video game console part of a series onvideo games platforms arcade game console game game console home console electronic game audio game electronic handheld handheld game handheld console mobile game online game social network game pc game linux mac genres action beat em up fighting platform shooter survival actionadventure stealth survival horror adventure interactive fiction interactive movie visual novel roleplaying action roleplaying tactical roleplaying simulation construction and management life simulation sports vehicle strategy multiplayer online battle arena realtime strategy realtime tactics turnbased strategy turnbased tactics massively multiplayer online lists arcade video games bestselling video games bestselling video game franchises highestgrossing video game franchises mostplayed video games by player count mostplayed mobile games by player count highestgrossing arcade games video games considered among the best game of the year awards video games notable for negative reception development game ai game design interaction design game programming level design video game art video game design video game graphics video game music vte a video game console is a computer device that outputs a video signal or visual image to display a video game that one or more people can play the term video game console is primarily used to distinguish a console machine primarily designed for consumers to use for playing video games in contrast to arcade machines or home computers an arcade machine consists of a video game computer display game controller joystick buttons etc and speakers housed in large chassis a home computer is a personal computer designed for home use for a variety of purposes such as bookkeeping accessing the internet and playing video games unlike similar consumer electronics such as music players and movie players which use industrywide standard formats video game consoles use proprietary formats which compete with each other for market share there are various types of video game consoles including home video game consoles handheld game consoles microconsoles and dedicated consoles although ralph baer had built working game consoles by 1966 it was nearly a decade before the pong game made them commonplace in regular peoples living rooms through evolution over the 1990s and 2000s game consoles have expanded to offer additional functions such as cd players dvd players bluray disc players web browsers settop boxes and more history overview of timeline source first generation first generation of video game consoles see also early history of video games the magnavox odyssey was the first video game console released in 1972 the first video games appeared in the 1960s in 1972 magnavox released the magnavox odyssey the first home video game console which could be connected to a tv set ralph baers initial design had called for a huge row of switches that would allow players to turn on and off certain components of the console the odyssey lacked a cpu to create slightly different games like tennis volleyball hockey and chase magnavox replaced the switch design with separate cartridges for each game although baer had sketched up ideas for cartridges that could include new components for new games the carts released by magnavox all served the same function as the switches and allowed players to choose from the odysseys builtin games the odyssey initially sold about 100000 units making it moderately successful and it was not until ataris arcade game pong popularized video games that the public began to take more notice of the emerging industry by autumn 1975 magnavox bowing to the popularity of pong canceled the odyssey and released a scaleddown version that played only pong and hockey the odyssey 100 a second higher end console the odyssey 200 was released with the 100 and added onscreen scoring up to four players and a third gamesmash almost simultaneously released with ataris own home pong console through sears these consoles jumpstarted the consumer market all three of the new consoles used simpler designs than the original odyssey did with no board game pieces or extra cartridges in the years that followed the market saw many companies rushing similar consoles to market after general instrument released their inexpensive microchips each containing a complete console on a single chip many small developers began releasing consoles that looked different externally but internally were playing exactly the same games most of the consoles from this era were dedicated consoles playing only the games that came with the console these video game consoles were often just called video games because there was little reason to distinguish the two yet while a few companies like atari magnavox and newcomer coleco pushed the envelope the market became flooded with simple similar video games second generation second generation of video game consoles home consoles the atari 2600 became the most popular game console of the 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 coleco telstar 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 cartridgebased consoles the rca studio ii and the atari 2600 originally branded as the atari video computer system respectively japan north america europe units sold fairchild channel f 1977 1976 none 250000 atari 2600 1983 1977 1978 30000000 magnavox odyssey 1982 1979 1978 2000000 intellivision 1982 1980 1982 3000000 colecovision none 1982 1983 2000000 atari 5200 none 1982 none 1000000 handheld game consoles the first handheld game console with interchangeable cartridges was the microvision designed by smith engineering and distributed and sold by miltonbradley in 1979 crippled by a small fragile lcd display and a very narrow selection of games it was discontinued two years later the epoch game pocket computer was released in japan in 1984 the game pocket computer featured an lcd screen with 75 x 64 resolution and could produce graphics at about the same level as early atari 2600 games the system sold very poorly and as a result only five games were made for it nintendos game watch series of dedicated game systems proved more successful it helped to establish handheld gaming as popular and lasted until 1991 many game watch games were later rereleased on nintendos subsequent handheld systems rebirth of the home console market the ves continued to be sold at a profit after 1977 and both bally with their home library computer in 1977 and magnavox with the odyssey in 1978 brought their own programmable cartridgebased consoles to the market however it was not until atari released a conversion of the golden age arcade hit space invaders in 1980 for the atari 2600 that the home console industry took off many consumers bought an atari console so they could play space invaders at home the unprecedented success of space invaders 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 1980s other companies released video game consoles of their own many of the video game systems eg colecovision were technically superior to the atari 2600 and marketed as improvements over the atari 2600 however atari dominated the console market in the early 1980s north american video game crash of 1983 north american video game crash of 1983 in 1983 the video game business suffered a much more severe crash a flood of lowquality video games by smaller companies especially for the 2600 industry leader atari hyping games such as et and a 2600 version of pacman that were poorly received and a growing number of home computer users caused consumers and retailers to lose faith in video game consoles most video game companies filed for bankruptcy or moved into other industries abandoning their game consoles a group of employees from mattel electronics formed the intv corporation and bought the rights for the intellivision intv alone continued to manufacture the intellivision in small quantities and release new intellivision games until 1991 all other north american game consoles were discontinued by 1984 revenues generated by the video game industry fell by 97 during the crash third generation third generation of video game consoles home consoles the nes made home console video games popular again in america after the 1983 crash in 1983 nintendo released the family computer or famicom in japan the famicom supported highresolution sprites larger color palettes and tiled backgrounds this allowed famicom games to be longer and have more detailed graphics nintendo began attempts to bring their famicom to the us after the video game market had crashed in the us video games were seen as a fad that had already passed to distinguish its product from older game consoles nintendo released their famicom as the nintendo entertainment system nes which used a frontloading cartridge port similar to a vcr included a plastic robot rob and was initially advertised as a toy the nes was the highest selling console in the history of north america and revitalized the video game market mario of super mario bros became a global icon starting with his nes games nintendo took a somewhat unusual stance with thirdparty developers for its console nintendo contractually restricted thirdparty developers to three nes titles per year and forbade them from developing for other video game consoles the practice ensured nintendos market dominance and prevented the flood of trash titles that had helped kill the atari but was ruled illegal late in the consoles lifecycle segas master system was intended to compete with the nes but never gained any significant market share in the us or japan and was barely profitable it fared notably better in pal territories in europe and south america the master system competed with the nes and saw new game releases even after segas nextgeneration mega drive was released in brazil where strict importation laws and rampant piracy kept out competitors the master system outsold the nes by a massive margin and remained popular into the 1990s jack tramiel after buying atari downsizing its staff and settling its legal disputes attempted to bring atari back into the home console market atari released a smaller sleeker cheaper version of their popular atari 2600 they also released the atari 7800 a console technologically comparable with the nes and backward compatible with the 2600 finally atari repackaged its 8bit xe home computer as the xegs game console the new consoles helped atari claw its way out of debt but failed to gain much market share from nintendo ataris lack of funds meant that its consoles saw fewer releases lower production values both the manuals and the game labels were frequently black and white and limited distribution additionally two popular 8bit computers the commodore 64 and amstrad cpc were repackaged as the commodore 64 games system and amstrad gx4000 respectively for entry into the console market japan north america europe units sold famicomnes 1983 1985 1986 61910000 mark iiimaster system 1985 1986 1987 13000000 atari 7800 none 1986 1987 3770000 atari xegs none 1987 1987 100000 handheld game consoles in the latter part of the third generation nintendo introduced the game boy and atari released the atari lynx portable game consoles pioneering and solidifying the handheld video game industry fourth generation fourth generation of video game consoles home consoles nintendo super famicom nec brought the first fourthgeneration console to market with their pc engine or turbografx16 when hudson soft approached them with an advanced graphics chip hudson had previously approached nintendo only to be rebuffed by a company still raking in the profits of the nes the turbografx used the unusual hucard format to store games the small size of these proprietary cards allowed nec to rerelease the console as a handheld game console the pc engine enjoyed brisk sales in japan but its north american counterpart the turbografx lagged behind the competition the console never saw an official release in europe but clones and north american imports were available in some markets starting in 1990 nec advertised their console as 16bit to highlight its advances over the nes this started the trend of all subsequent fourth generations consoles being advertised as 16 bit many people still refer to this generation as the 16bit generation and often refer to the third generation as 8bit sega scaled down and adapted their sega system 16 used to power arcade hits like altered beast and shinobi into the mega drive sold as the genesis in north america and released it with a near arcadeperfect port of altered beast segas console met lukewarm sales in japan but skyrocketed to first place in pal markets and made major inroads in north america propelled by its effective genesis does what nintendont marketing campaign sega capitalized on the genesiss technological superiority over the nes faithful ports of popular arcade games and competitive pricing the arcade gaming company snk developed the high end neo geo mvs arcade system which used interchangeable cartridges similar to home consoles building on the success of the mvs snk repackaged the neogeo as the neo geo aes home console though technologically superior to the other fourthgeneration consoles the aes and its games were prohibitively expensive which kept sales low and prevented it from expanding outside its niche market and into serious competition with nintendo and sega the aes did however amass a dedicated cult following allowing it to see new releases into the 2000s fourth generation graphics chips allowed these consoles to reproduce the art styles that were becoming popular in arcades and on home computers these games often featured lavish background scenery huge characters broader color palettes and increased emphasis on dithering and texture games written specifically for the nes like megaman shatterhand and super mario bros 3 were able to work cleverly within its limitations ports of the increasingly detailed arcade and home computer games came up with various solutions for example when capcom released strider in the arcade they created an entirely separate strider game for the nes that only incorporated themes and characters from the arcade in 1990 nintendo finally brought their super famicom to market and brought it to the united states as the super nes snes a year later its release marginalized the turbografx and the neo geo but came late enough for sega to sell several million consoles in north america and gain a strong foothold the same year the snes was released sega released sonic the hedgehog which spiked genesis sales similar to space invaders on the atari also by 1992 the first fully licensed nfl football game was released nfl sports talk football 93 which was available only on the genesis this impact on genesis sales and the overall interest of realistic sports games would start the trend of licensed sports games being viewed as necessary for the success of a console in the us while nintendo enjoyed dominance in japan and sega in europe the competition between the two was particularly fierce and close in north america ultimately the snes outsold the genesis but only after sega discontinued the genesis to focus on the next generation of consoles one trait that remains peculiar to the fourth generation is the huge number of exclusive games both sega and nintendo were very successful and their consoles developed massive libraries of games both consoles had to be programmed in assembly to get the most out of them a game optimized for the genesis could take advantage of its faster cpu and sound chip a game optimized for the snes could take advantage of its graphics and its flexible clean sound chip some game series like castlevania saw separate system exclusive releases rather than an attempt to port one game to disparate platforms when compact disc cd technology became available midway through the fourth generation each company attempted to integrate it into their existing consoles in different ways nec and sega released cd addons to their consoles in the form of the turbografxcd and sega cd but both were only moderately successful nec also released the turboduo which combined the turbografx16 and its turbografxcd addon along with the ram and bios upgrade from the super system card into one unit snk released a third version of the neogeo the neo geo cd allowing the company to release its games on a cheaper medium than the aess expensive cartridges but it reached the market after nintendo and sega had already sold tens of millions of consoles each nintendo partnered with sony to work on a cd addon for the snes but the deal fell apart when they realized how much control sony wanted sony would use their work with nintendo as the basis for their playstation game console while cds became an increasingly visible part of the market cdreading technology was still expensive in the 1990s limiting necs and segas addons sales japan north america europe units sold pc engineturbografx16 1987 1989 1989 10000000 mega drivegenesis 1988 1989 1990 40000000 neo geo 1990 1991 1994 980000 super famicomsuper nes 1990 1991 1992 49100000 sega cdmegacd 1991 1992 1993 2240000 neo geo cd 1994 1996 1994 570000 handheld game consoles the first handheld game console released in the fourth generation was the game boy on april 21 1989 it went on to dominate handheld sales by an extremely large margin despite featuring a lowcontrast unlit monochrome screen while all three of its leading competitors had color three major franchises made their debut on the game boy tetris the game boys killer application pokmon and kirby with some design game boy pocket game boy light and hardware game boy color changes it continued in production in some form until 2008 enjoying a better than 18year run the atari lynx included hardwareaccelerated color graphics a backlight and the ability to link up to sixteen units together in an early example of network play when its competitors could only link 2 or 4 consoles or none at all the third major handheld of the fourth generation was the game gear it featured graphics capabilities roughly comparable to the master system better colours but lower resolution a ready made games library by using the mastergear adapter to play cartridges from the older console and the opportunity to be converted into a portable tv using a cheap tuner adaptor but it also suffered some of the same shortcomings as the lynx while it sold more than twenty times as many units as the lynx its bulky design slightly larger than even the original game boy relatively poor battery life only a little better than the lynx and later arrival in the marketplace competing for sales amongst the remaining buyers who didnt already have a game boy hampered its overall popularity despite being more closely competitive to the nintendo in terms of price and breadth of software library japan north america europe units sold game boy 1989 1989 1990 118690000 atari lynx 1990 1989 1990 3000000 game gear 1990 1991 1991 10620000 turboexpress 1990 1991 none 1500000 fifth generation fifth generation of video game consoles during this time home computers gained greater prominence as a way of playing video games the gaming console industry nonetheless continued to thrive alongside home computers due to the advantages of much lower prices easier portability circuitry specifically dedicated towards gaming the ability to be played on a television set which pcs of the time could not do in most cases and intensive first party software support from manufacturers who were essentially banking their entire future on their consoles home consoles the sony playstation became the most popular system of the fifth generation consoles eventually selling over 100 million systems the first fifthgeneration consoles were the amiga cd32 3do and the atari jaguar although all three consoles were more powerful than the fourth generation systems none of them would become serious threats to sega or nintendo the 3do initially generated a great deal of hype in part because of a licensing scheme where 3do licensed the manufacturing of its console out to third parties similar to vcr or dvd players however unlike its competitors who could sell their consoles at a loss all 3do manufacturers had to sell for profit the jaguar had three processors and no c libraries to help developers cope with it atari was ineffective at courting third parties and many of their first party games were poorly received many of the jaguars games used mainly the slowest but most familiar of the consoles processors resulting in titles that could easily have been released on the snes or genesis to compete with emerging next gen consoles nintendo released donkey kong country which could display a wide range of tones something common in fifthgeneration games by limiting the number of hues onscreen and star fox which used an extra chip inside of the cartridge to display polygon graphics sega followed suit releasing vectorman and virtua racing the latter of which used the sega virtua processor sega also released the 32x an addon for the genesis while their sega saturn was still in development despite public statements from sega claiming that they would continue to support the genesis32x throughout the next generation sega enterprises forced sega of america to abandon the 32x the 32xs brief and confusing existence damaged public perception of the coming saturn and sega as a whole while the fourth generation had seen necs turbografxcd and segas sega cd addons it was not until the fifth generation that cdbased consoles and games began to seriously compete with cartridges cdroms were significantly cheaper to manufacture and distribute than cartridges were and gave developers room to add cinematic cutscenes prerecorded soundtracks and voice acting that made more serious storytelling possible nec had been developing a successor to the turbografx16 as early as 1990 and presented a prototype dubbed the iron man to developers in 1992 but shelved the project as the cdrom system managed to extend the consoles market viability in japan into the mid90s when sales started to dry up nec rushed its old project to the market the pcfx a cdbased 32bit console had highly advanced detailed 2d graphics capabilities and better fullmotion video than any other system on the market it was however incapable of handling 3d graphics forfeiting its chances at seriously competing with sony and sega the console was limited to a niche market of dating sims and visual novels in japan and never saw release in western markets after the abortive 32x sega entered the fifth generation with the saturn sega released several highly regarded titles for the saturn but a series of bad decisions alienated many developers and retailers while the saturn was technologically advanced it was also complex difficult and unintuitive to write games for in particular programming 3d graphics that could compete with those on nintendo and sonys consoles proved exceptionally difficult for thirdparty developers because the saturn used quadrilaterals rather than triangles as its basic polygon cross platform games had to be completely rewritten to see a saturn port the saturn was also a victim of internal politics at sega while the saturn sold comparably well in japan segas branches in north america and europe refused to license localizations of many popular japanese titles holding they were illsuited to western markets firstparty hits like sakura taisen never saw western releases while several thirdparty titles released on both playstation and saturn in japan like grandia and castlevania symphony of the night were released in north america and europe as playstation exclusives born from a failed attempt to create a console with nintendo sonys playstation would not only dominate its generation but become the first console to sell over 100 million units by expanding the video game market sony actively courted third parties and provided them with convenient c libraries to write their games sony had built the console from the start as a 3d discbased system and emphasized its 3d graphics that would come to be viewed as the future of gaming the playstations cd technology won over several developers who had been releasing titles for nintendo and segas fourth generation consoles such as konami namco capcom and square cds were far cheaper to manufacture and distribute than cartridges were meaning developers could release larger batches of games at higher profit margins nintendos console on the other hand used cartridges unwittingly keeping thirdparty developers away the playstations internal architecture was simpler and more intuitive to program for giving the console an edge over segas saturn nintendo was the last to release a fifth generation console with their nintendo 64 and when they finally released their console in north america it came with only two launch titles partly to curb piracy and partly as a result of nintendos failed disc projects with sony as snescd and philips nintendo used cartridges for their console the higher cost of cartridges drove many third party developers to the playstation the nintendo 64 could handle 3d polygons better than any console released before it but its games often lacked the cutscenes soundtracks and voiceovers that became standard on playstation discs nintendo released several highly acclaimed titles such as super mario 64 and the legend of zelda ocarina of time and the nintendo 64 was able to sell tens of millions of units on the strength of firstparty titles alone but its constant struggles against sony would make the nintendo 64 the last home console to use cartridges as a medium for game distribution until the nintendo switch in 2017 japan north america europe units sold fm towns marty 1993 none none 45000 amiga cd32 none 1994 1993 100000 atari jaguar 1994 1993 1994 250000 3do 1994 1993 1994 2000000 pcfx 1994 none none 400000 sega 32x 1994 1994 1995 665000 virtual boy 1995 1995 none 770000 sega saturn 1994 1995 1995 9260000 playstation 1994 1995 1995 102490000 nintendo 64 1996 1996 1997 32930000 apple pippin 1996 1996 none 42000 handheld game consoles for handheld game consoles the fifth generation began with the release of the virtual boy on july 21 1995 the nomad was released in october 1995 in north america only meanwhile the commercial failure of the virtual boy reportedly did little to alter nintendos development approach and focus on innovation in 1996 nintendo released the game boy pocket a smaller lighter unit that required fewer batteries it has space for two aaa batteries which provide approximately 10 hours of game play first released in japan on october 21 1998 the game boy color abbreviated as gbc added a slightly smaller color screen to a form factor similar in size to the game boy pocket it also has double the processor speed three times as much memory and an infrared communications port technologically it was likened to the 8bit nes video game console from the 1980s although the game boy color has a much larger color palette 56 simultaneous colors out of 32768 possible which had some classical nes ports and newer titles it comes in seven different colors clear purple purple red blue green yellow and silver for the pokemon edition like the game boy light the game boy color takes on two aa batteries it was the final handheld to have 8bit graphics despite of nintendos domination of handheld console market some competing consoles such as neo geo pocket wonderswan neo geo pocket color wonderswan color appeared in late 90s and discontinued several years later after their appearance in handheld console market japan north america europe units sold virtual boy 1995 1995 none 770000 genesis nomad none 1995 none game boy pocket 1996 none none gamecom game boy light 1998 none none game boy color 1998 1998 1998 neo geo pocket wonderswan neo geo pocket color wonderswan color sixth generation sixth generation of video game consoles home consoles with more than 155 million units sold the sony playstation 2 is the best selling video game console in history the dreamcast was the last system released by sega who became a thirdparty software publisher the sixth generation witnessed a shift towards using dvds for video game media this brought games that were both longer and more visually appealing adding furthermore features with online console gaming and implementing both flash and hard drive storage for game data segas dreamcast the first console with a builtin modem was released in japan on november 27 1998 the dreamcast initially underperformed in japan while interest was initially strong the company was forced to stop taking preorders due to manufacturing issues and the system underperformed its sales expectations with reports of disappointed customers returning dreamcast consoles to buy playstation games and peripherals after the sluggish sales in japan sega pursued a different strategy in other areas the system launched in north america with 18 titles including the muchanticipated sonic adventure a big part of marketing their system to north america was taking advantage of the turn of the century and north americas tendency to end a products price tag with the number 9 they came up with the slogan 9999 for 199 and the system initially sold briskly despite japan having a year head start on north america by the end of 1999 the dreamcast had sold 2 million units in north america versus only 1 million in japan and at the end of the year sega controlled 31 of the american video game market the dreamcast went on to launch in europe on october 14 1999 and in australia on november 30 1999 however segas success ultimately proved to be shortlived sony announced their own upcoming system the playstation 2 in the fall of 1999 while they had few details on their system many consumers ultimately held off on buying a system until sonys own system launched the ps2 released a year later and received immense critical acclaim the ps2 quickly outsold the dreamcast eventually going on to become the bestselling video game console of all time while the dreamcasts own sales stagnated the dreamcast was segas last video game console and was the first of the generations consoles to be discontinued sega implemented a special type of optical media called the gdrom these discs were created in order to prevent software piracy which had been more easily done with consoles of the previous generation however this format was soon cracked as well it also sported a 336kb or 56k modem which could be used to access the internet or play some games that took advantage of this feature such as phantasy star online making it the first console with builtin internet connectivity an addon for an ethernet port allowed one to access broad band internet though it did not come with the system the dreamcast was discontinued in march 2001 and sega transitioned to software developingpublishing only sonys playstation 2 was released in japan on march 4 2000 in north america on october 26 2000 in europe on november 24 2000 and in australia on november 30 2000 it was the followup to its highly successful playstation and was also the first home game console to be able to play dvds as was done with the original playstation in 2000 sony redesigned the console in 2004 into a smaller version as of november 21 2011 over 140 million playstation 2 units have been sold this makes it the best selling home console of all time to date nintendos gamecube was released in japan on september 15 2001 in north america on november 18 2001 in europe on may 3 2002 and in australia on may 17 2002 it was nintendos fourth home video game console and the first console by the company to use optical media instead of cartridges the gamecube did not play standard 12cm dvds instead it employed smaller 8cm optical discs with the release of the gamecube game boy player all game boy game boy color and game boy advance cartridges could be played on the platform the gamecube was discontinued in 2007 with the release of wii microsofts xbox was the first dedicated video games console released by the company in north america on november 15 2001 in japan on february 22 2002 and in europe and australia on march 14 2002 microsoft realized the power of video game consoles and feared with growing capabilities they may take over more than the living room it was the first console to employ a hard drive right out of the box to save games the first to include an ethernet port for broadband internet and the beginning of microsofts online xbox live service microsoft was able to attract many pc developers by using the nt kernel and directx from their windows operating system though criticized for its bulky size and the awkwardness of its original controller the xbox eventually gained popularity especially in the us where it outsold the gamecube to secure second place due in part to the success of the halo franchise japan north america europe units sold dreamcast 1998 1999 1999 9130000 playstation 2 2000 2000 2000 155000000 gamecube 2001 2001 2002 21740000 xbox 2002 2001 2002 24000000 handheld game consoles during the sixth generation era the handheld game console market expanded with the introduction of new devices from many different manufacturers nintendo maintained its dominant share of the handheld market with the release in 2001 of the game boy advance which featured many upgrades and new features over the game boy two redesigns of this system followed the game boy advance sp in 2003 and the game boy micro in 2005 also introduced were the neo geo pocket color in 1998 and bandais wonderswan color launched in japan in 1999 south korean company game park introduced its gp32 handheld in 2001 and with it came the dawn of open source handheld consoles the game boy advance line of handhelds has sold 8151 million units worldwide as of september 30 2010 a major new addition to the market was the trend for corporations to include a large number of nongaming features into their handheld consoles including cell phones mp3 players portable movie players and pdalike features the handheld that started this trend was nokias ngage which was released in 2003 and doubled primarily as a mobile phone it went through a redesign in 2004 and was renamed the ngage qd a second handheld the zodiac from tapwave was released in 2004 based on the palm os it offered specialized gamingoriented video and sound capabilities but it had an unwieldy development kit due to the underlying palm os foundation with more and more pdas arriving during the previous generation the difference between consumer electronics and traditional computing began to blur and cheap console technology grew as a result it was said of pdas that they were the computers of handheld gaming because of their multipurpose capabilities and the increasingly powerful computer hardware that resided within them this capability existed to move gaming beyond the last generations 16bit limitations however pdas were still geared towards the typical businessman and lacked new affordable software franchises to compete with dedicated handheld gaming consoles japan north america europe units sold game boy advance 2001 2001 2001 81510000 ngage none 2003 2003 3000000 seventh generation seventh generation of video game consoles video game consoles had become an important part of the global it infrastructure it is estimated that video game consoles represented 25 of the worlds generalpurpose computational power in the year 2007 home consoles the release of the xbox 360 began the seventh generation the features introduced in this generation include the support of new disc formats bluray disc utilized by the playstation 3 and hd dvd supported by the xbox 360 via an optional 200 external accessory addition that was later discontinued as the format war closed another new technology is the use of motion as input and ir tracking as implemented on the wii also all seventh generation consoles support wireless controllers this generation also introduced the nintendo ds and the nintendo dsi which brought touchscreens into the mainstream for and added cameras to portable gaming microsoft kicked off the seventh generation with the release of the xbox 360 on november 22 2005 in the united states december 2 2005 in europe december 10 2005 in japan and march 23 2006 in australia it featured marketleading processing power until the sony playstation 3 was released one year later while the original xbox 360 core did not include an internal hdd most xbox 360 models since have included at least the option to have one the xbox 360 optical drive is a dvd9 reader allowing dvd movies to be played no bluray drive was included making big games like battlefield and wolfenstein the new order require two or more dvds to play up to four controllers can be connected to the console wirelessly on the standard 24ghz spectrum there are 4 discontinued versions of the xbox 360 the arcade the pro and the elite and the newer s or slim model the e version of the xbox 360 included 3 configurations a 4gb internal ssd version which acts like a usb hard drive a 250 gb hdd version and a branded 320 gb hdd version the xbox 360 is backward compatible with about half the games of the original xbox library in 2010 microsoft released kinect allowing for motioncontrolled games the xbox 360 was discontinued on april 20 2016 the xbox 360 had major technical problems on release with a large portion of its consoles suffering from general hardware failures nicknamed the red ring of death rrod for the display of a red ring around the consoles power button indicating the problem the company spent over 1 billion correcting the problem sonys playstation 3 was released in japan on november 11 2006 in north america on november 17 2006 and in europe and australia on march 23 2007 all playstation 3s come with a hard drive and are able to play bluray disc games and bluray disc movies out of the box the playstation 3 was the first video game console to support hdmi output out of the box using full 1080p resolution up to seven controllers can connect to the console using bluetooth there are 6 discontinued versions of the ps3 a 20 gb hdd version discontinued in north america and japan and was never released in pal territories a 40 gb hdd version discontinued a 60 gb hdd version discontinued in north america japan and pal territories 80 gb hdd version only in some ntsc territories and pal territories a slim 120gb hdd version discontinued and a slim 250 gb version discontinued the two current shipping versions of the playstation 3 are a slim 160 gb hdd version and a slim 320 gb hdd version the hard drive can be replaced with any standard 25 serial ata drive and the system has support for removable media storage such as memory stick memory stick pro memory stick duo memory stick pro duo usb sd minisd and compactflash cf digital media but only the playstation versions up to 80 gb support this the slim playstation 3 consoles 120 gb and up had removable storage discontinued all models are backward compatible with the original playstations software library and the launch models since discontinued are also backward compatible with playstation 2 games as a costcutting measure later models removed the emotion engine making them incompatible with playstation 2 discs in 2010 sony released playstation move allowing for motioncontrolled games with recent software updates the playstation 3 can play 3d bluray movies and 3d games with more than 101 million units sold the nintendo wii is the bestselling home video game console in the seventh generation nintendos wii was released in north america on november 19 2006 in japan on december 2 2006 in australia on december 7 2006 and in europe on december 8 2006 it is bundled with wii sports in all regions except for japan unlike the other systems of the seventh generation the wii does not support an internal hard drive but instead uses 512 mb of internal flash memory and includes support for removable sd card storage it also has a maximum resolution output of 480p making it the only seventh generation console not able to output highdefinition graphics along with its lower price the wii is notable for its unique controller the wii remote which resembles a tv remote the system uses a sensor bar that emits infrared light that is detected by an infrared camera in the wii remote to determine orientation relative to the source of the light all models other than the wii family edition and the wii mini are backwards compatible with gamecube games and support up to four gamecube controllers and two memory cards it also includes the virtual console which allows the purchase and downloading of games from older systems including those of former competitors in 2009 nintendo introduced the wii motionplus expansion which uses the same technology as the console previously used but with enhanced motion tracking and sensing to improve gameplay quality japan north america europe units sold xbox 360 2005 2005 2005 84700000 playstation 3 2006 2006 2007 85900000 wii 2006 2006 2006 101630000 handheld game consoles for handheld game consoles the seventh generation began with the release of the nintendo ds on november 21 2004 this handheld was based on a design fundamentally different from the game boy and other handheld video game systems the nintendo ds offered new modes of input over previous generations such as a touch screen the ability to connect wirelessly using ieee 80211b as well as a microphone to speak to ingame npcs other lesspopular handheld systems released during this generation include the gizmondo launched on march 19 2005 and discontinued in february 2006 and the gp2x launched on november 10 2005 and discontinued in august 2008 the gp2x wiz pandora and gizmondo 2 were scheduled for release in 2009 another aspect of the seventh generation was the beginning of direct competition between dedicated handheld gaming devices and increasingly powerful pdacell phone devices such as the iphone and ipod touch and the latter being aggressively marketed for gaming purposes simple games such as tetris and solitaire had existed for pda devices since their introduction but by 2009 pdas and phones had grown sufficiently powerful to where complex graphical games could be implemented with the advantage of distribution over wireless broadband japan north america europe units sold nintendo ds 2004 2004 2005 154020000 playstation portable 2004 2005 2005 82000000 eighth generation eighth generation of video game consoles home consoles the wii u was the least selling console of the eighth generation selling around 1356 million units before being discontinued but some of nintendos first party games for the system have sold around half the install base of the system telling that nintendo has a very dedicated fanbase the original xbox one microsofts eighth generation console which has since been superseded by two upgraded models the xbox one s and xbox one x aside from the usual hardware enhancements consoles of the eighth generation focus on further integration with other media and increased connectivity on march 3 2017 following poor sales of the wii u nintendo released the nintendo switch a hybrid console consisting of a tablet with controller attachments that can be used as a mobile device or connected to a television via a dock game systems in the eighth generation also faced increasing competition from mobile device platforms such as apples ios and googles android operating systems smartphone ownership was estimated to reach roughly a quarter of the worlds population by the end of 2014 despite the increased competition the sales for major console manufacturers featured strong starts the playstation 4 sold 1 million consoles within 24 hours in 2 countries whilst the xbox one sold 1 million consoles within 24 hours in 13 countries as of july 22 2018 over 80 million playstation 4 consoles have been sold worldwide japan north america europe units sold wii u 2012 2012 2012 13560000 playstation 4 2014 2013 2013 81200000 xbox one 2014 2013 2013 30000000 nintendo switch 2017 2017 2017 22860000 handheld game consoles the nintendo 3ds is a portable game console produced by nintendo it is the successor to the nintendo ds the autostereoscopic device is able to project stereoscopic 3d effects without the use of 3d glasses or any additional accessories playstation vita is a handheld game console developed by sony computer entertainment japan north america europe units sold nintendo 3ds 2011 2011 2011 71990000 playstation vita 2011 2012 2012 15900000 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 the circuit board can contain a wide variety of components all cartridge games contain at the minimum read only memory with the software written on it many cartridges also carry components that increase the original consoles power such as extra ram or a coprocessor components can also be added to extend the original hardwares functionality nevertheless the relatively high manufacturing costs and limited data capacity compared to optical media at the time saw them completely replaced by the latter for home consoles by the early 21st century although they are still in use in some handheld video game consoles and in the nintendo switch due to the aforementioned capabilities of cartridges such as more memory and coprocessors those factors make it harder to reverse engineer consoles to be used on emulators chip cards further information smart card several consoles such as the master system and the turbografx16 have used different types of smart cards as an external medium these cards function similar to simple cartridges information is stored on a chip that is housed in plastic cards are more compact and simpler than cartridges though this makes them cheaper to produce and smaller but limits what can be done with them cards cannot hold extra components and common cartridge techniques like bank switching a technique used to create very large games were impossible to miniaturize into a card in the late 1980s magnetic media two forms of magnetic media commonly used in the 1980s and 1990s for video games are cassette and floppy disk home computers have long used magnetic storage devices both tape drives and floppy disk drives were common on early microcomputers their popularity is in large part because a tape drive or disk drive can write to any material it can read however magnetic media is volatile and can be more easily damaged than game cartridges or optical discs in 1999 nintendo released another japanonly floppy disk addon the nintendo 64dd for the nintendo 64 optical media shown is a cdrom left and a game in nintendos proprietary optical disc format similar to a minidvd as the most widely used forms of optical media are dvds and compact discs in the mid1990s various manufacturers shifted to optical media specifically cdrom for games although they were slower at loading game data than the cartridges available at that time they were significantly cheaper to manufacture and had a larger capacity than the existing cartridge technology nec released the first cdbased gaming system the turbografxcd an addon for the turbografx16 in december 4 1988 in japan and august 1 1990 in the united states sega followed suit with the sega cd an addon for the sega genesis in japan on december 12 1991 commodore stepped into the ring shortly after with the amigacd32 the first 32bit game console on september 17 1993 during the later half of the 1990s optical media began to supplant cartridges due to their greater storage capacity and cheaper manufacturing costs with the cdbased playstation significantly outpacing the cartridgebased nintendo 64 in terms of sales by the early 21st century all of the major home consoles used optical media usually dvdrom or similar discs which are widely replacing cdrom for data storage the playstation 3 playstation 4 and xbox one systems use even highercapacity bluray optical discs for games and movies while the xbox 360 formerly used hd dvds in the form of an external usb player addon for video playback before it was discontinued however microsoft still supports those who bought the accessory nintendos gamecube wii and wii u meanwhile use proprietary disc formats based on thencurrent industry standard discsthe gamecubes discs are based on minidvds the wiis on dvds and the wii us are believed to be based on blurays these discs offer somewhat smaller storage capacities compared to the formats they are based on though the difference is significantly smaller compared to the gap between the n64s cartridges and cds internet distribution all seventh and eighth generation consoles offer some kind of internet games distribution service allowing users to download games for a fee onto some form of nonvolatile storage typically a hard disk or flash memory recently the console manufacturers have been taking advantage of internet distribution with games video streaming services like netflix hulu plus and film trailers being available microsofts xbox live service includes the xbox live arcade and xbox live marketplace featuring digital distribution of classic and original titles these include arcade classics original titles and games originally released on other consoles the xbox live marketplace also includes many different hit movies and trailers in high definition and is accessible with an xbox live free membership there is also an indie games section where smalltime developers can buy a license and release their own games onto the marketplace such is their volume these games are not viewed by microsoft as standard and are instead rated by the public sonys online game distribution is known as the playstation network psn at launch this service offered free online gaming but now offers content through a paid service called playstation plus launched at the beginning of the eighth generation the service offers downloadable content such as classic playstation games high definition games and movie trailers and original games such as flow and everyday shooter as well as some games that also release on physical media such as warhawk and gran turismo 5 prologue a networking service dubbed playstation home was released in december 2008 alongside video and audio streaming services nintendos virtual console service emulates games from previousgeneration consoles and is available for wii nintendo 3ds and wii u nintendo also has original content available for download through its online stores the wii shop channel wiiware nintendo dsi shop dsiware and nintendo eshop nintendo launched the nintendo wifi connection alongside the wii and nintendo ds which utilized gamespys servers to offer free online multiplayer in addition nintendos wii shop channel allowed for the digital distribution of downloadable games emulated titles and wii applications known as channels which provided functionality such as access to netflix youtube and an internet browser as well as onlineenabled contests such as the check mii out channel and everybody votes channel nintendos wiiconnect24 service offered information and videos of upcoming software through the wiis downloadable nintendo channel which also allowed users to download demos from the wii console to a nearby nintendo ds through a local wireless connection other wiiconnect24 services included dedicated channels for weather and news wiiconnect24 also enabled a message board that allowed a connected wii to receive messages from games installed channels and other users consoles in the summer of 2014 these services were discontinued reportedly to let developers work harder on wii u functionality in 2018 the wii shop channel was discontinued ending digital distribution of virtual console games wiiware and wii channels to wii consoles eighthgeneration nintendo consoles nintendo 3ds and wii u took advantage of the services provided by the nintendo network including purchase and download of full titles virtual console games downloadable games including most dsiwarewiiware titles dlc nongaming apps game demos and other material nintendo network also allowed onlinegaming support to be provided either for free or for a premium cost nintendo also offered its own social network in the form of miiverse which was shut down in 2017 the nintendo switch is the first nintendo console to utilize a paid online system instead of a free one at this time the exact functionality of the system is unknown but nintendo has confirmed the new service will be necessary to play online and will distribute emulated games from the virtual console service in some way the system is currently free to try offering digital software downloads through the nintendo eshop directly from the console and facilitating voice chat and party matching in multiplayer online titles such as splatoon 2 through use of a separate smartphone application the ouya had its games distributed entirely over the internet instead of using any physical media like a disk or cartridge users purchased games from ouyas online shop similar to those of other consoles bits each new generation of console hardware made use of the rapid development of processing technology newer machines could output a greater range of colors more sprites and introduced graphical technologies such as scaling and vector graphics one way console makers marketed these advances to consumers was through the measurement of bits the turbografx16 genesis and super nes were among the first consoles to advertise the fact that they contained 16bit processors this fourth generation of console hardware was often referred to as the 16bit era and the previous generation as the 8bit the bitvalue of a console referred to the word length of a consoles processor although the value was sometimes misused for example the turbografx 16 had only an 8bit cpu and the genesismega drive had the 1632bit motorola 68000 but both had a 16bit dedicated graphics processor as the graphical performance of console hardware is dependent on many factors using bits was a crude way to gauge a consoles overall ability for example the nes commodore 64 apple ii and atari 2600 all used a very similar 8bit cpu the difference in their processing power is due to other causes for example the commodore 64 contains 64 kilobytes of ram and the atari 2600 has much less at 128 bytes of ram the jump from 8bit machines to 16bit machines to 32bit machines made a noticeable difference in performance so consoles from certain generations are frequently referred to as 8bit or 16bit consoles however the bits in a console are no longer a major factor in their performance the nintendo 64 for example has been outpaced by several 32bit machines aside from some 128 bit advertising slogans at the beginning of the sixth generation marketing with bits largely stopped after the fifth generation electronics portal video games portal console game console war dedicated console handheld game console handheld tv game history of video games home video game console list of video game consoles microconsole timeline of video game console releases in north america unlockable games video game clone virtual reality headset notes forster winnie 2005 the encyclopedia of game machines consoles handheld home computers 19722005 gameplan isbn9783000153594 archived from the original on may 26 2005 console platforms at curlie vtevideo game consolestypes home video game console list handheld game console list microconsole list dedicated console list generations first 197280 second 197692 third 19832003 fourth 19872004 fifth 19932005 sixth 19982013 seventh 200517 eighth 2012present firstgenerationhome magnavox odyssey dedicated apf tv fun color tvgame gameroom telepong magnavox odyssey series pong coleco telstar video pinball secondgenerationhome apfmp1000 arcadia 2001 atari 2600 atari 5200 bally astrocade colecovision epoch cassette vision fairchild channel f interton vc 40001292 advanced programmable video system intellivision odyssey rca studio ii vectrex super vision 8000 vtech creativision handheld milton bradley microvision entex selectagame entex adventure vision palmtex portable videogame system super micro epoch game pocket computer dedicated nintendo game watch thirdgenerationhome action max amstrad gx4000 atari 7800 atari xe games system casio pv1000 commodore 64 games system nintendo entertainment system nes101 rdi halcyon sega master system sega sg1000 super cassette vision vtech socrates fourthgenerationhome commodore cdtv neo geo neo geo cd philips cdi laseractive sega genesis sega pico super acan super nintendo entertainment system sns101 turbografx16 handheld game boy family game boy atari lynx game gear turboexpress gamate watara supervision mega duckcougar boy game master fifthgenerationhome 3do interactive multiplayer amiga cd32 atari jaguar casio loopy fm towns marty nintendo 64 nec pcfx pippin playdia playstation sega saturn handheld design master senshi game boy color gamecom neo geo pocket rzone genesis nomad virtual boy wonderswan sixthgenerationhome discover dreamcast gamecube panasonic q nuon playstation 2 vsmile xbox handheld game boy advance family game boy advance advance sp micro gp32 ngage qd neo geo pocket color tapwave zodiac dedicated pocket dream console seventhgenerationhome evo smart console game wave family entertainment system hyperscan playstation 3 wii xbox 360 zeebo handheld gp2x wiz caanoo dingoo gizmondo nintendo ds family nintendo ds ds lite dsi pandora playstation portable micro onlive dedicated mi2 vii eighthgenerationhome playstation 4 wii u xbox one handheld nintendo 3ds family nintendo 3ds 2ds new 3ds new 2ds xl playstation vita playstation tv hybrid nintendo switch micro amazon fire tv apple tv gamestick mojo nexus player onlive ouya nvidia shield othergenerationhome leapster vsmile vflash xavix handheld gameking consoles leapfrog didj neo geo x pokmon mini dedicated atari flashback barcode battler c64 directtotv coleco sonic plug it in play tv games nes classic edition playstation classic stunt cycle super nes classic edition pelican vg pocket consoles emulator game history list manufacturer vtecomputer sizesclasses of computersmicrocomputerpersonalcomputerstationary workstation desktop home personal supercomputer portable tabletop smart tv interactive kiosk game arcade cabinet system board home console microconsole sff nettop plug smart speaker mobilelaptop desktop replacement 2in1 subnotebook netbook smartbook ultrabook ultramobile pc tablet ultramobile pc 2in1 phablet tabletop handheld handheld pc palmtop pc pocket computer pda electronic organizer mobile phone feature phone smartphone phablet pmp ereader handheld game console portablemobile data terminal calculator scientific programmable graphing wearable digital wristwatch calculator watch smartwatch smartglasses smart ring midrange server minicomputer supermini large super mainframe minisuper others microcontroller nanocomputer singleboard computer smartdust wireless sensor network 