Within the past 14 years, games and game consoles have become a lot more advanced. Allowing new ideas and art styles to be introduced making for better games and narratives. Up to the point where you can have an extremely realistic looking game, with even more realistic looking characters in a game that makes your emotions run high and causes you to feel sympathetic, jealous or even feel angry for or at characters.
Games can really push the boundaries between game and player. This has all sparked from the 1952 game "OXO" i talked about in my first post. So thank you Alexander Sandy Douglas.
I'm going to continue where i left off talking about consoles, and start this post with the PlayStation 2.
Manufactured by Sony Computer Entertainment in the year 2000, this piece of kit is known for being the best selling console of all time. Selling over 155 million units in its 12 year life span. Second in the home games consoles section being its predecessor, the PlayStation 1. The main reason it sold so well was the titles that were released for it. Including the well known Metal gear solid 2 and 3, GTA 3, Vice city and San andreas, Timesplitters, Monster Hunter and several thousand more. Along with the titles it brought to the table, the PlayStation 2 was backwards compatible. Meaning it allowed players to play games from the PS1 as well, making it easier for gamers to play there favorite games on one console.
The games weren't the only thing it had to offer. The controller, the Duelshock 2, was a much better design than the other consoles had, making it more fitting for long play time. The Original Xbox controller was big and clunky making it harder to hold. And the GameCube, while similar to the PS2's, had elongated handles and a cheap feel to it. Making the PlayStation 2 even more of an obvious choice.
A year after the PlayStation 2 was released, the Original Xbox arrived. The Xbox only managed to sell 24 million units. But what it brought with it would help fuel Microsoft's later popularity, the Halo franchise. The first Halo (Combat Evolved) was released shortly after the original Xbox. Who could have predicted that this game would grow into arguably the best game franchise to date. Not only did Microsoft have Halo on their side they also had games like Forza, The Elder Scrolls, Rainbow six Vegas, Fable and Star wars. Games that weren't as big at the time but would turn into huge franchises.
In 2003 Valve officially released Steam. A digital distribution platform used to distribute games made by small independent developers. Valve had a couple of games on the market before Steam was released such as counter strike. But Valve found it hard to update their games with out the user base going offline for several days. The invention of Steam made it so games could be updated automatically without the games going offline at all, along with helping to stop piracy in games and cheating.
In 2004 the World Opponent Network, originally used for games was shut down all together and replaced by Steam.
It wasn't until 2005 that Valve actually started making money off of the Steam client. Digital downloads didnt compare to the shear numbers of physical copies of games, but as valve didn't have to put the games on disk and then get retail shops to sell them, they had a larger profit margin by a considerable amount.
In 2007 larger game developers started to use the Steam client. Such as Capcom, ID Software and Eidos Interactive. Because of this more people started to use steam. The number of games increased to over 150 and over 13 million accounts were created.
Now there are over 3000 games available and over 75 million active users. Along with this it is estimated that over 75% of pc games are downloaded through Steam alone.
Now to the first hand held console on my list, the Nintendo DS. Now Nintendo are a huge company now and they were possibly as big if not bigger back then. The DS was the console to bridge the gap between the Gameboy advance cartridge and a new smaller sleeker cartridge. The DS was released in 2004 and had 2 slots for its games, one for GameBoy Advance games and one for the new DS cartridge. After this it had many redesigns, the DS lite, DSi and DSi XL. All only allowing the new cartridge to be used. Because the DS has been redesigned so many times, it has been sold to the same people over and over. Making it the second overall selling console of all time with 154 million sold. Only 1 million behind the PlayStation 2. And it's still on sale! So soon it will be the highest selling console if the sales keep up.
As you can see the transition from the DS and the DS lite is huge with it being smaller, better looking, thinner and has the ability to fit in your hands better. Where as the transition from DS lite to DSi is pretty much not existand in terms of looks, apart from the odd button, but it has plenty more on board features. One of which being Wifi. And finally from the DSi to the DSi XL is non existent in terms of features but is larger, for the bigger screen and has been rounded around the edges for comfort and aesthetic purposes.
In 2005 the new Xbox was released, The Xbox 360. Which out sold the same generation PlayStation 3 (2006). The new generation brought with it new games of existing franchises. Such as Halo 3 for the 360, arguably the best of the Halo franchise. And for the PS3, late in its life i might add, but an exclusive non the less, The Last of Us. Arguably the best written Game of the past 10 years. This generation waged a war between the two consoles, with the 360 on top, as it was cheaper to buy and was released first. In the end The 360 won with only a mere 3 million units sold more than the PS3.
The PlayStation had free online capabilities, where as Xbox live had to be purchased at around £40 per year. But the Xbox had games like Forza, Halo, Mass Effect and Gears of war. Along with a better designed controller that fit in the palm of your hand, a controller design that was hard to beat. Sony's controller pretty much stayed the same form the PS2 days apart from now being wireless. The war between them was based on small things that didnt really matter, they were both amazing consoles and are still sold and are in high demand, even though the new generation is out.
Each console had multiple variations and special editions. Each one more sleeker than the last, with more memory to store the increasingly demanding games. Ranging from 4GB up to around 500GB by the end.
Along with the PlayStation in 2006 came the Nintendo Wii, a console made for casual gamers. The main gimmick of this console was the sensor. A console primarily designed to get you out of your chair and dancing round the room playing tennis or archery. It was considered laughable by other consoles standards and so called hardcore gamer's. But in the end Nintendo had the last laugh as they outsold both the PS3 and 360 by 21 million and 18 million units.
Even though it was designed to get you out of your chair, which it did. You soon realized you could play just as well, if not better say on your sofa with the remote in one hand and a coffee in the other. But what it brought to the table was the start of the obsession for more interactive gaming. Soon Microsoft brought out the Kinect and Sony the PlayStation move. Neither of which sold very well and weren't taken seriously.
Finally we get to the current generation with The Wii U released first in 2012, the Xbox one next at the end of 2013 and finally the PlayStation 4 a week later than the Xbox one. The Wii U featuring a sensor on release, as that's its main selling point. Same with the Xbox one. Microsoft are moving from the gaming console, over to a more family friendly "entertainment system". The PS4 doesn't ye but will include a sensor too buy separate, making sure they don't fall behind all the hype of a hands free future. As with the last war that rivaled the two main gaming consoles it has continued to this generation. this time although the PlayStation was released later it is sure to win this time as the price difference was around £80 on release.
The Xbox one does however have a better controller than the 360. smoother and fits more ergonomically in your hand. Also PlayStation realizing their mistake also upgraded their controller too, also making it sleeker in design and more aesthetically pleasing.
With the future looking towards hands free and virtual reality. And the release of the Oculus Rift drawing closer. How long will it be before we have a fully immersible, photo realistic hands free game. That we can throw ourselves into to play out favorite games?
Reference:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/06/playstation-2-best_n_4859785.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_million-selling_game_consoles
http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Halo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_(software)
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