Home entertainment takes its brand-new type. With the development of innovation and its combination to different aspects of our lives, standard entertainment such as theatrical plays and cultural programs is replaced by so-called "electronic home entertainment". There you have different digital and animated films that you can enjoy on movie theater or on your house entertainment system, cable television service system (CTS), and the computer game system, which is popular not just to young and old players alike but also to video game designers, merely because of the development of ingenious technologies that they can use to improve existing video game systems.
The computer game system is meant for playing video games, though there are modern game systems that enables you to have a gain access to over other types of entertainment utilizing such video game systems (like seeing DVD films, listening to MP3 music files, or surfing the Web). Therefore, it is typically described as "interactive home entertainment computer system" to identify the game system from a maker that is used for different functions (such as personal computer and arcade video games).
The very first generation of video game system started when Magnavox (an electronic devices business which makes tvs, radios, and gramophones or record players) released its first computer game system, which is the Magnavox Odyssey developed by Ralph Baer. Odyssey's appeal lasted until the release of Atari's PONG video games. Magnavox recognized that they can not take on the popularity of PONG games, therefore in 1975 they produced the Odyssey 100 computer game system that will play Atari-produced PONG video games.
The 2nd generation of video game system came a year after the release of Odyssey 100. In 1976, Fairchild launched the FVES (Fairchild Video Entertainment System), which made use of a programmable microprocessor so that a game cartridge can hold a single ROM chip to save microprocessor directions. Nevertheless, because of the "computer game crash" in 1977, Fairchild abandoned the computer game system market. Magnavox and Atari stayed in the computer game market.
The renewal of the video game system began when Atari launched the popular game Area Invaders. The market was unexpectedly restored, with numerous players made purchase of an Atari video game system just for Space Intruders. To put it simply, with the appeal of Space Invaders, Atari dominated the video game market throughout the 80s.
Computer game system's third generation entered into wanting the release of Nintendo's Famicon in 1983. It supported full color, high resolution, and tiled background video gaming system. It was at first introduced in Japan and it was later brought to the United States in the form of Nintendo Home entertainment System (NES) in 1985. And much like Atari's Area Invaders, the release of Nintendo's popular Super Mario Brothers was a big success, which completely restored the suffering video game system industry in the early months of 1983.
Sega meant to compete with Nintendo, however they failed to establish considerable market share. It was till 1988 when Sega released the Sega Genesis in Japan on October 29 of the very same year and on September 1, 1989 in the United States and Europe areas. 2 years later on, Nintendo released the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in 1990.
Atari came back with their new computer game system, which is the Jaguar and 3DO. Both systems might show more onscreen colors and the latter made use of a CD instead of video game cartridges, making it more powerful compared to Genesis and SNES. Nintendo, on the other hand, decided to release new video games such as Donkey Kong Country instead of producing new video game systems. Sega's Vectorman and Virtua Racing did the same. Numerous years later on, game news Sony, Sega, and Nintendo released the fifth generation of video game systems (PlayStation, Saturn, and N64, respectively).
The sixth generation of game systems followed, including Sega (Dreamcast, which was their last video game system and the very first Internet-ready video game system), Sony (PlayStation 2), Nintendo (Video Game Cube which is their very first system to make use of game CDs), and the newcomer Microsoft (Xbox).
The latest generation of computer game systems is now slowly going into the game industry. These are as follows:
- Microsoft's Xbox, which was launched on November 22, 2005;
- Sony's PlayStation 3, which is schedule to be launched on November 11, 2006 (Japan), November 17 of the exact same year (North America), and March 2007 (Europe); and
- Nintendo's Wii, which is arranged to be launched on November 19, 2006 (North America), December 2 of the exact same year (Japan), December 7 (Australia), and December 8 (Europe).
The advancement of video game system does not end here. There will be future generations of video game system being developed since this moment, which will defy the method we specify "home entertainment".