Video Game console

A video game console is a Electronic system dedicated to the Video game. There are two principal types:

the consoles of living room, which connect on a television.
the portable consoles, of small size, which have their own screen and which can be taken along everywhere (object Nomade).

The video game consoles gradually passed from the state of Jouet for amateur lit to that of family multi-media center.

Principle of operation

From the first consoles of living room and to the years 2000, the heart of the architecture of a game console, portable or of living room, is identical. It consists of a Microprocesseur, of Random access memory, peripherals of control and joysticks, most of the time.

With the difference of a Computer:

a game console strictly speaking does not have an operating system;
its Programmes is located on outvessel fuel peripherals of storage such as the cartridges, CD-ROM or DVD.

On this basic architecture, were grafted with the wire of time various extensions, like additional graphics processors (with that of the first PlayStation for example), of the modems or the hard drives.

However, the border between computer, multi-media center and game console is not also any more marked since the PlayStation 2 which proposes - for the first time concerning a console - to make another thing nativement only video game by reading DVD video. Before that, Sega and others had already made shy persons attempts at consoles/multi-media platform, without much echo. A stage is also reached with the appearance of the Xbox and its hard drive integrated out of standard. The Wii, which left the December 8th 2006, proposes a unit equipped with two levers wireless telegraphy (the Wiimote and the nunchuk) having a Gyroscope and a integrated Accéléromètre which can detect the movements of the player.

Many consoles were born; for the details, see the Liste of video game consoles.

The market of the consoles

With the difference of market PC, the manufacturers of consoles also many and are not diversified. Moreover, the majority of the actors are at the same time manufacturer of material and suppliers of programs.

In 2001, the worldwide market of the game consoles rose with more than 20 billion dollars.

The history seems to have proven that the market is not able simultaneously to accommodate more than 3 major actors. What this last decade tends to prove since the large Sony rivals, Nintendo and Microsoft évincé Sega by the laws of the market and that the market of the video game is saturated and tightens itself around these three actors.

Beyond these three large of the market of the video game one can speak about a market tending towards saturation. A true commercial war and marketing oppose them since launchings of XBox 360, the PS3 and Wii, and whose principal weapons will ineluctably become sectoral diversification. If the quasi-monopoly of Microsoft in the data-processing field can be enough to ensure of the returns on investment in its branch video games and game console, Nintendo has customers faithful to her know-how and its virtual universe, which remains oldest among these three large. But whereas Playstation 2 represented more half of the receipts of Sony, its last grinding, the PS3 would require according to the economic press at least 50 million sold specimens so that Sony can obtain a first return on investment.

The current costs of launching of a console of new generation are amazing. They include in particular the series production, the purchase of licenses of video games juicy or the research and development of which rises from the innovations in the plan of the jouability or depth of a virtual universe.

The investments required allow the maintenance of these three large on the market of the video game, but condemn them moreover to a higher bid in the promotional plan in order to make known with the players of the whole world the cogency of their own innovations. These heavy investments are carried out on a mondialized economic market and make that these three large video game live more and more above their means. According to the specialized press and the franknesses from sale and resumption of video games, Microsoft and Sony sell each console with loss until a stage of several tens of million sold specimens.

History

The first indexed video game console is the Odyssey, appeared on the market in 1972. Four years later, the cartridges appear on the Fairchild Chanel F. The Krach of the video game of 1983 slows down considerably this industry which starts again with a commercial war between two main actors, Sega and Nintendo. The Game Boy is success among the portable consoles. In the field of the consoles of living room, Sony becomes the leader of the market with the PlayStation. The plays pass to the 3D. The following generation is marked by the arrival on the market of Microsoft and the Xbox and by the retirement of Sega following the commercial failure of the Dreamcast. The PlayStation 2 beats the records of sale of consoles of living room. The Nintendo DS and PSP introduce new concepts of plays among the portable consoles. The exit of the Xbox 360, of the Wii then of the PlayStation 3 inaugurates the seventh generation of consoles.

Statistics

According to the Nielsen research institute, in 2006,41,1% (45,7 million) of the American families equipped with a television set had also a game console, to compare with the 38,6 million in 2004. At each minute 1,6 million American would be in front of a console.

See too

List of video game consoles

Simple: Video range comforts

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