"Tennis in Gaming: From Pong to Wii Sports and Its Unexpected Impact"

With Wimbledon in full swing, now is a good time to make a possibly provocative statement: tennis is the most significant sport in the history of video games.

While today’s big titles may include football, American football, and basketball simulations, tennis was foundational to the medium. In 1958, scientist William Higinbotham created a simple bat-and-ball game at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, widely regarded as the first video game made solely for entertainment. Known as *Tennis for Two*, it ran on an oscilloscope and was intended as a brief diversion for visitors during the lab’s open day. But soon, people began lining up to play, with the queue stretching out the door and around the building—an early sign that video games could become widely appealing.

It remains unclear whether Ralph Baer, creator of the first mass-produced console, the Magnavox Odyssey, ever played *Tennis for Two*. However, while working at Sanders Associates in the late 1960s, he developed the idea of a TV-based gaming system, where the prototype could only display vertical lines and square dots. When Magnavox released the Odyssey in 1972, its key titles included *Table Tennis* and *Tennis* (the latter being nearly identical but with a plastic screen overlay resembling a court). These games allowed two players to hit a ball back and forth, introducing slight "spin" via a dial on the rudimentary controller—an evolution of the *Tennis for Two* knob that adjusted shot height. Still, neither game required much skill.

Then came *Pong*, often cited as the first major arcade hit. Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, after trying the Odyssey’s tennis game, believed he could improve it. Working with programmer Al Alcorn, he split the on-screen paddle into eight segments, each affecting the ball’s trajectory differently. This added an early form of nuanced control, a key feature in later video games, allowing players to refine their shots with timing and precision. *Pong* was so successful that Bushnell sought a single-player version—leading to *Breakout* (1976), where the ball was aimed at a wall of bricks rather than an opponent. Effectively a solo tennis game, *Breakout* had major consequences for the industry in Japan. It became the first hit for Namco after acquiring Atari’s Japanese branch in 1974, solidifying its place in the arcade business. It also inspired designer Tomohiro Nishikado, who used it as the foundation for *Space Invaders* (1978). So, in a way, tennis laid the groundwork for the entire shooter genre.