Say Thank You To This Guy For Video Game Consoles.

Thank you.

Earlier this week, Ralph Baer, known as The Father of Video Games, was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In the mid-1960s, Baer created a “Brown Box” prototype of a home video game console. (The prototype, game site Game|Life points out, is now in the Smithsonian Institution.) Baer sold his design to Magnavox, which would release the console as the Odyssey in 1972.

Baer also created the first video game peripheral when he invented the light gun. Thank him for that, too. Oh, he also made the popular Simon electronic game.

Along with the 88 year-old Baer, S.C.U.B.A. gear inventor Jacques Cousteau and rocket scientist Yvonne Brill were inducted at the ceremony held at the U.S. State Department in Washington D.C.

Gaming Pioneer Ralph Baer Inducted to Inventors Hall of Fame [GameLife][Pic]