All types of game consoles. History of Sony PlayStation game consoles. History of consoles and their appearance in Russia
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Today we will talk about one of the most popular and successful series of game consoles, Sony PlayStation, and remember how it developed. The history of the development of game consoles as such began back in the 70s with Magnavox Odyssey, and later Atari Pong. In the 80s, the Japanese company Nintendo actively and successfully took on consoles, releasing its first 8-bit game console Family Computer (Famicom) in 1983, which was released in 1985 in the USA under the name Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), and later in Europe. . By the end of the 80s, Nintendo was firmly in the leading position. Meanwhile, Sony was trying to get into the personal computer market with the MSX platform, developed by Microsoft and ASCII Corporation did not even enter the realm of Nintendo. The situation began to change in 1988.
How it all began
Developed by Sony In collaboration with the Dutch company Philips, the CD-ROM standard was actively gaining popularity. Was a new technology, CD-ROM XA, was developed, which is an extension of the CD-ROM format, which made it possible to combine compressed audio, video and computer data on one disk. Nintendo had already collaborated with Sony in the console industry: the latter supplied the Sony SPC700 sound processor for the SNES. Contributed greatly to this Ken Kutaragi is the former chairman, chief executive officer and founder of Sony Computer Entertainment. Thanks to his efforts, the Sony board of directors approved the development of the PlayStation and it was born.
Nintendo became interested in the CD-ROM XA and decided to team up with Sony to develop a media for games called the "SNES-CD". All relevant documents were signed and the companies began development. Sony made rosy plans for the release of its console, which was supposed to support both Super Nintendo cartridges and CD format SNES-CD. Thus, the company planned to enter the console market and take some share from Nintendo. Then the situation developed according to a detective scenario. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) ) in 1989, the companies had to announce their cooperation and present the new standard to the public SNES-CD. However, the third president of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi, turned out to be no fool and decided to study in detail the details of the cooperation.
He realized that Sony was in a better position, including gaining control over the licensing of SNES-CD products. Yamauchi decided that this would not go anywhere and canceled all plans to release a joint product. On the opening day of CES, instead of announcing cooperation with Sony, the director of Nintendo of America, Howard Lincoln, announced that his company was ending its cooperation with Sony, curtailing all joint projects and starting to work with Philips. The night before, Sony presented its own Play Station project to the public, and the surprise the next morning somewhat stunned the company.
Development of the first PlayStation
After those events, Sony management wanted to curtail all developments in this direction, but thanks This did not happen to Ken Kutaragi and Sony continued to create its own console. By 1991, Sony had the first version of the console ready to launch, but due to rights and licensing, Nintendo sued and got a ban. It was possible to settle all legal issues only by the end of 1992: Sony had the right to implement support for SNES games, Nintendo received a share of the profits, and SNES used Sony's sound chip. However, Sony realized that the SNES was becoming outdated and it was time to do something radically new. In early 1993, Sony began developing a completely new console.
The first PlayStation went on sale on December 3, 1994 in Japan, in the United States on September 9, 1995, and on September 29, 1995 in Europe. By the start of global sales, a decent number of games were already available, including from Sony and Namco themselves. Battle Arena Toshinden, Doom, Twisted Metal, Wipeout Ridge Racer and so on. CDs were used as storage media, and memory cards were used for saving; now there was no need to write down the code at certain checkpoints on a piece of paper in order to then start from the right place. Memory cards were also used in the PS2. The price was $299 dollars. The console quickly gained popularity. In just 11 years of production, more than 100 million consoles were sold, during from 1998 to 2006 it was the best-selling in the world. Additional features included playback of audio CDs and VideoCDs (in some variants). Many variants of the console were released: depending on the region, with different internal layouts and other minor differences. In 2000, a more radical update was released: PSone, which was significantly more compact and lighter (Sony continues to practice similar solutions to this day).
PSOne
Despite Nintendo's skepticism about optical storage, the PlayStation began the process of moving manufacturers away from cartridges to CDs (later DVDs). Cartridges were limited in capacity, and with the development of new games and advances in graphics, abandoning them was a viable solution. Piracy also developed: “chip” consoles appeared that read discs from different regions and simply copied them onto a disc.
Further development and subsequent models
PS2
In 1999, Sony announced the development PlayStation 2 (PS2), sales in Japan began on March 4, 2000, the rest of the world saw the console in the fall of the same year. It became the fastest-selling and most popular gaming console in history. In the third quarter of 2011, almost 155 million copies were sold worldwide, and the console became the best-selling console in 2006. The PS2 already supported CDs and DVDs and was backwards compatible with PlayStation games (with a few exceptions). By this time, competitors Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo GameCube had appeared.
PS2 Slim
The console was produced until the beginning of 2013, a total of 13 years, which is a very impressive life cycle in the gaming industry. Since 2007, a version has been produced PlayStation 2 Slim, which was significantly smaller in size and already had a built-in network adapter for online games (in the first version it was optional).
PS3
Sony PlayStation 3, PS3- Sony's third stationary console, competitors were the Xbox 360 from Microsoft and Wii. The development of the console was somewhat delayed and instead of the planned 2005, the PS3 went on sale at the end of 2006 in Japan, and global sales began in 2007. The console already knew a lot: in addition to games, you could listen to music, watch movies and surf the Internet. The online PlayStation Store was launched. Blu-Ray discs are used as media; there is a built-in HDD (or flash memory).
PS3 Slim
Different versions had hard drives of different sizes installed, and they can be replaced. Again there is backward compatibility with PS and PS2. In November 2013, the total number of consoles sold exceeded 80 million. The first version was famous for overheating, the Slim version was released in 2009, and the Super Slim version in 2012.
PS3 Super Slim
There are a ton of accessories available, including the answer to the Wii controllers - Move:
The console is popular and is still being produced to this day, but there is no information about the end of production yet.
Sony PlayStation 4, PS4- Sony's latest and newest stationary gaming console at the moment. The official announcement of the PlayStation 4 took place at the PlayStation Meeting 2013 conference on February 20, 2013, sales began in November 2013. The console runs the Orbis operating system, which is a modified version of FreeBSD 9.0. Considering the excessive specificity of previous platforms and, as a result, complicated game development, Sony (like Microsoft's competitor Xbox One) decided to use hardware that is closer to a computer and more universal. Uses an 8-core AMD Jaguar/Kabini x86-64 central processor and 8 GB GDDR5. Such changes entailed consequences in the form of incompatibility with older games: they are only available in “cloud” mode. Inside there is a 500 GB hard drive (can be replaced, including an SSD), a 6-speed Blu-Ray and 8-speed DVD drive, USB 3.0, Ethernet, HDMI and optic. Plus wireless modules Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1.
Mobile consoles
PlayStation Portable(PSP) was announced at E3 2003 and shown a year later. Sales of the console began in Japan on December 12, 2004, and other regions were able to buy it in 2005. The PSP became the first portable console with optical drives as media. The proprietary Universal Media Disc (UMD) format is used, and there is a slot for Memory Stick PRO Duo memory cards (again, its own format). It was equipped with an LCD display, standard mechanical buttons, two triggers and one stick, played (in addition to games) video and music, had a Wi-Fi module and could connect to the PlayStation 3 and other PSP. Several different versions were released, the most exotic and unsuccessful being the PSP Go in the form of a slider:
PSP Go
PSP Vita
The next generation is announced on January 27, 2011 Sony PlayStation Vita, formerly known as Next Generation Portable (NGP). It received a much more powerful filling: a 4-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor. GPU: PowerVR SGX543MP4+ with OpenGL 2.0 support and 512 megabytes of RAM. In addition to the usual controls, a second stick appeared here, the screen became touch-sensitive and increased to 5 inches in size, and a touch-sensitive rear panel appeared. There is Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 + EDR and an optional 3G modem. A couple of cameras appeared three-axis gyroscope and accelerometer, Remote Play function allowed the Vita to be used as a gamepad for a stationary console. Media - PlayStation Vita card.
The first console, oddly enough, was released earlier than the first desktop computer - in 1972. The product was manufactured by Magnavox and was called Magnavox Odyssey. The world owes its appearance to engineer Ralph Baer. The idea of interactive television came to Ralph as early as 1951, when he was working on a television for the Loral Corporation, and was first implemented fifteen years later in the form of a simple video game, Chase, in which glowing dots chase each other across the screen. Having received funding from Sanders Associates, where he was chief engineer, and a patent, Baer, with the help of Bill Harrison and Bill Rush, produced a working prototype of the console with the simple name Brown Box and an accessory for it - a light gun: into a weapon a photo sensor was built in that responded to a luminous spot of a target that one of the players was chasing across the screen. The device allowed you to play ping pong, football and volleyball. In 1969, an agreement was concluded with the TV manufacturer Magnavox, and three years later a historic moment arrived - the set-top box was released
Surprisingly, the Magnavox Odyssey was a completely analog device, containing only forty transistors and the same number of diodes. This filling was enough to display three dots on the TV screen, one of which designated the ball, and the other two were controlled by the players, and a vertical line in the middle of the image. Unlike the Brown Box prototype, the set-top box produced a black and white image, which was explained by economic considerations. It couldn’t reproduce sound, and the whole thing was powered by six C-type batteries. A nine-volt power supply was sold separately, as well as a plastic suitcase for carrying and storing the set-top box. The games were recorded - relatively speaking - on special cards that also did not contain any microcircuits (only jumpers between the pins). There were eleven cartridges in total, and some of them could support multiple games thanks to various TV overlays that changed their rules. The covers were transparent, colored and only fit 18- and 23-inch TVs. There were a total of 28 games, but whether there were more is impossible to say with certainty.
The manipulators were strikingly different in appearance from the gamepads we were used to and were square plastic boxes with two disks on the sides.
Rotation of the left disk moved a point on the screen horizontally, rotation of the right one moved it vertically. In addition, the aforementioned light gun was sold separately. The players kept score themselves, using the chips and sheets supplied with the console.
During three years of production, only 350 thousand game consoles were sold at $99.95 each. There were foreign clones of Magnavox Odyssey: Overkall, Telematch de Panoramic and Kanal 34. It was sold in Japan by Nintendo, which did not yet produce consoles itself.
Of course, the Magnavox Odyssey quickly faded from the scene, but not before it inspired engineer Nolan Bushnell to create a hit. Bushnell became obsessed with creating his own video game, and shortly after the Odyssey was shown, he and friend Ted Dabney founded a company called Atari, a Go term meaning "to be under attack." To implement his idea, Bushnell hired engineer Al Alcorn. Alcorn had just graduated from college at that time, and Bushnell, doubting the young man’s capabilities, instructed him to begin by copying the “Odyssean” ping-pong. The result was so successful that it was decided to sell the game under the Pong brand, and after testing the first slot machine, to produce the machines in-house at Atari. However, first Atari had to give $700 thousand to Magnavox, which owned the patent for Ping-Pong. In 1973, the idea of the video console Pong arose. Two more years - and the finished device was demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Due to the decline in demand for the Magnavox Odyssey, only Sears (Sears, Roebuck and Company) took the risk of contacting the new console and, in exchange for exclusive supplier status, ordered 150 thousand consoles and accessories from Atari by Christmas 1975 to be sold under the Tele brand. Games. The console was a great success. In stores there were queues behind her. The game of Pong was featured on a popular TV show. And believe me, there was a reason.
Unlike its transistor predecessor, Pong operated on the basis of a special chip manufactured by Atari itself, which made it possible to display a much more colorful picture on the TV screen. Pong has become a shining example of computer progress: just a few years ago, such computing power was unthinkable for a consumer product. Paddle-type controllers consisted of two rotating handles attached to the body, and the console was connected to the TV via a standard antenna input
Over the next two years, Atari released numerous modifications of Pong, both under its own brand and for Sears. Among them were versions with color images, additional games, for four people and with the ability to play against “artificial intelligence”. Some were equipped with wired controllers. In addition to Atari products, the market was flooded with Pong clones, which the company fought sluggishly, deliberately confusing the markings on the chips of its consoles. As a result, of the five “Pongs” sold at that time, only one was original. In 1977, the market was overcrowded, and production of the console was discontinued.
In two years, Atari managed to prepare a worthy replacement for Pong. Two years earlier, in 1975, it bought the Cyan Engineering company, and work began on a prototype of a console called Stella (that was the name of the motorcycle of one of the company’s employees). Unlike its predecessor, which was built on a chip into which one or more games were embedded, it had a real CPU - a 6507 manufactured by MOS Technology, that is, a stripped-down version of the famous 6502, which was widely used in desktop computers. It ran at 1.19 MHz and could address 8 KB of memory. However, the developers could not even dream of such a volume due to the huge prices for memory, and the set-top box, as a result, was equipped with only 128 bytes (!) of RAM, contained in one chip along with I/O logic. The TIA (Television Interface Adapter) chip, manufactured by Atari itself, was designed to output image and sound. Due to the same need to save on memory, it was deprived of a frame buffer, and therefore the image was constructed in a unique way: lines were created in turn and written to the output register as the TV scanned them. After scanning all the lines, there was a pause, during which the “drawing” beam of the kinescope returned to its original position. Meanwhile, the set-top box processed the input signals and performed the necessary calculations. Any mistake while recording lines led to distortion of the picture. Four sprites were hardwired into the chip: two lines, a one-pixel dot and a single-color fill for the playing field, from which the picture was built. Thanks to direct image control, the set-top box was considered one of the most difficult machines in the world to program and at the same time had great capabilities: it was possible to create any objects from lines and dots hardwired into the chip and paint their parts in different colors. There were 128 colors in total, only four of them could be used on one line. The resolution was 160 x 129 pixels. The set-top box was connected to the TV via an RCA connector. Two controllers were wired (paddle type).
A year passed, and the console was not yet ready for production, and the championship in CPU use went to Fairchild Semiconductor: it released a console called VES (Video Entertainment System), based on its own F8 processor, which was quite advanced for those times. The chip was notable for the fact that it consisted of two separate microcircuits, since there was no packaging with a suitable number of legs for it. The image, although primitive, was in color. Sound was output through the built-in speaker. The original controllers were powerful knobs with a multi-function “hat” on top. The “hat” could be tilted to the sides like a joystick, rotated like a paddle-type handle, or even pulled up. When carried, the controllers were placed in a special compartment of the console, which was useful given their flimsy wires. The price of the device was $169.95. The cartridges, of which only 26 were produced, cost $19.95. The games provided the console with initial popularity, but did not have any special advantages, although some were impressed by their simplicity.
An interesting idea associated with VES is to control the game on the phone using your voice. Of course, the set-top box could not digitize and recognize speech and simply responded to loud sounds that were transmitted over a telephone line connected instead of the controller. The idea was used in the local TV show TV Pow. The presenter called the person chosen to participate, had a short conversation, and at the command “Go!” an image was displayed on the screen: on the right, the target was moving evenly (from top to bottom and back), and on the left was a cannon, looking straight at the target or, less often, at an angle of 45°. When the player said a code word, usually "Pow!", the cannon would fire. There was a noticeable lag between the command and the shot.
Despite the simplicity of the games, the console had potential for further development and would certainly have revealed it if Atari had not rushed to release its historical brainchild. The company realized that if they continued to delay the development of the console, it would turn out to be just one of many similar products, as happened with Pong. Due to the rapid decline in the popularity of the latter, Atari did not have enough money to bring Stella to fruition, and Bushnell sold the company to the giant Warner Communications for $28 million under the promise to release the console “as soon as possible.”
Which is what happened in 1977. By that time, about $100 million had been spent on creating the console. Since it was supposed to compete with Fairchild VES, it was called something similar - VCS (Video Computer System). When Fairchild found out about this, they renamed their console Channel F. In addition, VCS was sold by Sears under the Sears Video Arcade brand. VCS, complete with nine games, cost $199 and was not particularly popular at first: outdated Pong clones were rapidly falling in price, and the public had not yet realized that they could play something else. In 1977, Atari sold only 250 thousand copies of the VCS, in 1978 - only 550 thousand out of 800 thousand produced. Warner's financial support was required, which resulted in disagreements that led to Atari's founder, Bushnell, leaving Atari.
Soon VCS finally went to the masses. In 1979, a million consoles were sold, and Fairchild capitulated and left the gaming market, although it prepared a modified Channel F. However, this console was nevertheless released as Channel F System II by Zircon International, which bought the rights from Fairchild. Several licensed versions of it were also sold in Europe.
Further success of VCS was facilitated by the arcade hit Space Invaders, licensed by Atari. Sales of the set-top box doubled again - to 2 million units per year, and the company's revenue for the same period amounted to $2 billion.
Soon, games for the VCS system, in addition to Atari, began to be released by third-party developers. All because of the company's stinginess. For example, Rick Mauer, the creator of the VCS version of the famous Space Invaders, received $10 thousand for his work, while $100 million worth of cartridges were sold. In addition, Atari hid the names of its heroes. To protest against the practice of silence, Warren Robinett, the author of Adventure, one of the biggest hits of the VCS, hid a hidden message in the game with his name - the first Easter eggs known to the general public. Others did even better - they left Atari and formed their own software companies, the most famous of which was Activision. Of course, Atari tried to ban their activities in court, but lost, as a result of which the list of game developers for the VCS was supplemented by Coleco, Imagic and others. Soon the Atari corporation was in court again: moral guardians forced it to file a lawsuit against Mystique, which had released a number of pornographic games. In vain: porn is a powerful means of popularizing anything.
In 1982, Atari had already sold 8 million VCS and had one of the largest research divisions in Silicon Valley. A significant part of the projects that were worked on there went beyond the scope of video games and even home computers (Atari produced well-selling Atari 8-bit family machines). Most of them did not live to see release, unlike the Atari 5200 Super-System, or simply Atari 5200, released in 1982. In terms of hardware, it was the same as the Atari 400 computer: MOS Technology 6502C processor running at 1.79 MGy, 16 KB of RAM. The image output was carried out by ANTIC (Alpha-Numeric Television Interface Circuit) and GTIA (George’s Television Interface Adapter) chips.
The first of them, being a real graphics microprocessor, loaded data and instructions (so-called display lists) from RAM in real time, recoded them into a simpler format and transferred them to the second chip. The GTIA, as its name suggests, was a descendant of the TIA chip from the Atari VCS, supporting a resolution of 320 x 192 pixels, and 16 colors per scan line out of a possible 256. The sound was output using the POKEY chip, which supported four semi-independent channels. He also dealt with input/output and random number generation. A 32-kilobyte “window” was allocated for cartridges. The innovation was a “box” that automatically switched the signal from the TV to the set-top box (switch box) as soon as power was supplied to it. Typically, the power cable was connected to it; it communicated with the console through a single wire.
The Atari 5200 controllers, of which there were as many as four, had a revolutionary design for those times: an analog joystick handle, a numeric keypad, two “Fire” buttons on the sides. There were also Start, Reset and previously unseen Pause keys. It was the controllers that became the weak point of the newfangled console: the joystick, for the centering of which a rubber base was used instead of springs, turned out to be extremely inconvenient and unreliable. To make matters worse, the console was incompatible with hundreds of VCS games. A year later, Atari released an updated version of the 5200 and an adapter for it, which allowed you to play old games and use more reliable controllers from VCS (some models of the first version were also compatible with the adapter). From four controller ports, only two remain. Instead of a switch box, a simple toggle switch was introduced.
The main competitors of Atari's new creation were Intellivision from Mattel and Colecovision from Coleco Industries. The first one came out back in 1979. A year later, the system was selling well at $299 and became the first real threat to Atari's autocracy in the video game market. Indeed, in terms of graphics and sound, it was clearly superior to the Atari VCS. Mattel's pretentious slogan - "The closest thing to the real thing" - did not lie, given how infinitely far the graphics of these games were from modern standards.
The first game console with a 16-bit processor was the Intellivision. It was a General Instrument CP1610, operating at a frequency with an almost pharmaceutical value - 894.886 kHz. The amount of RAM of the set-top box was also non-standard - 1352 bytes. Screen resolution was 196 x 160 pixels. Only 16 colors were supported, but all of them could be used simultaneously. Eight sprites were hardcoded into the graphic ROM with the ability to select a size (from two values), stretch horizontally and vertically, reflect, detect intersections with other sprites, and determine the position relative to the background (behind or in front). The sound was three-channel, with an additional noise channel.
The question is, why go into detail? The fact is that what is obvious today in those ancient times was an innovation. As we get closer to modern times, I will pay less attention to such details. But what makes this console remarkable is not its technical characteristics, but its innovative accessories. The controller, instead of a standard joystick or paddle-type handle, was equipped with a disk similar to the D-pads of modern gamepads and capable of sixteen positions. Next to the disk there was a numeric keypad, on which you could put special covers for different games, and on the sides of the controller there were four uncomfortable function keys. Not least because of them, and also because the disk was unfamiliar to many users, Intellivision did not gain as much popularity as the Atari VCS.
Intellivision also became the first console in history for which games could (!) be downloaded using cable television and the Piay-Cable device. After turning off the power the game disappeared. Thanks to another addon - Intellivoice on a chip made by Mattel and General Instrument - the console could reproduce the human voice. Several games were released with support for this module, most of which did not work without it. An international version of Intellivoice was being prepared, but its release did not take place.
Fate of a Legend
After the release of the Atari 5200, the subsequent collapse and sale of Atari, the legendary VCS, although it went into the shadows, continued to exist under the name Atari 2600. In 1986, its modification 2600 Jr. was released two years late. in a smaller plastic case, approximately the same as that of the 5200 model. Those who wished could join the rich heritage of VCS for fifty dollars.
In America and Europe, the console was sold until 1990, and in Asia another two years later. Thus, the lifespan of the VCS / 2600 turned out to be a record - fourteen years and two months, and the total number of console copies sold reached 25 million units. The VCS is revived as the 2600 Jr. spawned a new wave of games for it, made both by Atari itself and by third-party developers. Since its release, the game library of the console has expanded to nine hundred titles, including a number of “homemade” (fan) games. Many VCS clones have been created, both consoles with built-in games that only emulate the original, and those compatible with “native” cartridges. There are several VCS emulators, although the path to accurately simulating the legend was not easy due to the specifics of the architecture (lack of a frame buffer, etc.). In addition, in an effort to squeeze all the power out of the console, game developers used undocumented features and even bugs of the device, which the creators of emulators had to take into account.
And a certain Paul Slocum found a completely unexpected use for his VCS: thanks to a special AtariSynth cartridge, the console turns into a two-voice synthesizer. Several homegrown groups even recorded their works with its help.
Tricky Vectrex
The Vectrex console, released in 1982 by General Consumer Electric, was very unusual in some respects. The Vectrex's hardware wasn't anything mind-blowing: a Motorola 68A09 processor with a frequency of 1.6 MHz, 1 KB of brains, and sound through the built-in speaker. The console turned out to be unique in that it had a built-in monitor (or, conversely, the console was built into it), and not just any monitor, but a “vector” one. This Samsung-made display had a modest diagonal (240 mm) and showed a black and white image. Its unusualness lay in the nature of the movement of the electron beam in the kinescope. In the Vectrex display (this is how it differed from standard CRT TVs and monitors), the electron beam was controlled by a digital-to-analog converter and could move in any direction, as well as turn on and off at the request of the program. In order to make the line brighter, the beam passed over the desired location a little more often. The creators of Vectrex borrowed this technology from slot machines, in which it was widely used. Thanks to it, the console produced real vector graphics, noticeably sharper than other consoles, and arcade games could be ported without losing image quality.
The console even had a built-in analogue of the famous Asteroids – Minestorm. To create a color image, special plastic covers were glued onto the display, which also eliminated flickering. Another non-standard feature of Vectrex were the controllers, which, unlike the then common manipulators, were similar to modern gamepads and even equipped with an analog joystick. Analog controllers gained real popularity only 14 years later; they were equipped with the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation.
An equally interesting accessory for Vectrex is the 3D Imager. The main part of the device was a disk, one half of which was black, and the other was divided into three colored sectors - red, blue and green. The disk rotated in front of the screen, and the console synchronized with it drew a separate version of the image for each color. The difference in drawing time and the distance between pictures of different colors created the illusion of a three-dimensional image for a person wearing colored glasses. In addition, the three-dimensional effect could be enhanced by making objects in the foreground a little more vibrant, and objects on the screen painted in different colors. There were other gadgets for Vectrex - a light pencil and a VecVox voice synthesizer.
Like most of its contemporaries, Vectrex did not survive the gaming crisis of 1983, but for a long time led an “afterlife” thanks to the producers of “homemade” games. Enthusiasts are also releasing an updated modification of VecVox.
In view of the imminent start of sales of game consoles in our shopping center, we think that our visitors will be interested in the history of the development of game consoles. Today, the world is ruled by eighth-generation consoles with super-powerful processors, tons of gigabytes of RAM and disk space. In this regard, it is now difficult to imagine games with flat graphics, low resolution and a three-color palette. But there were times when people opened their mouths when they saw games on the first 8-bit consoles, and then a riot of colors on 16-bit ones. And now we will tell you about the development of game consoles and even provide the opportunity to play them by downloading emulators of these consoles. Let's start in order.
The first generation of game consoles.
The Magnavox Odyssey is considered the world's first gaming console. Presentation of the console.
The Magnavox Odyssey 100 was launched on the market in the fall of 1975. It was cheaper than the previous one, but the presentation of this model was on May 24, 1972
year, and already in August of the same year it became available to buyers. Unlike modern gaming systems, the first console did not have any chips or microprocessors. The operation of the Magnavox Odyssey was based on diode-transistor logic. She only had two games. This was followed by several more consoles from this manufacturer. Magnavox Odyssey 200 and Magnavox Odyssey 300, the latter of which ran on the General Instruments AY-3-8500 chip. In 1976, M 
agnavox 
Odyssey 400 and Magnavox Odyssey 500, the second pleased buyers with fairly advanced color graphics. In 1977, several more consoles were released: Magnavox Odyssey 2000, 3000 and 4000. In 1975 and 1976, Pong consoles from Atari and Coleco Telstar were also released. In 1977, the first console from Nintendo appeared - the Nintendo Color TV Game.
Second generation of game consoles (appearance of the first 8-bit consoles).
The era of the second generation began in 1976. The ancestors of this era are considered to be Fairchild Channel F.
Fairchild Channel F was the first game console to run on cartridges containing programs. The set-top box was powered by a fairly complex Fairchild F8 microprocessor. Imagine these technical specifications: 1.79 MHz processor, RAM: 64 bytes, and a resolution of 128 × 64. 
Atari 2600 - this console is also worth noting. It was released in 1977 and became the most popular gaming system of the time.
Mattel Intellivision can be called a console that was ahead of its time from a technical point of view. Released in the 80th year of the 20th century, long before the 16-bit generation, it had a processor with 16-bit registers.
Gaming systems also released during this era included the Atari 5200, Milton Bradley Vectrex, Emerson Arcadia 2001, ColecoVision, Sega SG-1000, and Bally Astrocade. Of these, it is worth noting the ColecoVision and Sega SG-1000 consoles, the first one featured the Donkey Kong game, and the second one was the first attempt by the now well-known company Sega. Third generation of game consoles (restoration of the gaming industry after its crisis).
The third era is the era of 8-bit consoles, and what is most important and significant is the appearance of sprite graphics. And although up to this point some set-top boxes had 8-bit processors, the very concept of “8-bit set-top boxes” came during this period. 
Famicom/NES/Dendy - the most popular 8-bit. Sales of this gaming system started in Japan, back in 1983. It was very successful from the point of view of technical solutions. It is this that many consider to be the impetus for the gaming industry after the crisis. The console produced a huge number of games, and Mario, the main character of the Super Mario Bros. series, became the company's mascot. The NES console is still on sale to this day, but if you do not have the opportunity to buy it, you can download the Dendy emulator and play on it.
In addition to the console from Nintendo, the third generation era saw the release of the Master System gaming systems from Sega and Atari 7800. It is also worth noting that it was then that many famous game series were born, such as: Sonic, Prince of Persia, The Legend of Zelda, Dragon Quest, Castlevania, Final Fantasy and many others.
The fourth generation of game consoles (the times of 16-bit game systems).
This era dates back to 1987, when the TurboGrafx-16 (NEC PC Engine) entered the Japanese market. Yes, the first 16-bit was this system, and not consoles from Sega or Nintendo. But the main players still became the consoles of the last two companies.
Sega Mega Drive /Genesis - the first of two 16-bit monsters went on sale. On October 29, 1988, the set-top box became available to Japanese consumers. The console had two processors: a primary Motorola 68000 and a secondary Zilog Z80. More than 900 games were released on the console, some were the company's own, and some, such as Golden Ax, Ghouls 'n Ghosts, etc., were ports from arcade machines. Those who want to remember their youth, or those who want to know what 16-bit games are, can still find and buy a Sega Mega Drive/Genesis console today. Here you can download the Sega MD emulator. 
Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super Nintendo, Super NES and SNES) - the console appeared at the end of 1990, mainly due to the fact that Sega MD became very popular, and the first console from Nintendo began to lose its position in front of 16-bit systems. The SNES ran on a 16-bit Ricoh 5A22 processor clocked at 3.58 MHz. Nintendo's new console was a success from the very beginning and quickly began to push competitors out of the Japanese market. Many considered this console to be much more powerful than its direct competitor from Sega, but this is still a controversial issue. But we can say for sure that Super Nintendo has given us many hit games.
Fifth generation of game consoles (times of 32 and 64-bit game consoles).
The times of the fifth generation, in our opinion, are the period of the birth of three-dimensional polygonal graphics and the emergence of new game series.
3DO Interactive Multiplayer or Panasonic 3DO - although this gaming system was produced by many companies, such as Sanyo, Creative and Goldstar (now LG), in Russia this console is best known as Panasonic 3DO. Sales started in 1993, but the price was quite high. It is believed that it was the fact of high cost that prevented this console from becoming quite popular in the world until the advent of more powerful gaming systems, which cannot be said about Russia. If you want to play 3DO games, you can download the Panasonic 3DO emulator. 
Sega Saturn is a 32-bit console from Sega. The console was released in November 1994. The set-top box ran on two Hitachi SuperH-2 7604 central processors with a frequency of 28.63 MHz and 6 coprocessors. The Sega Saturn was a fairly powerful console; it was believed to be even more powerful than its main competitor from Sony. However, the console's complex architecture made it difficult for developers to take full advantage of its performance. Today there are several emulators with which you can play games created for the Saturn, but they are quite complex in the settings.
Sony PlayStation, also called PS or PS1. The first console from Sony, thanks to which the company was able to squeeze out Nintendo and Sega in the gaming market. The console was developed by Sony Computer Entertainment and released in Japan in December 1994. It is the PlayStation that is considered the gaming system that influenced the decline of cartridge games. The gaming library of this console includes more than 8,000 games. Many now popular game series were reborn and born on it, such as: Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy, Crash Bandicoot, Tekken, Resident Evil and others. You can still buy a Sony PlayStation console today; for those who do not want to purchase it, but would still like to play games created for it, they can download the Sony PlayStation emulator. 
Nintendo 64, also known as Ultra 64, is a 64-bit video game console released in 1996 by Nintendo. The console was much more productive than its competitors; inside the console there was a central processor with a frequency of 93.75 MHz and a graphics processor with a frequency of 62.5 MHz. In terms of graphics, Nintendo's system was head and shoulders above all others: it featured such goodies as texture smoothing, MIP-mapping and much more. Believe me, if you saw Super Mario 64, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire or Turok: Dinosaur Hunter back then, you would have froze. The weak point of the console turned out to be the media. As before, the company used cartridges, which limited the volume of games produced, and the complexity of programming for this platform was also noted.
Today you can download a Nintendo 64 emulator that runs almost all games.
The sixth generation of game consoles (many call the consoles released at this time 128-bit).
This era began with the release of the Dreamcast console from Sega in November 1998. It is also worth noting the emergence of a new player in this market, Microsoft. Well, we can say that the most annoying event is the death of Sega as a manufacturer of game consoles.
Sega Dreamcast is the first console of the sixth generation, the fifth in a row, and the last console from Sega to date. Why are we writing, the last one for today? Because personally, I hope that Sega will come to its senses and release at least one more console. At launch, Sega's gaming system delivered superb graphics, made possible by the Hitachi SH4 RISC 200 MHz CPU and PowerVR2 CLX2 (Series II) 100 MHz graphics co-processor. The best games released on the Dreamcast include Crazy Taxi, Jet Grind Radio. of course, Sonic Adventure and, perhaps, the most amazing project of that time on game consoles, Shenmue. I can say with full responsibility that Shenmue is a true masterpiece. Although the start of the console was very good, due to the financial difficulties that arose for the company due to the irrational actions of its financial specialists, the company was unable to compete with Sony and its PlayStation 2 due to insufficient financial support for its console and was forced to stop supporting it. Today there are several emulators that will allow you to at least run games on the Sega Dreamcast. If you wish, you can search the Internet and download Sega Dreamcast emulators such as Chankast alpha, DEmul, nullDC and Makaron. 
Sony PlayStation 2 again Sony and again PlayStation, but this time at number 2. PlayStation 2, or PS2, is by far the most popular console that has been produced for almost 13 years, starting in 2000, the last console came off the assembly line already in 2013. A huge advantage of this system was the ability to run PS1 games on it. The system was powered by a 64-bit Emotion Engine CPU at 294 MHz and a Graphics Synthesizer graphics coprocessor. On the Internet you can find a PS2 emulator that can run some games quite well.
Nintendo GameCube - another console from a veteran of the console industry was released in 2001. The console's specifications were quite good, featuring a 485 MHz PowerPC "Gekko" CPU and a 162 MHz "Flipper" video processor from ATI. Unfortunately, this gaming system was not particularly popular in Russia, most likely due to the fact that it was not sold “broken” here. Microsoft's Xbox is the software giant's first attempt to enter the gaming console market, and, admittedly, a successful one. The console was released in 2001, and, thanks to the financial capabilities of the company, it quickly gained the support of game manufacturers. If you look from the point of view of the contents of this console, this is a home computer, well adapted for games. There's an Intel processor here too. 
Celeron/PIII Custom Hybrid and Nvidia NV2A video processor. This architecture gave this console a plus in relation to developers. It was fairly easy to port computer games to the console. And thanks to this gaming system, we learned Halo.
Seventh generation of game consoles.
Microsoft's Xbox 360 was the first seventh generation console. As in its previous gaming system, the company took as a basis an architecture similar to a computer. The console ran on a central triple-core Xenon 3.2 GHz processor, and ATI Xenos with a frequency of 500 MHz was responsible for graphics. The Xbox360 was the first home console to support high resolution up to 1080p. 
Nintendo Wii - although from a technical point of view this console was much weaker than its competitors. However, it was she who was sold in the largest quantities. The system ran on an IBM "Broadway" processor with a frequency of 729 MHz, and the ATI "Hollywood" graphics chip was responsible for video. The Wii gained its main popularity thanks to its Wii Remote controller and games made for it.
Sony's PlayStation 3 is a true multimedia powerhouse. You can play games on it, chat on the Internet, watch movies and much more. It also included backward compatibility with previous generations of consoles. This console was the most powerful in terms of performance among the seventh generation consoles. The heart of the console was an eight-core Cell Broadband Engine processor clocked at 3.2 GHz, and the graphics was RSX Reality Synthesizer with a frequency of 550 MHz. Sony claimed its gaming system delivered 1.8 TFLOPS, which was almost twice as much as its closest competitor, the Xbox 360. But its complex architecture made it difficult to get the most out of the console.
Well, that's all for now. Today, eighth-generation consoles rule the market; we will write about them separately. It is also worth noting that some consoles were not included in our review due to low distribution, for example CD-i. In addition to brief information about consoles of the past and present, we have posted several emulators with which you can play consoles from your childhood or the childhood of your parents. With that, I guess I’ll take my leave, and may the force be with you! History of consoles and their appearance in Russia
De Actu et Visu
TO The last time I thought about how much consoles changed the way of thinking of the generation of the late 80s-90s. They started learning English only in order to understand the essence of the game. There was a time when hours spent playing games ruined lives, some went crazy, others were left without work. And they tried not to even think about such an invention as a computer, since a cybernetic invention cost such money that almost no one had.
WITH Now the world has changed. In general, it is natural when everything around takes on new meanings, but the computer universe has changed so much that we simply cannot help but tell readers how it all developed.
Start
L This is 1972, New York. Ralph Bayer started a revolutionary industry. Home video game industry.
The first game console for TV Magnavox Odyssey was developed as the first ray of hope for a virtual future in which everyone can find a place for themselves. At that time, all the games were an absolutely nondescript spectacle. For example, a white stick moves a square across the screen. But then, such entertainment was actually unusual. The technical characteristics of the device were more than modest, the console had no CPU at all, the element base worked on the basis of 40 transistors and 40 diodes, the games were placed on special cards, which served as a prototype for the widely known cartridge.
WITH Three years later, Scottish engineers developed the first microprocessor for a game console. When information about the new CPU became known to Bayer, he offered his help in developing a new console and... the world's second gaming console hit store shelves under the name Telstar.
Company Coleco released 15 modifications of the console and became a kind of pioneer in developing the uncultivated market of the emerging generation of gamers. The main feature of the AY-3-8500 microprocessor was reflected in the ability to display both black and white and color images. However, the company's game development policy was quite strange, which led to the dominance of strange applications like ping pong and their modifications. People wanted something more.
P Almost ten years passed, sales of the few consoles were steadily falling and despite the fact that various companies tried to bring something of their own, no one could surpass the American Atari.
The company's developers made several platforms, one of which made another giant breakthrough in 1986 - the set-top box Atari 7800 was equipped with digital joysticks and was backwards compatible with Atari 2600, which has been on the market since 1977.
At the same time, the price of 7800 was only 144 US dollars. An attempt to conquer the market and occupy a dominant position over SEGA And Nintendo went almost successfully. For some time, Atari occupied a leading position in the console segment. But only for a while. American media technologies collided with Japanese philosophy.
Breakthrough.
G one year earlier, in 1985, a Japanese company Nintendo presented her development Nintendo Entertainment System- a console that has conquered the world for many years.
The main competitor of the platform was the Atari 7800 mentioned above. However, the market made its choice in favor of Nintendo. The Nintendo platform was a gaming console based on a microprocessor with a clock frequency of 1,789,773 MHz. The maximum resolution is 256x240, a palette of 52 colors, with simultaneous display of 26 colors. Before the console spread across the United States and Europe, Japanese children tested the console for two years. It so happened that Nintendo was able to eclipse Atari almost immediately after the 7800 appeared on the American market. Paradox? But Japanese ideas about computer games reflect the desires of players somewhat more clearly... Historically, Japan has constantly diverted the attention of Americans to its products; the most striking example of such “treatment” can be considered the widespread “disease” of Americans with Japanese J machines. With consoles, everything turned out in a similar way script.
AND Well, the nineties are approaching. The era of grunge rock, rave and senseless military conflicts. In 1988, the Japanese software giant company SEGA releases a set-top box based on a 16-bit microprocessor Motorola 68000 operating at a clock frequency of 7.6 MHz.
The graphic capabilities of the console amazed the imaginations of the emerging gamers - 512 colors, graphic layers, sprite animation. The sound subsystem is implemented on a chip Yamaha YM2612, which allowed working with six channels of sound. Absolutely amazing games were released on the console, which to this day delight the eyes of experienced players.
N intendo couldn't stay away, in 1990, strictly on New Year's Eve, Super Nintendo consoles went on sale ( Super Nintendo Entertainment System),
in the first hours, sales reached 300 thousand units - you will agree that at that time this was a kind of record.
However, the distinctive feature of the SNES was: the high price of the console, the high price of games. Thus, SEGA spread throughout Europe and the USA somewhat faster than SNES. But those who nevertheless gathered the financial strength and purchased a new console were not left disappointed: the SNES was a truly serious console. Based on 16-bit Ricoh processor CMD/GTE 65c816, with direct access to 128KB of memory, with built-in sound controller SONY and displaying up to 32,768 colors, the console could not help but become a hit among gamers. However, the SNES lost. Despite the fact that there were enough games for the console, SEGA amazed us with the abundance of interesting arcade games and the updating of its lineup (Sega MegaDrive II).
Russia. That time.
IN“at that time” the Russian market was in ruins, having destroyed the Soviet “shackles” the people did not immediately realize that now they had to somehow live. Almost everyone lived somehow. Whoever had time stole. Such a sad time in which some people decided to make money on consoles. It must be said that the development of the console market in our country deserves a separate retelling. Because now our market has become interesting for the development of intellectual business.
T ak, prefix Dendy there is a brazen move to copy Japanese NES. There were two modifications DendyJunior And DendyClassic.
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The models did not differ in technical characteristics, but the difference in price was noticeable. It was then that the concept of “Chinese” and “Japanese” technology appeared. Various Akaiwa, Sany and other, other “brands” began to appear in different parts of Russia. SuperNintendo appeared on the market around the same time as MegaDrive 2.
Magazines began to appear in Russia that wrote about computer games on consoles. The most famous was " Great Dragon", of which the author was an admirer. The market was developing rapidly, entire stores were opening in Moscow, the sales themes of which completely copied the gaming part of the “gorbushka”.
So, the market for game consoles in Russia was firmly established and until about the second half of the 90s it looked like this:
The bulk of the population was without money, their children played NES aka Dendy. Those who are richer bought themselves SEGAGenesis or MegaDrive 2. And, finally, the wealthiest citizens bought themselves a Super Nintendo. Few people had a computer as such, and it was unrealistic to consider it as a gaming platform.
Rapid development
In 1991, the company Fujitsu created the world's first 32Bit console FM Towns Marty 2 CPU-based AMD with a clock frequency of 25 MHz.
We deliberately do not consider the first version of the console, because... It didn't last very long. So Marty 2 was developed as the first console with the ability to connect to the Internet. You may be wondering how the console did not make it onto the Russian market? This is actually due to the fact that Fujitsu created the console exclusively for the Japanese market. However, the production capacities of the companies were allocated to Russia Amiga CD32.
The first set-top box in Russia that worked on optical CDs. It so happened that 1993 was the most fruitful year in terms of the appearance of 32-bit consoles. Panasonic 3DO
went on sale in mid-1993, but the gigantic price of the console ($699) and high prices for games took their toll - the console sold poorly and soon disappeared from the market.
And here the most important gaming event of the 90s happened. SONY paid attention to the game console market. In 1994, who created the first 32-bit console that conquered the whole world, of course, we are talking about SonyPlayStationOne.
Weak attempts by competitors represented by SEGA and Nintendo could not move the clear leader. How did SONY conquer the consumer? Let's take a closer look at this phenomenon.
SONY has always taken a competent approach to marketing issues and preparing the ground for its developments. For example, the first developments of SPS (Sony PlayStation) date back to 1986. In addition, Nintendo actively prevented its Japanese partner from monopolizing the gaming market, to the point that in 1988 it broke the partnership contract with SONY and re-signed it with Philips. After which two years of litigation resulted in a ban on the release of the first version of the PlayStation. It wasn't until 1992 that SONY and Nintendo finally resolved the controversial issues. The SPS could still play ports of Super Nintendo games, but Nintendo owned the rights and received a cut of the games' profits, and the SNES still used Sony's sound chip.
In addition, the affordable price of $299 made the PlayStation a very attractive alternative to the expensive Panasoinc 3DO, rare SegaSaturn And AmigaCD32.
A huge number of great games, both arcades and strategies, quests, fights (fighting games).
And at this time, a piracy boom began in Russia, free geniuses from electronics and computers came up with various ways to bypass the copy protection of disks and regional restrictions on the set-top box. The vocabulary of gamers includes the terms “chipped”, “Chinese memory card”, “code cracker”, etc. A gigantic amount of pirated cartridges for SEGA, Dendy filled the stalls of merchants on the above-mentioned “gorbushka”. Discs, books with walkthroughs - all this was sold at enormous speed and on a galactic scale. But mass distribution of the PlayStation began only in the second half of 1996. It was then that turning points began to occur in the economic situation and more citizens began to have money. So, Playstation has definitely conquered the Russian market.
What about the competitors? What about the competitors? Nintendo decided to pave the way towards ported “computer” games, for example... Doom. And they were not stopped by the fact that this game was already available on SPS in two versions (Final Doom and Doom2). At the end of 1996, the first 64-bit console appeared Nintendo 64.
The console had only one task - to win over consumers and distract them from Sega and Sony. For these purposes, a number of “hit” games were released, such as Mario 64, Doom 64, DonkeyKong 64.
The hardware heart of the console was the NEC VR4300 processor operating at a clock frequency of 93.75 MHz. Graphics processing was performed by SGI's 64-bit development coprocessor, called the "Reality Co-Processor" (RCP). RCP is a chip operating at 62.5 MHz, internally divided into two main components - the “Reality Drawing Processor” (RDP) and the “Reality Signal Processor” (RSP). The components communicate with each other via a 128-bit bus with a bandwidth of 1.0 GB/s. If you look away from consoles for a second and look towards personal computers, you won’t be very surprised that the most serious “machine” at that time was a system unit based on IntelPentium 166MMX.
Consumers looked at the console with surprise; not many dared to buy a strange console that uses outdated cartridges instead of CDs. It seems that Nintendo quickly realized where their marketing plan had failed and soon the 64-bit platform left the market forever. To be fair, we note that by the end of 1998, the Nintendo 64 took second place in sales in the world. As you understand, the first place consistently belonged to SPS One.
So the world gradually approached the year 2000. In those days, computers became more and more accessible, and through this, the emergence of new consoles caused a storm of emotions among fans of home PCs. Of course, in order for consoles to occupy stable sales ratings, one idea must be clearly fixed in the minds of the consumer - the console is always better. SEGA engineers were the first to solve this problem, and by the end of 1999 they released the console SegaDreamCast.
Unfortunately, this is the last product that the creators of Sonic the Hedgehog were able to make. The Dreamcast was powered by a Motorola processor and contained a real 3DFX Voodoo 2 hardware 3D accelerator. By the way, this was the first console that used the PC element base, so the Dreamcast could be equipped with a mouse, keyboard, microphone, etc.
SONY at that time was diligently creating a sixth generation console - PlayStation 2.
In March 2000, SPS2 entered the Japanese market, and in November it hit the shelves of European stores. Now we remember well that SPS2 was very difficult to buy, since the demand was gigantic, and the production capacity of the factories was insufficient to satisfy the enormous consumer interest. An interesting fact is that all games that worked on SPS also work on SPS2, so no one will be dissatisfied. Consumers will be able to play their favorite games that will not be ported to the SPS2. An interesting feature of the set-top box was the use of USB ports. Thus, computer peripheral developers could create their own line of products for SPS2. Especially in this market, the desire of Logitech, Thrustmaster and Genius is noticeable. The hardware properties of SPS2 impressed only a trained person; for everyone else, the technical characteristics did not promise anything interesting. Would you like to get acquainted? The central processor is a 128-bit “Emotion Engine” operating at a clock frequency of 294 MHz, the graphics processor “Graphics Synthesizer” operates at a clock frequency of 147 MHz and allows you to display images with a resolution of up to 1280x1024 pixels. In addition, the set-top box read DVDs and CDs, and with a small hardware upgrade it was able to play MP3 and DivX files. Of course, competitors could not lag behind the leader. Nintendo began developing the GameCube, and Sony had another headache in the form of a company... Microsoft. The mega-corporation turned its attention to consoles for good reason; a huge amount of money and a lot of smart people working for the software giant could do what others could not do. This is how the idea of creating your own console was born, which was called MicrosoftXbox.
The fight for the consumer. Market leaders.
Xbox appeared on sale somewhere at the end of 2001, at that time SPS2 had been actively sold for a year and was remarkably sold out by numerous fans of virtual entertainment. It should be noted that Microsoft already had experience in creating consoles; several years earlier, the company worked with SEGA and developed for them a special version of Windows CE for the Sega DreamCast console. So, Sony has almost ten years of experience in creating games and consoles, and Microsoft has huge connections in the computer hardware market. Therefore, no one doubted that the Xbox would use only components from well-known manufacturers. And so it happened. The OS for Xbox was a slightly modified Windows 2000 (the company's best OS). Central processor Intel Pentium III 733 MHz, video adapter specially designed by nVIDIA, 64 MB DDR SDRAM from Micron. In other words, Microsoft has developed its own platform for a home computer that easily works with the Internet and uses a TV as a monitor. In addition, constant competition with the home PC has already entered the phase of active offensive from consoles. The regular refusal of Igrostroy to make ports from consoles to PCs perfectly reflected the state of the market. However, Microsoft is pursuing its ambitious plans, as a result of which games such as Doom 3, Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne and the StarWars series appear on the Xbox.
Nintendo's Gamecube sold poorly in Russia and could interest few people, but Xbox and PlayStation 2 waged real military operations to conquer the market. Thus, SONY placed its set-top boxes in protected cabinets in large retail outlets, and Microsoft, as in the case of Windows, temporarily did not touch the pirates. Illegal copies of Xbox games were sold almost everywhere.
The situation did not change until about 2005, when the Xbox was removed from the production line. This meant only one thing - Microsoft was preparing a replacement for the outdated console. What exactly we learned quite quickly - Xbox 360.
On November 22, 2005, the new console began being sold in the United States. On the first day of trading, more than 20 thousand consoles were sold. And no wonder, at that time such computing power was not available to any home computer user. The performance characteristics of the set-top boxes inspired respect from everyone and immediately, judge for yourself - a processor based on IBM PowerPC, codenamed Xenon, containing 3 symmetrical cores, each clocked at 3.2 GHz. 1 MB L2 cache, the operating system is still the old one, it’s Windows 2000, but it’s been rewritten almost from scratch. ATi-based graphics adapter with performance up to 500 million polygons per second.
SONY urgently began developing their version of the “top console”. The name was prepared in advance - PlayStation 3 and on November 11, 2006, the console appeared in Japan. The release of the seventh generation console for the European market was delayed for six months. Thus, the official release of SPS 3 for Russia took place in March 2007. The technical capabilities of the set-top box allow you to play Blu Ray discs, connect it to Full HD TVs with a resolution of 1080p, and use SPS3 to access the Internet. Backward compatibility of games from PS One and PS 2 has been maintained, which again allowed users to use the console to work with older applications. The only difficulty left is the price. If the Xbox360 costs about 13 thousand rubles, then the Playstation 3 costs at least 20 thousand rubles. What happens? But nothing interesting for those who are still choosing between a computer and a console. We'll talk about this a little later, after we remember another modern console. Nintendo, of course, could not disappear from the market after such a long struggle for survival. Therefore, a month later, after the release of SPS3, the console was shown NintendoWii.
The console weakly competes with powerful models from Sony and Microsoft, but at the same time it has a number of undeniable advantages. For example, the console is unique with its controller - “Wii Remote”, which can determine its movement and orientation in three-dimensional space, and also has a vibration mechanism and a built-in speaker. And guess what! Nintendo was able to surpass Microsoft in terms of global sales! This was partly due to the release of typically “PlayStation ports” on consoles, such as ResidentEvil.
And the cost of the console will pleasantly please everyone. Just over 300 US dollars. The funny thing is that with relatively weak technical characteristics, the console works perfectly with serious graphics arrays and does not outwardly show its rather weak heart, in the form of a Power PC processor with a clock frequency of 729 MHz, and the ATI "Hollywood" GPU with a frequency of 243 is responsible for graphics MHz; memory is allocated dynamically from the shared cache.
Pirates of the Russian Sea.
The main headache for most console fans is the price of games. It just so happens that the notorious “license” costs so much money that the child really realizes his financial disadvantage. Is it hard for you to buy five heels of toys at a price of $80 per box? For this reason, the “pirates” spent a lot of time so that consumers could buy hits for completely different money. Thus, the “chipping” method has been used since ancient times for the Playstation, the Xbox was successfully “reflashed”, and old console cartridges were simply copied through a programmer. Different companies took different paths. Thus, SONY began to actively cooperate with law enforcement agencies, and deputies acquired Vaio laptops; immediately after this, it became almost impossible to buy a pirated disk or a “chip” console. Purchasing these products was very reminiscent of a scene from a 1930s gangster action movie. Two people hide in a gateway, one opens the trunk and hands the second a black bag with a box and a pack of CDs. Another gives him a “cutlet” of thousand-dollar bills and quickly leaves into the darkness of the alleys.
Microsoft didn't Nothing. Buying a pirated console and games for it is not a problem. Of course, Xbox will live in Russia for a very long time solely due to such company loyalty. Apparently the Russian office also understands this well and does not bother pirates.
And, as for the new Blu Ray and HD DVD formats, these technologies have been successfully hacked and are lying around in numerous “torrent trackers”.
And the most interesting thing is competition with the computer.
You have read this far, which means you have not wasted your time. The competition between consoles and computers has recently reached an unprecedented level and for this reason. In fact, a modern PC is no weaker than the leaders of the console genre, but according to an established fact, a person buying a home computer will never be absolutely sure that his hardware will run new games without brakes. But the buyer of the console is sure of this. For the next three to four years, it is guaranteed to be protected from any arbitrariness on the part of software giants and hardware sellers.
However, that's not all. Imagine for a second how much power is hidden in a computer system unit. Now estimate the size of the console. Don't notice the difference? The same is true with production capacity. Adherents of the console market claim that consoles are more powerful than modern hardware, but this is not possible. The technical process used to make chips for set-top boxes is already definitely outdated (+). Graphics subsystems that show enormous performance are also not a role model. Imagine a modern 8800Ultra with its heatsink and insatiable electrical appetite. Remember how it heats up and how a modern 4-core processor, memory, and hard drive heat up? The entire system unit is filled with red-hot iron and its default performance cannot be lower than that of the console. Since any set-top box does not heat up like that. This indirectly confirms the fact that the elemental base of the console hardware does not operate at extreme frequencies; it is possible that the hardware is simply degraded. After all, programmers do not need to think about the fact that the user can fill up the RAM memory of the console with unnecessary applications; the task is one - write the code in such a way that the console can process it at the highest speed. I must say that this experiment is a complete success. And in the console market there is no concept of “brakes” or “upgrade”.
Of course, recently attempts have been made to change the situation for the worse (for the user). So, the gradual connection of the console to the Internet will force the user to buy a keyboard, mouse... isn’t that convenient? Why do we need a computer when we can use the global network directly from the interface of a beautiful Xbox or Wii?
Final word
So, regardless of what happens on the market, consoles take a strong position and do not intend to give it up. Personal computers will eventually become what they were designed for - a tool for high-level creativity and entertainment. But the consoles will not change, they will increase their power, follow the changing preferences of consumers and release beautiful games.