Video game technology Essay Example for Free

Video game technology Essay Humanity has a driving need for entertainment. Writers are constantly coming up with new movies, designers and engineers are always on the hunt for the next big idea for roller coasters and theme parks, and programmers are always designing and improving the most widely available entertainment software, video games. The video game industry generates 6 billion dollars a year, and in a field as large as this, there is a great amount of competition. Companies are constantly interested in creating new hardware and software to keep the competitive edge, which is why the technology behind video games has made huge leaps in the past 42 years. Video games started out as an interactive television built by Ralph Baer in 1966. Baer created a game called chase where 2 dots would pay a game of digital â€Å"tag† on a standard television. In 1967, a third dot was added to create a ping-pong type game. A deal was made with the company Magnavox to make the game available for public. Magnavox created and released the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. It was the first video game console; however, home video games reached popularity with the Atari Pong game which was released by Atari after seeing Magnavox’s ping-pong game in a demonstration. This was only the first-generation of video games, and already there was competition over who could get the best product on the market. The second generation of video game consoles is also known as the â€Å"early 8 bit years,† which came in the mid 1970’s to early 1983. This is the time where interchangeable game cartridges were created that actually held programs installed on them. Cartridges from the first generation were only a set of jumpers that played a game that was previously installed on the console. The introduction of these new game cartridges allowed for immense libraries of games to be created. The cartridges made early in the second generation were limited to 8 KB read-only memories (ROM), but the capacity for larger games slowly increased to 32 KB in the â€Å"early 8 bit era. † Even though the cartridge capacity grew, the games were still limited by the random-access memory (RAM) that was inside the console. Some of the consoles that came out in this time period was the Fairchild Channel F, the Atari 2600 and 5200, Mattel Intellivision, and the introduction of Sega with the SG-1000. The end of the second generation of video game consoles was apparent when the industry came to a standstill because of an overstock of games, dozens of choices of consoles for consumers, and competition from personal computers. This standstill was called the North American video game crash of 1983. After the crash, the video game industry recovered in a year. In the true â€Å"8 bit era,† of the third generation of video game consoles, the famous Famicon, or Nintendo Entertainment System, was released. This era is believed to be the first of the modern era of video game consoles. The Famicon dominated this time in the gaming industry, but others such as the Atari 7800, Sega Master System, Supergame VG 3000, and Super Cassette Vision were all closely competing with each other. It was in this generation that, although previous consoles had used 8-bit processors, consoles started labeling themselves by the speed of their processing units to differentiate between the generations of consoles. In 1989, Nintendo released the Game Boy, which was a hand held, portable gaming console that was immensely popular. Also in this generation, the video game genre role playing game, or RPG, was created. This genre was dominated by games such as Super Mario Bros. , Final Fantasy, The Legend Of Zelda, Metroid, Mega Man, Metal Gear, and Castlevania; many of these games have spun off with sequels and prequels in the future generations of video game consoles to come, creating repeat sales of games just so people can see what happens to their favorite characters next. The fourth generation of video game consoles came with the release of the first 16 bit processor consoles. This era of consoles was dominated by the fierce competition between Nintendo and Sega. Nintendo released its Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega had the Sega Genesis. Franchises of games began to appear on these systems stemming from the success of the franchises of the third generations listed above. Sega released best selling game â€Å"Sonic the Hedgehog† as a cooler version of the Mario Bros, but soon, Sega dropped behind in the fourth generation and began working on their next generation unit. With the rise of 16 bit processor speed came an exponentially increased graphics rate. The graphics in between system generations are far superior to the previously released ones. From 1993 to 2002 was known as the fifth generation of gaming console. It featured 32- and 64-bit processor speed and was most noted for the rise of 3-dimensional games. Super Mario 64 and Tomb Raider had 3-d environments that steered the industry standard away from side scrolling games. The ability to move around a 3-dimensional area offered players many possibilities and variants in game play. The consoles that were accepted best into the mainstream North American video game demographic were the Nintendo 64, Sony Playstation, and the Sega Saturn. The Atari Jaguar could not compete in the fifth generation of consoles and was quickly beaten by its competition. The Sega Dreamcast, Microsoft’s Xbox, Sony Playstation 2, and Nintendo Gamecube are the only viable consoles out during the sixth generation of video game consoles. It was in this generation that the video game industry stopped referring to its consoles by their processor size, since the performance depended on other factors, such as processor speed, the speed of the graphics processor, bandwidth, and memory size. The Playstation 2 and the Dreamcast were the final consoles to market their products as 128-bit to describe their capabilities. With the sixth generation came the hard task of differentiating which system was the most powerful. The Xbox uses a 32-bit CPU with a cache size of 128 kb. It has 64 MB RAM and runs at 733 MHz, making it the fastest of the sixth generation consoles. Many games that were geared to appear cross-platform for the Xbox, Playstation 2, and Gamecube ended up releasing only for Xbox due to system requirement restraints while games like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 were still released on the three consoles, but their pixel shading, graphics polygons count, and the artificial intelligence of the non-player characters in game had to be reduced dramatically to work on the Playstation 2 and Gamecube. Some would argue that this fact alone makes the Xbox a superior gaming console. The current industry standards in video game consoles are the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Nintendo’s Wii. These consoles are the seventh generation of gaming technology. This generation’s consoles each introduced a new type of breakthrough technology. The Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 came out with High-Definition compatible graphics and audio/video output, and the Wii has focused on unique motion sensing controllers. All of these consoles come standard with wireless controllers. A major advance for the Playstation 3 is the integration of Blu-Ray technology – a Blu-Ray disc is the next generation of high definition movies. The Xbox 360’s best innovation is something that was already established with the original Xbox, and it is Xbox Live. Xbox Live enables the use of multiplayer games with people around the world, and it allows the downloading of new software and demos for new games to be released. It is considered by many to be the pinnacle of the multiplayer online experience. It’s user-interface and ease of use is unmatched in all other consoles. The Wii’s motion sensing controllers are an incredible tool in gaming. It allowed a more interactive experience and submerses the users in its games like never before. In Tiger Woods’ ’09, the player uses the controller exactly like a golf club to hit the virtual â€Å"ball. † It is an advance that even leads to fitness games, something never even considered by the video game industry before. Video game peripherals are the tools that gamers are most familiar with. Even if someone who is dedicated to games does not know that exact processor speed of a Playstation 3, or the Graphic Processor for an Xbox 360, he will intimately know the controller that he has in his hands while he plays. There have been many types of controllers made to suit gamers needs. The â€Å"old-school† controller from the first and second generation of consoles was the joystick. Usually a handle with buttons protruding from a controller base, a joystick allows basic movements and actions with the buttons. In the third generation, consoles were equipped with a â€Å"D-Pad. † This was a cross pointing up, down, left, and right that better suited the side-scrolling games of the time. The Nintendo 64 incorporated a joystick and a D-Pad on the same controller that allowed for better navigation of its 3-dimensional worlds. In the generations that follow, most controllers follow the Nintendo 64’s lead and incorporate even multiple joysticks along with a D-Pad. Other fun peripherals were the popular light guns used in shooting and sports games. I remember spending hours hunting in my living room with Nintendo’s Duck Hunt game. Foot pads were also used to simulate running in track games and dancing in the popular Dance Dance Revolution franchise. Video game technology has come a long way in the 42 years since the first console was released. The technology is sure to become even more awesome as time progresses and consumers demand more bang for their buck. In an industry as competitive as video games, there is no time for companies to become complacent in their technology. Works Cited How does the light gun for a video game work?. 01 April 2000. 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