Third Generation (1983–1989)

In the history of computer and video games, the third generation began on July 15, 1983, with the Japanese release of both the Nintendo Family Computer (later known as the Nintendo Entertainment Systemin the rest of the world) and Sega SG-1000. This generation marked the end of the North American video game crash of 1983, a shift in the dominance of home video games from the United States to Japan,^[3] and the transition from single-screen or flip-screen graphics to scrolling graphics, which would prove to be a pivotal leap in game design.

Although the previous generation of consoles had also used 8-bit processors, it was at the end of this generation that home consoles were first labeled by their "bits". This also came into fashion as 16-bit systems like the Mega Drive/Genesis were marketed to differentiate between the generations of consoles. In the United States, this generation in gaming was primarily dominated by the NES/Famicom. The end of the 3rd generation of video games comes as 8-bit consoles become obsolete in graphics and processing power compared to 16-bit consoles.