Game platforms P1, M1, D1

Introduction

Over the years gaming platforms have changed. There has been mixed opinion on what the best platforms are. There are many different platforms such as standalone platforms, personal computers and hand held consoles. There are many different games that have been designed for these platforms and people’s opinions may change depending on the games that have been made for them or on the features each platform has. The first console I ever had was a PlayStation. this console allowed you to connect 2 controllers at one time and had lots of popular games such as spyro and rayman  

Arcade

Arcade games were one of the first ways for people to play games. It made a lot of money in the late 1970’s. This is because you had to pay money every time you wanted to play a game. In those days most people could not afford to buy their own consoles so they had to go to arcades instead. This is the reason arcade games generated a lot of money compared to consoles. 

The arcade video game revenues were at their highest in 1978 with a price of $8 billion this was known as the golden age of arcade video games. In 1981 the revenues went down to $7 billion then in 1982 it went down to $5 billion. At the lowest point of the arcade golden age the revenue went down to $4 billion. In 1988 the arcade video game revenues went up. This was because of violent fighting games such as street fighter becoming popular. This trend of violent fighting games made the revenues increase up to about $8 billion again.

In the golden age of video games most of the revenues generated from arcade games came from competitive gamers. This is because they are trying to get the highest score. I think it was this score system that really made the arcade industry’s revenue increase. This is one of the reasons most gamers where addicted to arcade machines because they wanted to beat their friends high scores. Arcade machines are usually coin operated. This means the player must pay a certain amount of money each time before they can play the game. This was good for the arcades as people had to pay each time they wanted to play a game. This generated a large sum of money for the arcade industry and was the main reason it boomed in the 1970’s

Graphics

Arcade machines use a mixture of vector based graphics and raster graphics. Games such as star wars and armor attack made with Vector graphics which are more detailed then raster graphics, but most games made using vector are displayed in monochrome. Games such as Pac man and space invaders made using vector graphics are less detailed but can display multiple colours.

the outside of an arcade machine is known as a bezel. bezels are used to attract the attention of the player and encourage them to play on that machine. these bezels give a good firs impression as they give the player a basic idea on what the game is about and also makes the arcade machine look more appealing to players.

another way arcade machines have been made to attract players is with attract mode. this is similar to a screen saver on a computer as it is activated after the machine has not been used for a certain amount of time. the attract mode usually displays a video or a picture that gives the player an idea of what the game is about.  

Advantages

·        Cheaper than buying a console

·        A good way to play the latest popular games

·        In the late 1970’s they had very advanced graphics compared to other platforms

·        They helped advance hardware

·        Generated a large amount of money for the economy

Disadvantages

·        They are very addictive

·        You have to pay multiple times to play

·        They are no longer as popular

·        You can’t play it in your own home

·        Have to wait in line before you can play

Pc emulation

What is an emulator? An emulator is a bit of hardware or software that recreates the hardware of another platform and allows people to access games from these platforms on their personal computers. In 1997 an emulator was created called Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, also known as MAME. This was designed to let people play arcade games on their personal computers and other platforms. MAME was started by an Italian programmer called Nicola Salmoria.

Future of arcade machines

i believe that in the future arcade machines will become more popular. although the technology used on arcade machines is not as advanced as the other platforms, they are still fun and give the player an experience that they can not get from these other platforms. below is a video about some technology that is being developed to work on arcade machines. although this technology has been used before, it has never been used for arcade games and 'TechRadar' the creators of the video believe that it will be the future of gaming.  

Pc

Recently the pc has become very popular especially for gamers even though they were not originally designed for gaming .They were designed to carry out certain tasks and where used for writing documents. The reason I think it has become popular for gamers is because it gives more freedom to the user because you can change the hardware. PC’s also allow the user to connect to other networks. This allows them to play games with other people over the internet. This has made computers increase in popularity as gamers can play games with their friends in their own home rather than going to their friend’s house to play games. This makes it a lot easier and a lot quicker to play games with other people. It is so popular for people to play online rather than playing on the same console that some games only allow players to play multiplayer over the internet. You can also play offline without an internet connection. This is good for people who don't want to play online. This is not as popular as multiplayer as it is less of a challenge playing against AI but some users prefer to play offline in games that have a very competitive community it is sometimes better to play against AI before playing against real players.

Advantages

·        Can easily be upgraded

·        More powerful than other platforms

·        Big community of players

·        It can be used for multiple purposes

·        Improves hand eye coordination

Disadvantages

·        Expensive

·        Damages the eyes

·        Requires a lot of maintenance

Television

TVs have never been a popular platform for gaming. this is because there aren't many developers who make games for them. now that smart TVs have been introduced more and more people have been playing games on there TV's. smart TVs have had many improvements that enhance the gaming experience. for example you can now connect to the internet and play flash games, they even allow you to connect input devices such as a mouse and keyboard. another improvement they have made is the smart TV alliance. this was made to make it easier for developers to make apps. on older TVs developers would have to submit their apps to each tv manufacturer so they could be approve. the TV alliance helps developers as they only have no longer have to get approval from every TV manufacturer. instead they need to get approval from the TV alliance. this makes the process a lot quicker and also grantees the app will work on every smart tv which is compatible with the TV alliance.

The history of Consoles

First generation

After arcade games boomed in the 1970’s, console games became more popular. The firs console that was built and released to the public was the Magnavox Odyssey, which was released in 1972. This new console let gamers play their favorite games in their own home. This console could connect to the gamers TV. At firs the Odyssey was not very popular. But when the game pong was released the console became popular. After pong had become popular, they cancelled the odyssey and released a new console dedicated to playing pong and hockey. This was called the Odyssey 100. Then another console was released called the odyssey 200. This added on screen scoring and allowed up to four players to play at one time. They also added a new game to play called smash. After this consoles became more popular and developers started releasing consoles that looked different on the outside but played the same games as the other consoles.

Second generation

In 1976 a console called Fairchild video entertainment system (VES) was released this console had a programmable microprocessor which allowed the console to use cartridges with a ROM chip to store microprocessor instructions. This meant that they could store games on cartages rather than storing the games on the console.

The crash

In 1977 the video games industry crashed this was because manufacturers sold their consoles at a loss to clear stocks. This caused RCA and Fairchild to abandon their game consoles. After this only Atari and Magnavox remained even after they made a losses in 1977 1978

In America most small companies went out of business. But in Europe there was a different impact. This was because the price of chips that where in older consoles were being sold for less but European manufacturers released cartridge based game consoles that didn’t contain a CPU, And used the same chips that were used in later pong consoles.

Rebirth of the console market

The VES continued to sell at a profit after the 1977 crash and when Atari released a version of the popular arcade game called space invaders in 1980 the console industry became popular again. This caused more manufacturers to buy the rights to popular arcade games and started a trend in advertisements claiming to bring the arcade experience home

The second video game crash

In 1983 the video game industry crashed again because so many new consoles where being created and there where more low quality video games being created by smaller companies. Games like E.T. were being brought which caused many console users to lose faith in video game consoles

Third generation consoles

In 1983 Nintendo released the family computer. This made in japan. It supported high resolution sprites more colour and tiled backgrounds. This meant games made for the family computer could be longer and have more detailed graphics. Nintendo tried to bring the family computer to the U.S after the industry crashed. Nintendo released this console in America as the Nintendo entertainment system (NES) and they advertised this console as a toy rather than a console.

This console became one of the bestselling consoles in America and games such as Supper Mario Bros were released on the NES and became a global icon. Nintendo restricted third party developers to three NES games and stopped them from developing for other video game consoles. This made helped to keep the NES on the top of the market and stopped smaller companies from developing low quality games like E.T.

Fourth generation

The NEC was the first fourth generation console to market with their new PC engine also known as Turbografx16. Hudson Soft created an advanced graphics chip. He originally gave it to Nintendo but was refused because they were still making profit from the NES. The Turbografx16 used the HUCard format to store game. Because of the small size of these cards, they released it as a hand held console. The NEC was advertised as 16 bit to show it had an advantage over Nintendo’s NES  this became popular for manufacturers who released a fourth generation console. Some people referred to this generation as the 16 bit generation.

Fifth generation

The first fifth generation consoles released were the 3DO and the Atari jaguar. Both these consoles where more powerful than the fourth generation consoles but neither of them became as popular as the NES or the NEC

Atari cancelled their line of home computers after they released the jaguar. The jaguar had three processors and no C libraries. Lots of the first party games that where released for this console, were badly made but games such as Rayman and alien vs predator showed people that the console had potential

The most popular console of this generation was the PlayStation. This was released when Sony realized that 3d games where becoming popular. This console was the first to sell over 100 million. The reason they sold so much was because they expanded the market. This console was built to be a 3D disk based system and advertised its graphics saying they would be the future of gaming.

Sixth generation

In 2000 Sony released the PlayStation 2. This was the follow up to the highly successful PlayStation and was the first console to be able to play DVDs. The PlayStation 2 was the bestselling video game console of all time and sold over 155 million units. In 2004 Sony redesigned the PlayStation 2 so it was smaller.

In 2001 the Nintendo game cube was released and instead of using a normal sized disk it used a smaller disk. But in 2007 the GameCube was taken of the market because of the release of the Nintendo Wii

In 2001 Microsoft released their first game console, the Xbox. This was the first console to use a hard drive inside the console to save games. It also included an Ethernet port for broadband internet. This let gamers play over the internet and started Xbox live. It eventually gained popularity in America this was because of the game halo.

Seventh generation

The first console to be released in the seventh generation was the Xbox 360. This was released in 2005. The Xbox 360 could now play DVDs and support up to 4 player coop with wireless controllers.

The PlayStation 3 was released in 2006. The PlayStation 3’s came with a hard drive and could play blue ray disks. The PlayStation 3 was the first console to support HDMI and had a 1080p resolution. It supported up to 7 controllers at one time.

The Nintendo Wii was released in 2006. It came with a game called Wii sports everywhere except from japan. The Nintendo Wii had a very unique controller. It was similar to a normal TV remote. It used a sensor bar that was placed on the top of the players TV. This was used to sense the position of the remote.

future of consoles 

consoles have always been very popular. they are one of the reasons gaming really became popular and they have improved a lot over the last few years and i feel like consoles will slowly increase in popularity. i believe that consoles will become more like the Oculus rift where the player wears some glasses to make them feel like they are inside the game. i also think that the hardware inside consoles will improve a lot. Ryan Fleming made a report called "THE FUTURE OF GAMING (STILL) BELONGS TO CONSOLES" this report agrees with my opinion and is saying that consoles will be the future of gaming. i do not agree with all of this report as i still believe PC's are a lot better than consoles, but i do believe that they will improve.

Advantages

·        Big community of players

·        Lots of games made exclusively for consoles

·        Supports split screen coop

Disadvantages

·        Expensive

·        Not as powerful as other consoles

·        Cannot be upgraded

·        Can be easily broken

     

Hand held platforms

There are lots of different hand held platforms such as the Nintendo DS the PSP the Gameboy and the Nintendo 3ds. These platforms were designed to be portable and can be easily carried and stored so that they can be used where ever the player wants  hand held platforms are no longer as popular as they used to be. This is because there is not a large amount of developers that make high quality games for these platforms. Hand held platforms like the ds where very popular japan. This was because games such as Mario and Pokémon were released exclusively to this platform. More recently the 3Ds has become popular even though the 3d on the 3Ds was not very popular, games such as Zelda and Pokémon x and y have caused fans of the original games to buy the 3Ds.

Future of handheld platforms

I believe that hand held consoles such as the ps vita and psp are decreasing in popularity. in the future i do not think they will increase in popularity. This is because they are expensive considering the hardware they have used is very limited and not many developers are making games for these platforms. however the new 3ds has been growing in popularity because of popular games like Pokemon and Mario. an article from the metro website, written by Benjamin Abbott "It seems to be a passion of many to burst everyone’s bubble. You know the kind of thing I’m talking about. In gaming, this tends to manifest in the regular announcement that something or other, be it consoles or PC gaming, is facing a sure and certain death.". this article is saying , pc and consoles are slowly decreasing in popularity. i believe that hand held games will increase in popularity. this article shows the way some people feel about the future of hand held gaming and also shows that people believe hand held gaming will be the future of gaming.  

Advantages

·        Can be easily moved

·        Many unique games designed for handheld platforms

·        Not as expensive as other platforms

·        Simple controls

Disadvantages

·        Not a big variety of quality games

·        Very short battery life

·        Can easily be stolen

·        The graphics are not as good as other platforms
      

    comparison 

      many people have been wondering what is the better platform, PC's or consoles. first i will talk about the benefits of having a computer. recently computers have been growing in popularity and more and more manufactures have been producing hardware for computers. one of the benefits of having a computer is it lets you customize the hardware. this is good as it means you can change the hardware to fit the purpose of the computer. this hardware can also be easily changed if it is broken or out of date. you cannot change the hardware inside consoles. this is because they are modular. this means the hardware is soldered onto the motherboard and cannot be replaced. even though you cannot change the hardware in consoles they are still ideal for young gamer's as they are not as complicated as PCs and require much less maintenance. both consoles and PC's have a large community of players. this is because they are both very popular platforms. the large community makes online gaming a lot better as it takes less time to find people who want to play online with you. the price of a good computer is a lot higher than a console. this is because it has better hardware, is more customization and lasts a lot longer without breaking.
   

   bibliography

    http://goo.gl/uDNNjW - Ryan Fleming

    http://goo.gl/XxcNoi -Benjamin Abbott