertainment System: The American version of the SNES logo is barely a step up from the NES logo. Take out the oval, put “Super” in the front, and italicize it all. Hardly super in my mind. Now the Japanese logo, that’s a different story. Sleek, simple, and semi-colorful. Not as amazing as the Atari logo, but still a great effort from Nintendo. Interestingly, Americans could actually see this logo on those plastic cartridge protectors.
3DO: After Trip Hawkins left EA, he went on to release the predecessor to the PS3: the 3DO. And by that, I mean they are priced almost exactly the same. As for the logo, we have a circle, spherical cube, and a sharp-edged cube levitating in the air. Aside from redundant square-based shapes, the logo is pretty appealing. I’d have to say it’s the best one for the time, with nothing matching it until the PS1 logo.
*Updated to correct three shapes logo
TurboGrafx-16: This is actually one of the more intriguing logos. This must have been devised when the whole “bits war” was going on. Instead of having commercials scream at the person about how many bits the system was running, NEC skipped all that and put the number in the logo. But it’s definitely a more eye-pleasing logo when compared to the rest at the time.
NeoGeo: If you look at this thing closely, it’s actually kind of freaky. The faces are basically cardboard cutouts, with sharp angles pertruding everywhere. It looks like something you’d see in a book about voodoo. This is, in my opinion, probably the worst logo of them all. It just looks weird.
Jaguar: This one is freaky, but in a stylish and modern way. The font is scraggly on the edges, and it has the ‘R’ with the claw marks. It’s more of a type-based logo, with very little emphasis on the eyes. And they seem a little small to me. I think they were on to something, but didn’t go far enough with it. Lost potential, I say.
SEGA Saturn: After something like the Genesis logo, the Saturn seems a little pussy to me. It’s cool to have a planet as a logo, but the metal ring surrounding it is just too wimpy for my tastes. Maybe the size of the ring represents how many games came out for it?
Sony Playstation: This logo has actually been used for the Playstation brand in general, and has appeared on every Sony console up until now. For 1995, it’s pretty cool. It brings the idea of 3D to the forefront, and somehow reminds me of the whole “multimedia” thing that everyone seems to like. As for a logo now, it’s definitely in need of an upgrade. And it totally needs an “A” for arrogance in there somewhere.
Nintendo 64: Following the footsteps of the TurboGrafx-16, Nintendo decided to slap the consumers noggin with one of the system’s hardware specs by putting a big 64 right in the logo, based on the fact that it ran as a 64-bit machine. In retrospect, this logo is pretty similar to the PS logo. Same colors, same 3D-ness. With a track record like Sony’s, I’d say that Nintendo probably came up with it first. Just like rumble, the analog stick, motion control, etc.
SEGA Dreamcast: Poor little Dreamcast. You were such an innovative piece of gaming history. Even your logo was innovative. It was also probably the first example of where a logo was animated when the system was booted up. And the fact that the line is a little scribbly made it seem like the company was trying to show how devoted it was to making games with a more stylistic approach. Still one of my personal favorites, too.
Nintendo GameCube: Oh jeez. Nintendo messed up by releasing the system in that cute purple color, and it seems the logo fell to the same affliction. Reminiscent of the N64’s “3D-ness,” the GameCube logo was actually kind of a cool design. Got the whole cube look down perfectly, and it’s nice and simple. Color choice aside, Nintendo did a pretty good job with it.
Microsoft X-box: Microsoft’s first foray into the console race had itself a logo that just screams “marketing campaign.” It’s neon green, and was a giant X. If that’s not 90’s trendy, I don’t know what is. And I’m sure they paid a hefty price tag for this gem, too.
Nintendo Wii: Although this is very much in line with what Msoft was trying to do with the Xbox, Nintendo made a wise choice to go with the name Wii. It’s short and sweet, and is rife with that whole “i” thing that Apple started. It’s trendy to the point of nausea, but it’s not as annoying as say, a big green X, and I have to say they pulled it off rather well.
Xbox 360. I’m not really sure what the system’s actual logo is. It can either be the Dreamcast rip-off with the circles, or it an be the spherical neon X that you see when you boot up the system. The circles annoys me, seeing as how they stole it (among other things) from the Dreamcast, and the X-sphere is just an evolution on the original Xbox logo. I guess it’s not the worst thing possible, and it is a lot better than what Sony does with it’s home consoles’ logo (read: nothing). I also like the animation of the X digging into the sphere. Very trippy, indeed.
So there you have it. Anyone have a personal favorite? I’m sure one of you has a wardrobe just filled with these suckers. I know I do.
Atari is actually a situation in the game Go where (in a slightly simplifed example) a stone is surrounded on three sides, and is in danger of being captured on the next move, that’s where the company’s name and the three-part logo come from.
That’s actually pretty cool:) Thanks, Stefan.
No problem, and in random facts left over from college typography classes, the 3DO logo is actually set in Century Schoolbook – it has a more distinctive #3 than Times New Roman, and the serifs on the D don’t taper. :)
Wow, that’s an impressive bit of near useless knowledge. Had 3DO used a font other than Century Schoolbook, they may still be in business today.
What about Atari’s arch-rival Intellivision?
The two i’s in the Wii logo are supposed to be like two stick people playing together.
I noticed a bit of simplicity in the newer designs, except for the xbox 360 one which looks like they took the xbox logo and crucified it on a circle.
nope.. Intellivision is not a position in Go, sorry :(
~K
PS; thanks for the foray down memory lane :)
yeah where is Intellivision’s logo? was WAY better than 3Do’s (not saying much)
Didnt read.. Youre only posting logos… So in that case, you forgot at least one… PS2
The green X for the xbox logo came from the DirectX logo.
How could you not include the PS3’s logo in this?
Sony really stepped up and simply used the Spider-Man typeface.
wheres the pc eh? lol. ms games for windows perhaps? there are pcs that are 2ce as good as ps3s, and most homes have a pc capable of playing sumthing like half life 2, so its gotta be ther lol.
peace
This is a great article. I love a brief history of consoles. It gave me some time to relax and reflect, and to forget about my boss George who is a micro-manager and a moron.
LOL, no PS2 or PS3. I guess they didn’t make the list
The text “GAMECUBE” below the GameCube logo is wrong. Regardless, the GameCube logo is well-made because the outside purple-y part is a G, the empty black space makes a C, and then there is a cube in the center. Pretty nifty.
fascinating read — will you be following up with a treaty on the handhelds next?
Gee, try not to be such a Sega Fanboy next time.
I love Sega, but all the Microsoft and Sony hate in this article is lulz-worthy.
The atari logo is meant to look like their joystick that came with the unit.
Tim, thanks for the catch. The new hopefully correct GC image is up.
I believe Bushnell also once said the Atari logo was a stylisation of two tennis players meeting at the net, since Pong started their business, or it could be Mt. Fuji as well. Also, I don’t think Coleco chose the colourful logo to look childish, but perhaps more to distinguish their newer “programmable” system from their previous non-programmable black and white telestar models.
The atari logo is meant to look like their joystick that came with the 2600.
see http://www.atariage.com/controller_page.html?SystemID=2600&ControllerID=1
for a picture of the old joystick
Here are better images of the old joystick
http://images.google.com.au/images?q=joystick+atari
Do you not see that the XBox 360 logo is a circle because of the whole 360 degrees theme? They wanted to improve the 3D look, keep the theme (because it was working) and add some visualization of the 360 in the name.
Personally, I think it has worked really well. Exactly how a logo is supposed to work, in fact. Don’t get me wrong – I’m no fanboy for the xBox systems. I’ve never owned one and only played one about three times.
I find it particularly interesting that you bash certain logos but “Wii” is just soooooo cool and innovative. Sure, the name is a neat idea, but the logo?
Stephen clearly pulled that Atari logo explanation out of his ass. I’ve played Go and that doesn’t resemble anything about the game in any way.
Well, the 360 was designed by the same person who headed the Dreamcast, so you can’t complain too much about the similarities there.
Intellivision never gets love. :(
It was my understanding that the Atari logo was primarily meant to be Mt. Fuji, so much so that in the Atari equivelent of the Amiga bouncing ball demo, they featured the Atari logo and called it “FujiBoink”.
The Intellivision kicked butt. It was the first game system I bought with my own money. I loved that thing.
This article is just sad;
I could care less about whatever it is you think about the consoles.
I don’t know how this made it onto the front page of digg, maybe you could have tried doing some research and give us a better(actual) history of the consoles, companies, and true reasons for their logo choices, instead of your “Lame” guesses.
What about the Lynx system and the sega 32x and the game boy, game gear, nomad, Now nomad was a kick-ass system!
also Virtual Boy, Nintendo’s virtual boy needs to be on this list for being the greatest game system on the planet ;)
Dude – how could you forget about the Intellivision?!?!?
http://www.intellivisionlives.com/
Don’t use the whole Games for Windows. The title already says “Hey Windows plays these games Linux can’t” When some distros and play the games.
Errors.
The Sega Master System was not Sega’s first console. It was just Sega’s first console in America. The 3DO logo was NOT just the name, it was ALWAYS featured with a vertical collection of a diamond, a square and a circle.
i no, i recently saw some screenshots of prey on ubuntu, looked pretty nice. So yeh i guess they missd ot the penguin logo too!
i only suggested it cos its the most widely use marketing atm for pc games, cept for ATTi and nVidia – maybe systems built on each vendors chips could be classed as diff consoles?
…. The Saturn had lots of games, especially if you import. Besides that, why not throw some facts about the logos? Maybe where they came from, or Names companies thought of before they chose there respected consoles names and not your BS Commentary.
Ex: Saturn was originally called Neptune
Dreamcast was once named Katana.
Gamecube was almost called Dolphin (i think thats right!)
Or, maybe the DC was so close to being called Katana a launch DC actually had the name Katana inscribed on the motherboard. Something to that effect.
I agree 100% with the first Geoff, in post #26. This article sucked, and I can’t believe it was on the Digg front page. I learned more in the first comment to the article than I did in the entire article.
Dreamcast and the 360 have a similar logo… but they also have a person that followed both systems, and was vital to each system. Peter Moore.
It was my understanding that the Atari logo was supposed to represent Mt. Fuji. Interestingly, from the perspective of the origina of the word Atari, Bushnell’s next arcade game company was called Sente.
Agreed that the Intellivision needs to be on the list, but then there are a few other console logos not on the list. Notably: Milton Bradley Vectrex, Magnavox Odyssey, Fairchild Channel F, Bally Astrocade, Sega SG-1000 (for the sake of completion on the Sega consoles); basically most of the Atari 2600 generation consoles are unaccounted for, but the later generations are reasonably well documented, though we could stand to see the Amiga CD32 and Apple Pippin (3DO generation systems) represented.
Also, did the 3DO have some kind of blue/red/yellow icons for a logo?
Good read, but the only thing I wanted to say is that Nintendo didn’t really invent any of those controls schemes (you said “Just like rumble, the analog stick, motion control, etc.”).
The Sega Saturn had analog sticks (which were fairly poor) and the ps1 was the first console to have dual analog. Motion controls were around in arcades well before the Wii, but it is pretty clear where Sony got their inspiration from.
But hey, if one company can do an idea better, then more power to them.
Sega’s first console was the SG-1000.
In response to your “DC was probably the first console to have the logo animated upon boot”, you’re wrong. Loads (if not all) had the N64 logo animated upon boot up.
I have to thank you for putting all of these logos together in one place. However – you obviously have no experience in rating logos of any kind.
The Atari, Genesis, Gamecube, Xbox, N64, Playstation, PS2, Saturn, Wii and Dreamcast all very strong and distinctive.
Actually, the reason TurboGrafx-16 didn’t have commercials screaming its CPU bandwidth wasn’t to be understated; it’s because the TurboGrafx-16 was actually an 8-bit system (with 16-bit graphics chips, though the actual color depth supported was 9 bits).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TurboGrafx
this is uninformed rubbish you haven’t looked at any of these logos from any kind of design perspective and have missed the point of a lot of these logos, not to mention having missed ps2+ps3? oh well these stupid lists are a good way to drive some traffic to your website.
What? No Odyssey ][ ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnavox_Odyssey%C2%B2
Just another Sony basher trying to “fit in”……j/k. Seriously though Since the 64 Nintendo has probably been the best.
Atari is a move in the game Go, but it has a meaning… can you guess? I am pretty sure it roughly means “bingo”, “hit” or “check.” Watch Zatoichi hit a bulls eye and people yell atari.
The Atari logo is reminiscent of the insignia NASA astronauts use to represent their flight “wings”. You can see the shape in the bottom of the crew patch for shuttle mission STS-115: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-115
where is Micro Genius? thats my first console u know! :P