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Use of the term
History First generation Although the first computer games appeared in the 50s it was not until 1972 that Magnavox released the first home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey. The Odyssey was initially only moderately successful, and it was not until Atari's arcade game PONG popularized video games, that the public began to take more notice of the emerging industry. By 1975 Magnavox, bowing to the popularity of PONG, cancelled the Odyssey and released a scaled down console that only played PONG - the Odyssey 100. Almost simultaniously released with Atari's own home PONG console through Sears, these consoles jump started the consumer market. As with the arcade market, the home market was soon flooded by dedicated consoles that played simple pong and pong derived games. Second generation Fairchild released the Fairchild Video Entertainment System (VES) 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 VES, however, contained a programmable microprocessor so its cartridges only needed a single ROM chip to store microprocessor 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 continued to be sold at a profit after the 1977 crash, and both Bally (with their Home Library Computer in 1977) and Magnavox (with the Odyssey2 in 1978) brought their own programmable cartridge based consoles to the market. However 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 flood of consoles, 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
Fourth generation Sega's Master System was intended to compete with NES, but never gained any significant market share in the USA and was barely profitable. It fared notably better in PAL territories, especially Brazil. Sega regained market share by releasing their next-generation console, the Sega Mega Drive, which was released in Japan on the 29th of October 1988, and in the USA/Europe on the 1st of September 1989 (renamed in the USA to the Sega Genesis), two years before Nintendo could release the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)(1990). Fifth generation
Sixth generation This generation is currently phasing out. Seventh generation This generation is currently phasing in. 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 dependent on many factors, using bits was a crude way to gauge a console's overall ability, but served better to distinguish between generations. Timeline Media Cartridges Game cartridges consist of a printed circuit board housed inside of a plastic casing with a connector allowing the device to interface with the console. This board carries ROM chips storing the software in question. Some cartridges carried components that boosted 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 due to continued improvements in capacity. However, the relatively high manufacturing costs saw them complete replaced by optical media for home consoles by the early 21st century. They are still in use in handheld video game consoles. Cards The Sega Master System and the Turbo Grafix could play games stored on smart cards. The cards were cheaper to produce, but held less information than cartridges. Due to advances in flash memory technology in the early 21st century, the Nintendo DS system uses "game cards" which are of a similar capacity to mid-1990s cartridges, but which are significantly cheaper to make. Magnetic media Magnetic tapes were popular on early computer systems, but seldom used on consoles. At the time they could hold more information than cartridges, particularly if games were stored on multiple tapes, the media could be written to, and could be manufactured more cheaply than cartridges. These were rendered obsolete by magnetic disks in the same applications, which behaved similarly while having a larger capacity, faster reading speed, and greater robustness. These in turn were rendered obsolete by optical media. Optical media In the mid-1990s, various manufacturers shifted to optical media, specifically CD-ROM, for games. Although slower than the cartridges available at that time, they were significantly cheaper to manufacture and had a larger capacity than the existing cartridge technology. By the early 21st century, all of the major home consoles used optical media, usually DVD-ROM or similar disks, which are widely replacing CD-ROM for data storage. The upcoming PlayStation 3 system will use an even higher-capacity, but more expensive, Blu-Ray optical disk. Internet distribution All three "next-gen" consoles (the PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360) offer some kind of internet games distribution service, allowing users to download games for a fee onto some form of non-volatile storage, typically a hard disk or flash memory. See also Books | |||||||||||||||
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