When electronic musical instruments started to become popular in the late 1960's and early 1970's, the impact on the music industry was profound. The use of electronic organs and synthesizers that could simulate other instruments as well as other percussion and rhythm beats gave way to the development of new forms of music. This on the other hand gave way to new forms of dance.

Traditional music instruments that generated lively dances like the Boogie, the Tango, the Cha-Cha and other classical dances like Ballet where incrementally replaced by the sleek electronically generated sound that musicians started to experiment with and what they could do with it. The 70's was the starting point of what we may call as the Electronic Dance Music (EDM) revolution. This was the beginning of SynthPop and a dance place called the Disco. People danced to electronic generated music and the glitter of golden or silver reflector balls hanging and spinning around as multi colored blinking lights bathed the scenes. By the late 70's Punk Rock started to invade music.

The 80's came with the full blast of the Synthesizer. The electronic rock and roll sounds, Punk, Alternative and Electro Pop. The music of the Electric Youth Generation as one watched Deborah Ann Gibson dance and jive on the stage EDM 80's style. The renaissance of the Electric Dream.

The 90's continued with the evolution of EDM. The introduction of Rap, Rhythm, Hip hop and the amalgamation of the preceding music and dance styles. The entrance of contemporary Rock, Dub, Trance, New Age, Rave and so many others. Musicians where creating their own music genres using Electronic sound.

By 2000 and above, the trend continues as these EDM music genres started to solidify and move into mainstream music. People had access to all those decades of different sounds as some of them have been reinvented in different ways.

Electronic Dance Music Gaming has actually been around for quite some time without people really realizing it. When gamers would visit the arcades at the mall or commercial center one would usually see a dance Dance Revo console or the like with people dancing in front of it. When those electronic step pads (the one with the arrows) first came out like the one for the PlayStation, electronic dancing was made available for the home. With the advent of hand held controllers and the Xbox Kinect, electronic dancing was brought way up to a new level. Let's take a quick look on how it began.

Dancing to electronic dance music did not start as dancing per se. In 1987, Bandai of Japan released a fitness game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) called Dance Aerobics. Given the popularity of Aerobics during the time (just like Zumba is today), the game was suppose to be a fitness exercise gaming system that utilized a step-on pad (power Pad) on which the player had to follow the animated exercise instructions in Aerobic dance form. The game was also known as Aerobics Studio in Japan.

With the advent of the PlayStation (PS1), Sony Interactive Entertainment released a game in 1996 called PaRappa the Rapper. The game was credited as the first actual music-rhythm game where you controlled the rapper protagonist with the PS game control pad as he rapped and danced his way through the game.

Then came Dance Dance Revolution developed by Konami and was released in 1998 for the Sony PlayStation as well as for arcade game machines. This was the game to debut in the arcades where kids would dance competitively on the consoles game pad in front of a screen. Though considered as game dancing it was really still stepping on markers on the pad in sync with the game symbols appearing on screen coupled with electronic sounds. But hey, it was gaming. The PlayStation enabled you to do it at home.

Finally, Ubisoft entered the fray in 2009 by releasing Just Dance. It was initially released exclusively for Wii. Just dance showed dancers on the screen which could be controlled by moving and pressing the Wii controllers. It was simplistic in design but established today's contemporary EDM Gaming genre. The awesome animated dance routines coupled with cool electronic sounds caused the game to sell an estimated 4.3 Million copies worldwide. To date, the Just Dance game franchise has collectively sold over 40 million copies making it one of Ubisoft's largest game franchise. Just Dance has been ported to other consoles as well.

By far, the biggest innovation in EDM Gaming was yet to follow. In 2010, Microsoft released the Xbox Kinect for the Xbox 360. The camera sensor was able to track the movements of the player and was very effective in physical oriented games like sports games (albeit within a limited space) in front of the Kinect. The beauty was that the Xbox could be fitted into a console and set up at the arcades in malls. To make full use of the Kinect, the game Dance Central was released at launch with it and my, did it wow the gaming world. Players stood in front of the Xbox Kinect and tried to mimic as perfectly as possible the dance routines being shown on screen in sync to the electro music being played. No matter what music dance genre, there are dance steps to be followed. This was actual dancing, this is what could be classified as true EDM Gaming. The Kinect could track the players movements and compare it with the dance routines being run and displayed on screen.

There are many games that can be lumped into the category of EDM Gaming which are available for the PC, Mobile, Console and Arcade market but in order to be classified as true EDM Gaming and not just a rhythm-music game, the character and/or player in the game has to...you got it, dance!