Shopping for Video Game Systems

The PlayStation 3 (officially abbreviated as PS3) is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment, and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles.

A major feature that distinguishes the PlayStation 3 from its predecessors is its unified online gaming service, the PlayStation Network, which contrasts with Sony's former policy of relying on video game developers for online play. Other major features of the console include its robust multimedia capabilities, connectivity with the PlayStation Portable, and its use of a high-definition optical disc format, Blu-ray Disc, as its primary storage medium. The PS3 was also the first Blu-ray 2.0-compliant Blu-ray player on the market.

The PlayStation 3 was first released on November 11, 2006 in Japan, November 17, 2006 in North America and South America, and March 23, 2007 in Europe and Oceania. Two SKUs were available at launch: a basic model with a 20 GB hard drive (HDD), and a premium model with a 60 GB hard drive and several additional features (the 20 GB model was not released in Europe or Oceania). Since then, several revisions have been made to the console's available models, most notably with the release of a new slim model in September 2009.

The is a home video game console released by Nintendo. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others. As of , the Wii leads the generation over the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in worldwide sales.

A distinguishing feature of the console is its wireless controller, the Wii Remote, which can be used as a handheld pointing device and detects movement in three dimensions. Another distinctive feature of the console is WiiConnect24, which enables it to receive messages and updates over the Internet while in standby mode.Nintendo Corporation - Nintendo President, Satoru Iwata, media briefing speech at E3 2006

The Wii is Nintendo's fifth home console, the direct successor to the Nintendo GameCube, and able to play all official GameCube games. Nintendo first spoke of the console at the 2004 E3 press conference and later unveiled the system at the 2005 E3. Satoru Iwata revealed a prototype of the controller at the September 2005 Tokyo Game Show. At E3 2006, the console won the first of several awards. By December 8, 2006, it had completed its launch in four key markets.

The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft, and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles.

Some major features of the Xbox 360 are its integrated Xbox Live service that allows players to compete online, download arcade games, game demos, trailers, TV shows and movies and its Windows Media Center multimedia capabilities. The Xbox 360 also offers region specific access to third-party media streaming services such as Netfilx in the USA or Sky TV and BT Vision in the UK.

The Xbox 360 was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detailed launch and game information divulged later that month at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). The console sold out completely upon release in all regions except in Japan, and, as of October 2009, nearly 34 million units have been sold worldwide. The Xbox 360 is currently available in two configurations?the "Arcade" and the "Elite"?and each has its own selection of accessories.

Category: File - :Nintendo Gamecube Silver.JPG|250px|thumb|Platinum GameCube with controller

The , officially abbreviated as GCN and unofficially as NGC, is Nintendo's fourth home video game console and is part of the sixth generation console era. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 and predecessor to the Nintendo Wii.

The Nintendo GameCube is the first Nintendo console to use optical discs as its primary storage medium, after several aborted projects from Nintendo and its partners to utilize optical-based storage media. In contrast with the GameCube's contemporary competitors, the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, the GameCube uses miniDVD-based discs instead of full-size DVDs. Partially as a result of this, it does not have the DVD-Video playback functionality of these systems, nor the audio CD playback ability of other consoles that use full-size optical discs.

In addition, the GameCube also introduced a variety of connectivity options to Nintendo consoles, and was the third Nintendo console, after the Nintendo 64DD, to support online play officially, via the Nintendo GameCube Broadband Adapter and Modem Adapter. It also enabled connectivity to the Game Boy Advance to access exclusive features of certain games or to use the portable system as a controller for the Game Boy Player.

The console was released on September 14, 2001 in Japan, November 18, 2001 in North America, May 3, 2002 in Europe, and May 17, 2002 in Australia. The GameCube sold 21.74 million units worldwide. Nintendo discontinued the console in mid-2007. Madden NFL 08 is believed to be the final GameCube game to be released in North America.

The Xbox (name derived from "DirectX box"The meaning of Xbox; Microsoft.(Xbox 360) | Economist (US), The) is a video game console produced by Microsoft. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market, and competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast, and Nintendo's GameCube. The integrated Xbox Live service allows players to compete online.

The Xbox was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe. It is the predecessor to Microsoft's Xbox 360 console. It was discontinued in late 2006, although the final Xbox game (Madden NFL 09) was released in August 2008. Support for out-of-warranty Xbox consoles was discontinued on March 2, 2009; any in-warranty repair now needed will not be undertaken and faulty consoles will replaced with an Xbox 360 instead.

The PlayStation 2 (often shortened to PS2) is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony. The successor to the PlayStation, and the predecessor to the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation 2 forms part of the PlayStation series of video game consoles. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was released a year later in Japan. Its primary competitors were Sega's Dreamcast, Microsoft's Xbox, and the Nintendo GameCube.

The PS2 is the best-selling console to date, having reached over 138 million units sold as of August 18, 2009 and a software library projected to exceed about 1,900 games in 2009. Several new games are scheduled to be released in 2010, thus continuing the sixth generationhttp://www.gamestracker.com/ps2-release-dates.htm. It also holds the record for "First Console in a Nuclear Weapons conspiracy"

The Dreamcast (Japanese: ???????? Dor?mukyasutoCategory: Help - :Installing Japanese character sets|?) was the last video game console made by Sega, and is the successor to the Sega Saturn. The Dreamcast is part of the sixth generation of video game consoles and was released in late 1998, before its contemporaries - the PlayStation 2, the Nintendo GameCube and the Xbox.

Sega discontinued the Dreamcast in North America in November 2001 and withdrew entirely from the console hardware business. However, support of the system continued in Europe and Oceania until 2002, as well as in Japan, where consoles were still sold until 2006 and new licensed games continued to be released.

According to Bernie Stolar, former President and CEO of Sega of America, the Dreamcast was canceled because the new chairman of Sega wanted the company to focus on software.http://bitmob.com/index.php/mobfeed/qaa-former-sega-president-on-dreamcasts-failure-pranks-against-sony-his-ouster.html

Despite its short lifespan, the Dreamcast was widely hailed as ahead of its time, and is still held in high regard for pioneering online console gaming?it was the first console to include a built-in modem and Internet support for online play. As of 2009, the console is still supported through various homebrew video game releases.

The , often abbreviated as N64, is Nintendo's third home video game console for the international market. Named for its 64-bit CPU, it was released on June 23, 1996 in Japan, September 29, 1996 in North America, March 1, 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1, 1997 in France and December 10, 1997 in Brazil. It is Nintendo's last home console to use Game Paks to store games (Nintendo switched to a MiniDVD-based format for the Nintendo GameCube, then to standard DVD-sized discs for the Wii); handhelds in the Game Boy line, however, continued to use the Game Pak. It was discontinued in 2001 in Japan and in 2002 for North America and the PAL regions, by the launch of the GameCube.

The N64 was released with two launch games, Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64, and a third in Japan, Saiky? Habu Sh?gi. The N64's suggested retail price was US$199 at its launch and it was later marketed with the slogan "Get N, or get Out!". The N64 sold 32.93 million units worldwide. The Nintendo 64 was released in at least eight variants with different colors and sizes. An assortment of limited edition controllers were sold or used as contest prizes during the N64's lifespan.

Of the consoles in the fifth generation, the Nintendo 64 was the latest contender and the most technologically-advanced; however N64's storage medium had limitations which harmed the console's market competitiveness. A significant limitation was the small capacity and high production expense of cartridge-based media instead of the Compact Disc format used by competitors. The limited capacity forced game designers to struggle with fitting game content into a constrained space, though the faster access time of the cartridge medium offered some advantages over Compact Disc media. Other technical drawbacks included limited texture cache, which could only hold textures of small dimensions and reduced color depth, which had to be stretched to cover larger in-game surfaces.

A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or modified computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device (a television, monitor, etc.) to display a video game. The term "video game console" is used to distinguish a machine designed for consumers to buy and use solely for playing video games from a personal computer, which has many other functions, or arcade machines, which are designed for businesses that buy them and then charge others to play.