Contents Page
- Introduction.
- History of console development.
- The popularity of consoles.
- The Advancements of Console gaming and possible further technological enhancements.
- Will consoles continue to develop?
- Bibliography.
- Conclusion.
Introduction
What I will be explaining in my essay will be the evolution of consoles, where they are as of right now and the successors of these consoles. I will be speaking about a few generations where gaming was changed and the time period of all these successors.
This will also include the downfall of the gaming industry and its resurrection.
What is a console?
A console is a specialized gaming system that is often made in big quantities. A console unlike a PC is not personalized but instead is already manufactured to suit a large audience. Consoles function similar to PCs but due to how they are made can not be ungraded with more recent technology, as they are not customization.
Where consoles are now is amazing, as consoles use to be a huge leap behind PCs in graphics and processing power, the gap is still getting closer to being on the same footing as a gaming PC. Consoles are still quite a way behind. The leading consoles of the present days are the Xbox and PS (Play Station), with both consoles being fetched out as more powerful units and are considered to be better then their previous predecessors.
The history of console development.
Consoles were first made in the 1960s with one of them being named the Brownbox, which was made in 1966 by Saunders associates. The first home console would be the Magnavox odyssey in 1972 by Magnavox.
The First consoles were limited in what they could do and achieve, but they layed the foundations for the future generations of consoles, console gaming didn’t explode in popularity until the introduction of Play station and Xbox, made by Sony and Microsoft. Respectably, Consoles became popular with consoles like the Atari and game cube being on the markets in their respective generations. These consoles represented the breakthrough of home gaming with Consoles like the Atari VCS which was made in 1977 and the 2x spectrum which came out in 1982.
The first generation of consoles, the most popular of the first generation being the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972, this kick started a series of generations what would change gaming to what we know it as now.
The second generation of consoles, the first console what was released was the fairchild channel f in 1976, the most popular console of this generation was easily the Atari 2600 with its massive 30 million sales in 1977.
The third generation of console, the first console to be released was the NES in 1983 which sold a huge 61 million, the second most popular was the master system which was released in 1985.
The forth generation of console, the first console to be released in the forth generation was the PC engine in 1987 with 10 million units sold, the most popular of this generation will be the super NES with 49 million sold around the world, This generation was the first console war that was between Nintendo and Sega for dominance over the console Market, with the console wars spreading over the Microsoft and Sega during the 2000s.
The fifth generation of console, the first to be release in this generation was the FM town Marty what was released in 1993, the most popular console of this generation was the play station which sold a gigantic amount of units that was 102 million units strong, the second being the Nintendo 64 with 32 million units sold.
Generation 6 was the year of when the console wars over Sony and Microsoft would begin, the first console to be released during this generation was the dreamcast in 1998, the most popular consoles during this generation was the Play station 2 and Xbox, with sales of 155 million and 24 million respectably.
Generation 7 became the first console kick off with developments to both Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony, as this generation produced the Xbox 360 with 84 million units sold, the most popular of this generation was the wii and Playstation 3, both having sales of 85 million sales just scrapping past the xbox 360, the wii having 101 million units sold.
Generation 8 (Present day) was kicked off by Nintendo’s WiiU which sold 13 million units worldwide, the most popular consoles of this generation are the play station 4 and Nintendo switch, both having sales of 81 million sales and 32 million respectably, Xbox being the least popular with 30 million units being sold.
The advancements on consoles was taking the world by surprise with one of the first gaming consoles to be a home gaming platform was the Atari VCS with its at the time powerful 1.19 microprocessor. The other console to change the way games look is the 2x spectrum with its 8 bit graphics, however the consoles to really kick start the gaming industry was the NES with its 8 bit graphics and including Mario, who is the most iconic game character of all time with games like Super Mario Bros on the NES. Later into the early 80s a video game called E.T what was released for the Atari 2600 killed Atari off and being labeled the worst game of all time with its numerous bugs, lack of a guide and overhaul was just terrible and incomplete, this ended up creating a mistrust between game developers and the consumers which ended up droping sales by a catastrophic degree.
The console industry nearly died during 1983, which was due to cheaply made games by small companies what mostly did damage to the Atari 2600, the biggest blow to Atari being E.T, this could of killed the console industry because of its low and poor quality and if it wasn’t for Nintendo coming in and saving the industry, we may have not had consoles like what we have today.
E.T was made for the Atari 2600 in 1982. The game was highly expected to be very successful based on its connections to the film which was highly enjoyed around the world. The game itself was to guide the player through the cubic world to collect pieces of telephones so he can contact his home, However the game was barely playable and was generally quite bad despite its hyped up campaign, with game breaking bugs and having barely any hint to what the player should do what so ever.
The game had many critics concerning its graphics, people saying its graphics are primitive for the games they are use to seeing, along with the bad gameplay which people couldn’t get past the part with the pit what has the character (you) fall into a pit which is also repeated constantly through the game and task you from escaping the pit.
the game being time consuming due to the pits that ET falls into during the game and that it is difficult to not fall in again.
The console crash was that bad that companies fell bankrupt and abandoned their consoles to seek other companies and the overhaul sales going down by 97% during this time.
The Popularity of Consoles
The successors of today are Xbox and Play station, due to their on growing developments and exclusives, as well as affordable expense. Throughout the years as games got better, so did consoles and with that the popularity increasing drastically, games like halo on the Xbox and god of war on PlayStation (as well as a bunch of other console exclusives) made console gaming blow out of proportions.
As mentioned at the start, consoles when first invented were very limited in what it could do compared to a PC, however in the present day we have consoles what are extremely powerful and can put up some contest with quite a few Gaming PCs. This is due to technology advancing incredibly fast in the gaming industry. There is fine line between fictional and non fictional worlds that is being shortened with every new advancement in console gaming, which is why I believe that reality will become a second world compared the the gaming world. For example, as in previous gaming systems such as the PS1, gaming worlds were small and linear, where as now can be being bigger worlds, with more things to do task wise, and with dynamic characters and dialogue trees. Even our actions as players can now have consequences in that virtual world.
The Advancements of Console gaming and possible further technological enhancements.
The gaming world is a place for people to escape to for people like you and me, with games being able to put so much onto the table, people will not feel like going outside to do those exact same activities when they can do it in their living room, The biggest advancement for consoles is to be able to use VR (Virtual reality), which breaches reality for most people, examples being the PS4 VR headset with the move Controllers letting players look around in the game world and interact with your body instead of just your fingers.
Another instance of using your body in the gaming world would be kinect for the Xbox 360 and one which has now been discontinued, the device was fitted with a motion sensor to put your movements into the characters on the games.
Another small gap between consoles and PCs is the use of media, consoles now have apps like internet explorer, youtube, Netflix and much more, which was introduced during the 7th generation of consoles.
Where I see consoles in the future will be very advanced and it will break the gap between reality and the digital world with the advancements on VR and graphics along with consoles that are generally going to get better with each passing year.
Conclusion.
From my quiz I have found out that the first console people got was the PlayStation that was released in 1994 
as you can see, the PS1 was the most common first console to the consumers.
Other conclusions also state what they find the best console to be and xbox got the highest amount of votes, which from this statistics chart I can say that Xbox is the most popular amount the consumers.
For where consoles will be in 10 years time I had gathered mixed opinions with most saying that the consoles will be better and improved upon.
Bibliography.
The websites i used for this information are:
Poh, M. (2019). Evolution of Home Video Game Consoles: 1967 – 2011 – Hongkiat. [online] Hongkiat. Available at: https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/evolution-of-home-video-game-consoles-1967-2011/ [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019].
En.wikipedia.org. (2019). Video game console. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_console [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019].
YouTube. (2019). The History of Video Games Documentary. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7-BN0qdZDk [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019].
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