Video game console

Game console redirects here, for the command line in modern computer games, see PC game console.

A video game console is a dedicated electronic machine designed to play video games. Often the output device is a separate television or a computer monitor. The main input device is a controller.

The term "video game console" is used to distinguish a machine designed for consumers to buy and use solely for playing video games (Atari 2600, NES, Sega Genesis, SNES, Sony PlayStation etc.) 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 games.

Note that the advertised number of bits of post-32-bit consoles were in large part created by the console makers' marketing departments and may have little to do with the actual architecture, processing power or data path content of the systems.

Video game consoles have created a whole self-supporting market for thousands of different video game accessory manufacturers who would otherwise not be able to produce their own video game consoles. These manufacturers have expanded upon the original uses for the game consoles and have even created entirely new ways to both play and use some of the most popular video game systems.

Ambiguity of the term

There is sometimes disagreement over what is or is not a video game console. Generally, disputes in the matter arise whenever a device designed primarily for gaming expands its capabilities to areas viewed as belonging to personal computers.

In the early 1980s, inexpensive home computers started to take over the console market. Console manufacturers responded by releasing expansion packs that made the capabilities of their products comparable to those of the home computers. A keyboard, datassette drive and BASIC interpreter became available to Nintendo Famicom, and Colecovision could be expanded to Coleco Adam which was regarded as a full home computer. The Commodore 64 is popularly believed to be a game console since it was popular amongst gamers and could be hooked up to a television set; but had an ill-fated game console spinoff called the Commodore 64 Games System which had programming bugs inflicted in the data dumps onto the cartridges.

A repetition of this trend has occurred since the late 1990s beginning with Sega Dreamcast with its Internet connection capabilities and the optional keyboard and mouse. Hard drives, networking capabilities and PC-like standard ports such as USB are not uncommon in the current generation of consoles.

In some cases, some people use a VGA box on game consoles that output onto a TV or composite monitor.

History

The Magnavox Odyssey

The first video game system of any type was designed by Ralph Baer. (Previous electronic games were played on computers or arcade machines.) Ralph Baer came up with the idea for a game that could be played on a television in 1951, while working for a small electronics development and production company in the Bronx. His boss however wasn't interested. Baer didn't work on the idea again until 1966.

In 1966 he drew up plans for, and built a vacuum tube based game system, and convinced the corporate director at Sanders Associates to fund the project. Later prototypes would include more games, and take advantage of more modern technology (capacitors and discrete components). The final prototype had several games that were all created from the same 4 elements (vertical line, ball, player 1, and player 2) and a series of switches on the front that controlled what elements were present, and how they would interact. This allowed the game system to contain multiple games with a small number of components.

Magnavox, impressed with the prototype, signed an agreement with Sanders Associates in 1971. In 1972 they released the Odyssey. It had twelve games programmed into it, which were selected by inserting cartridges into the system.

The game cartridges have no actual information or components inside them; and though superficially they resemble mordern game cartridges, they serve the same function as the switches in Baer's prototypes. The Odyssey used cartridges instead of switches, because using swithces would have required Odyssey users to flip multiple switches to turn on each element present in that game, something Magnavox thought was not very user friendly.

After the release of the Odyssey, Ralph Baer designed several advanced cartridges that had new components inside them. This would allow the Odyssey to play new variations of the built in games. Magnovox, however, was not interested.

Other Early Early Consoles

In 1975, Atari and Magnovox released the first game systems to use integrated circuits. Magnavox's Odyssey 100 used individual chips for things like onscreen scoring, paddle generator, ball generator, wall generator, and collision detection, which had previously been done by many different components. This simplified the machine and cost less than the original odyssey to produce. Atari put the entire game PONG inside a single chip. This allowed Atari to sell Home PONG for far less than the competing systems that used multiple chips.

General Instruments combined the best of both systems in 1976, when they created a low-cost chip that could hold multiple games. While originally designed to be used in separate stand alone game systems, several manufacturers released game consoles that used cartridges containing these chips (or similar chips). With this type of game system, the console itself usually contains no chips or discrete components, and the entire game is housed in the cartridge. Some consoles like the Interton Video 2000, do have the components for basic features like displaying and controlling an object.

While this type of console did exist in North America (A notable example is the Telstar Arcade.) it was a far more common type of game system in Europe, where video games were still new and true consoles like the Atari 2600 were too expensive.

Fairchild Channel F

The Fairchild Video Entertainment System (VES) is considered by many gamers to be the first true video game console. Released in late 1976, it was the first video game system to use a microprocessor. The VES, was designed around the Fairchild F8, which was not actually a single chip but several chips wired together.

The VES's games were stored on ROM chips housed in cartridges. Unlike most previous cartridge-based video game systems the VES cartridges could contain as little as a rom chip with binary code on it. This made new games easier and cheaper to produce.

The VES came with unusual "grip sticks". The stick had two parts. The bottom part was a short plastic stick that was held with one hand. On top of it was a triangular knob/joystick, that could be pushed in four directions, rotated like a paddle controller, or pressed down like a fire button.

Timeline

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.

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.

Books

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

Video game consoles

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