Video game console
A video game console is a dedicated electronic device designed to play video games. Often the output device is a separate television. 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 powerful, the distinction has blurred: some consoles can have full Linux operating systems running with hard drives and keyboards (like the Sega Dreamcast) (one university has even created a Beowolf 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 legitimate console and software buyers from playing games on emulators, using a special mask work copyright and a special copyright on encrypted media created by the United States' Digital Millennium Copyright Act and foreign counterparts, especially for the newer game consoles. The emulation of ancient video game consoles, such as the NES and SNES, has gradually settled down.
Note that the "bit" names of generations were in large part created by the console makers' marketing departments and may have little to do with the actual architecture of the systems.
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1.1 Late 2000s
2 See also1.2 Early 2000s 1.3 Late 1990s 1.4 Early 1990s 1.5 Late 1980s 1.6 Early 1980s 1.7 Late 1970s 1.8 Early 1970s |
This includes stand-alone game consoles, see also hand held consoles for portable devices with integrated displays.
This generation was followed by a collapse in the video game market in North America.
Consoles of this era were often inaccurately called "analog" but actually used discrete logic.
List of game consoles
Late 2000s
Early 2000s
Late 1990s
Early 1990s
Late 1980s
Early 1980s
Late 1970s
Early 1970s
See also
External Links
Console Database - Video Game Console Info