YOUR HANDY GUIDE TO EVERYDAY TECHNOLOGY CONSOLES

Transcription

1 VOLUME 12 ISSUE 03 YOUR HANDY GUIDE TO EVERYDAY TECHNOLOGY To CONSOLES Why consoles? The chip saga The great console wars begin Generation now Gaming on the Go Game distribution Enter VR The next generation The big debate A 9.9 Media Publication Free With Digit March 2017

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4 CHAPTERS CONSOLES MARCH PAGE 13 PAGE 29 PAGE 46 PAGE Why consoles? How did the curious machine which helped you stay young even when you grew old come into being? Who were the forerunners? Read on and find out for yourself! The chip saga The consoles we know of today started off as much simpler, chip based systems, be it inbuilt titles or game cartridges. The great console wars begin The events that shaped the console world as we know it Generation now The consoles of today CREDITS The people behind this book EDITORIAL Executive Editor Robert Sovereign-Smith Managing Editor Siddharth Parwatay Assistant Technical Editor Mithun Mohandas Feature Writer Arnab Mukherjee Writers Abhimanyu Mehta Anand N Dhinoj Dings Meghana Gupta Purusharth Sharma Swapnil Rastogi DESIGN Sr. Art Director Anil VK Visualiser Baiju NV

5 Contents 3 50 PAGE 61 PAGE 71 PAGE 80 PAGE 88 PAGE Gaming on the go A gamer s trusty companion on the go, handheld consoles have carved out a niche for themselves in the console market. Game distribution From the publishers straight to your PC or console here s how game distribution has shaped up over the years. Enter VR Even though it seems like VR is a recent technological development, it s been around for more than half a century and it sure seems to be staying around for another half or even more. The next generation The PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo consoles have really taken a huge leap in the last generation. Here s what s coming up in the next generation. The big debate: PC v/s Consoles So, is the sleek looking console all that you need for gaming or is there more to the PC than meets the eye? VOLUME 12 ISSUE Mediaworx Pvt. Ltd. Published by 9.9 Mediaworx No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. March 2017 Free with Digit. If you have paid to buy this Fast Track from any source other than 9.9 Mediaworx Pvt. Ltd., please write to editor@digit.in with details Custom publishing If you want us to create a customised Fast Track for you in order to demystify technology for your community, employees or students contact editor@digit.in YOUR HANDY GUIDE TO EVERYDAY TECHNOLOGY To CONSOLES Why consoles? The chip saga The great console wars begin Generation now Gaming on the Go Game distribution Enter VR The next generation The big debate A 9.9 Media Publication Free With Digit March 2017 COVER DESIGN: PETERSON PJ

6 4 Introduction Gaming consoles have always been pictured as one of the many ways by which a family can spend some time together. Multiplayer gaming has always been encouraged by consoles for quite a long time. Each player could have their own controller unlike the PC which required two players to use the same keyboard. However, times have changed, console gaming has changed from being a simple affair between family and friends to one which is fueled by energy drinks, a bevy of colourful vitriolic lingo and an intense hatred for one the other player s mother. We re kidding. Console gaming slowly started to change, from being dedicated platforms for development studios to work on, they have now evolved to be quite similar to the PC with the adoption of the x86 architecture. Now developers can develop once and and easily port it onto the different console platforms with minimal investment. While on the path to convergence, consoles have seemingly lost their unique charm and with PC form factor growing smaller by the day, their very existence is threatened. Over the decades since the very first console was made by Ralph Baer, there have been many devices which have worn the console tag. In fact, there have been more than 70 consoles since the early 70s. And from among these, each device that attained mainstream popularity has brought something new to the gaming ecosystem. The latest in this line being the widespread adoption of VR. In this FastTrack, we ll be exploring how the different generations of consoles distinguished each other from the previous ones. What innovations they brought with themselves and how they gave impetus to an entire new industry gaming. An industry which now boasts of a $91 billion in annual revenue. We ll take a look at the different form factors that gaming consoles have popularised, some which have become synonymous with gaming

7 Introduction 5 now. Then we ll move onto understanding where the industry is headed. Will consoles truly die? Will they converge into the PC market? And lastly, we ll give you our own take on the ever running PC vs console debate. Perhaps, you ve already known of most of the arguments each side has to give, or perhaps, you ll learn something new. Either ways, do let us know your thoughts about this FastTrack via to editor@digit.in and if you want to game, we re reachable via editor@skoar.in

8 6 CHAPTER #01 WHY CONSOLES? How did the curious machine which helped you stay young even when you grew old come into being? Who were the forerunners? Read on and find out for yourself! Avid gamers may find this hard to digest, but there was a time when there was no such thing as a console, when people had to resort to more analog measures to find their fun. Thankfully though, we now live in an era when the console, even though not ubiquitous, can still be bought online. And while we

9 Why consoles? 7 have a lot of fun twiddling our fingers and making characters on a screen move according to our body movements, it s worth checking out how it all began. For as any superhero aficionado would tell you, the origin stories can be really interesting. What made the console happen? The story of the console, sadly enough, doesn t include any extra-planetary beings coming down to the earth and handing over an advanced piece of technology for the entertainment (if not the edification) of lesser mortals. Or something equally mind-blowing. What it does involve is an American named Ralph Baer working earnestly to bring the first fully functional game console to life by However, another decade would pass before the game named Pong made consoles rather Made for fun, right from the beginning! common in living rooms across America. (Note that the arcade games were already something of a niche activity during the time, making it easy for at least some people to adopt consoles a more personal device). In other words, rather than anything drastic, it was just the machinery of commerce something that necessitates new products that would be bought by more people to keep the cycle of business going which led to the development of consoles. As far as origin stories go, it isn t exactly up there with the origin tales of superheroes. But no one can deny that the entertainment revolution with consoles which now include many types including home video game consoles, handheld consoles and micro-consoles among others has been rather exciting. The rise of the consoles Even though the first video games made their appearance in the 1960s, it wasn t until 1972 that the first video game console was released the Magnavox Odyssey. Earlier, video games were played on huge computers which were connected to vector displays and not analog TVs. Ralph H Baer

10 8 Why consoles? came up with the idea of a home video game in And in the late 1960s, while he was working for Sanders Associates, he created a few designs for video game consoles. One of the designs earned the nickname of Brown Box. Having different game modes, it was demonstrated to multiple TV manufacturers. That s how Sanders Associates managed to land an agreement with Magnavox soon. The Magnavox Odyssey was the first home game console that could be connected to a television set. Though the idea for cartridges were sketched up by Baer, the carts made by Magnavox served as just switches and enabled the players to choose from among the built-in games. The Odyssey sold around 1,00,000 units which wasn t bad but not great either. Consoles - a great idea whose time had come! But Atari soon came out with the arcade game Pong, the popularity of which made the public take note of the emerging gaming industry. In fact, the popularity of Pong was such that by 1975, Magnavox had to cancel the Odyssey and release a scaled-down version which played just Pong and hockey. And a subsequent version had a third game built-in: Smash. And once the company, General Instrument released their inexpensive microchips, many small to mid-sized developers began to release consoles which looked different on the outside but all of which played the same set of games which was mostly what came with the console. In fact, they were usually referred to with the blanket term of video games since there was very little to differentiate individual consoles. Home consoles The evolution of home consoles could be traced back to the release of the Fairchild Video Entertainment System (VES) by the company, Fairchild,

11 Why consoles? 9 Right at home with gaming! in Whereas in the game consoles before this, the cartridges either contained no information or served as switches (to flip between games) the VES had a programmable microprocessor which meant that the cartridges needed just a single ROM chip to store instruction for the chips. Big companies including Atari and RCA also followed suit by releasing cartridge-based consoles of their own. Handheld consoles There is something about the idea of a handheld gaming device that spells magic, one which you can immerse yourself in to enter another world. And the handheld console is a great piece of magic, technologically speaking. The very first console of the kind (with interchangeable cartridges) was designed by the company, Smith Engineering. It hit the American market in In 1984, the Epoch Game Pocket Computer came out in Japan. The device had an LCD screen with a resolution of 75 by 64 (which was what passed for awesome! during that time). But the users were not really impressed with it and the system failed. It was Nintendo s Game & Watch series which established handheld devices A world of fun in your hands!

12 10 Why consoles? firmly in the minds, and hands of the entertainment loving audiences. The series popularity helped it sustain until In fact, some of the games were so popular that many of them found their way to the company s latter handheld devices as well. Home console redux The home console made a huge comeback in 1980 when Atari released a version of the mega arcade hit, Space Invaders. The heretofore unseen success of Space Invaders spurred console manufacturers to try and get exclusive rights to arcade titles. Ads began to pop up, highlighting the fun one could have with their own game console right at home, with all these new games, just in case you couldn t imagine the fun yourself. The 80s was a decade which saw a plethora of companies big to small releasing their own video game consoles. Even though a few among these were technically superior to Atari s model (Coleco Vision being a good example) it was still Atari which spearheaded the console revolution Fun makes a comeback home! throughout the decade. While we are talking about the 80s, it s also worth mentioning the importance of the year It was an year when the video game industry experienced its first crash. The crash was limited to the North American market but back then, it was in North America that the bulk of the market existed. Ironically enough, it was the higher number of game titles in production which contributed to the crash. Or rather, the fact that most of the games were of low quality. Even Atari the leader when it came to the home console, came out with a few titles that were booed down by the users E.T and a new version of Pac-Man prominent among them. Another reason for the crash was the growing number of home computer users. The revenues generated by the video game industry went down by a whopping 97% during the crash. The way onwards The crash of 1983 was not to be the death toll for the gaming consoles. Not by a long shot. In home consoles Nintendo released the Famicom model in

13 Why consoles? This model supported better graphics and higher resolution, taking the gaming experience to a new level. A great shot in the arm for the ailing industry came when Nintendo released Super Mario Bros. which went on to make the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) the biggest selling console in North American history. Another company, Sega came out with their console Master System to compete with NES but failed to meet their objective either in America or Japan two of their pivotal markets. Nintendo upped the game with a newer version of the Famicom called the Super Famicom in Games for the future! The next generation of home consoles included 3DO and Atari s Jaguar. Though impressive in their own rights, neither of them became an actual threat to Sega or Nintendo (By this point, Sega had managed to carve out a decent market share for itself). Titles like Donkey Kong Country and Star Fox helped Nintendo cement its reputation with the new generation while Sega came out with such titles as Vectorman and Virtua Racing in its race against Nintendo. But it was Sony s PlayStation which was born from a failed attempt at creating a console in conjunction with Nintendo which became the next big thing in home consoles. Not just that, it became the first ever console to sell more than 100 million units, thereby expanding the video game market dramatically. The 3D graphics that Sony came out with came to be seen as the future of gaming, Also, their CD technology won over multiple developers since the CDs were significantly cheaper to create and easier to distribute as compared to cartridges.

14 12 Why consoles? Nintendo was largely left out of the race. The belated release of the Nintendo 64 to fight Sony s PlayStation didn t help them much. When the console was released in North America, the unit came with just two launch titles. Also, Nintendo used cartridges and not discs for their console partly to fight piracy but also because of failed disc projects with Phillips and Sony. Also, even though the Nintendo 64 could handle 3D polygons way better than most consoles that came before, their titles lacked the chutzpah of PS discs the voice overs, the soundtracks, the cut-scenes and more which made the PlayStation so much more enjoyable. Microsoft s entry into the game (pun intended), with the Xbox in 2001 became another turning point for the industry, pitting Xbox against PS as the foremost contenders in the gaming arena. The traditional console s status is still intact but with the emergence of mobile device platforms like Android and ios, the gaming device arena now has more players. Although, it would be really premature to think that the future of gaming would be limited to the phone platforms. For there just is no comparison between a console designed purely for the pleasure of gaming and a device on which you just happened to be able to play games. As for consoles themselves, internet distribution is making them even more versatile, enabling players in different locations to play against or with each other and also giving them the option to download and play any game via the internet. In other words, versatility is no more a huge issue when it comes to gaming. The key differentiator might be the amount of control (as well as the ease of control) which each console gives the player. And that, as history has shown us, is something that competing companies fight with their teeth and nails to bring to you.

15 CHAPTER #02 The Chip Saga 13 THE CHIP SAGA The consoles we know of today started off as much simpler, chip based systems, be it inbuilt titles or game cartridges. Today s gaming consoles look and feel different, aside from the obvious fact that they are technologically light years ahead of the first consoles that were ever produced. In fact, the history of gaming consoles goes back to the 1960s, and it s been a very long journey since then. First Generation The father of video game consoles is considered to be Ralph Baer, who has been commemorated for the same multiple times in the past. The idea of a console was conceived by him way back in 1951, when he was working

16 14 The Chip Saga on building an interactive television set from scratch. However, it wasn t till 1966, when Baer was working as the Chief Engineer for Equipment Design for the defense contractor Sanders Associates, that he jotted down a description for a game box that would allow for games to be played and visualised on a TV screen. The idea was so impressive that Baer was granted $2,500 and two engineers, Bill Rusch and Bill Harrison, to fund creation of prototypes. Over the next two years, the three churned out multiple prototypes of Baer s idea till they came up with the Brown Box, that allowed for multiplayer gaming. Baer approached multiple companies and TV manufacturers to mass produce his Brown Box, till Magnavox, an American TV manufacturer, picked up his idea in After modifying certain features like the usage of plug-in circuits to change games, and replacing color graphics with color overlays to reduce manufacturing costs, Magnavox released the Magnavox Odyssey. Compared to other technology at the time, the Odyssey seemed like a truly futuristic device, despite its obvious shortcomings. The master control unit was a white, rectangular unit, powered by a battery and complete with a front loading game card slot. There were two player control units that allowed a maximum of two players at a time. The units were basic and did not feature an ergonomic or user friendly design. In stark contrast with units produced later, the Odyssey featured the use of transparent screen overlays, which were plastic sheets that could be stuck to the screen and used as backgrounds, as required by some games. Ralph Baer

17 The Chip Saga 15 Magnavox Odyssey Since it contained no processor or memory, there was no score keeping mechanism, or any way to save games. It used game cards that contained pin outs to change game settings, and were basically the power switch to operate the master unit. One would think that the lack of audio capabilities and very basic blackand-white graphics were the leading cause for the lukewarm reception of the Odyssey; however, the general impression that the device only worked with Magnavox televisions was what contributed to the device s substandard performance in the market. In 1972, Atari released an arcade version of Pong, which was basically a simulated table-tennis game, where you beat your opponent by earning a higher score. While the arcade version was a huge hit, Atari released a home version of Pong only in 1975, exclusively through Sears retail stores. It was also a commercial success and led to numerous clones. This version of Pong was the first to include an on-screen scoring system and sound effects, which set it apart from the crowd. Additionally, the partnership with Sears helped created the feel of a limited addition and generated more than enough buzz for the product; sales of more than 150,000 units in the holiday season and $40 million dollars for Atari followed. The game became Sears most successful product at the time, spawning a whole generation of clones that attempted to capitalize on the home con-

18 16 The Chip Saga sole s success. Magnavox re-released their Odyssey system with simplified hardware and new features, and would later release updated versions. In 1975, a Japanese console called TV Tennis Electrotennis was released in North America, and was considered a home version of Pong. A defining and unique feature of the of the Electrotennis was its wireless capabilities, that worked using a UHF antenna. In addition, a pretty ground-breaking feature that hadn t been recognised at that time was the ability to play in single player mode, which was the first time artificial intelligence was ever added to a video game. The release of Home Pong heralded the end of the first generation of video game consoles. As something evident from the consoles of this generation, a common characteristic was the lack of removable game cards, that would allow multiple games to be played. Instead, games existed on memory in the machine, and the card would be inserted only to activate a game already on the console. This was because of the usage of discrete transistor based logic in the consoles, in the absence of microprocessor logic, ROM cartridges and sprite-based graphics, which were a huge liability for game-makers. The lack of uniformity caused a fair number of consoles to be spawned, as each console supported only limited games, and each company would attempt to promote its own version of a game as the accepted standard in the market. In addition, there was a noticeable lack of complicated or even multi-coloured graphics. Most were black and white, and a few could use three or more colors; all detailing was very basic lines, dots and blocks. Another minor point was the absence of audio, which was introduced in later generations. Second Generation In a broad overview of the second generation, the Atari 2600 was the dominant console for much of this time period, with other consoles such as the Intellivision, the Odyssey², and ColecoVision also enjoying market share. The second generation of computer and video games began in 1976 with the release of the Fairchild Channel F, produced by Fairchild Semiconductors, across North America. However, the Channel F has the distinction of being the console that introduced the usage of a programmable ROM cartridge and a microprocessor. Though the graphics were pretty similar to the first generation consoles, with the Channel F using only one plane of colours that had only three colours to choose from, one intriguing part about the console was the existence of an AI that allowed for human vs

19 The Chip Saga 17 Fairchild Channel F computer matches, a first in mainstream console history. There was also a hold button on the console, which allowed for changing the game speed, time or just freezing the game. The controllers for the Channel F were a primitive version of today s joystick, with a large grip on top, that would be held and moved around for eight-way directional control. However, one of the biggest changes ushered in by the Channel F was the introduction of the Atari VCS a year later. The year of 1977 was a busy one for the video game console industry, which was also what led to the industry crash in 1983, but more on that later. One of the first consoles of that year was the Coleco Telstar, a series of consoles that focused on television tennis. In that sense, the Telstar was pretty similar to the Home Pong systems, but that was where all similarity ended. One unique feature of this console was the ability to control the difficulty of the game, by changing the size of the player paddles. The Telstar was able to achieve sales of more than $1 million by introducing an ingenious marketing and manufacturing ploy: despite the ability of Telstar s General Instrument AY chip to allow for 6 games on the system with many

20 18 The Chip Saga more features, Coleco managed to set the Telstar apart with its lower price of $50, which brought about more widespread exposure for the system and led to its heavy demand. Following the Telstar was the Color TV Game, created by Nintendo and marketed exclusively in Japan. Like a lot of the consoles before it, players controlled the paddles using dials attached to the machine. The machine had six different varieties of Pong, and each game could be played in a singles or doubles mode. The extra game was penalty shootout where the goal is to shoot the ball past a constantly moving target. Following models had many other games, such as racing games, hockey, volleyball and tennis. Considering the lack of consoles in Japan, the Color Coleco Telstar TV Game did quite well there, selling three million units of the first four models. This model was the predecessor for the Game Boy that was produced by Nintendo later ended with a bang, with Atari releasing its CPU-based console, called the Video Computer System (VCS), later called the Atari A little background on the production of the Atari 2600 would be fitting at this point: the release of the Channel F spurred Atari into action to hurry along development of their cartridge based console, out of fear of them losing out on the existing cartridge business, which would have allowed Fairchild to create a dominating presence. When the Atari Video Computer System was released, it had better specs compared to the Channel F. With 256B of RAM compared to the Channel F s measly 64B, a better performing 8-bit Motorola processor compared to the F s F8, and a superior AI that allowed for higher versatility during the player vs computer matches, Atari VCS went on to sell more than 25 million units over its product life. The VCS was packaged along with two joystick controllers, paddle controllers and a game cartridge: the initial choice of Combat was later replaced by Pac-man. Atari continued to partner with Sears, and renamed its VCS as the Sears Video Arcade and sold it through Sears, Roebuck and Company stores.

21 The Chip Saga 19 Color TV Game Over the course of its production run, 40 different manufacturers created more than 200 different games for the system, selling more than 120 million cartridges of popular games such as Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Pac-Man. Since its biggest competitor, the Channel F, didn t possess half the graphics or sound capabilities of the 2600, and didn t have the kind of publicity a corporate giant like Warner Communications could roll out for it, only 26 titles were ever released for the Channel F, and despite its earlier release, Fairchild soon succumbed to the Atari sales dominance. The release of the Atari 2600 created panic in other companies, and forced them to up their ante as well. Magnavox responded by releasing a pared down and more robust version of the Odyssey, called Odyssey 2. By that time, Magnavox had been acquired by Phillips, so all Odyssey consoles were sold under the aegis of Phillips. Compared to its predecessor, the Odyssey 2 was highly improved. Each game was a unique experience, and didn t need changing background overlays. Games had their own background and foreground graphics, sound effects, scoring and individual storylines. Players could purchase individual games and thus, build up entire libraries. In addition, the makers of the Odyssey 2 included a full alphanumeric keyboard that could be used to educate people about simple computer programming and other basic educational tools.

22 20 The Chip Saga Atari 2600 What the Odyssey 2 was known for was their revolutionary fusion of video games and popular board games of that era: Quest for the Rings!, based on the lines of the popular fiction franchises Dungeons & Dragons and The Lord of the Rings was another revolutionary year for gaming consoles. Mattel s electronics division released their Intellivision game console, in response to the Atari In a move radically different from the others of its generation, and more in sync with the third generation, Intellivision included a unique processor with 10-bit wide instructions, that allowed for more memory addressing, higher processing power and speed. The 10-bit processor was accompanied by 16-bit registers, and an advanced sound chip that promised more clarity, with output from three distinct channels. The Intellivision performed much better than expected. Sales were offthe-charts by 1982, with more than 2 million consoles sold. Multiple thirdparty game developers such as Activision and Imagic began releasing titles for the console, which sold almost a million units of the most popular titles. However, because of Atari s exclusive rights to many of the popular arcade games of the time, people preferred the Atari 2600 over the Intellivision, despite the former s inferior graphics, which further helped in cementing the 2600 s spot as the top selling console of the time.

23 The Chip Saga 21 Coleco followed up on its previous offering by releasing the ColecoVision in 1982, a console that promised a more powerful experience closer to many of the popular arcade games systems. The initial offerings of games bundled with the ColecoVision further helped boost its popularity, with titles including Nintendo s Donkey Kong as the pack-in cartridge, Zaxxon, and a few other less popular titles, such as Lady Bug, Cosmic Avenger, and Venture. Many titles released later, like titles from the Star Trek franchise, also Tarzan and Popeye, to name a few. In response to the ColecoVision, Atari released its 5200 SuperSystem, which drew inspiration from the graphics and audio chips found in Atari s 400 personal computer. However, this system provided very incremental improvements to the 2600, and games released for this version were just modified versions of the 2600 games; this lack of new titles and storylines led to consumers losing interest in Atari s offerings. In addition to bulky gaming consoles that could be used in multiplayer mode, the second generation was also witness to the rising adoption of handheld consoles. While those released in this period were still in their infancy, they helped lay the groundwork for some iconic consoles released later. The first programmable game system at this time was the MicroVision, created by Milton Bradley. The console allowed interchangeable cartridges, and combined portability and ease of use as its defining features. Unfortunately, despite roaring initial sales, the lack of gaming cartridges, its small and unreliable screen, and lack of support for existing game developers led to the downfall of this pioneering device. In Japan, Epoch Systems released its Game Pocket Computer in However, despite a sizeable LCD screen and resulting graphics comparable to the Atari 2600, the system was a failure in Japan and wasn t eventually released in North America. Before the Game Pocket Computer, however, debuted Nintendo s Game & Watch series of handheld gaming consoles. Game designer Gunpei Yokoi created each Game & Watch to feature a single game that was played on a segmented LCD screen that was pre-printed with an overlay, in addition to a clock, an alarm, or both. The pre-printing was what allowed the Game & Watch to allow only one game to be played at a time. However, this didn t stop the rising popularity of the device, and its versatile titles such as Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda and Mario Bros only added to its appeal. Another note-worthy feature of the device was its usage of the modern cross D-pad design, which was later patented and received multiple awards.

24 22 The Chip Saga North American video game crash of 1983 The end of the second generation was foreshowed by the massive recession in the North American video game industry, that went on from 1983 to Before the crash, revenues had reached a peak of $3.2 billion, which was easily wiped out down to $100 million by the end. The crash led to the bankruptcy of many of the then-booming companies, and made the industry think about the long-term viability of gaming as a whole. Sales continued to trail for a few years after the crash, and led many to believe that the future of video games was almost non-existent, save for a niche market. However, the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System in the United States helped kickstart sales again and put to rest lingering doubts about the commercial sustainability of such a venture. Among the reasons that led to this crash, the one major contributing factor was the over-saturation of the market before As is evident from the description of the consoles released in the second generation, the market was flooded with consoles that provided similar functionalities in terms of processing, graphics and audio capabilities. Titles were similar to Pong and merely provided different versions of it, and other titles were poorly produced and offered nothing new to the consumer, thus causing them to move away and take a break from the market. Furthermore, the widespread use of personal computers in homes caused many to question the requirement of a separate console with inferior Game & Watch by Nintendo

25 The Chip Saga 23 capabilities compared to that of a computer. Since computers had more memory and faster processors, they could allow for more complex games, in addition to being versatile and allowing for word processing and other activities. Games could be saved to writeable storage media, allowing players to pick up where they left off earlier. All in all, the market saw a two-year slump, before it re-emerged in 1985, with Japanese companies like Sega and Nintendo dominating the market, and leaving the remaining bits to recovering companies like Atari. The end of the 1983 recession ushered in the third generation of gaming consoles, which worked upon some of the common features of the second generation, such as AI computer opponents, basic color graphics that made use of sprites, removable ROM cartridges that allowed for multiple games to be played on a single console, and three channel audio. Third Generation After the recession of 1983 receded, the North American gaming console market saw the entry of Nintendo, with their Japanese Famicom (short for Family Computer) was rebranded and sold as the Nintendo Entertainment System. The third and forthcoming generations saw Nintendo and Sega battling it out for the top spot in the market, with Atari coming in a close third. All offerings started with a baseline of 8-bit processors, thus lending this period its alternative name of the 8-bit era. Nintendo first released the NES in Japan, as the Famicom. After seeing widespread acclaim for its product, accompanied with soaring sales towards the end of 1984, Nintendo decided to release the NES to selected American consumers in 1985, and opened up distribution to the entire American market in the following year. Seeing as how the 1983 crash was a result of widespread confusion in video game marketing, Nintendo took all possible steps to ensure the veracity and accuracy of all titles released for its device. With the NES, Nintendo attempted to introduce a business model that made compulsory rigorous product checks for all games being released for the console, and licensed third-party developers to produce and distribute titles for their system. This ensured uniformity in the quality of products that were released under the aegis of Nintendo, and helped restore customer confidence in the video game industry. Nintendo s aggressive marketing practices also helped propel it to the top. In order to convince Sears and other major retailers to stock their

26 24 The Chip Saga product, they threw in many free accessories like its R.O.B robot and a light gun. They also generated a lot more buzz for their product by releasing two exclusive sets: one that included Super Mario Bros, its super-popular video game franchise, and a deluxe set that came with a light gun and three games. These sets sold in numbers of around 60 million over six years. In comparison, Sega s entry into the North American market was a little more unstable. Sega s SG-1000 didn t have much to offer that was drastically different from earlier consoles, such as the ColecoVision and contemporary computers such as the MSX. To recoup their losses, Sega went back to production and made progress on a system that would prove to be an equal match for the NES. This led to the release of Sega s Master System in Nintendo s NES Initially, the Master System was launched as the Sega Mark III in Japan in After a certain level of success, Sega decided to redesign and market the console as the Master System and release it to the North American market in 1986, 1987 in Europe, and 1989 in Brazil. To set it apart from its direct competitor, the NES, the Master System was released with accessories such as a light gun and 3D glasses which were designed to work with a range of games that demanded the use of these devices. Even so, despite its superior hardware, the Master System failed to make any significant impact against the NES, mostly because of the lack of

27 The Chip Saga 25 major titles in its library, due to Nintendo s competitive and strict licensing practices. It did manage to receive acclaim for some of its franchises, including Sonic the Hedgehog, which has gone on to become a cult classic, and Phantasy Star. Despite its shortcomings, it attained a high level of success in European and Brazilian markets, one that even Nintendo couldn t match up to. In third place came Atari s 7800 system, which was released in One of the major benefits that helped boost sales of this console was the fact that it was backwards compatible with the Atari 2600, which meant that a wide variety of games could be played on the 7800, without additional purchases. The 7800 did boast of superior graphics hardware compared to the 2600; however, they stuck to the old audio chip. This meant that the 7800 was no match for Nintendo and Sega s offerings, and even its lower price tag didn t help propel it to the top market spot. To add to Atari s woes, major game Sega Master System titles were unavailable due to Nintendo s licensing policies, which meant that Atari struggled to maintain sales, and discontinued its product in The third generation saw no great technological advancements, but it did help pull out the North American console market from its gloom, and set it on the right track for upcoming years. Fourth Generation The fourth generation was also dubbed the 16-bit era, for obvious reasons, and started off with the release of NEC s TurboGrafx-16 in Despite being

28 26 The Chip Saga in the 16-bit era, the TurboGrafx-16 had an 8-bit CPU, a 16-bit video color encoder, and a 16-bit video display controller. However, it failed to measure up to the NES, which was still standing strong in the North American market, and faded away without much fanfare. The first fourth generation console to make an impact was the Sega Mega Drive, the successor to Sega s Master System. While the console was sold in Japan under the Master System name in 1988, it went up as the Sega Genesis in North American markets in Initial versions of the console had a main Motorola bit microprocessor, which was extended to 32-bits in later versions. The addition of Sega Genesis a Zilog Z80 sub-processor was to provide backward compatibility with the Master System, and also to control the audio chips. All this was bundled with 72 kb of RAM, 64 kb of video RAM, and a display that could showcase up to 61 colours at once out of 512. And like most other consoles of previous and the continuing era, ROM cartridges contained the games, and would be inserted up top into the system. While the model didn t stand up to its main competitors particularly well in Japan, it made significant inroads in Europe, Brazil and America, where it dislodged the NES for a while, till the Super Nintendo Entertainment System was released two years later, following which they were locked in the console war for a long time. If the Genesis is looked at as a whole, a major reason for its success was its library of arcade game ports, which provided easy access to arcade

29 The Chip Saga 27 gaming in the comforts of a home. In addition, the popularity of its franchises, such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Disney s Aladdin, Joe Montana Football and other sports games. A move that set them apart from their competition at that point was their hosting of more mature content, such as the uncensored version of Mortal Kombat. Initially, the Genesis faced numerous problems due to Nintendo s strict and borderline monopolising practices. Companies like Capcom chose not to port popular titles like Street Fighter II, though they jumped onto the Sega ship later. Notably, many third-party developers supported the Genesis early on, one of the big names being Electronic Arts. On seeing Sega s rise to the top of the market, Nintendo began to scramble and tried to keep up by releasing its Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1991 in the North American market. It was released as the Super Famicom in Japan in The console competed with Sega s Genesis by improving graphics and increasing the color palette of the system to 32,768 colors. A particularly new and novel feature was the introduction of regional lockout, which prevented releases in a certain region from being compatible with releases in another region. From a gaming point of view, SNES recaptured its supremacy in the gaming consoles market by developing a variety of enhancement chips built into game cartridges. The release of these two consoles locked down the market in a console war, with each company trying to one-up the other. Sega gained a strong foothold with the Genesis, and the release of Sonic the Hedgehog, which directly competed with Nintendo s Mario series. The consoles hit a minor speedbump when media started focusing on the over-the-top violence depicted in many video games. The first game to receive a bad rap was Midway s Mortal Kombat, which was accused of portraying excess violence that could influence children. While Nintendo made the choice to censor the game and pare down the blood with sweat and the dismembering finishing move with less violent ones. However, Sega took a chance and established the first American Videogame Rating Council, that gave Sega s version of the game a rating of MA-13. The fourth generation of video game consoles saw the reintroduction of handheld consoles in a big way. As the release of the Game & Watch series had received positive reviews, Nintendo went ahead and released its Nintendo Game Boy in An 8-bit handheld video game device with interchangeable cartridges, the first version of the Game Boy came bundled with Tetris as the in-pack game, thus attracting non-gamers to the device

30 28 The Chip Saga as well. Other than that, the device s excellent battery life, low price-tag and sturdy hardware made it the top choice in handheld consoles of that time. One of the other well-known devices of that generation was the Atari Lynx, a 16-bit handheld game console released in September 1989 in North America, and in Europe and Japan in The Lynx held the honour of being the world s first handheld console with a color display. In addition, the system pushed its ergonomic and user friendly keypad layout to its advantage, and made attempts to compete with the Game Boy. Another portable device that gave the Lynx and Game Boy a run for their money was Sega s Game Gear, released in Unfortunately, despite its superior backlit- LED screen and low price, the console s short battery life, small game library and weak customer support from Sega pulled back the device, and the Game Gear was Game Boy unable to surpass the Game Boy s sale. For that matter, neither the Lynx nor the Game Gear was able to compete with the Game Boy s rugged make and low price tag, which meant that Nintendo, once again, occupied the top spot in the console market. The fifth generation of video game consoles worked upon the achievements of all generations before, and laid the groundwork for the consoles that we do see today. So more on that in the next chapter.

31 CHAPTER The #03 Great Console Wars Begin 29 THE GREAT CONSOLE WARS BEGIN The events that shaped the console world as we know it Fifth Generation The 4 th Generation of consoles was the era of 16- bit, which was still dominated by Nintendo and SEGA. The consoles and games of this generation were obviously an improvement over their predecessors but weren t anything groundbreaking. There was technological advancement and CD-ROMs became more common in the consoles, but most of the games were just more refined version of their 8-bit ancestors. Game developers were still going on with the tried and tested formulas of the previous generations.

32 30 The Great Console Wars Begin There were better graphics and more powerful hardware, but there was still something missing in all of it. Then came in the 32-bit era which led to the birth of consoles as we know them today. Also known as the 3D era, the 5 th generation spanned the years from 1993 to This generation of consoles was going to change a lot of things, including making optical discs a standard, 2D paving way for 3D and new players turning into market leaders. The first 5 th generation console to be launched was the 3DO Interactive multiplayer manufactured by Panasonic, a new entrant in the game. Priced at $700, it was expensive to say the least and even though it had a number of cutting edge technologies of the time including a CD-ROM (the simpler days right?), it was discontinued three years later in Sony, another new entrant, came out with its first console the PlayStation. It came out as the clear winner among the rest of its generation and changed a lot of things The major improvement in 5th generation over the 4th generation was the advent of CD-Rom technology which provided 10 times the space that conventional cartridges did.

33 The Great Console Wars Begin 31 for Sony and the gaming industry. Nintendo also entered the race with Nintendo 64 and Super Mario 64, showcasing one of the most beautiful gaming experience of the time. Sega launched Saturn, which suffered from a number of development issues. The device was well received in Japan and even though it went on to become the company s most successful product in the country, it didn t create the same splash elsewhere and couldn t match Sony and Nintendo s success. Somewhere along the line it also paved way for the beginning of the end of a company that had been ruling the console industry for years. Let s look at what changed. Key improvements Until 4 th generation, most consoles used a cartridge based system. The last major home console to use a cartridge based system was the 5 th Generation Nintendo 64. Nintendo s initial plans involved a console with a CD-ROM in partnership with Sony. This deal was scrapped due to a number of reasons and pushed Sony into making its own console instead while Nintendo planned to launch its console with a CD-ROM manufactured by Philips. But that deal also fell through and they ended up launching it with a cartridge based system only justifying its use on shorter load times of cartridges compared to CD-ROM. But Compact Disc had arrived on the scene and it was here to stay. Sony had developed the CD-ROM technology in collaboration with Philips and slowly but steadily had become a part of the home computing scene of the late 80s. Console makers also realized the advantages this medium offered over the older cartridge based system and started adopting the technology. Some of the advantages it had were A CD could hold 660 MB, much more than what a cartridge could hold. (A Nintendo 64 cartridge could hold around 64 MB of data.) CD ROMs were cheaper to manufacture, which meant less risk and loss for game developers. Also the companies sold CD ROMS at a lesser retail price compared to cartridges so as to compensate for cost of the expensive CD ROM Drives. This shift led to a number of developments in the field. Now there was more space. Which meant more data which in turn led to more detailed and immersive games. Infact one of the most popular games of the time, Final Fantasy VII was supposed to be released on the Nintendo 64. But because of the storage limitation put up by the cartridge based system, it was ultimately launched on the PlayStation.

34 32 The Great Console Wars Begin The 5 th Generation or the 32 bit era also saw more powerful 32 and 64 bit processors. And this meant more details and rise of fully 3D games. 3D became the standard with many game developers releasing their famous 2D titles as 3D. Now you could play FPS in a fully 3D environment. Focus shifted away from the old sidescrollers. Major consoles The console market was saturated at the time with more than 10 options and even Apple joining the bandwagon with its Apple Bandai Pippin (which miserably failed). But the race which was going to separate the leaders from the pack had already begun. The main competition was between the following 4 consoles Atari Jaguar Sega Saturn Sony PlayStation Nintendo 64 Atari Jaguar Atari had been long been a part of the video game industry. It had made quite a few successful products but the Atari Jaguar was going to be the last console it manufactured. 1989, Atari tasked Flare technology, a UK based company, to develop 2 consoles for it. The first one the Atari Panther was supposed to compete with existing consoles on the market like the Sega Genesis and Super NES. While that was to happen, the company was to simultaneously work on Atari Jaguar, a futuristic console that was supposed to be better than any console on the market at the time. The quick progress being made on the Jaguar made Atari cancel Panther and instead directly go ahead with launching Jaguar. The device was launched in late 1993, early 1994 across USA at a price lower than all of its competitors. But the device could never catch success and was plagued with a number of problems. Game development was difficult for the Atari console, thanks in part to the device s multi-chip architecture. The low sales of the console also didn t do anything to attract more developers to invest more time and resources in developing titles for it. There was no internal game development at Atari which could help and slowly it faded off. The launch of Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation sealed the fate of both the console and the company. Jaguar was accepted as a failure and Atari moved on from the console market.

35 The Great Console Wars Begin 33 Years later, Hasbro Interactive bought Atari and released all the patents pertaining to Jaguar into the public domain. The console has garnered a cult following since then and has a huge fan base online with homebrewed game titles still being released. Sega Saturn Sega launched its CD-ROM enabled console, Saturn, in November of 1994 in Japan. The device enjoyed good sales in its home country but couldn t repeat the same success overseas and was deemed an overall commercial failure. There were a number of reasons which contributed to it. The device had impressive hardware which included a dual core CPU and 8 different processors. It also came with something called the VDP2 (Visual Display Processor 2) which could generate and manipulate the background by itself. But to harness all this power was quite difficult. Developers had to use the more difficult assembly language to optimize the performance. Coding on the platform was generally much more difficult as said by the developers at the time. Both the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 rendered 3D graphics using triangles while the Saturn rendered quadrilaterals, a thing criticized by the developers and programmers at the time. Also, the device was launched prematurely in the US market and this angered a number of retailers and developers. There was a scarcity of good titles and the console was overpriced compared to its other competitors. This decision has been blamed by many to have led to the downfall of the company and Sega s exit from the console market in the next decade. Sega Saturn was one of the first consoles to use CD ROM drives

36 34 The Great Console Wars Begin Sony PlayStation How Sony entered the console market and the first PlayStation came about to be is an interesting story in itself. Nintendo had been ruling the gaming world for quite some time and Sony signed a deal in 1998 with them to develop a CD drive for their next generation console. Simultaneously Sony started to work on its own console using the same CD drive it was developing. The Japanese company announced its own console dubbed the Play Station at the 1991 Consumer Electronic Show at CES. This console was supposed to be able to run both CD ROMs and Nintendo Cartridges. Nintendo saw it as betrayal of their trust and went on to announce its partnership with Philips for a disc drive for its next console, scrapping its earlier deal with Sony. This created havoc in the industry. Nintendo could now be facing serious legal action from Sony. But with time everything blew over. Both the companies realised that it was in their mutual benefit to not take any further actions. Nintendo was still using the audio chip manufactured by Sony and Sony was planning to port Nintendo games and cartridges for its own upcoming console. It was announced in 1992 that the disc drives used by the two companies will be compatible with each other but the software license was given to Nintendo while Sony received minimal licensing royalties. Sony scrapped its original prototype and went back to the drawing board. They developed a completely new machine minus the cartridge port. The new PlayStation boasted of some impressive hardware unseen at the time but Sony knew this wasn t gonna be enough. Sony s foray into the console gaming world proved very successful with its first console selling more than 100 million units before it was discontinued.

37 The Great Console Wars Begin 35 They needed new game titles too. Sony started garnering support of major game developers at the time and by the time of its US launch it already had secured more than 100 licenses in USA and about 250 licenses in Japan alone. It also realised the importance of an in house game development team and hence purchased Psygnosis, a European game development house and rebranded it as Sony Interactive Entertainment. Though a controversial acquisition at the time, the decision proved to be successful with the publishing house going ahead to make some of the best PlayStation games that the gamer community has seen till date. The PlayStation was a huge success and slowly settled into the top spot amongst its generation. Nintendo 64 Named after its 64 bit processor, Nintendo 64 was the last successful console to use the older cartridge based system and the last 5 th generation console to be launched too. Launched in 1996, the device went through a development hell with plans of launching it with an optical disk drive getting cancelled twice and Nintendo finally launching it without it. The console was a critical success and went on to sell more than 32 million devices. Slated for an Developed by Sony s inhouse game development team, Gran Turismo went on to become one of the highest selling game of the platform spanning more than 7 games. initial Christmas 1995 launch, N 64 s release got delayed. Fearing losing its customers to other consoles over the holiday season, Nintendo aggressively marketed the console and hyped the launch with advertisements asking you Is it worth the wait? Only if you want the best The games launched on the platform were still limited by the cartridge based system and only had a maximum of 64 MB to show their prowess. The console featured one of the most powerful GPUs of its generation capable of many advanced rendering feats including something called trilinear filtering which made the textures look smoother compared to the Saturn and PlayStation. The cartridge based system carried one primary advantage though it had faster load times than its optical drive carrying counterparts

38 36 The Great Console Wars Begin and a number of titles were released for it including Nintendo s own Super Mario 64 which went on to become the bestselling game of its generation and selling more than 11 million units. But not keeping up with the generation ended up costing Nintendo. The console went on to become the second most sold console of its generation but the developers weren t happy with it and porting games from other platforms was difficult. CD-ROMs could hold more data including live action footage, audio and intense cut scenes which the cartridge couldn t. The N64 saw Nintendo losing its top spot in the industry. Famous game titles and popular genres The advent of 3D saw a shift in the popular genres. PlayStation made sure that it was not only kids who were buying consoles now. Developers started using the larger storage space of CD-ROMs to create more immersive games which featured longer cut scenes and live action footage. First Person Shooters replaced the side scrolling 2D action games and many new games spawned which were going to create a legacy. Let s take a look at some of the most famous game titles of the generation. Tekken 3 - Still a popular one among arcade goers, Tekken 3 was the first PlayStation game to sell more than a million copies. It restarted the fighting genre, and is touted as one of the finest games of its genre. FIFA International Soccer - Launched only on the 3DO, the FIFA international soccer was the first football game by EA Sports that was set to turn things around and create a legacy. It kickstarted the FIFA generation and is said to be one of the most influential sports game ever made. Gran Turismo - One more genre that gained popularity was that of arcade style racing games and Gran Turismo was one of the best of the times. The PlayStation exclusive game was beautifully detailed, offered realistic physics and a plethora of licensed cars. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Said to be one of the greatest games of all time, it still commands a large fan base online. The developers perfectly turned their 2D adventure game into a 3D adventure. Super Mario 64 - one of the reasons for Nintendo 64 s success and popularity, everyone s favorite plumber was as good in 3D as he was in 2D. The game went on to sell more than 11 million copies, and spawned a number of other successful spinoffs including Super Smash Bros Tomb Raider - Guinness book of World Records named Lara Croft the most recognizable female videogame character of all time. The game

39 The Great Console Wars Begin 37 was okay but it paved way for a number of amazing sequels, thanks to its use of many new elements in the gameplay. Virtua Fighter - The game was launched on the Sega Saturn Platform and sold nearly as much as the console, meaning almost every Sega Saturn owner, owned a copy of the Virtual Fighter. There were a number of other games too which went on to become massively popular with their forthcoming sequels including Virtua Cop and Tony Hawk s Pro Skater 2. The 5 th generation brought about a big change. There was a time when the critics and media were speculating another video game market crash thanks to the large number of consoles and titles in the market. But the reverse happened. The video game industry stabilized soon and new leaders in the console market emerged. Sony was out with its PlayStation which had proved its mettle. Sega and Atari, the 2 giants had somehow fallen far behind and their 5th generation consoles would be their last consoles. Nintendo did well for itself, but it was still way behind Sony and not using a CD-ROM drive had probably cost it the game. All in all, this era revamped the industry and brought in a wave of fresh air, making 5th generation one of the most important of all times. Sixth Generation The video game industry has an average product life cycle of 7 years and the 6 th generation of video game consoles started in the year 1998 with the launch of SEGA Dreamcast, a last attempt by the giants to gain a market share in the industry. Things started to change around the turn of the century with Dreamcast was the last console by SEGA.

40 38 The Great Console Wars Begin the launch of PlayStation 2 which was the first console to feature a DVD drive. The competition was between 4 major consoles- SEGA s Dreamcast, Sony s PlayStation 2, Nintendo s GameCube and Microsoft s new entry the Xbox. The first 2 sixth generation consoles in the market, Dreamcast and the PlayStation 2 came with 128 bit era processing capabilities but that was not the only difference. The console developers started focusing on other aspects of the console too. Graphics processors were given more attention and RAM capacities were increased. Games were more beautifully designed and the use of DVD drives meant all the more space. Online gaming became a thing and a number of new titles were released that were going to turn into series that will go on for decades and generate a fortune for their developers. Midway through the decade, the winners of the race were clear. Sony was on the top with its PlayStation 2 becoming one of the most sold consoles of all time, selling more than 150 million systems. Xbox enjoyed a mild success but their implementation of online gaming set a new trend. Nintendo was running a generation late and it was their 6 th generation GameCube Console that featured an optical disc drive. All in all it was an exciting time for both game developers and gamers. Companies were innovating, trying to win the loyalty of gamers with niche titles and new, interesting features. Major Consoles Let s take a look at the 6 th generation consoles and see what they did right and what they didn t. SEGA Dreamcast Sega s Dreamcast was launched in 1998 in Japan followed by a 1999 launch in North America and Europe. Hoping to learn from the mistakes it made with Saturn, Sega marketed the console heavily and worked hard to bring down the overall cost of the console. Instead of using complex hardware that led to the high production cost of Saturn, Sega opted to assemble the console with off the shelf components which were commonly used in the personal computers of the time and this helped them bring down the cost significantly. Also, instead of using CD or DVD ROMs, Sega worked on developing its own optical drive technology in collaboration with Yamaha Corporation. Dubbed the GD-ROM, it could store about a GB of data and cost almost the same as a standard CD. It also helped to check piracy, as most Dreamcast game couldn t be copied onto a 650 MB CD with all the features intact.

41 The Great Console Wars Begin 39 Sega knew it not only needed improved and inexpensive consoles but also good games. And what better time to launch the next iteration of its famous Sonic the Hedgehog series than now? The company announced Sonic Adventures and also ported a number of games from its arcade game collections to the Dreamcast. In 2000, even after all this effort, and the initial success that it enjoyed in USA, Sega was still behind. Sony still enjoyed a more than 60% market share and had also announced its next-gen console. Sega slowly realized that maybe it was time for it to get out of the console industry and it discontinued the console in a couple of years. Soon after, the company executives decided that probably it was time to get out of the console business for good and cleared the remaining stock at a heavily discounted rate. And well, this marked the end of Sega, the console giant. Microsoft Xbox Developed by Microsoft, Xbox was the most powerful console of its generation and was launched in November Borrowing its design and specs from personal computers of the time, the Xbox was powered by a 733MHz Intel Pentium III processor and was the first console ever to feature an in-built hard disk. Microsoft also came out with its online gaming service called Xbox Live a year later which was set to entirely revolutionize online gaming on consoles. Xbox was launched first in North America followed by Japan and Europe and it quickly sold out in all these places. Xbox was both a commercial and critical success, thanks in part to a number of good game titles, some of which went on to build a huge fan base for themselves like Halo: Combat Evolved and Dead or Alive 3. Microsoft entered the console market with its first Xbox that looked very much like the personal computers at the time.

42 40 The Great Console Wars Begin It sold a total of 24 million devices worldwide and strongly maintained its 2nd position right behind PlayStation all throughout. It also gave Microsoft a thumbs up that they were moving on the right path and their next generation console was going to be even better. Sony PlayStation 2 Successor to the highly successful PlayStation, the PlayStation 2 went on to become an even bigger hit. More than 150 million devices were sold until 2011 and the device was finally discontinued in 2013, long after the launch of the next generation of consoles also. The device had a number of nifty features like backward compatibility with the previous generation device, capability to play audio CDs and DVD movies and also was compatible with the PlayStation memory card and controllers. Sony worked on something called the emotion engine CPU for its second console. The chip had impressive specifications and was capable of performing at 6.2 GFLOPS. Paired with its GPU, the console could render more than 75 million polygons per second standalone and a real world performance of 3 to 16 million polygons per second accounting for other things like lighting, texture mapping, AI and game physics. PlayStation 2 came with an improved version of the highly acclaimed DualShock controller of its previous generation called the DualShock 2. The addition of 4 extra buttons in the DualShock controller had proved to be a smart decision with the launch of game titles like Devil May Cry, God of War and Grand Theft Auto, which were more free world oriented and provided the players with more options and capabilities. Overall, the Sony PlayStation 2 was a huge success breaking many records including selling 100 million devices in under 6 years. Nintendo GameCube Codenamed Dolphin, the GameCube was the 6 th generation offering from Nintendo. It came with optical disk drive support and also supported online gaming for a couple of its popular titles by using a broadband or modem adapter. The quirky looking console, was relatively inexpensive but lacked enough game titles. More than 22 million devices were sold worldwide but the device never caught the fancy of the mass the way it intended to do. It ranked a measly 3rd in an underwhelming battle of only 3 competitors - itself, Sony and Microsoft

43 The Great Console Wars Begin 41 Nintendo GameCube had a very quirky design and few interesting titles to offer Game titles The 6 th Generation of consoles marked a new trend in Game Development strategy by the various companies. Electronic Arts, Activision and other major publishers started developing cross platform games. The same titles albeit with a little modification were being released on all consoles. Another major trend was the rise of objectionable content like sex, violence and profanity. Games like Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City came under criticism for excessive use and display of them and for the first time serious thought was being put into rating games for their audiences. Online gaming had already been getting popular on personal computers and this generation helped it become mainstream on the consoles too. Xbox came out with its own subscription based service called Xbox Live while PlayStation left it to the developers take care of it. There were many notable titles in this era which included Final Fantasy X - Released on PS2, the company had mastered the genre of Role Playing Games by their game s 10 th iteration. The game was a huge success and set the record for the fastest selling RPG on consoles. God of War - God of War 1 and 2 were titles exclusive to PlayStation 2 that were both critical and commercial success. The game, inspired from Geek mythology, had an immersive storyline, beautiful graphics and Grand Theft Auto - The Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City and San Andreas were launched on PS2, Xbox and PC and became instant hits. They popularized the genre and made games seem more mature with addition of objectionable content like swear words and nudity.

44 42 The Great Console Wars Begin Loosely based on Greek mythology, God of War became one of the most famous PlayStation exculsive titles of all time. Half Life 2 - It was one of the most successful Xbox and PC games and was praised worldwide for its gameplay, AI and animations. It was also named as the Game of the Decade at Spike Video Game awards. Halo - Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 was developed by Microsoft studios in partnership with Bungie Studios. The games garnered a huge fan following and were very successful on Xbox Live. The Legend of Zelda - The Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker released for the GameCube is one of the most highly rated games of all time on Metacritic with an overall rating of 96%. The game and its sequel, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, both received huge praises for its gameplay and the beautiful and immersive in-game graphics. Virtua Fighter 4 - Launched on PS2 and arcades the Virtua Fighter 4 was a considerable improvement over the existing 3D fighting games and scored 94% on Metacritic setting a new standard in its genre. Seventh Generation The console wars of last generation had cleared out the battlefield pretty much leaving only 3 contestants standing- Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. The seventh generation was marked with the launch of Xbox 360 in November,

45 The Great Console Wars Begin followed by the launch of PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii almost a year later. The 7 th generation was the generation of High Definition. There were some game titles supported by previous generation consoles which were rendered in high resolution, but with this generation of consoles, HD games became a standard. The PlayStation 3 could also playback HD movies and came with a Blu-ray Disc player. New game titles were developed and new game studios cropped up. The indie development scene started to gain traction too with some of them even making it big. While Sony and Microsoft were focusing on their consoles and churning out new and better games for them, Nintendo went ahead and did something completely different which probably saved the company. The Nintendo Wii was launched a week after the PlayStation 3 and surprised everyone. The Wii didn t have any drastic updates. Infact, it seemed like an update to the GameCube hardware. What was different was its motion-sensing controller. Nintendo shifted its focus from hardcore gamers and focused on the growing number of casual gamers who were looking for something to play with their families in their living rooms. This started a trend of motion sensing controllers and both Microsoft and Sony followed suit with their Kinect and PlayStation Move motion sensing add on devices for their consoles Each console was a success in their own realm. Each of them had their shortcomings too. Major Consoles Xbox 360 Microsoft started working on its second console in the beginning of the year Before the end of the year they had announced that ATI will be building the GPU for the system and will be powered by IBM s Xenon Processors. It was also the first 7 th generation console to be launched. The console met with instant commercial and critical success. Not able to meet the demands, the device was an instant sellout in North America and Europe. Within a year, a total of 1.5 million Xbox 360s had been shipped. Priced lower than the expensive PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 was an instant hit in most of the countries. A number of major Xbox exclusive titles were launched by major publishers including Halo and Gears of Wars. At the same time, Microsoft managed to get a number of PS3 exclusive titles on its platform including Devil May Cry 4, Tekken 6 and GTA 4. Xbox 360 also revolutionized online gaming and services on consoles with its Xbox Live platform. Users could create their online profiles,

46 44 The Great Console Wars Begin post on message boards, make friend lists and join discussions with fellow gamers. Xbox Live marketplace was also launched that let users download applications, games and other promotional content straight to their consoles. Microsoft successfully turned console gaming into a more social experience. Following Nintendo Wii s motion controller, Microsoft decided to jump ontothe bandwagon too. Named the Kinect and launched in 2010, it was an addon motion sensing camera that perceives depth and motion. It helped broaden the Xbox audience to include more casual gamers and helped boost the sales of the device PlayStation 3 Sony s last 2 consoles had been successful breaking and setting all sales records. The 3 rd installment did similarly well. Announced at the 2005 E3, the console was released in November 2006 in Japan and North America followed by Europe and Australia a couple of months later. Equipped with the latest tech and hardware of the time, it was the first console to come with a Blu-ray Disc drive. Sony also launched its own online social gaming platform called the PlayStation Network to compete with Xbox Live. PS3 was off to a slow start in the beginning, partially because of lack of game titles. The complex architecture of the console was blamed by the game developers for delay in release of already announced titles. It was some time before Sony realized this and came out with software development kits that made developing games for the console easier. The PS3 featured such impressive hardware that when the United States Air Force Research Laboratory started planning to build its own supercomputer, it ditched traditional hardware in favor of PlayStations. They connected 1760 PS3s together to build the 33 rd most powerful supercomputer in the world at a lesser cost than what was traditionally possible (meanwhile, you are free to imagine the glorious gameplay such a setup can achieve for you). Sony also launched PlayStation Move, a handheld motion controller, in September 2010 to compete with Nintendo Wii and Xbox s Kinect. Nintendo Wii Instead of fighting on the same old turf with the PS and Xbox, Nintendo tried to do something different. It shifted its focus from hardcore gamers and

47 The Great Console Wars Begin 45 looked to broaden its audience demographic. And it did so with something really interesting and unique that had never been done before in gaming. The Wii console came with the revolutionary Wii remote which set a trend in motion controlled gaming. The innovative remote was a handheld device that used a number of accelerometers and infrared detection to realize its accurate position in the 3D space. It tried to change the image of console gamers who were imagined to be lazy couch potatoes and pushed gaming as a form of physical exercise. The console and its controller received a number of awards for outstanding innovation and Nintendo s decision to take the road not taken paid off. Wii has been Nintendo s most sold console till date having sold more than 100 million devices worldwide. Nintendo came out with a package of games called Wii Sports which featured a Nintendo Wii won the Golden Joystick for Innovation of the Year 2007 number of motion controlled games including tennis, baseball, bowling, golf and boxing. This package came bundled with the console in most of the regions and was one of the contributing factors to the success of the unique console. The 7 th generation of consoles was probably the most successful and trendsetting one. It also offered significant development over its predecessors in every aspect including console hardware, gameplay and visuals. Gaming consoles were becoming a household thing and there were thousands of amazing games and 3 consoles to choose from. PS 3 and Xbox fought hard for a market share and even though PS3 sold more units, both the consoles were deemed a success. Even Nintendo, whose last two generations of consoles hadn t had much success, carved a marketspace for itself. All in all it was a good time to be a console gamer.

48 46 CHAPTER #04 GENERATION NOW The Consoles of Today Eighth Generation The first console of 8th generation was the Nintendo Wii U launched in 2012 followed by the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in This generation was touted as the most advanced generations of consoles yet with capabilities unseen and unheard of in consoles. But it was going to face a lot of stiff competition from a variety of other devices in the market. Portable gaming and gaming consoles had been facing a stiff competition from the mobile gaming market. There are smart TVs, phones and tablets everywhere. The last generation of console had tried to pitch itself not only as a gaming machine but as a device which could sit in

49 Generation Now 47 your living room connected to your TV and not only let you play games, but also act as the central multimedia machine in your house. The new generation wanted to build up on this. But there are still some doubts in the air whether this generation of consoles is actually a significant leap or just a stepping stone till the next gen VR systems are here. Virtual Reality has been gaining a lot of attention lately and with giants like Microsoft, Google and Facebook (Oculus Rift) working on it, there are many new opportunities and innovations on the horizon. While this generation of console offers better graphics and animations (whether this development is significant or not is debatable), the next gen of the consoles will probably be all about VR. But till we wait for Virtual Reality to become mainstream, let s check out what this generation of consoles has to offer Super Mario 3D world was launched for Wii U and is considered the best Mario game till date. Major Consoles Wii U Wii U was the successor to Wii which had become a household name in North America and had tapped into the previously unknown market of casual gamers carving out a niche market of sorts for itself. The console came with a handheled controller that featured a 6.2 inch resistive touchscreen display that could be used as a secondary screen for games or even act as the primary display letting you play on the controller itself. To compete with the plethora of smart devices on the market, Wii U supported a number of online services including Amazon Video, Netflix, Hulu and YouTube.

50 48 Generation Now The console doesn t use DVD or Blu-ray discs. Instead it uses another high density optical disc format that it co-developed with Panasonic which is capable of holding upto 25 GB per layer. The Wii U is compatible with all the Wii accessories and games. Nintendo also came out with a Virtual Console service that let users play NES and Super NES games on their Wii U. The Wii U met with mixed critical response when launched. Though the console was a significant leap over its predecessor, it couldn t match its competition s game library or graphical prowess. Many big publishers including EA and Ubisoft announced that they will not be working on as many games for Nintendo s console citing the decreasing sales of Wii U as the primary reason behind the decision. Wii U s production was finally discontinued worldwide on 31st January with Nintendo getting ready to release its next generation console dubbed the Switch. Sony PlayStation 4 Sony s PlayStation 4 was launched in North America in November of 2013 and across the rest of the world by early It is the most powerful home console to date produced by Sony running on an Accelerated Processing Unit developed by AMD which they billed as the most powerful APU developed by them till date. The console had a number of nice features including letting you live stream your gameplay online, connecting your Sony launched an updated version of the PS4 called the PS4 Pro with upgraded hardware. PlayStation Vita or selected Sony Xperia devices to the console and much more. The PlayStation 4 features a new version of the DualShock controller that comes with a touchpad on the front of the console and supports motion sensing using the inbuilt gyrometer and accelerometer. Learning from its history, Sony knew that it needed to make this generation of its console more developer friendly. Hence, the hardware found on the console is very similar to today s personal computers.

51 Generation Now 49 Just like its predecessors, PlayStation 4 went on to become the bestselling console of its generation by having sold more than 40 million consoles by May 2016 and amassing critical praise from the whole industry and gamers. Xbox One Xbox launched its 8th gen console right on the heels of PlayStation 4 in Based on the same APU developed by AMD that powers the PS4, Xbox one was significantly better than its predecessor not only in terms of hardware but also the features it offered. Microsoft knew it was not only fighting consoles, but also a host of other entertainment devices including smart TVs and set-top boxes. And to fight this war, Xbox One offered a host of multimedia features. The new console could not only playback Blu-rays, DVDs and CDs, but also let you connect your set-top box to it and pass the feed via a HDMI pass-through, making One a universal device of sorts. Microsoft s popular online service Xbox Live was also given an upgrade. It now featured cloud storage that not only lets you store your games and saved content, but also music, movies and other files. Players can download a number of useful applications like the Upload Studio app that lets you record and edit the last 5 minute of your gameplay footage and share it with the online community. The device received favorable reviews and provided good competition to the PS4. More than 18 million Xbox One have been shipped until last year putting it on 2nd position behind the PlayStation This generation of console didn t have a lot of innovation to offer, but this is not to say that it wasn t significantly better than the last one. The better hardware meant better looking games and the better online integration across all platforms helped these consoles survive this generation of multitasking devices. Now, we have to wait and see what the upcoming generations of consoles have to offer.

52 50 CHAPTER #05 GAMING ON THE GO A gamer s trusty companion on the go, handheld consoles have carved out a niche for themselves in the console market. The arrival of gaming affected the world greatly. A new industry was born, with its target audience including more than just kids. Grown-ups too were now being treated to a whole new dimension of entertainment. Ever since the NINTENDO NES became a household name, the big question on everyone s mind was how long will it take till you re able to play your games on the go. As simple as it may sound now, it took almost a decade for giants like ATARI and NINTENDO to get the formula right. It has since become a separate industry in its own

53 Gaming on the go 51 right. Handheld consoles had humble beginnings, and then as technology advanced, so did they. Today, handheld consoles are breaking the possibilities of how much power you can pack on the go. A good handheld console is cherished by both hardcore and casual gamers alike. So when talking about gaming and its impact on our world, it is hard not to include some of the great and innovative handheld s from the yesteryears. We will take a look at how this industry came to be and then look at all the ground breaking and revolutionary consoles throughout the years. This iphone attachment turns your phone into a gaming device HISTORY OF THE HANDHELD It was the mid 80 s and the gaming industry was booming. New consoles and titles released on a more frequent basis now. It was then that the idea of portable gaming technology was first fabricated. The major setback was that rechargeable batteries were still a young concept at the time. This is the reason that the first portable gaming consoles that were released by the likes of Atari and Sega were not rechargeable and hence lacked accessibility. The first game changer (pun intended) was the Nintendo Gameboy, which used a monochromatic non-lcd backlit screen that gave it far superior battery power than its contemporaries. Many regard the Gameboy to be the first true portable gaming device to have made it big. With the maturing of battery tech, next generations saw a major shift in the type of batteries used. Consoles today, like the Nintendo 3DS and the PSVita, use alkaline batteries which give them hours of battery life with high definition display. But reaching here was a long and winding road, full of brilliance as well as oddities.

54 52 Gaming on the go Lets take a look at some of the consoles from our yesteryears, more recent past, and present that have had a major impact on the handheld gaming scene. 1. Atari Lynx Not many people know about this device which was released back in But the fact remains, this was the first ever fully coloured handheld gaming device to use a backlit screen. It had networking support for up to 17 players and in built technology that allowed features like scalable sprites. It was a power packed device which ran games smoothly. This was a time when games like Final Fantasy were hot and so, consumers had a certain basic graphics This device has somewhat of a cult following requirement. The Atari Lynx totally met those requirements, however it came with a price. The price was considered so high that it led to the lynx becoming a commercial failure. The company that released this, Epyx, was later acquired by Hasbro and the details and source code of this console were made available to the public. This led to a lot of indie developers coming up with their own renditions of this technology. So in a way, this was very important for gaming consoles. Enthusiasts developed and released games for this bad boy till the mid 2000 s, until this firestarter s chapter finally came to a close. 2. Nintendo Gameboy What can you say about the Nintendo Gameboy that hasn t already been said. Handheld consoles already existed, but they had their drawbacks,

55 Gaming on the go 53 battery consumption being the biggest of them. Although graphics were improving with these consoles, the prices were rising too. It was at this time that the designers of Nintendo took up the challenge of building a battery efficient, fairly priced gaming device which would be accessible to the average gamer and non gamer alike. And Voilà! The Gameboy was born. It was criticised heavily for having a small, monochromatic screen, at a time when other consoles supported a backlit chromatic display. However, Nintendo insisted that the main focus was not how the game looked, but how long you could play. Nintendo still needed that one title though, that would prove their theory, and their prayers were answered. Minoru Arakawa, the The simplistic Gameboy. All the cool kids had it in the 90 s CEO of Nintendo at the time, saw a demonstration of a simple game and was immediately fascinated with how it worked. He got his team working to develop this game on the Gameboy. This title was called tetris and it forever changed the gaming industry. Despite minimalistic graphics and having no real story, it became viral. It proved that you didn t need shiny sparkly graphics to make a good game work. All you needed apparently, is a lot of irregularly shaped blocks and a fun, challenging concept. That was more than enough for the Gameboy to make it big. Gameboy Colour was released in the following years with even better titles and as of 2001, the Gameboy and Gameboy Colour have sold more than 118 Million units worldwide.

56 54 Gaming on the go 3. Sega GameGear You can t bring up the Gameboy without mentioning the Sega GameGear in the conversation. This was the true nemesis of the Gameboy in sales, and it deserved that spot. The GameGear was the first console to include the console versions of the games as a part of the software. It had a rich full colour display and some great titles to go with it, along with fairly high processing power. The only catch was, it consumed about 6 AA batteries The Game gear was one of the two handheld gaming devices released by Sega in just four hours of playtime. Although the GameGear gave the Gameboy tough competition, it could not beat the high sales and ultra mobility of the Gameboy and thus couldn t be as big a hit. However, it is still regarded as a brilliant handheld console and has a million sales to its credit. 4. PlayStation Portable Its not like handheld consoles didn t exist prior to the psp, but hardcore gamers usually didn t bother with them because the handheld versions had largely tuned down graphics or weaker performance than their console counterparts. It would be safe to say that the audience for these consoles were mostly kids. But then along came Sony with the PlayStation Portable. Sony released the PSP alongside the PlayStation 2 console, and the PlayStation Portable truly let you take the couch experience with you on the go.

57 Gaming on the go 55 The PSP was truly portable in the sense that it had amazing battery life and a big beautiful crystal clear display. It packed high processing power and had the absolute BEST gaming titles to its name at the time. It doubled as a media device too. So you could store your songs, photos, and videos etc along with the option of an expandable memory. Also, the PSP had more M-Rated title releases than its predecessors, with titles like God of War, Grand Theft Auto, Need for Speed, FIFA, and Madden to name a few. This made the PSP a classic hit and a huge commercial success. Its was almost like someone attached a screen to the Dualshock controller 5. Nintendo DS Some consider Nintendo to be synonymous with innovation. This Japanese company always gets the formula right for avid gamers all over the world. The Nintendo DS is a good example of great Nintendo innovation. It featured the signature clam shaped case, which would be the shape of future DS consoles as well. In addition to that, it had not one, but two backlit screens with the lower screen being touch sensitive. This feature allowed the users to interact with games in a way never thought possible before. The Nintendo DS came with a stylus to interact with the touch screen. This was a time when touch technology had not matured yet, so this was pretty exciting for users. Additionally, the Nintendo DS had backward compatibility as well, so you could play your GameBoy Advance games on it too, as well as a range of brilliant games with marvellous graphics and seamless gameplay. The

58 56 Gaming on the go This is perhaps the console which elevated the popularity of the nintendo gaming titles Nintendo DS became Nintendo s highest selling handheld console with over 150 million units being sold. Nintendo always bring in that extra smudge of brilliance in their product design and this device was no exception. 6. NVIDIA Shield This portable device took a slightly different approach to portable gaming. Instead of running on UMD s, diskettes, or cassettes, this device is packed with android software and can be used to stream games from your PC or Laptop through WiFi in high definition. You can play games like Metro 2033 and The Division on the go if you have a PC or a laptop powerful enough to run it. This is a rather new concept in the world of gaming and the NVIDIA shield has been well received by gamers all over the world. The NVIDIA shield is quoted by some as the inspiration for the upcoming Nintendo Switch which we shall definitely talk about later. The Shield s controller is exactly like any other normal computer

59 Gaming on the go 57 The next generation of Shield may have even more groundbreaking features game controller and the screen is beautiful. NVIDIA are definitely not done with this project yet, so expect to hear more about it in the future. 7. PlayStation Vita Say what you will about the Vita, but it still a brilliantly designed and multifunctional portable device that truly does raise the bar on graphics and performance. It had interesting controls and interface mechanisms. Although these features were not received well by the critics, the Vita has been applauded for product design. It features a touch sensitive back which introduced interesting ways of interacting with the game. Also, this is the first portable console to support a 1080p full HD display. You should be able to run Uncharted 4 on it and have an enjoyable experience while doing so, no problem. Additionally, the PS Vita had features which let it connect with the PS4 so that gave it a bunch of extra features as well. The main The back of the Ps Vita is touch sensitive too

60 58 Gaming on the go problem for the PS Vita is most probably the lack of titles and the high price of games released for it. The Vita s reputation has suffered because of this. However, you can t complain about the Vita performance-wise. When you buy a PS Vita, you get exactly what you paid for; hands on luxury gaming. 8. Nintendo 3DS The Nintendo 3DS is the successor to the Nintendo DS. It has the same iconic DS clam shape, but it is far more superior than its predecessor. It has a no glasses required 3D mode, which could be toggled on with the flick of a button. This meant that you could play games in 3D without having to wear those cumbersome 3D glasses. Also, the touch screen didn t need the stylus anymore. Like the DS, the 3DS had backward compatibility and in addition, had an online store option too. This was perhaps Nintendo s way of competing with the PSN and Xbox Live services. You could now purchase games and play game demos online via the Nintendo E-shop. All these It just looks like a better looking version of the Nintendo DS features combined with super fun titles like Super Smash bros, Pokemon X and Y, and Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, made the 3DS a smash hit. The Nintendo 3DS boasts a respectable 63 million units in sales. 9. Nintendo Switch You knew this was coming. Nintendo never ceases to capture the user s imagination and come up with new and fun ways to interact with the games

61 Gaming on the go 59 we play. Perhaps this is the reason why Nintendo is still as awe-inspiring as it used to be when the first Gameboy came out about 28 years ago. The Switch could perhaps be the most brilliantly designed console of our times. A tremendous amount of thought and vision must have gone into the development of this device. The Switch has a whole host of features and it is hard to start with just one. To start with, it can be connected to the big screen just by connecting to a docking station, after which it works like a regular console. If you want to take it with you on the move, you just take it out of the docking station and fix it to the controllers. You can play games like Skyrim, and the new Zelda title on the go, for up to 6 hours on your Switch console. But that s not all. The Switch comes with a unique dual controller which functions just like any other controller would. But then it also detaches and can be used as two separate controllers for you and your friend to play multiplayer games. In addition to that, The Switch has real time network connectivity with other Switch devices to give a seamless online multiplayer experience. This has Console of the year 2017? definitely been the talk of the town for a while now and has been praised for its unique design by critics and gamers alike. Only time will tell how big a commercial success it turns out to be as it hits the markets in March. Things could still go either ways for this bold console. Not everyone has the time to sit in front of the television to play games. But that doesn t stop us from wanting to play them. The Gaming industry has been ever growing and with the arrival of the smartphones, there is a

62 60 Gaming on the go Graphics on the smartphones get better every year whole new way of playing and selling games altogether. The Google Play Store and the Apple App store could turn your smartphone into a portable gaming machine in a matter of seconds. The future looks bright and fun for the handheld industry with new technology coming out and scientists finding new ways of making computer chips smaller and processing power better. We sure have come a long way since AA batteries, and yet we have a longer way to go.

63 CHAPTER #06 Video Game Distribution 61 VIDEO GAME DISTRIBUTION From the publishers straight to your PC or console here s how game distribution has shaped up over the years. As we have seen in the last few chapters, the video game industry is ever changing. There are new and interesting concepts that come with every new generation of consoles which utilize the technology prevailing at that time in new and interesting ways. There used to be days when developers had space no more than a single kb available to them to make a fully functional game which would be entertaining and sought after in the market. The amount of coding and algorithm management involved at that time was surreal. It was the bril-

64 62 Video Game Distribution liant minds of the late 70s and 80s which paved the way that eventually leads to hardware-less game distribution via the cloud. The methods of distributing games to the public has also been ever changing. And as the technology became more advanced, there were gates opened to bigger, more heavier games. We shall look in detail at the various ways in which video games have been stored and distributed throughout the years. We shall also look at the various setbacks and restraints that each of these methods have had to face. Extra Terrestrial : The Video Game The year was 1982 and the video game industry was booming. The game developers lived the life of rockstar geeks with their funky offices and dangerous habits. It was at this time that game developer Howard Warshaw was given the task of designing a game to match up with a release of the E.T. movie. He was given a time period of 2 months to get the job done. Warshaw was a very successful game developer and had designed titles like Yars Revenge and Raiders of the Lost Ark for Atari. He met the deadline and as cartridges used to be the standard distribution medium, millions of copies were made and stored in warehouses, ready for customer disposal. Nothing could go wrong, except one thing; E.T. was a horrible, buggy mess of a game. It was openly ridiculed for being silly, pointless and downright bad. The game became a joke in pop culture. So, we wonder, what then happened to all the cartridges that Atari had already produced? Each video game distribution medium has its certain drawbacks too and has to deal with piracy. To develop such a system where the content from the developers desk reaches the consumer in the way that the developer wants, is still as important a task in the game lifecycle as it was back in those times. Let us have a look at the various This game became quite a cultural phenomena back in the 80s game distribution systems from the early years of gaming.

65 Video Game Distribution 63 Days Of Arcade A new industry was born. Kids were suddenly spending all their pocket money in a magical place called a Video Game Arcade. Arcade video gaming was a huge thing in the 80s worldwide. Atari was the company that started it all with Pong! And now people wanted new and interesting ways to play these video games. However, those days, gaming wasn t accessible to anyone unless they were rich enough. The rest of the people had access Nothing says 80s like these retrowave arcades. You can almost hear the synth music. to these beloved arcade houses where kids and adults spent hours toiling away to break their high scores on games like Pac-Man and Space Invaders. Gaming was a business and these arcade owners were, in a way, the middle men. They purchased these costly arcade sets or cut deals with the gaming houses. And there was a lot of money to be had. By 1981, the arcade gaming industry had a worth of 8 Billion USD (26 Billion with respect to 2017). Sega and Taito were the first companies to get success but it was Atari that changed the face of the gaming community. In 1972, Atari retailed Pong For $1095. Back in these days even multiplayer gaming used to be restricted to gaming on the same screen. There was no connectivity amongst arcade games. But this golden era or arcade gaming gave us a lot of gems that gamers still cherish to this day. You Can Play Games at Home Now The Atari Arcade systems were such a big hit that they decided to bring that experience to every home. They took inspiration from the Magnavox

66 64 Video Game Distribution The ATARI 2600 with some of the most selling cartridges. Brown Box which was a gaming console system designed to play one type of game by connecting to the television. Atari also released games like Virtual pinball and Pong. And these consoles were hugely successful. Consoles like Magnavox depended on a plastic sheet with graphics printed on it that would overlay on the TV screen. Then the three bits on the screen could be controlled by knobs and games could be played. The gaming industry was very different back then. The first console to use a cartridge system was the Fairchild Channel F. Atari also drew inspiration for this and made their first in home console system called the Atari The console could be used to played games like Combat and Pac-Man with the use of ROMbased cartridges which would contain the code needed to make a game run. A lot of companies took inspiration from these companies and released their own versions of games designed to be played at home. So in a way, the first instance of game distribution would be the cartridges which gave the consumers a chance to play games like Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Pitfall. E.T. was also released for the Atari 2600 in cartridge based format only. The drawback of this was that the companies had to manufacture all these cartridges without knowing how much demand there would be. It was risky business. However, Atari, Sega and many more companies made a lot of money through selling these cartridges. THE GOLDEN AGE OF GAMING Everything that happened throughout the 70s made gaming evolve into a massive industry. Activision became the first third party vendor to seek profits for the games they developed that would be played on various consoles. This was truly a drastic shift, in the favour of gaming distribution. A lot of new consoles and innovative games were coming up. For the first time, 3D games were designed Battlezone being the first. All this while, the

67 Video Game Distribution 65 companies made huge profits on the various cartridges they distributed. The profits for the companies did not just stop with the console getting sold. They would keep rising if they came up with better games to keep the players interested. In 1984, the Commodore 64 was released. This was the first ever gaming console to use disk based data to run the game. Rick Dyer s Dragon s Lair was the A Ms. Pacman cartridge for the Atari 2600 first CD based game to be released. The Commodore 64 was the most powerful processor for that time and was also the least expensive. Perhaps it was even the console that started the cult of the PC master-race. Then a company which had had recent success in Japan decided to bring their console to the market which would change the gaming industry forever. The company was Nintendo and the year was Nintendo released their console called the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). But they were so scared of competition from Atari, that they did not release the product in US. Instead, they licenced it to Atari which was a huge blunder as NES An old advertisement for the NES with icons like Mario and Kirby.

68 66 Video Game Distribution was a smash hit. It was not until 1985 that Americans got to know about Nintendo and the rest is history. The NES also had a cartridge system but the quality of games was like nothing seen before that. Mario became a household name due to this very console. There were hundreds of games to chose from and all unique in their own respect. Thanks to titles like Pac- Man, Super Mario, Zelda etc. Nintendo and Atari were able to make billions of dollars in sales thanks to these cartridges. No Signs of Stopping The boom continued throughout the 80s. All this time, games could be played on the PC using a CD or a floppy disk. In 1984, Tetris was first introduced as a game for the PC. All the 80s were dominated by the NES. Then they released handheld consoles to add another feather to their cap. The Game Boy used separate cartridges which were also sold separately like the NES cassettes. In 1989, NES released the first 16-bit console called the TrboGrafx-16. It was the first system to run video games stored on compact disks was a big year for gaming as this was also the year that the true arcade gaming experience was brought to homes as SEGA Genesis was introduced. Games were still largely being distributed as cartridges. Now even the computers wanted in on the gaming success wave. So the newer computers being built both by Microsoft and Apple had gaming This console was a true underrated pioneer

69 Video Game Distribution 67 compatibility as a priority. MSDOS games were finally catching up and the genre of point-and-click adventure games would come into existence by the late 80s. Companies like LucasArt were developing gems like Zac McKraken and Secret of the Monkey Island and these were distributed as CDs and could be copied by file compressing into floppy disks. It was difficult creating pirated copies of the cartridges but this was not the case for PC gaming and it didn t take long for piracy to become a big issue. Companies tried to resolve this problem by including unique code s which would only be accessible after you have purchased the game and was needed to activate the game. Hackers found their ways around it somehow and piracy in computer games is still a huge issue to this day. As the 80s came to end, there was a shift seen to CD consoles and then something amazing happened. The Sony PlayStation Nintendo released the more powerful Super NES and the newer consoles aimed at giving full 64-bit experience. For the first time, games were created keeping a mature audience in mind. Games like Mortal Combat and project Grand Theft Auto became huge success with the consumers. This led to the first Senate investigation on the violence these games had. This led to the introduction of the rating system that still exists which was made mandatory to be displayed at the packaging of the video game. In 1994, a well established Japanese company launched a new CD based console called PlayStation. This console would go on to become one of the most important gaming consoles ever and leave Sony with a legacy and a stronghold over Sony had some amazing games for their new console

70 68 Video Game Distribution the gaming industry that they still possess. Sony not only had titles they developed themselves, but also developers all over the world release games compatible on their system. It was Sony s excellent branding and the plethora of amazing titles available for purchase that made the PlayStation the first computer based console to ship 100 million units. Nintendo launched the Nintendo 64 to compete with this super successful console. They decided to stick to their guns and kept their cartridge system intact. Nintendo 64 sold over 30 million units. Now games were better protected against piracy. After the PlayStation there was no going back. CDs had become a standard distribution medium. Computer games were getting better too and continued to be sold as CDs. There were a lot of new arcade games which focused on ride-and-play style of gameplay like driving, skiing etc. This kept the arcades relevant throughout the 90s. Ever since then, as you have read in the previous chapters, console after console has been released by the three giants Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. CDs have stayed to be the popular choice as they are easy to manufacture and can be shipped with ease. DVDs were used for PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Xbox. Then as the age of consoles like PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii ushered in, there was a shift towards Blu-Ray disks for the simple reason that they were more durable and can hold way more data than DVD s. CDs remain to this day the most popular medium of game distribution. Piracy in consoles has been solved to a certain level by allowing clever software tricks The PSP used UMD to make the game run. Nintendo still uses cartridges for the handhled consoles.

71 Video Game Distribution 69 to keep the console software from intrusion. But the problem with CDs is that they are not forever. You lose CDs, you can break them. Also, not every indie developer who built a game on his home computer has the capital to produce CDs and ship them worldwide. The Internet solved this problem. The Future is Here Now there are online services like PlayStation Network and Xbox Live which let you purchase your games online and download them from their servers. This completely eliminates the need for hardware. If you have a steady internet connection and enough empty space on your console, that is all you need to purchase a game for your PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. The PC master race benefits the most perhaps from this feature because of the Steam gaming community. With the arrival of Steam service, you could now purchase games online and even put up the games you created for anyone to play for free or for a price you find fit. Bill Gates always wanted the gaming community to be free to make changes to the games and his dream has indeed come true. Millions of mods are available, both paid and fan created to make the PC games more fun. The gaming community is like a huge interconnected open source phenomena now. The rise in popularity of these online services might completely eliminate the need for CDs or cartridges but that is still going to take some time. So, going back to a point we left abruptly at earlier what then happened to all those cartridges left from the E.T disaster? They were buried. The Atari Online distribution seems to be the way forward for a while

72 70 Video Game Distribution A quick reminder of how cruel the Gaming world is. video game burial was the mass burial of unsold video game cartridges, consoles and computers in New Mexico. The goods buried were rumoured to be unsold copies of E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. This event became almost an urban legend of sorts. There were at least 700,000 cartridges including E.T. which were disposed. This event is in a way synonymous to the downfall of Atari as a video game powerhouse. Video game distribution is a cruel industry. In it, by the time you have mastered the current medium and managed to dominate it, a new, revolutionary medium arrives and throws your plans out of the window. After overcoming a lot of technical and practical problems the video game makes it to your home and you can play it the way the developers intend you to. However we must always remember the long path that lies before us with the connected services that we have right now and the completely different landscape of gaming that lies before us the future looks filled with a lot of excitement for everyone in the gaming industry.

73 CHAPTER #07The Future of Reality? 71 THE FUTURE OF REALITY? Even though it seems like VR is a recent technological development, it s been around for more than half a century and it sure seems to be staying around for another half or even more. When an out-of-the-blue company launched a Kickstarter campaign in 2012 of a product titled Oculus Rift, the game industry paused for a moment. All eyes were on it. Most were awestruck by this magnificent object and

74 72 The Future of Reality? the immersion it talked about. But then there were some people who were confused. Why was this idea brought back? Wasn t its last failure enough? The Pre-Oculus virtual reality The idea of a virtual reality headset was first presented in a 1935 short story, Pygmalion s Spectacles by Stanley G. Weinbaum. The science fiction story describes a goggle-based system which enables wearers to witness fictional experiences along with touch and smell. Then in 1962, cinematographer Morton Heilig created Sensorama. It was an arcade-style theatre cabinet which was capable of showcasing films along with smell, vibrations and wind. The first time the world saw a head-mounted VR display was in Ivan Sutherland and his student Bob Sproull created what they called The Ultimate Display. It was so heavy that it had to be suspended from the ceiling. The appearance of this device gave it the name The Sword of Damocles and it was only capable of rendering basic wireframe content. In 1987 Jaron Lanier coined the term virtual reality when through his company he created EyePhone and Dataglove. The EyePhone was a head-mounted display unit which could be controlled by the Dataglove. One of Virtual Reality s earliest forms

75 The Future of Reality? 73 In 1990, Jonathan Waldern presented Virtuality, a series of VR arcade machines. The players would wear a headset to see visuals while sitting down on the machine and providing inputs on the armrest. While some brains were busy developing the technology, films like Brainstorm and The Lawnmower Man were popularizing VR amongst the masses. The VR entered or at least tried to enter houses of its users when Sega announced Sega VR in But due to technical difficulties, the device forever remained as a prototype. Now that Sega had taken their shot, Nintendo simply couldn t sit back and watch. Enter Nintendo Virtual Boy. Considered one of the worst failures of the gaming industry, the device was expensive for what it did and how it felt. It featured incredible black and red graphics, discomfort and a variety of headaches. The difficulty that Sega faced with its VR technology and the gruesome downfall of Virtual Boy led to a hiatus in the video game VR industry. This silence was broken almost two decades later when Oculus slammed the Rift on the hearts of gamers. Summoning of the Big Three Although Oculus took the modern VR baton first, it sure isn t the most important one. Valve revealed its partnership with HTC for the Vive. Sony quickly took the opportunity by announcing Project Morpheus, later titled PlayStation VR, exclusively for PlayStation 4. Although PSVR demands a significantly lower expenditure than the other two, it sure runs in the same league of titans. All the three companies have been bringing extensive amounts of VR content onto their platforms. Even though the mobile territory may seem far less daunting with its more comfortable prices, the true VR experience lies with the big three. Launch price, what s in the box and what extra would you need PlayStation VR launched with a price tag of $399. Inside the box you get the headset, an extension to the PS4 which provides the extra bit of power the headset needs and a cable extension, a pair of earphones with different sizes of buds, a demo disk and wires. The PSVR requires the PlayStation camera, so if you didn t get that in a bundle, it ll set you back around $50. If you want increase your immersion beyond the PS controllers, you may have to drop another $100 for the, slightly outdated, move controllers.

76 74 The Future of Reality? In terms of pricing, the Oculus Rift stands somewhere in between the PSVR and the Vive. For $599 you get the headset with headphones attached, a tracking camera on a stand, a secondary remote controller, an Xbox One controller with a dongle included and the good ol wires. As with the PSVR, for full immersion you would need to separately purchase the Oculus Touch Controllers which will set you back another $199. Now the only thing missing is a PC with monster specs. At launch HTC Vive had the mightiest price tag, $799. But it included a lot of things in the box. Apart from the headset, the package came with a pair of controllers specifically designed for VR, two motion tracking cameras along with wall mounts, rechargeable battery stations for the controllers, a hub for all the wiring that connects to the headset, extra foam padding and truckload of wires. Compared to other three, the Vive comes packaged with everything you need, except a PC powerful enough to run it. System requirements and Setting up PSVR has the least complex system requirements, works with any PS4. On the other hand, Rift and Vive have slightly complicated requirements. Rift needs an Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290 or better graphics card, an Intel Core i CPU or AMD FX 8350 or greater, more than 8 GB RAM, HDMI 1.4 or newer, 1x USB 3.0 port and Windows 7 SP1 or newer. On the other hand, the Vive requires pretty much the same firepower along with a DisplayPort 1.2 or newer, 1x USB 2.0 or greater ports. Just like its system requirements, PSVR is the least complicated. Connect the PS4 extension to the console, connect the headset to the extension, connect the PS Camera to the console and boom, you re done. For the Rift and the Vive, there s much more wiring and software installations needed. And don t forget the updates. Plus, for Vive, you would even have to set up the tracking cameras according to you room and also set the tracking area on the software end. Comfort and Looks With PSVR s extensive array of cushioning and easily adjustable head band, it s the most comfortable headset to wear. The design of the PSVR is also such that you feel the clamping pressure on your head and not on the face. The Rift too has great cushioning, though not as robust as the PSVR. The Vive lands lies at the extreme end of the line in terms of comfort. Both, the Rift and the Vive put pressure on the area around eyes and nose, which can get really irritating.

77 The Future of Reality? 75 Not the same in terms of comfort To be honest you would look ridiculous wearing any of the three headsets, it was never about the style. However, if you prefer your equipment to project a style, then the PSVR and Rift lead the pack. Why these two? Because the appearance varies from person to person. Where PSVR wins with the whites and blue lights for a futuristic look, Rift wins with its mild grey minimalist look. Some might even like how the Vive looks but its bulky Swiss cheese like appearance might not be desired by most. Content Each company announced a plethora of content for their VR platforms. But just like any other new entertainment technology, it is difficult for people to spend their time and money in producing content. The risk is too high. Even so, the hype of VR has actually helped pushing VR content at a considerable pace. There obviously isn t a Steam sized library of content or even GOG, but whatever there is, it feels really cool. Just like when the first motion pictures had taken the world by fire, even if they were just single shots of people coming out of a building and a parked train. Eagle Flight and Eve: Valkyrie are one of the few games available on all the three platforms. Eagle Flight is arena based shooter where you play the role of an eagle in a dystopian Paris. Eve: Valkyrie is similar to Eagle Flight, but takes place in space and you control spaceships. Job Simulator is a title which has taken the hearts of many. You play in a future world where all the jobs are done by robots and your entrainment is to actually try out those jobs as they were done by humans. Then there are platform exclusives. On the Rift s side of action, there are great titles like the hack-and-slash Chronos and VR visual novel Technolust which don t require the Touch

78 76 The Future of Reality? Controllers. If you own the controllers, you open a completely new playground. You can enjoy a heart shattering climbing experience with The Climb or try your best to not screw up and die in I Expect You To Die. If you preferred the Vive over the Rift, you unlock a Steam Library worth of VR possibilities. Especially since Valve announced Open VR which allows developers to virtually realise their existing titles. Valve is also working on a software which will allow players to screen their games in a virtual theatre. But putting the future aside, here s what you can get today. Arizona Sunshine and Serious Sam VR are great titles to start with. If you prefer more shooting, there s Brookhaven Experiment. And if that wasn t enough then on mobiles there s Fruit Ninja in VR as well. You can even download ReVive, an app which allows you to play Rift exclusive games on Vive. It is not maintained by Oculus, so not everything is bound to work properly. PSVR has the most compelling library of games out of all three. Trippy musical titles like Rez: Infinite and Thumper are enough to make your eyes bleed rainbows. The PlayStation VR WORLDS is a collection of VR experiences by Sony, which itself is fun place to start, especially The London Heist. CoD: Infinite Warfare and Battlefront dropped a VR mission each exclusively on PSVR. The puzzle game SuperHyperCube and the horror roller coaster shooter Until Dawn: Rush of Blood are great titles too. Just don t expect a narrative experience from Rush of Blood. Apart from the above mentioned games there many more exiting and upcoming ones. The library is rapidly expanding, so it s a good option to do a little search on the internet. Conclusion of the Summoning All three above mentioned VR platforms are spearheading the industry. But being part of this spearhead comes at a hefty price. If you have the money and patience to set up and accept the current downfalls of VR technologies, you won t be disappointed with the amazing cast of games available. It s as I said earlier, even the most basic experiences end up amazing people for the first time. But whatsoever the case may be, if you just can t afford one of the three or aren t convinced by the shine of VR, mobile is also a great sector to act as the gateway. Interacting with the new reality Apart from keyboard, mouse, console controllers and dedicated VR controllers, there are a few interesting controllers to keep in mind.

79 The Future of Reality? 77 Both HTC and Sony don t want to simply drop a headset and wait for others to develop peripherals. HTC s Vive Tracker is a puck-like device which can be attached to anything and turned into a VR controller. At the time of reveal, HTC showed it being used on a gun and even on a baseball bat. It is essentially another platform altogether where, developers can make software which link to a variety of objects through the Tracker. Developers have already started building hardware to use the Tracker. One of the developers attached a smartphone and a tracker to a gun, allowing more players to hop in a multiplayer VR experience. Manus VR made a glove which works with the tracker to show the whole arm of the user along with movements of the fingers. HTC also revealed a possible future of wireless VR with a wireless adaptor by TPCast. Impulse Gear partnered with Sony to make PSVR Aim controller which is a gun-like controller. It is based on the PlayStation Move, but improves it much more. Leap Motion had been around Virtuix Omni adds an extra level of immersion to your VR experience since long, but the hand tracker s compatibility with VR and its size still intrigues people. Virtuix Omni is an omnidirectional trademill-like large peripheral which allows players to translate real world walking into in game movement. With the demand for making VR wireless, a trend of VR backpacks emerged. HP, Zotac, MSI and Alienware are working or already have VRready PCs which can be packed in a bag, rendering the headset wireless. Zotac and MSI have already released their iterations, but with a hefty price tag of $1,999 and $1,899 respectively. Wonderland Gateway: Mobile VR Daydream, Gear VR and Google Cardboard make for a good start into the world of VR. They don t demand a giant price tag or monumental power, just your smartphone. It s a simple premise, at the screen end of the headset

80 78 The Future of Reality? would be a slot that ll allow users to place a smartphone. When worn, users would be able to view VR content on the smartphone screen. Google Cardboard, which is an open source platform is where most would get to have their first VR experience. It has created its own VR subindustry with many manufacturers using the basic layout of the cardboard and building more advance versions, which generally don t use cardboard as material. Anyone can easily get their hands on the basic schematics, get them printed on materials, cut and glue them together along with the right pair of lenses to create their own headset. Everything you need to make one is available in a free PDF that can be downloaded from the Google Cardboard page. Google didn t stop after creating Cardboard, they made a bigger splash into the VR scene with Daydream. Unlike Cardboard, which was built on mobile systems, Daydream was actually imbedded inside Android, starting from version 7.1 Nougat. This made Daydream a more powerful platform. But the extent of control it allowed developers, made it unavailable openly. Along with the Daydream View headset, Google also released a wireless controller. The sensors on-board the controllers were able to provide information about the location of controller and approximate the position of the user s hand. Many major Android phone manufacturers such as Samsung, HTC, LG and Huawei have announced that they ll be making Daydream ready phones. It s interesting to note the interest of HTC in the VR industry, with their own headset already in the market, they plan to create devices which are capable of running mobile VR content as well. Like HTC, even Samsung is placing huge bets on the VR industry, especially the mobile sector. Apart from manufacturing Daydream ready hardware, they also have their own mobile VR headset in the market, Gear VR. Samsung has already spent loads of money in marketing its headset, before even Google announced Daydream. Another thing interesting about Gear VR is the fact that it was made in a partnership with Oculus. The experience of Oculus did reflect on Gear VR, at least in the early days of mobile VR. Mobile VR is far more affordable than higher-ups. The most expensive of them, Gear VR costs $99, Daydream View drops the price a little to $79. Cardboard takes the bottom most spectrum of the expense leaderboard. Anyone willing to pay for printing, cutting, joining and the lenses, can have their own headset which works out to barely `200. But the price of Cardboard really keeps it at the end of quality spectrum as well. It is essentially a lump of cardboard or plastic resting on your nose.

81 The Future of Reality? 79 Google s betting big with Daydream Which most often is really uncomfortable. Even though Gear VR ups the game of comfort, it just doesn t reach the cosiness of Daydream View. But what can you do with a mobile VR headset? Well, it s mostly video content. Companies like HBO and Hulu have VR capabilities. Plus, there s Google s own line-up of experiences and YouTube. As for the gaming category, there are few VR versions of popular games like Crossy Roads, Hidden Temple, Minos Startfighter VR, Proton Pulse and Chair in a Room. There s also a free third-party controller by Realiteer which is compatible with Cardboard and a few games, Wizard Academy is one such title. The Present and the Future Despite the incredible immersion of VR, adaptation has been slow. Mostly due to the high costs of high-end hardware and lack of meaningful content for mobiles. Due to the small distance between the eyes of the viewer and the screen, the viewer experiences something called the screen-door effect and many high-fidelity enthusiasts are easily disappointed by VR. It s a loop, people aren t willing to switch to VR due to lack of content and technology, and the companies aren t investing due to lack of player base. The hype-rich start has propelled the industry better than ever, but ultimately only time will dictate if VR would really achieve mass adoption. Or as it was before, we ll face another VR ice age.

82 80 CHAPTER #08 THE NEXT GENERATION The PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo consoles have really taken a huge leap in the last generation. Here s what s coming up in the next generation. Consoles redefine the way we play games. Moreover, it will help you to experience powerful gaming possibilities in an interactive manner with effective communication between your handheld device and the equipment you are working with. As soon as a new version of the product (be it Xbox, PlayStation or Nintendo) is released, there will no shortage of rumors about their

83 The next generation 81 successors. We expect the launch of several new consoles with advanced features such as VR support in In this chapter, we will shed more light about these upcoming consoles which will most likely release in Q or Q Project Scorpio The Project Scorpio is the name given to the next generation Xbox, which is expected to launch during the upcoming holiday season in The Xbox Project Scorpio console was announced at the E3 conference in The forthcoming Xbox Scorpio will be the most powerful console ever built by the Redmond-based software giant with advanced features. Xbox Project Scorpio will provide support for 4K and Virtual Reality capabilities. It will completely change the gaming experience by integrating premium Virtual Reality alongside 4K and HDR gaming support. According to rumors, Project Scorpio will be five times more powerful than the Xbox One with six teraflops of awesome graphics performance. According to Microsoft, the forthcoming Xbox Scorpio console will provide the required capability to render visuals at 60 Hz. However, there are serious doubts among the gamers regarding whether the 4K games and VR will provide support for 60 Hz. The highlight of Xbox Scorpio console is that it will be the equipped with AMD s high-performance GPU, which will most likely provide support for emerging technologies such as HDR, 4K and super-fast VR experience. Announcing the arrival of Project Scorpio during E3 conference in 2016

84 82 The next generation Technically, Xbox Scorpio will be part of Xbox One series and will offer all the advanced features of a premium console for an impressive Xbox gaming experience. Moreover, Project Scorpio is touted to be the last console from the software giant. The main reason is attributed to the fact that the company is planning to attempt a different approach as far as console gaming is concerned from Expected to ship with an AMD Ryzen 8 core processor and Vega based graphics, the Xbox Scorpio will be integrated with 12 GB GDDR5 RAM with a maximum transfer capability of up to 320 GB/sec. That said, the upcoming Scorpio will be compatible with Xbox One controllers, Kinect including the currently available games and digital Xbox One media content. According to Dave McCarthy, General Xbox Project Scorpio tipped to be extremely powerful than the previous counterparts Manager, Xbox Services, Microsoft is gearing up to establish partnerships with retailers to launch trade-in programs. The Xbox Scorpio will work faster than the PlayStation 4 Pro and will cost higher than Xbox One S. Hence, you can expect the price for the default version of Scorpio to be around $435. You can view the official Project Scorpio introductory video by navigating to: It has been almost confirmed that Scorpio will provide support for premium VR features. This means you require a VR headset to experience the breath-taking visuals. However, Microsoft hasn t yet developed their own VR headset. The much-hyped Microsoft HoloLens is mainly used for augmented reality purposes and not for VR. Moreover, the HoloLens is expensive and not widely available to the general public. Microsoft can develop a budget friendly VR headset but the chances are slim. Hence, the new console will make use of VR headsets such as the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. The price factor is very important since customers are always on the lookout for cheap headsets. The main reason is that the Scorpio console might not ship with VR headset. Hence, customers need

85 The next generation 83 to invest additional up to $800, which is very expensive. There should be an effort to manufacture Scorpio in such a way that all the existing VR headsets will be able to make use of the console. Xbox Scorpio console will launch at the end of However, be prepared to throw in plenty of money since the console will be expensive. We can t predict the cost now but it will be more than the currently available Xbox One console. However, few tech portals have reported that the upcoming Scorpio will be available from $399 onwards with few unknown sources stating that the cost will go up to $ Nintendo Switch Nintendo Switch is a gaming console comprising of a tablet type device and a docking station. Expected to launch on March 3, 2017 in 32 countries based in Europe, the Nintendo Switch features a 6.2 inch HD display. Moreover, the Joy-Con controllers paired with clip-on technique can also be used separately similar to that of the mini gamepads. Nintendo Switch enables you to quickly transform the home console into a portable system. You can easily dock your Nintendo Switch to play games in HD mode. If you are on the go, you can make use of the handheld mode. It is also possible to make use of two Joy-Con controllers to play face to face with each other. However, you can view the content on the big Nintendo Switch enables you to experience a new world of gaming with immense possibilities

86 84 The next generation screen TV with increased graphical resolution if you slide the display into a dock. It is also possible to clip the Joy-Cons in such a way that it looks like a normal style game controller. On the specifications front, the Nintendo Switch features a 6.2 inch HD screen capable of providing Wii U GamePad-style experience, Nvidia Tegra X1 processor paired with a 32 GB expandable internal storage. The console offers 256-core NVIDIA Maxwell graphics processing capability coupled with 4K Ultra HD video playback. The Switch console will ship with an HDMI port but you will only be able to play 4K video at 30 fps. Enjoy advanced handheld gaming on the go with Nintendo Switch Nintendo Switch will be the first gaming console expected to hit the retail shelves in The company has refuted allegations that the Switch will directly compete with the PS4 Pro since the console is mainly oriented for a different market. Meanwhile, gaming titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe will be available for the new Switch console. According to the rumor mills, Nintendo Switch will be compatible with the upcoming refresh of Pokemon Go AR-based game coupled with highend graphics. The Pokemon Go AR-game will launch in 2017 but it will happen only after the official launch of the Switch console. Furthermore, Eurogamer revealed that the Pokemon Go will be a combined version of Sun and Moon. Some of the games rumored to launch in 2017 for Nintendo Switch are The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8 Enhanced Port, Spla-

87 The next generation 85 toon Enhanced Port, New 3d Mario, Skyrim Remastered, NBA2k17, Smash 4 enhanced port, Mario RPG: Invasion of the Rabbids, and Beyond Good and Evil 2. Interestingly, all these game titles were featured in Nintendo Switch reveal trailer. Check out all the latest videos related to Nintendo products and games on the official YouTube channel - You can buy Nintendo Switch in Gray Joy-Con, Neon Blue, and Neon Red Joy-Con color variants at $ In addition to the Nintendo Switch console, you will get the dock, Joy-Con for left and right, Wrist straps, Grip, HDMI cable and Nintendo Switch AC Adapter. We expect the availability of Nintendo Switch in India by the end of Q The Nintendo Switch will cost GBP 280 in the UK and Yen in Japan. Moreover, the games exclusively developed for the console will be available from $40. The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild game will be available at $ You can buy Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for $49.99 and 1-2- Switch for $ The Mario Kart 8 will be available from April 28 onwards, while the other two will be released on March 3. While the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller will cost $69.99, you can buy additional pair of Joy-Con controller for $ You can also buy two sets of Joy-Con Wheel at $ PlayStation 5 Sony will most likely unveil PlayStation 5 in The news was revealed by Macquarie s Damian Thong, who previously predicted the rollout of PS4 The rumored PlayStation 5 expected to bring amazing features to your gaming desk

88 86 The next generation Slim and Pro. According to Takashi Mochizuki, Tokyo-based technology reporter, the PlayStation 5 will hit the retail shelves in the second half of The forthcoming PlayStation 5 will provide full support for Virtual Reality and will be capable of processing advanced tasks quickly to provide an awesome VR experience. Since the PlayStation 4 is equipped with a standard x86 processor, we can expect a desktop grade mainstream processor to be at the heart of the PlayStation 5. Sony will integrate premium hardware to provide high-end gaming experience coupled with support for 4K display and HDR. Going by what we re hearing about the upcoming console, it appears that you ll be able to experience life-like graphics on the PS5. Super NES (SNES) Mini Retro console Nintendo is reportedly working on to launch Super NES Mini Retro console in Dubbed as SNES, a trademark filing recently surfaced on Twitter had revealed the image of the new Super Famicom controller. This has led to widespread speculation about the imminent arrival of a super NES Mini console. Based on various reports, the Mini console will be unveiled during Super Mario World in It remains to be seen as to whether the 30 games included with the Mini NES will be made available with the SNES console. That said, the SNES Mini console which is likely to be called as Super Nintendo Classic Edition, will have better processor and graphics over the previous generation Mini NEC classic. It will offer enhanced Image of controller expected to ship with Super NES Mini console leaked via Twitter graphics performance since the upcoming Mini SNES will be based on 16-bit platform. If the rumors are to be believed, Nintendo SNES Mini edition will make use of the same circuit board, new emulator software including the ability to preload several games on the memory module. There will be changes to the controller as revealed in the trademark filing. However, a mere leak of an image is not final since all electronics manufacturers file trademark applications before official launch and then bring minor changes later. We can expect something big in 2017 since the year marks the 25 th anniversary of the SNES release.

89 The next generation 87 You can expect Super NES Mini console to look like as shown here with the controller Conclusion The gaming console industry is currently dominated by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. However, companies like Sega, Atari and Hyperkin have developed their own gaming consoles at budget price. For instance, you can buy Sega Genesis console for $52.99 and Atari Flashback 7 for $ Xiaomi also made an attempt to launch consoles in Going forward, we can expect new versions based on the latest technological trends and innovations from third-party companies.

90 88 CHAPTER #09 THE BIG DEBATE: PC V/S CONSOLES So, is the sleek looking console all that you need for gaming or is there more to the PC than meets the eye? Many questions have been posed by serious-minded individuals down history on the theme of life - from To be or not to be? to Is there life on other planets? One probably wouldn t say that the question, Is PC gaming or console better? ranks among questions of such gravity. Not

91 The Big Debate: PC v/s Consoles 89 unless you are an avid gamer or someone who intends to become one. Since you are already reading this, we assume that you belong to either of those categories. So, to answer the all-consuming question, we say that it s the PC which is better than the console for gaming. Of course, having the latest Xbox tucked away in the corner of your room may be a neat way to impress your visitors but there are good reasons why you should prefer the PC. So, without further ado, gaze upon the reasons! Better upgrade path Gaming consoles these days make use of faux-pc upgrade strategy. It s expected that consoles would soon become modular platforms which includes multiple tiers of hardware along with ever more powerful units coming out every three or four years. And all the big companies including Sony and Microsoft are in the fray. The catch is that consoles are not all that great at upgrades. In fact, it s no exaggeration to say that upgrade is not possible at all with consoles. It s evident by the fact that you don t upgrade PlayStation 4, you just try to sell it when the next version hit the market. The PC is more expensive up front, no doubt about it. However, the upgrade path in the later periods is assuredly easier. If you are budget conscious, then you could probably use the same processor for about six years at least. Not just that, the same graphics card could be used to four or five years. Also, there is a whole array of stuff including the RAM, Cabinet, Easier upgrades on PC

92 90 The Big Debate: PC v/s Consoles Power supply and hard drives which are rather cheap and which you can build upon and replace only if absolutely needed. It s also easy to adopt a budget build with upgrades as and when needed which would last you for a long time. Console exclusives? That s practically a myth There are quite a few popular titles that are issued as Console Exclusive. This trend is seen in both Xbox and PlayStation the leaders in the market. The familiar titles include Rise of the Tomb Raider, Street Fighter 5, SOMA and Tekken 7. But the fact is that both Sony and Microsoft apparently consider the personal computer neutral territory, which is why these titles are available on PC as well. Sony is a little more conservative in that sense, for they keep their first person titles for themselves. However, there are good reasons to believe that even that scenario is changing. A good example is Sony s launch of PlayStation Now, the game streaming service that s available on the PC. Microsoft is involved deep both in the Xbox and Windows 10, the result of which was making the Xbox Play Anywhere program. Almost all Xbox Exclusive titles Console exclusive not all that exclusive! come to the Windows 10 platform as well. What all of this boils down to is that buying a PC doesn t necessarily mean missing the console games. Except for a few titles from Sony, everything else comes over to the PC. In fact, most titles with rare exceptions like Arkham Knight come in better condition than their console versions. PC exclusives Notwithstanding the frequent arguments from nerds that the PC doesn t have any exclusives, the truth is that there are many PC exclusive games available today. In fact, chances are there are more PC-only games available these days than console-only games. A good case in point are the titles in the strategy genre. Aside from a few exceptions like Halo Wars and a few other less-successful titles, real-time

93 The Big Debate: PC v/s Consoles 91 Tons of exclusives on PC as well as turn-based strategy games are usually found on the PC and you can bet that there are a whole load of them. And it s not all strategy games either. Literally, hundreds of games in different genres come out for the PC alone every year and never make a show on the consoles. A few examples are Unreal Tournament, Quake Champions (shooters), Tyranny and Mount & Blade 3 (RPGs). Backwards compatibility This is perhaps the most significant advantage of PC over consoles from a consumer s point of you: once you buy a PC game, you practically own it forever. At this point, PC s gaming pedigree is about forty years long. And most of the titles that came out in these decades are easily accessible. From tech adventures (the Interactive Fiction Database) to DOS games (DOSBox) to even more dense environments from the last fifteen to twenty years (GOG.com), you have avenues online where you can access them. And if a game is popular Play the new games in the old unit

94 92 The Big Debate: PC v/s Consoles enough and the developers are kind to release modding tools then there would be dozens of mods that can enhance your gaming experience. Also, services like Steam have added to their list some of the classic Sierra games including Phantasmagoria and Gabriel Knight. The better economics of being a PC gamer Even if you are not a huge fan of playing old titles, it still makes sense to be a PC gamer. For, with newer titles as well, it s cheaper to be a PC gamer. Many service providers run regular sales for the PC gamer from Amazon to GOG.com to Green Man Gaming and Humble. With such services, it s quite easy to acquire a big list of titles for cheaper rates which would more than justify the hardware cost. The PC gamer stands to save some money With PC games, the rates fall fast and the regular sales make it even more economical, whereas with a console, the launch price sticks like a malignant parasite for years. Unless, you opt for used games. Also, there is the matter of free-to-play. Some of the most popular titles around including Path of Exile, League of Legends, and Team Fortress 2 are free. In other words, literally thousands of hours can be spent gaming on PC without having to spend any money. Flexible control The fact that the PC comes equipped with such things as the keyboard and the mouse means that you can have a better hold on controls in gaming rather

95 The Big Debate: PC v/s Consoles 93 Better controls on PC easily. The controls with the PC are not just more precise and responsive compared to a controller, they are also way more approachable for the new gamer. Yes, there s the fact that many console games are available on PCs these days, making it somewhat desirable to play them using the original control scheme. Titles like Assassin s Creed and Dark Souls are cases in point. There s no doubt that these games are played better on a gamepad. However, it s rather easy to connect a DualShock 4 or an Xbox One controller to your PC whether wired or via Bluetooth. Also, to make things even simpler, most of the games support controllers on the PC and this is particularly true with huge multi-platform releases. The other reasons why you need a PC Straying away from a strictly gaming context, there are probably other good reasons you may find for a desktop. Sure, laptops may be suited for day-to-day commuting or maybe you are someone who could get all the work done using a tablet. However, there are many people who find the desktop computer rather useful. For instance, those who do image based or film/ audio works. Then, there are those who work on their own games, as well as those whose job demands long hours of typing something which a comfortable chair in front of a good monitor would make a whole lot better. And of course, there are the old fashioned ones who like a meaty keyboard and a pretty big screen to go with it or is it the other way around?

96 94 The Big Debate: PC v/s Consoles Plenty of reasons for a PC This means that by investing in a PC, you can actually get your work, and your gaming done on the same machine, whereas a console is just a single-use machine. And if you re thinking of ways to get HBO Go and Netflix, consoles aren t the only game in town. Not when you can easily get them even on your television. It s not that PC gaming is devoid of any issues. Many a streaming service still come across as rather convoluted to the layman. And you would probably need to spend a decent amount of time googling for solutions or sifting through Steam forums if a game breaks. Also, things like updating the graphics driver could be a hassle. You know who we re talking about. But the advantages that PC gaming brings far outweigh the disadvantages. For one, it s way more accessible than it s used to be and to solve any doubts that you may encounter, the resources available on the Internet are practically infinite. Driver updates could be done with just the push of a button and it takes way lesser time than a firmware update on a console. And the PC gaming is getting better by the day. In other words, this seems like a great time to plug in and start playing on the good ol PC!

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