Video game console: Difference between revisions
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[[Image:Robotic_Operating_Buddy.jpg|right|thumb|200px|The '''R'''obotic '''O'''perating '''B'''uddy that came packaged with the NES]] |
[[Image:Robotic_Operating_Buddy.jpg|right|thumb|200px|The '''R'''obotic '''O'''perating '''B'''uddy that came packaged with the NES]] |
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In 1983, |
In 1983, Nintendo released the Famicom in Japan. It supported high-res, full color, tiled backgrounds, and high-res sprites. This allowed Famicom games to be longer, and have more detailed graphics. Nintendo brought their Famicom over to the US in the form of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. In the US, video games were seen as a fad that had already passed. To distinguish its product from older video game consoles Nintendo used a front loading cartridge port similar to a VCR on the NES, packaged the NES with a plastic "robot" and a light gun, and orginally advertised as it as a toy. |
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Nintendo also built a lock-out chip into the NES. This kept third parties from producing their own cartridges and forced all developers to go through Nintendo to get NES games published. This allowed Nintendo to do things like prevent developers from releasing low-quality games and limit developers to five titles a year. |
Nintendo also built a lock-out chip into the NES. This kept third parties from producing their own cartridges and forced all developers to go through Nintendo to get NES games published. This allowed Nintendo to do things like prevent developers from releasing low-quality games and limit developers to five titles a year. |
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Revision as of 23:55, 31 August 2006
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer. The term is used to distinguish a machine designed for consumers to buy and use solely for playing video games from a personal computer, which has many other functions, or arcade games, which are designed for businesses to buy and then charge others to play.
Use of the term
The term "console" is used in the user manuals of several early video game systems. Its use, however, is not synonymous with "video game system" or the same as its modern usage. It refers to a specific part of the video game system. The Atari 2600, NES, and other consoles from those decades were called "video game systems" at the time.[1][2]
The first company to use the term "console" to officially refer to its video game system was Sony with the PlayStation.[3] At that time, dedicated consoles such as Pong or the Atari Flashback were not being commercially manufactured, and game consoles had less in common with computers than they do now or did in the 80's.
The PlayStation and its contemporaries were video game systems that you inserted games into and connected to a television. Because of this, some people don't consider dedicated video game systems or video game systems that contain their own screen (such as the Vectrex) to be video game consoles.
History
First generation
Although the first computer games appeared in the 50s[4], it was not until 1972 that Magnavox released the first home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, designed by Ralph Baer. The Odyssey was originally only moderately successful. It was not until Atari's arcade game PONG popularized video games, that home consoles really took off. Soon the market was flooded by dedicated consoles that played simple pong and tank games.
Second generation
Fairchild released the Fairchild Entertainment System (FES) in 1976. While there had been previous game consoles that used cartridges, either the cartridges had no information and served the same function as flipping switches (the Odyssey) or the console itself was empty and the cartridge contained all of the game components. The FES, however, contained a programmable microprocessor so its cartrdiges only needed a single ROM chip to store instructions.
RCA and Atari soon released their own cartridge-based consoles.
Video game crash of 1977
In 1977, manufacturers of older obsolete consoles sold their systems at a loss to clear stock, creating a glut in the market and causing Fairchild and RCA to abandon their game consoles. Only Atari and Magnavox stayed in the home console market.
Rebirth of the home console market
The VCS and Odyssey 2 continued to be sold at a profit after the 1977 crash, but it wasn't until Atari released a conversion of the arcade hit Space Invaders that the home console industry was completely revived. Many consumers bought an Atari just for Space Invaders. Space Invaders' unprecedented success started the trend of console manufacturers trying to get exclusive rights to arcade titles, and the trend of advertisements for game consoles claiming to bring the arcade experience home.
Throughout the early 80's other companies released video game consoles of their own. Many of the video game systems were technically superior to the Atari 2600, and marketed as improvements over the Atari 2600. However, Atari dominated the console market throughout the early 80's
Video game crash of 1983
In 1983, the video game business suffered a much more severe crash. A glut of low quality video games by smaller companies especially for the 2600, industry leader Atari hyping games such as E.T. that were poorly received, and a growing number of home computer users caused consumers and retailers to lose faith and interest in video game consoles. Most video game companies filed for bankruptcy, or moved into other industries, abandoning their game consoles. Intellivision sold the rights of the Intellivision to INTV Corp, who continued to produce Intellivision consoles and develop new games for the Intellivision until 1991. All other North American game consoles were discontinued by 1984.
Third generation
In 1983, Nintendo released the Famicom in Japan. It supported high-res, full color, tiled backgrounds, and high-res sprites. This allowed Famicom games to be longer, and have more detailed graphics. Nintendo brought their Famicom over to the US in the form of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. In the US, video games were seen as a fad that had already passed. To distinguish its product from older video game consoles Nintendo used a front loading cartridge port similar to a VCR on the NES, packaged the NES with a plastic "robot" and a light gun, and orginally advertised as it as a toy.
Nintendo also built a lock-out chip into the NES. This kept third parties from producing their own cartridges and forced all developers to go through Nintendo to get NES games published. This allowed Nintendo to do things like prevent developers from releasing low-quality games and limit developers to five titles a year.
Like Space Invaders for the 2600, Nintendo found its breakout hit game in Super Mario Brothers. Nintendo's success revived the video game industry and new consoles were soon introduced in the following years to compete with the NES.
Fourth generation
Sega's Master System was intended to compete with NES, but never gained any significant market share and was barely profitable. Sega regained market share by releasing their next-generation console, the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, in 1988, two years before Nintendo could release theirs, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES).
Fifth generation
The first fifth generation consoles were the Atari Jaguar and the 3DO. Both of these systems were much more powerful than the SNES or Genesis (known as Mega Drive outside the U.S.); they were better at rendering polygons, could display more onscreen colors, and the 3DO used CDs that contained far more information than cartridges and were cheaper to produce. Neither of these consoles were serious threats to Sega or Nintendo, though. The 3DO cost more than the SNES and Genesis combined, and the Jaguar was extremely difficult to program for, leading to a lack of games that used its extra power.
Instead of creating new consoles, Nintendo released games like Donkey Kong Country that could display a wide range of tones (something common in fifth-gen games) by limiting the number of hues onscreen, and games like Star Fox that used an extra "Super FX chip" inside of the cartridge to display polygon graphics. Sega followed suit, releasing Vectorman and Virtua Racing (the latter of which used the Sega Virtua Processor.)
It was not until Sony's PlayStation and Sega's Saturn were released that fifth generation consoles started to become popular. Both of them had advanced polygon capabilities, used CDs to store games, cost far less than the 3DO, and were easier to program for than the Jaguar. The Saturn also had 2D sprite handling power on par with the Neo-Geo.
Sixth generation
This generation is currently phasing out.
- Sega's Dreamcast was Sega's last videogame console, and is discontinued. Sega now develops software for other consoles.
- Sony's PlayStation 2 was the sequel to their first console, PlayStation.
- Nintendo's GameCube was Nintendo's fourth home videogame console.
- Microsoft's Xbox was Microsoft's first videogame console.
Seventh generation
This generation is currently phasing in.
- Microsoft's Xbox 360 was released on November 22, 2005.
- Sony's PlayStation 3 was announced to be released in Japan on November 11, 2006 and worldwide on November 17, 2006.
- Nintendo's Wii will be released no earlier than October 1, 2006, and no later than November 23, 2006.
- Evizions Computer Entertainment's Evo: Phase One will be released October 20, 2006.
Bits
Each new generation of console hardware made use of the rapid development of processing technology. Newer machines could output a greater range of colours, more sprites, and introduced graphical technologies such as scaling, and vector graphics. One way this increase in processing power was conveyed to consumers was through the measurement of "bits". The TurboGrafx 16, Genesis, and SNES were among the first consoles to advertise the fact that they contained 16-bit processors. This fourth generation of console hardware was often referred to as the 16-bit era, and the previous generation as the 8-bit.
The bit-value of a console referred to the word length of a console's processor (although the value was sometimes misused, for example the TurboGrafx 16 had only an 8-bit CPU, but a 16-bit dedicated graphics processor). As the graphical performance of console hardware is dependant on many factors, using bits was a crude way to gauge a console's overall ability, but served better to distinguish between generations.
Timeline
Template:Video game console timeline
Media
Cartridges
Game cartridges consist of a piece of pc board housed inside of a plastic casing. The components of the game are soldered onto the pc board. Some games have as little as a single ROM chip on the cart. Other games have components that boost the original console's power such as extra RAM or a coprocessor.
Cartridges were the first external media to be used with home consoles and remained the most common until the mid ninties. Cartridges have no loading times, they can exceed original strength of the console with added RAM or coprocessors, and they are very durable.
Tapes
Tapes were common on early computers, but seldom used on consoles. They can contain more memory than cartridges and be manufactured for less. With multiload games they can contain far more information than a cartridge. However, they never gained popularity because they wear out over time and lack durability
Cards
The Sega Master System and the Turbo Grafix could play games stored on smart cards. The cards are cheap to produce, but hold less information.
See also
- List of video game consoles
- Console manufacturer
- History of computer and video games
- Handheld game consoles
- Dedicated console
- List of occurrences of game consoles in entertainment media
References
Books
Forster, Winnie (2005). The Encyclopedia of Game Machines - Consoles, handheld & home computers 1972-2005. GAMEplan. ISBN 3-00-015359-4. [1]
External links
- RF Generation, an Internet database of video games, includes a collection tool
- MobyGames, an Internet database of video games, including console games
- Video Game and Console Timeline, a Brief Video Game and Console Timeline
- The Link Cable of Time article and history of video game consoles and their makers
- Game-Machines.com Consoles a detailed history of video game consoles
- A Podcast on the history of video games called "Bits of History"
- The Console Conspiracy is a website devoted to reporting on all the news available about console gaming
- Dark Watcher's Console History A very detailed history of known and lesser-known video game consoles
- X-NPS360 Revolution 3 A humorous view on what the 'perfect console' would be like
- The Old Computer Dot Com Archive of retro gaming advertisements