Following Space Invaders, Atari's Asteroids and Namco's Pac-Man further solidified the strength of the Golden Age. The game brought forth with it the power of the microprocessor, as well as a cult phenomenon impact which had only been felt up to that point by Atari's Pong. Sean Newton, 3D arcade model builder and author of the book Bits, Sticks, and Buttons states that the defining transitional point which finally ended the first era of arcade gaming (known as the "Black and White Age") and subsequently ushered in the Golden Age was with the North American release of Midway's Space Invaders. 1971 was chosen as an earlier start date by the project for two reasons: the creator of Pong filed a pivotal patent regarding video game technology, and it was the release of the first arcade video game machine, Computer Space. The History of Computing Project places the golden age of video games between 19, covering the "mainstream appearance of video games as a consumer market" and "the rise of dedicated hardware systems and the origin of multi-game cartridge based systems". However, 1983 was the period that began "a fairly steady decline" in the coin-operated video game business and when many arcades started disappearing. The book pointed out that 1979 was the year that Space Invaders – which he credits for ushering in the golden age – was gaining considerable popularity in the United States, and the year that saw vector display technology, first seen in arcades in 1977 with Space Wars, rise to prominence via Atari's Asteroids.
Kent, in his book The Ultimate History of Video Games, places it at 1979 to 1983.
Technology journalist Jason Whittaker, in The Cyberspace Handbook, places the beginning of the golden age in 1978, with the release of Space Invaders.
Although the exact years differ, all timelines overlap in the early 1980s.
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