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First home gaming console ever released on the market. First digital gaming system, was capable of producing 3 dots and a vertical line on the screen to play games. -
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First console to use external cartridges for their games along with an architecture to process those cartridges. -
This console also utilized cartridges but was much more dominant than the Channel F due to the much larger catalog of video games available. Third party low quality games also lead to this console leading a huge recession in the video game industry in 1983. -
8-bit console which was the most popular home console at this time. Lead market share due to cooperation with third party publishers to increase the games available on the system. (Date listed is when the console was released to test markets in North America, not the original Japan release.) -
16-bit console architecture - was deeply competitive with the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System.) This period of gaming was is known as the beginning of the console war - where market share is shared between more than one manufacturer in the home gaming console industry. Controversy with adult video games during this period lead to regulatory boards for determining ratings for those games. -
This console was a result of an attempt to make a tool that would allow SNES consoles to read optical discs. This venture failed, so Sony went on to make their own optical disc based console with a 64-bit architecture to compete with Nintendo directly. This became the first console to sell over 100 million units and is still known as one of the most popular console releases. -
Nintendo's first 3D console - 64-bit architecture allowed for 3D processing. This console is also one of the latest in history to use cartridges - other competitors in this time period switched to discs. -
This console was Microsoft's first attempt at making a home gaming console. It competed directly with the Playstation 2 (Sony's second iteration of the Playstation console) and the Nintendo Gamecube (Nintendo's follow-up to the Nintendo 64.) All of these consoles featured huge upgrades to 3D processing capabilities and were all based around optical discs. -
The Nintendo Wii was the console released by Nintendo following the GameCube. It was the first console to feature motion based controls integrated directly into the console - and it allowed for the user to swing the controller for an associated movement to happen on screen. This console competed directly with the Xbox 360 (the Xbox successor) as well as the PlayStation 3 (Sony's third iteration of the PlayStation console.) The Wii also allowed for GameCube discs to be played its hardware. -
The PlayStation 4 was unique in many senses from the PlayStation 3 - with the main focus being on the growing emphasis for digital content being hosted in the cloud. While optical discs were still used - many components and services included with this console were hosted online and required an account with Sony. This measure is also now commonly used with Nintendo and Microsoft in their subscription based services. -
The Xbox Series S and X are part of one line of console that is the most up to date release for Microsoft. This console currently competes with the Nintendo Switch and the PlayStation 5 - which all represent the current cutting edge 3D graphics with massive processing power for 4K resolution gaming in huge 3D spaces with very detailed animated sprites and models. -
With the importance of the cloud in gaming - will we even need hardware with extreme power to play games? Or will we be able to simply stream them to simple systems in our houses? With Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony all competing intensely in the gaming sphere with many other publishers making games for all 3 platforms video games will only continue to see huge improvements in the home systems available for gaming.
An article on the topic.