Video game console

From open-encyclopedia.com - the free encyclopedia.

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 semi-legal emulators as they are no longer supported by their manufacturers. However, console makers try to prevent their games from being played on emulators using a special mask work copyright 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.

External links

Console Database, video game console information
MobyGames, an Internet database of video games, including console games
Video Game and Console Timeline, a Brief Video Game and Console Timeline
Console Cheats, cheats, codes and hints for gaming consoles

de:Spielkonsole fr:Console de jeux vidéo is:Leikjatölva nl:Spelcomputer ja:ゲーム機 sv:Spelkonsol zh:游戏机

Video game console

See also

External links