The truth about games, is it's an audio and visual experience. You can't have one without the other. Since I'm a history nerd, I find it interesting to look up the past on music and how it evolved with video games. Keep in mind, that the music industry itself, and artists, were getting more technology as time went on. The same rule is applied to the composers for namco, capcom, squaresoft, nintendo etc etc.

Why is the history of the beginning important for the current? If you don't know the past you don't know where the beginning is, and therefore you can't mark milestones in life. It's easy to read about this now these days (Wiki, Google) which just shows how technology changes everything.

So I will speak from personal experience. Starting with Nintendo, this was probably when the music began to advance more. It was still 8bit and not advanced sound wise, but the demand for orginality began to increase. Games such as Megaman(2)(3)(4)(etc), Final Fantasy series, Super Mario brothers, and even Contra all have a place in our hearts, and the tunes are no different (at least for me.)