Video game console
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
A video game console is a dedicated electronic device designed to play video games. Often the output device is a separate television or a computer monitor. Once, video game consoles were easily distinguishable from personal computers: consoles used a standard television for display, and did not support standard PC accessories such as keyboards or modems. However, as consoles have become more enhanced, the distinction has blurred: some consoles can have full Linux operating systems running with hard drives and keyboards (like the Sega Dreamcast or Nintendo Gamecube) (one university has even created a Beowulf cluster of PlayStation 2 consoles), and Microsoft's Xbox is basically a stripped down PC running a version of Microsoft Windows.
The console market has steadily developed from simple one-off games (Pong) to fully featured general purpose games systems.
Older game consoles and their software now live on in emulators as they are no longer supported by their manufacturers. However, console makers try to prevent their games from being played on emulators using copyright-like exclusive rights in mask works and a protection of encrypted media created by the United States' Digital Millennium Copyright Act and foreign counterparts.
Note that the "bitness" of current generations (32-bit, 64-bit and 128-bit) were in large part created by the console makers' marketing departments and may have little to do with the actual architecture 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 our most favorite video game systems.
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Timeline
Note: This is an abridged timeline of North American video game consoles.
See also
Books
Forster, Winnie (2005). The Encyclopedia of Game Machines - Consoles, handheld & home computers 1972-2005. GAMEplan. ISBN 3-00-015359-4. [1] (http://www.game-machines.co.uk/gameplan_01.5_UK/)
External links
- MobyGames (http://www.mobygames.com), an Internet database of video games, including console games
- Video Game and Console Timeline (http://www.ps3portal.com/?page=history), a Brief Video Game and Console Timeline
- The Link Cable of Time (http://www.linkcableoftime.com/) articles and histories of video game consoles and their makerscs:Herní konzolefr:Console de jeux vidéo
is:Leikjatölva it:Console (elettronica) nl:Spelcomputer ja:ゲーム機 pl:Konsola (rozrywka) fi:Pelikonsoli sv:Spelkonsol zh:游戏机
