Home entertainment takes its brand-new kind. With the development of technology and its combination to various elements of our lives, traditional entertainment such as theatrical plays and cultural programs is replaced by so-called "electronic entertainment". There you have numerous digital and animated movies that you can see on movie houses or on your home entertainment system, cable system (CTS), and the video game system, which is popular not just to young and old players alike however also to game designers, merely because of the development of ingenious innovations that they can utilize to improve existing game systems.
The computer game system is meant for playing computer game, though there are modern video game systems that allows you to have a gain access to over other types of entertainment using such game systems (like seeing DVD motion pictures, listening to MP3 music files, or surfing the Internet). Thus, it is often described as "interactive entertainment computer system" to distinguish the video game system from a device that is used for numerous functions (such as desktop computer and game video games).
The first generation of computer game system started when Magnavox (an electronics business which manufactures televisions, radios, and gramophones or record players) released its first video game system, which is the Magnavox Odyssey created by Ralph Baer. Odyssey's popularity lasted till the release of Atari's PONG computer game. Magnavox understood that they can not take on the appeal of PONG video games, thus in 1975 they developed the Odyssey 100 video game system that will play Atari-produced PONG games.
The second generation of computer game system came a year after the release of Odyssey 100. In 1976, Fairchild released the FVES (Fairchild Video Home Entertainment System), which made use of a programmable microprocessor so that a video game cartridge can hold a single ROM chip to conserve microprocessor directions. Nevertheless, because of the "video game crash" in 1977, Fairchild abandoned the video game system market. Magnavox and Atari remained in the video game market.
The rebirth of the computer game system began when Atari released the popular game Area Intruders. The industry was unexpectedly revived, with many players made purchase of an Atari computer game system just for Space Invaders. In other words, with the appeal of Area Intruders, Atari dominated the computer game industry throughout the 80s.
Video 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 gaming system. It was initially released in Japan and it was later given the United States in the form of Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985. And similar to Atari's Area Intruders, the release of Nintendo's famous Super Mario Brothers was a big success, which totally revived the suffering video game system industry in the early months of 1983.
Sega meant to compete with Nintendo, but they stopped working to develop considerable market share. It was till 1988 when Sega launched the Sega Genesis in Japan on October 29 of the exact same year and on September 1, 1989 in the United States and Europe areas. Two years later, Nintendo launched the Super Nintendo Home Entertainment System (SNES) in 1990.
Atari returned with their new video game system, which is the Jaguar video games review and 3DO. Both systems could show 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 video games such as Donkey Kong Country instead of producing brand-new video game systems. Sega's Vectorman and Virtua Racing followed suit. Several years later, Sony, Sega, and Nintendo released the 5th generation of computer game systems (PlayStation, Saturn, and N64, respectively).
The 6th generation of game systems followed, involving Sega (Dreamcast, which was their last computer game system and the very first Internet-ready game system), Sony (PlayStation 2), Nintendo (Game Cube which is their first system to utilize video game CDs), and the newbie Microsoft (Xbox).
The current generation of computer game systems is now slowly getting in the video 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 very same year (North America), and March 2007 (Europe); and
- Nintendo's Wii, which is scheduled to be released on November 19, 2006 (North America), December 2 of the same year (Japan), December 7 (Australia), and December 8 (Europe).
The development of video game system does not end here. There will be future generations of video game system being developed since this minute, which will defy the way we define "entertainment".