In today’s “Mein-MMO asks” it’s all about consoles. Whether it’s PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo – which gaming console did you have your first experiences with? And which ones are lying around at your home?
30 Years of Console Evolution – Since When Have You Been There?
What could be better than slipping into joggers after a hard day’s work, flopping down on the couch, and firing up your trusty gaming console? When your console greets you with the familiar sound and begins to purr softly, you know: Now the good time of the day can begin.
For many people, this form of evening entertainment has long become normal. But it hasn’t been that long since home consoles conquered the living rooms. Sony’s PlayStation has been around for over 20 years. Microsoft entered the game with the Xbox in 2002. Only Nintendo has been releasing consoles for more than 30 years.
Sure – the very young gamers among you, who only know 3D games and flat screens, might say: “That’s all ancient history!” – and perhaps you are right. But you missed some exciting consoles with really good games! When complete games were still complete games and not buggy products that only run smoothly after months and countless updates! But I see I’m digressing.
All the seasoned controller acrobats among you will surely remember all generations of the “three big players in the console market”, but our youngest readers might not recognize terms like “NES” or “SNES” anymore.
Before the upcoming game consoles “Xbox Scorpio”, “PS4 Neo” and “Nintendo NX” are set to release in 2017, we want to take a look back at the past and see how these systems have developed over the years. For this, the colleagues at GAMEZ created a cool graphic that presents the console family tree and important innovations:
It all started with Nintendo’s “Nintendo Entertainment System”, briefly: “NES”. Years later came the “SNES”, which is known as the “Super Nintendo”. Nintendo’s third video game console was the Nintendo 64, which featured then-revolutionary 64-bit technology. In the new millennium, the GameCube, Wii, and later the Wii U followed.
The PlayStation was released in Europe in 1995 and had a spectacular start. In the realm of home consoles, it dethroned the former market leader Nintendo. The subsequent consoles PS2, PS3, and PS4 also had and continue to have a huge fanbase. Nostalgia is guaranteed in the following video:
Microsoft’s Xbox has a shorter history. The journey began here in 2002. Just three years later, it was succeeded by the Xbox 360. The third console is the Xbox One. The “One” was chosen as a designation because it represents an “all-in-one” console that connects various forms of entertainment.
The technological progress is accompanied by all console generations. The processor power, storage space, disks, the controllers – the entire technology evolved. In the embedded graphic above, you can see the specific specifications of the main consoles. Some consoles also had offshoots in the form of Slim versions, which were usually smaller, more energy-efficient, and offered more storage space.
But now let’s return to the question posed at the beginning. Which console did you start with? What consoles have you had at home?
Ttime says: As a child of the 90s, I wasn’t there from the start when home consoles hit the market. I only know the NES – and even more so the Atari systems – by hearsay. My first gaming console was the PlayStation, the very first one, not the “PSone”. After that, I got the Nintendo 64 for Christmas, as one had to play Pokémon Stadium. However, I didn’t have that many games for the “64er”. At some point later, we also got the SNES at home, on which I eagerly played several Mario games back and forth.
A rather unusual order in which I got the consoles, but that’s just how it was. All the systems are still lying around at home somewhere, and I think they even still work.
Currently, the PlayStation 4 adorns my living room, where I enjoy playing MMO shooters, FIFA, or whatever comes to hand with a few friends online.
But enough about me. What about you? What consoles have you had? Or do you completely avoid them and only game on PC?
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