Entertainment takes its new type. With the advancement of technology and its combination to different elements of our lives, standard home entertainment such as theatrical plays and cultural programs is changed by so-called "electronic entertainment". There you have various digital and animated movies that you can enjoy on movie theater or on your house entertainment system, cable television system (CTS), and the video game system, which is popular not simply to young and old players alike but also to video game designers, merely because of the advancement of ingenious innovations that they can utilize to improve existing video game systems.
The video game system is intended for playing video games, though there are contemporary game systems that permits you to have an access over other forms of entertainment using such video game systems (like seeing DVD movies, listening to MP3 music files, or surfing the Web). Therefore, it is often referred to as "interactive home entertainment computer system" to distinguish the game system from a maker that is utilized for various functions (such as desktop computer and game video games).
The very first generation of computer game system began when Magnavox (an electronic devices company which manufactures tvs, radios, and gramophones or record players) released its first video game system, which is the Magnavox Odyssey designed by Ralph Baer. Odyssey's popularity lasted until the release of Atari's PONG computer game. Magnavox realized that they can not compete with the appeal of PONG games, thus 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 released the FVES (Fairchild Video Entertainment System), that made use of a programmable microprocessor so that a video game cartridge can hold a single ROM chip to save microprocessor directions. However, because of the "video game crash" in 1977, Fairchild abandoned the computer game system market. Magnavox and Atari stayed in the computer game industry.
The renewal of the computer game system started when Atari launched the popular arcade Area Invaders. The industry was all of a sudden restored, with lots of players made purchase of an Atari computer game system just for Area Invaders. In other words, with the popularity of Area Invaders, game reviews Atari dominated the video game industry throughout the 80s.
Video game system's third generation entered into seeking the release of Nintendo's Famicon in 1983. It supported complete color, high resolution, and tiled background video gaming system. It was at first launched in Japan and it was later on given 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 well-known Super Mario Brothers was a huge success, which totally restored the suffering video game system industry in the early months of 1983.
Sega meant to compete with Nintendo, however they stopped working 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 territories. Two years later, Nintendo launched the Super Nintendo Home Entertainment System (SNES) in 1990.
Atari came back with their new video game system, which is the Jaguar and 3DO. Both systems might display more onscreen colors and the latter utilized a CD instead of game cartridges, making it more powerful compared to Genesis and SNES. Nintendo, on the other hand, decided to release brand-new games such as Donkey Kong Nation instead of producing brand-new computer game systems. Sega's Vectorman and Virtua Racing followed suit. Numerous years later on, Sony, Sega, and Nintendo released the fifth generation of computer game systems (PlayStation, Saturn, and N64, respectively).
The 6th generation of game systems followed, including Sega (Dreamcast, which was their last video game system and the first Internet-ready video game system), Sony (PlayStation 2), Nintendo (Video Game Cube which is their very first system to utilize game CDs), and the newbie Microsoft (Xbox).
The current generation of video game systems is now slowly entering the video game market. 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 (The United States And Canada), December 2 of the 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 game system being developed as of this minute, which will defy the method we define "home entertainment".