Home video games consoles have been around since Magnavox first released the Odyssey console in 1972. Since that time, the video game console has overcome its share of adversity, surviving two periods of uncertainty and market crashes in 1977 and 1983, which cast doubts over the future of the industry.
In recent years however, the video games console industry has gone from strength to strength, and the competition between developers is fierce. New technologies have driven games consoles away from the game cartridge format, as used by such consoles as the Nintendo SNES and Sega Megadrive towards a compact-disc format as used by today’s generation of consoles – a technology pioneered by Sega’s Saturn system. However, it was the launch of Sony’s Playstation console in Japan in 1994, and Europe a year later which really made home video gaming popular.
Since then, there have been three major developers in the games console market. Nintendo are perhaps the most well-known of the three, having been designing and developing games consoles since the 1980s. From their SNES and N64 systems through to the Gamecube and today’s Wii console, Nintendo have earned a hardcore following among video gamers and are perhaps the dominant entity in the handheld console market since the launch of their Gameboy system and more recently the Nintendo DS.
