The Console Story Continue

The 6th Generation - Consoles go online & multimedia
The 6th generation began in 1999 when Sega released the Dreamcast which was a landmark as it was the first natively online console. Sega had actually already trodden water in taking console gaming online when they released an add-on in America which enabled Saturn users to play specially modified games against each other online. Now every user had the ability to go online out of the box and many Dreamcast games were made that took advantage of this feature. The Dreamcast was packed with innovations, the controllers drew inspiration from Nintendo and were analogue as standard and could be fitted with a rumble pack, it also used an idea first seen in Japan with a Playstation accessory called Pocketstation, Sega’s version being called the Visual Memory Unit (VMU) and it fitted in the pad so you could use its screen during game play as well as loading portable mini games onto it. Along with this it had a high level of graphical detail, easily surpassing that of the Playstation and N64. It’s main problem was 3rd party software support, a legacy of the disappointing sales and life span of the Saturn, most apparent was the complete lack of support from EA, makers of some of the most popular titles, especially the EA Sports range. The Dreamcast had a short life in the UK, the last game released for it was Rez in early 2002, which just happens to be indicative of the Dreamcast, completely brilliant yet under appreciated. Amazingly the console is still supported in Japan, with Phantasy Star Online servers being relaunched thanks to strong popular demand and new games still being published for the console.

In 2000 Sony released the Playstation 2 which has become the biggest selling console ever. Whilst not as innovative as the Dreamcast and with performance that fell well short of the hype (about on par with the Dreamcast overall) the Playstation did have one important innovation, it could play DVDs out of the box. This was a strong selling point in the console’s early life as DVD players were still expensive so the PS2 was an affordable alternative, despite it’s DVD playing abilities being somewhat limited. PS2 showed Sony to be conservative, the console essentially being an up rated Playstation with little in the way of innovation, even the pads were virtually unchanged from a latter day Playstation dual shcok pad apart from pressure sensing being added to the buttons, even the analogue sticks were left woefully unchanged. The original version of the console was without networking capabilities or a hard disk, though these would become (pricey) optional extras later on and when the PS2 was redesigned into a slimline unit networking and decent DVD playback software were added. Despite all this the PS2 has sold very well, infact it’s the best selling console ever, mostly thanks to good marketing and good software support. The console continues to sell well despite it’s aging hardware.

In 2001 Nintendo were late to the party again with their Nintendo Gamecube. The Gamecube was a very neat little console, small and portable it even came with a carrying handle on the back of it, plus it has to be said that the controllers are just fantastically well designed. For the first time Nintendo used optical discs instead of cartridges, though to avoid piracy and keep the dimensions of the console down it used a 3 disc with proprietary formatting holding around 1.5GB. The console sold reasonably well but was never a threat for the PS2 and gradually software support dwindled.
Around the same time a new player in the console market emerged in the form of software giant Microsoft. The Microsoft Xbox was by far the most powerful 6th generation console, being based on what Microsoft knew best a PC architecture! It boasted a range of innovations for a console, including a built in hard drive, network interface, advanced DVD playing cababilities and full support for 60Hz displays and widescreen TVs. You can even store all your favourite music on the hard drive and customise the soundtrack of your games. The original joypad was quite literally hideous, a focus group special which really ought to wake people up to not listening to focus groups! A smaller pad had been designed for the Japanese market and was rather good, eventually becoming standard kit worldwide whilst the massive god awful pad was quietly dropped. With sales at first quite slow the Xbox picked up a loyal following thanks to its capabilities and excellent online service until it took 2nd place in the console market behind Sony but crucially ahead of Nintendo. The Xbox is also extremely popular with the home brew software scene as with a little modification (naughty obviously) you can run unlicenced code on an Xbox, utilising its hard drive and turning it into an all round media centre, capable of emulating the previous 5 generations of console, playing DVDs from all regions, playing video of all kinds from a number of sources, including DVD-ROM and network shares, displaying photos, playing all your favourite music (in any format not just wma), the list can go on, it’s only really limited by software.

The 7th Generation - The High Definition Media Hub

It appears as though the hacked Xbox was really a vision of the future, with the 7th generation of consoles being touted as high definition always online media hubs that also play state of the art networked games. In 2005 Microsoft released the Xbox 360, the worlds first HD Ready console, marking the beginning of the 7th generation of games console. Retaining the concept the of original Xbox it builds upon it by obviously being more powerful, but also adding new online capabilities, wirless controllers and more media playing options such as streaming data from a PC (deja vu?) as well as connectivity to high definition displays. So far the Xbox 360 has sold 7 million units and its expected that will be more like 10 million units by the end of the year.

Nintendo Wii distinguishes it’s self from the competition by not being high definition and not being a media hub, instead itis cheaper than it’s rivals and has gameplay at it’s heart with an innovative wireless motion sensing control system. This could see a return to form for Nintendo who have been playing catch-up on the home console front ever since the N64 was released. Nintendo are also releasing an online virtual console which allows you to play games from the past in the Wii.
Spring 2007 should see the arrival of the much vaunted and slightly controversial (for the price if nothing else) Sony Playstation 3. The PS3 is the most expensive of the 7th generation consoles and it’s claimed that it’s the most powerful. Taking a lead from the design of the Microsoft Xbox, the PS3 includes a hard drive and networking capabilities as standard. The controller is the same as ever, except wireless and missing the dual shock feature (mostly because Sony have been quite badly sued over their previous use of it with paying loyalties to the patent holder) and has a Wii Aping tilt sensitive system, but as it’s a two handed single piece controller it won’t be as expressive to use. The original tech demos were impressive but as games have been turned from demos into proper games it has been noted that the footage is significantly less impressive. A feature that Sony are touting as an ace card is the Bluray disc drive that the machine features, this allows the console to play high definition Bluray movies as well as offering expanded space for storing PS3 game data.
So there you have it, 7 generations and 34 years of console gaming, in that time it’s gone from a novelty toy which projected blobs of light onto your TV screen to an all in one entertainment centre with which you can compete with people from around the world. Console gaming has come a long way, who knows where it will go next.