Jump to content

Video game console

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Altarbo (talk | contribs) at 18:53, 6 August 2006. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Game console redirects here, for the command line in modern computer games, see PC game console.
File:Vgconsole collage.jpg
The Atari 2600, Sony PSOne, Nintendo Gamecube, and Xbox 360

A video game console is an interactive home 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

File:Vgsys.JPG
The Sears Telegames Arcade System manual (top) and an Imagic game catalog (bottom).

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 all of the consoles that were out when it was released) was a video game system that you inserted games into and hooked up 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

Main article: History of video game consoles

First Generation

Main article: History of video game consoles

Although the first computer games appeared in the 50s[4], it was not until 1972 that Magnavox released the first video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, designed by Ralph Baer. The Odyssey was orginally 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

Main article: History of video game consoles (first 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 microprocessor so its cartrdiges only need a single ROM chip.

This allowed Fairchild to sell the FES for far cheaper than the dedicated consoles popular at the time. RCA and Atari soon released their own cartridge-based consoles.

1977 Video Game Crash

In 1977, manufacturers of older obsolete consoles sold their systems at a loss to clear stock and get out of the market, causing Fairchild and RCA to abandon their game consoles. Only Atari and Magnavox stayed in the home console market.

The VCS and Odyssey 2 continued to be sold at a profit, but it wasn't until Atari released a conversion of the arcade hit Space Invaders that the home console industry was completely revived. Space Invaders' unprecedented success started the trend of advertisements for game console claiming to bring the arcade experience home.

Attempts to Create a Next Gen Console

File:2600earlylatecomp.PNG
An Atari 2600 game from the 1978 (top) and an Atari 2600 game from 1983(bottom)

Several second gen consoles such as the Colecovision, Vectrex, and even Atari's own 5200, had superior hardware to the 2600 and were intended to replace it. However, the Atari VCS/2600 dominated the console market throughout the early 80's.

The 2600 already had a large user base when these new consoles came out. Because of this many third party developers chose to develop primarily for the 2600. This allowed them to get more and more comfortable with 2600's hardware and learn how to pull off more and more impressive tricks. Third party games for systems like the Colecovision and Intellivision never significantly improved.

Video of Crash of 1983

Main article: 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 recieved, and a growing number of personal 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 to 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

Main article: History of video game consoles (third generation)

In 1983, Nintendo released the Famicom in Japan. It supported high-res, full color, tiled backgrounds, and full color, 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 cartrdiges 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.

Fourth Generation

Main article: History of video game consoles (fourth generation)

Sega's Master System was intended to compete with NES, but was never gained any significant market share and was barely profitable. Sega regained market share by releasing their next-generation console, the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, in 1988, two years before Nintendo could release theirs, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES).

Sixth generation consoles

This generation is currently phasing out.

  • Sega's Dreamcast was Sega's last videogame console, and is discontinued.
  • 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 consoles

This generation is currently phasing in.


Bits

File:Sega16bit.jpg
The Sega Megadrive was branded as a 16-bit console

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

See also

References

  1. ^ "Atari 2600 Game Catalog Scans
  2. ^ Atari 2600 Manuals Scans
  3. ^ Sony Manuals Scans
  4. ^ Computer Games - Beginnings

Books

Forster, Winnie (2005). The Encyclopedia of Game Machines - Consoles, handheld & home computers 1972-2005. GAMEplan. ISBN 3-00-015359-4. [1]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Video_game_console&oldid=68048067"