Gaming Console – Three Decades and Revolutionary Changes
It was not long back that gaming devices entered into our daily life. The term console is used to distinguish a machine designed for consumers to play video games from a personal computer. It is an interactive entertainment computer or electronic device that manipulates the video display signal of a display device to display a game. Popularly known as video games, the consoles form a part of the video game system.
It was in 1976 when the first games console was launched by Fairchild. Since then the concept underwent a lot more changes to include wide platforms like hand-held game consoles, TV games and multimedia devices. Even though the first computer games appeared in the 50’s it was after the release of the first home video game console by Magnavox, that the term became popular. The release of Fairchild Video Entertainment System (VES) in 1976 began a revolution in the field of gaming devices resulting more entrants into the field. The electronic world witnessed a video game crash in 1977 with manufacturers of obsolete consoles selling off their systems at a loss to clear stock. This forced Fairchild and RCA to abandon their game consoles.
But things got improved by the early eighties with companies including Atari making a big profit. In the eighties many companies released video consoles of their own, but Atari continued its domination over the market. The gaming console market suffered another severe crash in 1983 due to various reasons. Many games were poorly received by the users which led most companies to file bankruptcy suits. In 1983, the gaming console Famicon was released by Nintendo, which supported high resolution sprites and tiled back grounds with more colors. Famicon got released in the U.S in the form of Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985 and was a big success.
With the release of Sega Mega Drive in Japan on October 29, 1988, the fourth generation of gaming gadgets got introduced. A series of technological advancements had taken place after this and the entire concept of gaming device has completely changed with in last two decades. People are looking for more games console for their entertainment.