Video Games Consoles
It took only five years between the invention of the microprocessor, and its presence in homes around the world as the basis of the video game console. Even with dozens of choices for personal computers with more processing and graphics capabilities, game consoles are still a popular choice: they are smaller, less expensive and easier to set up than a computer, and the games they run are easier to install and play.
Making the Connections
A video game console typically needs only one peripheral device: a video monitor with one or two internal speakers, to see and hear the game. Most modern game consoles can accommodate three different ways of connecting a monitor:
Composite Video – the same sort of video connection found in a video recorder.
S-Video – "Separated Video" uses two wires in a shielded cable to deliver video content: one for the colour signal ("chrominance"), and one for the brightness signal ("luminance"). S-Video has the same picture detail as composite video, but with better colour quality.
Component Video – Three shielded cables send separate analogue signals to the monitor, where they are decoded and displayed. Component video has better picture detail and colour quality than either composite or S-Video, and can drive widescreen, high-definition monitors.
Audio is typically connected with two cables, just like those from a tape deck to a home stereo system.
Connecting the Players
The "human interface" on any game console is its game controller. A modern game controller will usually have two thumb-operated stick controllers, and from eight to twelve game buttons. As a game program is loaded into a console, the sticks and buttons assume various functions: moving a character, looking around, picking up and manipulating objects within the game.
Part of the skill a player develops in playing a console game, is learning how to use the controller's sticks and buttons quickly. Steering vehicles, selecting and firing weapons or interacting with game characters are all handled through the controllers.
On-Line Gaming
Two of the major game-console manufacturers, Microsoft and Sony, have set up resources on the Internet, from which console game players can join massive multi-player environments. Instead of playing games alone, or with two or four players, large numbers of players can team up, or compete with one another, within a common game "environment".
Some game programs are written especially for online use, with "environments" so large that hundreds of players can participate in the same game, at the same time. In other on-line games, a "session" is set up, and joined by a small group of players. Each group of players can interact with one another within their "session", while the central "game server" system manages hundreds of "sessions" at a time.
Just as there is a choice between a personal computer and a game console, there is also a choice between a hand-held computer and a portable game device. While a hand-held computer can run a variety of programs, including games, their user controls do not lend themselves well to the type of "human interface" to which game-console users are accustomed.
Two game-console manufacturers, Nintendo and Sony, produce hand-held game devices with built-in screens, and controller buttons almost identical to their desktop-console counterparts.
Since hand-held game devices are meant to be held and played in two hands, they typically have an array of game buttons on both sides of a central display screen. A read-only memory cartridge slot, or a small removable disc drive, loads the game program, while a small bank of "non-volatile memory" stores player scores, game settings and other related data.
Borrowing from their hand-held-computer "siblings", modern portable game devices are often equipped with wireless network adapters. They can let the player browse Web sites (within the scope of their display size) when the user is within range of a wireless host network. In addition, players with the same hand-held game device can link them wirelessly, allowing cooperative or competitive play of the same game.
Dual Screen or Wide Screen
Nintendo and Sony followed different strategies in designing the displays on their portable game devices. In the Nintendo DS and DSi, two screens (around the size of a cellular telephone's display) work together. The upper screen displays the actual game action, while the lower screen accepts user input through a touch-sensitive surface and a stylus. Other game information, such as score and progress, is also sent to the lower screen, leaving more of the upper screen free to show real-time game graphics.
The Sony Playstation Portable (PSP) has only one screen, but it is larger than on the Nintendo device, and it has a "9×16" wide screen format. Commercial movies and game programs have a more realistic appearance on the larger display, and more Website content can be seen without "scrolling".