Home entertainment takes its brand-new type. With the advancement of technology and its integration to different aspects of our lives, traditional home entertainment such as theatrical plays and cultural programs is changed by so-called "electronic entertainment". There you have numerous digital and animated films that you can watch on movie houses or on your house entertainment system, cable system (CTS), and the video gamesread game system, which is popular not just to young and old players alike but also to game designers, merely because of the advancement of innovative technologies that they can utilize to enhance existing video game systems.
The video game system is intended for playing video games, though there are modern-day game systems that enables you to have a gain access to over other forms of home entertainment utilizing such video game systems (like viewing DVD movies, listening to MP3 music files, or surfing the Internet). Therefore, it is often described as "interactive home entertainment computer system" to differentiate the game system from a device that is utilized for various functions (such as personal computer and arcade video games).
The very first generation of computer game system began when Magnavox (an electronic devices business which produces televisions, radios, and gramophones or record players) launched its very first video 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 compete with the popularity of PONG video games, hence in 1975 they created the Odyssey 100 video game system that will play Atari-produced PONG video games.
The 2nd generation of computer game system came a year after the release of Odyssey 100. In 1976, Fairchild released the FVES (Fairchild Video 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 "computer game crash" in 1977, Fairchild abandoned the video game system market. Magnavox and Atari stayed in the computer game market.
The rebirth of the computer game system started when Atari released the popular game Space Invaders. The market was all of a sudden revived, with lots of gamers made purchase of an Atari computer game system just for Area Invaders. In other words, with the popularity of Space Invaders, Atari dominated the video game market throughout the 80s.
Video game system's third generation entered into being after the release of Nintendo's Famicon in 1983. It supported full color, high resolution, and tiled background video gaming system. It was at first launched 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 Intruders, the release of Nintendo's famous Super Mario Brothers was a huge success, which entirely restored the suffering video game system market in the early months of 1983.
Sega meant to take on Nintendo, however they stopped working to develop considerable market share. It was until 1988 when Sega launched 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. 2 years later, Nintendo released the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in 1990.
Atari returned with their brand-new computer game system, which is the Jaguar and 3DO. Both systems might display more onscreen colors and the latter utilized a CD instead of video game cartridges, making it more effective compared to Genesis and SNES. Nintendo, on the other hand, decided to launch brand-new games such as Donkey Kong Country instead of producing brand-new computer game systems. Sega's Vectorman and Virtua Racing followed suit. A number of years later on, Sony, Sega, and Nintendo launched the 5th generation of video game systems (PlayStation, Saturn, and N64, respectively).
The sixth generation of video game systems followed, involving 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 first system to use game CDs), and the newcomer Microsoft (Xbox).
The latest generation of video game systems is now slowly going into the game industry. These are as follows:
- Microsoft's Xbox, which was released on November 22, 2005;
- Sony's PlayStation 3, which is schedule to be released 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 launched on November 19, 2006 (North America), December 2 of the same year (Japan), December 7 (Australia), and December 8 (Europe).
The development of computer game system does not end here. There will be future generations of game system being established as of this moment, which will defy the method we define "entertainment".