A video game console is a dedicated electronic device designed to play video games. Often the output device is a separate television or a computer monitor. Once, video game consoles were easily distinguishable from personal computers: consoles used a standard television for display, and did not support standard PC accessories such as keyboards or modems. However, as consoles have become more enhanced, the distinction has blurred: some consoles can have full Linux operating systems running with hard drives and keyboards (like the Sega Dreamcast) (one university has even created a Beowulf cluster of PlayStation 2 consoles), and Microsoft's Xbox is basically a stripped down PC running a version of Microsoft Windows.

The console market has steadily developed from simple one-off games (Pong) to fully featured general purpose games systems.

Older game consoles and their software now live on in emulators as they are no longer supported by their manufacturers. However, console makers try to prevent their games from being played on emulators using copyright-like exclusive rights in mask works and a protection of encrypted media created by the United States' Digital Millennium Copyright Act and foreign counterparts.

Note that the "bitness" of past generations (8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit and 128-bit) were in large part created by the console makers' marketing departments and may have little to do with the actual architecture of the systems.

Timeline

<timeline> DateFormat=mm/dd/yyyy ImageSize= width:575 height:300 Period = from:01/01/1975 till:12/31/2006 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal AlignBars = justify PlotArea = width:90% height:90% left:0 bottom:30

Colors =

    id:console           value:rgb(0.9,0.3,0.3)
    id:consolealt           value:rgb(0.3,0.9,0.9)
    id:8bit           value:rgb(0.8,0.8,0.8)
    id:16bit           value:rgb(0.8,0.6,0.6)
    id:32bit           value:rgb(0.8,0.6,0.4)
    id:64bit           value:rgb(0.8,0.6,0.2)
    id:5thgen           value:rgb(0.8,0.6,0.0)
    id:line           value:black
    id:liteline      value:rgb(0.3,0.3,0.3)
    id:bg           value:white

PlotData=

    width:36 textcolor:black align:center
 bar:Atari from:01/01/1977      till:01/01/1986 color:8bit text:"Atari 2600"
 bar:Atari from:01/01/1993      till:06/30/1996 color:32bit text:"Jaguar"
 bar:Nintendo1  from:01/01/1985 till:01/01/1995 color:8bit text:"NES"
 bar:Nintendo2 from:08/01/1991 till:01/01/1999 color:16bit text:"SNES"
 bar:Nintendo1 from:09/29/1996 till:01/01/2001 color:64bit text:"N64"
 bar:Nintendo2  from:01/01/2001 till:12/31/2006 color:5thgen text:"Gamecube" shift:(-20,0)
 bar:SEGA  from:01/01/1989 till:01/01/1996 color:16bit text:"Genesis"
 bar:Sony1  from:09/09/1995 till:12/31/2006 color:32bit text:"PlayStation"
 bar:Sony2  from:10/26/2000 till:12/31/2006 color:5thgen text:"PS2"
 bar:MS  from:11/15/2001 till:12/31/2006 color:5thgen text:"XBOX"

ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:10 start:01/01/1980 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:liteline unit:year increment:5 start:01/01/1975 </timeline>

See also

• Console manufacturer
  • Atari
  • Microsoft
  • Nintendo
  • Sega
  • Sony
• List of video game consoles
• Handheld game console
• Family game
• Console emulator
• Regional lockout
• Regional converter

External links

• Console Database (http://www.consoledatabase.com), video game console information
• MobyGames (http://www.mobygames.com), an Internet database of video games, including console games
• Video Game and Console Timeline (http://www.ps3portal.com/?page=history), a Brief Video Game and Console Timeline
• Console Cheats (http://www.console-cheats.com), cheats, codes and hints for gaming consoles

de:Spielkonsole fr:Console de jeux vid�o is:Leikjat�lva nl:Spelcomputer ja:ゲーム機 pl:Konsola (rozrywka) sv:Spelkonsol fi:Pelikonsoli zh:游戏机