01
November 1975
Gun Fight reaches Midway's arcade record
Gun Fight is widely cited as the first microprocessor-powered arcade videogame and a major step beyond hardwired Pong-like circuits.
Duel cabinet
Gaming History, One Month at a Time
GTM-1975-11
November 1975
November is the richest drawer: Gun Fight, Odyssey 100/200, late-year Home Pong, PLATO RPGs and Shark Jaws make the year feel like a medium branching in several directions.
Gun FightOdyssey 100/200Home PongPLATO RPGs
Timeline archive
Select a year
1975 month drawer
Installed months are active; empty drawers are held for future exhibits.
Gallery 01
News
Five researched moments from a year where videogames are still cabinets, circuits, terminals and distant home experiments.
02
November 1975
Magnavox Odyssey 100 and 200 replace the original Odyssey
Magnavox releases dedicated Pong-style systems, showing the home market moving toward simpler single-purpose consoles.
Odyssey console card
03
Late 1975
Sears Tele-Games Pong enters holiday retail
Atari's Home Pong, sold through Sears, turns a television into a games object for the Christmas shopper.
Sears Tele-Games label
04
1975
PLATO RPGs create a hidden lineage
pedit5 and dnd are not consumer products, but they show fantasy role-playing becoming computer play in the same year dedicated TV games reach shops.
PLATO dungeon card
05
1975
Atari and Kee's arcade catalogue widens
Games such as Indy 800, Wheels and Shark Jaws show an industry trying racing, novelty and cinema-adjacent themes beyond bat-and-ball play.
Arcade catalogue drawer
Gallery 02
Releases
A fuller late-1975 shelf, with year-level and regional uncertainty labelled rather than hidden.
November 1975Arcade
Microprocessor arcade landmark
Gun Fight
Midway's licensed adaptation of Taito's Western Gun, remembered as the first microprocessor-powered arcade videogame.
November 1975Dedicated home console
Dedicated home system
Magnavox Odyssey 100
A simplified dedicated console carrying forward the Odyssey lineage with built-in ball-and-paddle games.
November 1975Dedicated home console
Dedicated home system
Magnavox Odyssey 200
A companion model adding handball and rudimentary on-screen scoring, another sign of the first-generation dedicated-console turn.
Late 1975Dedicated home console
Holiday home breakthrough
Sears Tele-Games Pong
Atari's Home Pong under the Sears Tele-Games label, a Christmas retail breakthrough for living-room videogames.
1975Arcade
Duel shooter origin
Western Gun
Taito's Western-themed duel game, later adapted by Midway as Gun Fight. Exact month is not asserted here.
1975Arcade
Cinema-adjacent novelty
Shark Jaws
Atari's shark game under the Horror Games label, tied to the broader Jaws cultural moment without a safe month-level release claim.
1975PLATO
Early computer RPG
pedit5 / The Dungeon
One of the earliest dungeon-crawl computer RPGs, hidden in institutional computing rather than sold as a consumer game.
1975PLATO
Networked tank simulation
Panther
A multiplayer tank simulation on PLATO, evidence that networked and first-person forms were developing far from arcades.
Gallery 03
Hardware
Four objects explain the month: cabinets, terminals, dedicated TV games and hobby computers.
Sears Tele-Games Pong
A dedicated one-game home console that turns the family television into a responsive play object for Christmas 1975.
Dedicated Pong consoleSears labelHoliday retail
PLATO terminals
PLATO is the hidden high-end exhibit: networked terminals, institutional access, dungeon games and simulations years before ordinary online play.
University networkTUTOR languageShared terminals
Dedicated Pong-style circuitry
Early home videogames are appliances: fixed circuits for a small set of TV games rather than software platforms.
No cartridgesTV outputPaddle controls
Hobby computer kits
The hobby computer is still intimidating, expensive and technical, but it is becoming imaginable as a personal object.
Kit cultureBASICMagazine-led learning
Gallery 04
Magazine Covers
In 1975 there is no normal videogame magazine shelf yet. Electronics and computing magazines are the map.
November 1975
Popular Electronics
Popular Electronics is shown as part of the paper network around early games: electronics, hobby computing, type-ins and ideas before specialist videogame magazines existed.
November 1975
BYTE
BYTE is shown as part of the paper network around early games: electronics, hobby computing, type-ins and ideas before specialist videogame magazines existed.
November 1975
Creative Computing
Creative Computing is shown as part of the paper network around early games: electronics, hobby computing, type-ins and ideas before specialist videogame magazines existed.
November 1975
Practical Electronics
Practical Electronics is shown as part of the paper network around early games: electronics, hobby computing, type-ins and ideas before specialist videogame magazines existed.
Gallery 05
Online Life
Networked play exists at the edges, but ordinary players live in a world of paper, arcades and local knowledge.
Online life was institutional, not domestic
For an ordinary player in November 1975, there is no online gaming life in the modern sense. Networked play belongs to systems such as PLATO, not the home.
PLATO is the hidden online gallery
The most advanced social computer-game activity is behind institutional access: terminals, shared systems, lessons, chat and games.
Paper is the discoverability layer
Magazines, adverts, club newsletters and manuals are how people find out what is possible.
Arcades are the social feed
The live update is still a public machine: who is playing, who is watching, and whose initials sit on the score table.
Gallery 06
What It Felt Like
A very early exhibit: young medium, patchy record, public machines, expensive hardware and a future only partly visible.
01
The future was still public
The arcade suddenly contains human duels, racing games and film-adjacent novelty beside Pong descendants.
02
The home version was only beginning
The home object is still simple and dedicated, but the idea that the family television can be a game machine has become real.
03
Britain saw the edges first
For a UK player, this still feels imported and expensive: a signal from American department stores and coin-op rooms rather than a familiar local shelf.
04
The record is patchy because the medium is young
There are few clean launch days, few consumer reviews and no settled games press. The museum label often has to say: year-level, regional, uncertain.