A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television, and an external power source as to play video games. While initial consoles were dedicated units with only a few games fixed into the electronic circuits of the system, most consoles since support the use of swappable game media, either through game cartridges, optical discs, or through digital distribution to internal storage.
There have been numerous home video game consoles since the first commercial unit, the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. Historically these consoles have been grouped into generations lasting each about six years based on common technical specifications. As of, there have been nine console generations, with the current leading manufacturers being Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, colloquially known as the "Big 3." Past console manufacturers have included Atari, Fairchild, Mattel, Coleco, Sega, NEC, 3DO, Fujitsu and SNK.
See main article: Video game console. A home video game console is a predesigned piece of electronic hardware that is meant to be placed at a fixed location at one's home, connected to a display like a television screen or computer monitor, and to an external power source, to play video games on using one or more video game controllers. This differs from a handheld game console which will have a built-in screen, controller buttons/features, and a power supply like a battery or battery pack.
Earlier home consoles were typically built from a selection of standard and highly customized integrated computer chips, packaged onto circuit boards and cases. Over time, home console design has converged to a degree with personal computers, using similar component and system design, including standardization with main computer chip architecture. Consoles remain as fixed systems, lacking the customization options that personal computer components have, and most consoles include customized components to maximize space and reduce power consumption to provide the best performance for game playing, while lowering costs with reduced storage and memory configurations.[1]
Home video game consoles typically can play a multitude of games, offered either as game cartridges (or ROM cartridges), on optical media like CD-ROM or DVD, or obtained by digital distribution. Early consoles, also considered dedicated consoles, had games that were fixed in the electronic circuitry of the hardware. Some facets may be controlled by switching external controls on the console but the games could not be changed themselves.
Most home consoles require a separate game controller, and may support multiple controllers for multiplayer games. Some console games can only be played with special, unconventional game controllers, such as light guns for rail shooters and guitar controllers for music games. Some consoles also possess the ability to connect and interface with a particular handheld game system, which certain games can leverage to provide alternate control schemes, second screen gameplay elements, exclusive unlockable content or the ability to transfer certain game data.
See main article: History of video game consoles and Home video game console generations. The first commercial video game console was the Magnavox Odyssey, developed by a team led by Ralph H. Baer and released commercially in 1972. It was shortly followed by the release of the home version of Pong by Atari Inc. in 1975 based on the arcade game. A number of clones of both systems rushed to fill the nascent home console market and the video game industry suffered a small recession in 1977 due to this.
The Fairchild Channel F, released in 1976, was the first console to use game cartridges, which was then used by the Atari VCS and several other consoles of the second generation and led to a second boom in the video game industry in the United States and around the globe. During this time, Atari Inc. had been sold to Warner Communications, and several programmers left the company and founded Activision, becoming the first third-party developer. Activision's success led to a rush of new developers creating games without any publishing controls for these systems. The market became flooded with games, and combined with the rising popularity of the personal computer and the economic recession of the early 1980s, led to the video game crash of 1983 in the U.S. market. Nintendo, which had released its Family Computer console in Japan that year, took several cautionary steps to limit game production to only licensed games, and was able to introduce it, rebranded as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985 into the U.S. market. The NES helped to revive the console market and gave Nintendo dominance during the late 1980s.
Sega took advantage of the newfound U.S. growth to market its Sega Genesis against the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in the early 1990s in the so-called "console wars" and emphasized the notion of "bits" as a major selling point for consumers. The consumer adoption of optical discs with larger storage capacity in the mid-1995 led many console manufactures to move away from cartridges to CD-ROMs and later to DVDs and other formats, with Sony's PlayStation line introducing even more features that gave it an advantage in the market; the PlayStation 2, released in 2000, remains the best-selling console to date with over 155 million units sold. Microsoft, fearing that the PlayStation 2 was threatening the competitive edge of the personal computer, entered the console space with its Xbox line in 2001. Internet connectivity had become commonplace by the mid-2000s, and nearly all home consoles supported digital distribution and online service offerings by the 2010s.
With Sony and Microsoft's dominance in hardware capabilities, most other major manufacturers have since dropped out of the hardware business, but maintain a presence in the game development and licensing space. Nintendo remains the only competitor having taken a blue ocean strategy by offering more original console concepts such as motion sensing in the Wii and the hybrid design of the Nintendo Switch.
Within the home video game console market, the leading consoles have often been grouped into generations, consoles that were major competitors in the marketplace. There have been nine generations of consoles since the 1970s, with a new generation appearing about every five years.
There are more than 1000 home video game consoles known to exist, the vast majority of which were released during the first generation: only home video game consoles were released between the second and current generation, were canceled. This list is divided into console generations which are named based on the dominant console type of the era, though not all consoles of those eras are of the same type. Some eras are referred to based on how many bits a major console could process. The "128-bit era" (sixth generation) was the final era in which this practice was widespread.
This list only counts the first iteration of each console's hardware, because several systems have had slim, enhanced or other hardware revisions, but they are not individually listed here. The list also includes unreleased systems. If a series of home video game consoles begins in a generation and lasts to another generation, it is listed in the generation the series began. This list does not claim to be complete.
This list does not include other types of video game consoles such as handheld game consoles, which are usually of lower computational power than home consoles due to their smaller size, microconsoles, which are usually low-cost Android-based devices that rely on downloading, retro style consoles, or dedicated consoles past the first generation, which have games built in and do not use any form of physical media. Consoles have been redesigned from time to time to improve their market appeal. Redesigned models are not listed on their own.
The list omits the more than 900 home video game consoles known to have been released in the first generation of video game consoles, those that were generally game consoles for a single dedicated game, such as home Pong consoles. Documented consoles of this generation can be found at list of first generation home video game consoles.
| Name | Release date | Manufacturer | Units sold | CPU | "Bits" | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fairchild Channel F < | -- Video Entertainment System (VES) --> | Fairchild (U.S.) | Fairchild F8 | 8-bit (CPU) | ||
| RCA Studio II | RCA (U.S.) | RCA 1802 | 8-bit (CPU) | |||
| Bally Astrocade | Midway (U.S.) | ? | Zilog Z80 | 8-bit (CPU) | ||
| Atari 2600 < | -- Atari Video Computer System (VCS)/Sears Video Arcade --> | Atari Inc. (U.S.) | [2] | MOS Technology 6507 | 8-bit (CPU) | |
| APF-MP1000 | APF (U.S.) | Motorola 6800 | 8-bit (CPU) | |||
| Champion 2711 | Unisonic (U.S.) | ? | General Instrument CP1610 | 16-bit (CPU) | ||
| Interton VC 4000 | Interton (Germany) | ? | Signetics 2650A | 8-bit (CPU) | ||
| Palladium Tele-Cassetten Game | Palladium (Germany) | ? | ||||
| 1292 Advanced Programmable Video System | Audiosonic | ? | Signetics 2650AI | 8-bit (CPU) | ||
| Magnavox Odyssey 2 | Magnavox (U.S.) / Philips (Netherlands) | ? | Intel 8048 | 8-bit (CPU) | ||
| APF Imagination Machine | APF (U.S.) | ? | Motorola 6800 | 8-bit (CPU) | ||
| Bandai Super Vision 8000 | Bandai (Japan) | ? | NEC D780C | 8-bit (CPU) | ||
| Mattel Electronics (U.S.) | General Instrument CP1610 | 16-bit (CPU) | ||||
| VTech CreatiVision | VTech (Hong Kong) | ? | Rockwell 6502 | 8-bit (CPU) | ||
| Epoch (Japan) | NEC uPD77xx | ? | ||||
| Arcadia 2001 and its variants and clones | (Arcadia 2001) | Emerson Radio (U.S.) | ? | Signetics 2650 | 8-bit (CPU) | |
| SHG Black Point | 1982 | Süddeutsche Elektro-Hausgeräte GmbH & Co. KG (Germany) | ? | ? | ? | |
| ColecoVision | Coleco (U.S.) | Zilog Z80 | 8-bit (CPU) | |||
| Atari 5200 | Atari Inc. (U.S.) | MOS 6502C @ 1.79 MHz | 8-bit (CPU) | |||
| Vectrex | GCE/Milton Bradley Company (U.S.) | ? | Motorola MC68A09 | 8-bit/16-bit (CPU) | ||
| Compact Vision TV Boy | Gakken (Japan) | Motorola MC6801 | 8-bit (CPU) | |||
| Videopac+ G7400 | Philips (Netherlands) | ? | Intel 8048 @ 5.91 MHz | 8-bit | ||
| My Vision | Nichibutsu (Japan) | ? | ? | |||
| Pyuuta Jr. | Tomy (Japan) | TMS9995 | 16-bit | |||
| Sega (Japan) | Zilog Z80 @ 3.58 MHz | 8-bit | ||||
| Nintendo (Japan) | Ricoh 2A03 processor (MOS Technology 6502 core) | 8-bit | ||||
| PV-1000 | Casio (Japan) | ? | Z80A clocked at 3.579 MHz | 8-bit | ||
| Epoch Super Cassette Vision | Epoch (Japan) | NEC PD7801G | 8-bit (CPU) | |||
| Bridge Companion | BBC/Heber (UK) | ? | Zilog Z80 | 8-bit | ||
| Video Art | LJN (U.S.) | ? | ? | |||
| Daewoo Electronics (South Korea) | Zilog Z80 | 8-bit | ||||
| Sega (Japan), Tec Toy (Brazil) | Zilog Z80 @ 4 MHz | 8-bit | ||||
| Family Computer Disk System | Nintendo (Japan) | Ricoh 2A03 processor (MOS Technology 6502 core) | 8-bit | |||
| Videosmarts[3] | Connor Electronics (U.S.) (1986–1988), VTech (Hong Kong) (1989–1990) | ? | ? | ? | ||
| Atari 7800 | Atari Corporation (U.S.) | Atari SALLY | 8-bit | |||
| Atari XEGS | Atari Corporation (U.S.) | MOS Technology 6502C | ||||
| Video Challenger | Tomy/Bandai (Japan) | ? | ? | |||
| Action Max | Worlds of Wonder (U.S.) | HD401010 | 8-bit | |||
| View-Master Interactive Vision | View-Master Ideal Group, Inc. (U.S.) | ? | ||||
| Terebikko | Bandai (Japan) | ? | ||||
| VTech Socrates | VTech (Hong Kong) | Zilog Z80A | 8-bit (CPU) | |||
| Video Driver | [4] | Sega (Japan) | ? | |||
| Amstrad GX4000 | Amstrad (UK) | Zilog Z80 @ 4 MHz | 8-bit | |||
| Commodore 64 Games System < | -- A cut-down version of the Commodore 64. --> | Commodore (Canada) | MOS Technology 8500 @ 0.985 MHz | |||
| NEC/Hudson Soft (Japan) | Hudson Soft HuC6280 | 16-bit (8-bit CPU, 16-bit graphics) | ||||
| Sega (Japan) | Motorola 68000 @ 7.6 MHz, Zilog Z80 @ 3.58 MHz | 16-bit (16/32 bit processor, 16 bit graphics) | ||||
| NEC (Japan) | ? | 16-bit (8-bit processor, 16-bit graphics) | ||||
| PC Engine2/SuperGrafx | NEC (Japan) | Hudson Soft HuC6280 | 16-bit (8-bit CPU, 16-bit graphics) | |||
| Neo-Geo AES | SNK (Japan) | Motorola 68000 @ 12 MHz, Zilog Z80A @ 4 MHz | 24-bit (16/32 bit processor, 24 bit graphics) | |||
| Nintendo (Japan) | Ricoh 5A22 @ 3.58 MHz | 16-bit | ||||
| Commodore CDTV | Commodore (Canada) | Motorola 68000 @ 7 MHz | 16-bit | |||
| Various | Philips SCC68070 @ 15.5 MHz | 16-bit (could be upgraded to 32-bit) | ||||
| Sega (Japan) | Motorola 68000 @ 12.5 MHz | 16-bit (16/32 bit processor, 16 bit graphics) | ||||
| Memorex VIS | Memorex/Tandy Corp (U.S.) | Intel 80286 @ 12 MHz | 16-bit | |||
| Sega Pico | Sega/Majesco Entertainment (Japan) | Motorola 68000 @ 7.6 MHz, Zilog Z80 @ 3.58 MHz | 16-bit | |||
| Picno | 1992[5] | Konami(Japan) | ? | ? | ? | |
| Pioneer LaserActive | Pioneer Corporation (Japan) | ? | ||||
| Neo-Geo CD | SNK (Japan) | Motorola 68000 @ 12 MHz, Zilog Z80 @ 4 MHz | 16-bit | |||
| Satellaview < | -- Add-on Japan only to Super Famicom. --> | Nintendo (Japan) | ? | 16-bit | ||
| Super A'Can | Funtech (Taiwan) | ? | Motorola 68000 @ 10.738635 MHz | |||
| Fujitsu (Japan) | AMD 386SX at 16 MHz | 32-bit | ||||
| Amiga CD32 | Commodore (Canada) | Motorola 68EC020@ 14.18 MHz (PAL) 14.32 MHz (NTSC) | ||||
| Panasonic/Sanyo (Japan) GoldStar (South Korea) The 3DO Company (United States) | RISC CPU ARM60 based on ARM architecture @ 12.5 MHz | |||||
| Atari Jaguar | Atari Corporation (U.S.) | [6] [7] | Motorola 68000 @ 13.295 MHz, Custom 32-bit graphics RISC "Tom" @ 26.59 MHz, Custom 32-bit sound RISC "Jerry" @ 26.59 MHz | 64-bit (64-bit graphics, 32-bit processor) | ||
| CPS Changer | Capcom (Japan) | ? | Motorola 68000 @ 10 MHz | 16-bit | ||
| Playdia | Bandai (Japan) | Toshiba TMP87C800F | 8-bit | |||
| Sega 32X < | -- Add-on to Sega Genesis. --> | Sega (Japan) | 2 × SH-2 32-bit RISC @ 23 MHz | 32-bit | ||
| Sega (Japan) | 2× Hitachi SH-2 @ 28.6 MHz | 32-bit | ||||
| Sony (Japan) | R3000 @ 33.8688 MHz | 32-bit | ||||
| PC-FX | NEC (Japan) | NEC V810 | 32-bit | |||
| Apple Bandai Pippin | Bandai (Japan)/Apple Inc. (U.S.) | PowerPC 603 RISC (66 MHz) | ||||
| Atari Jaguar CD | Atari Corporation (U.S.) | ? | ? | 64-bit (uses Jaguar processors) | ||
| Casio Loopy | Casio (Japan) | RISC SH-1 (SH7021) | 32-bit | |||
| Nintendo 64 | Nintendo (Japan) | NEC VR4300 @ 93.75 MHz | 64-bit | |||
| Dreamcast | Sega (Japan) | Hitachi SH-4 32-bit RISC @ 200 MHz | 128-bit (32-bit processor, 128-bit graphics) | |||
| Nintendo 64DD | Nintendo (Japan) | ? | 32-bit co-processor (uses 64-bit N64 processor as main processor) | |||
| VM Labs (U.S.) Motorola/RCA (United States) Samsung (South Korea) Toshiba (Japan) | Nuon MPE hybrid stack processor | 128-bit (SIMD) | ||||
| Sony (Japan) | Emotion Engine @ 294.912 MHz (launch), 299 MHz (newer models) | 128-bit (SIMD) | ||||
| Nintendo (Japan) | IBM PowerPC Gekko @ 486 MHz | 32-bit (CPU)128-bit (SIMD) | ||||
| Xbox | Microsoft (U.S.) | Custom 733 MHz Intel Pentium III "Coppermine-based" processor | 32-bit (CPU)128-bit (SIMD) | |||
| DVD Kids | 2002 | 3-Plus (Iceland)[8] | ? | ? | ? | |
| Xavix PORT | SSD COMPANY LIMITED (Japan) | 8-bit,16-bit and 32-bit (depending on game cartridge) | ||||
| VTech (Hong Kong) | ? | Sunplus SPG2xx | 16-bit | |||
| Sega (Japan) | ARM7TDMI clocked at 81 MHz | 32-bit (CPU) | ||||
| V.Smile Baby Infant Development System | VTech (Hong Kong) | ? | ? | 128-bit | ||
| Game Wave Family Entertainment System | ZAPiT (Canada) | [9] | Mediamatics 8611 | |||
| Microsoft (U.S.) | [10] [11] [12] [13] | Big-endian architecture 3.2 GHz PowerPC Tri-Core Xenon | 64-bit CPU128-bit extensions | |||
| V.Flash | VTech (Hong Kong) | ? | ARM-9 | 32-bit | ||
| HyperScan | Mattel (U.S.) | Sunplus SPG290 | 32-bit | |||
| Sony (Japan) | [14] | 3.2 GHz Cell Broadband Engine with 1 PPE & 7 SPEs | 64-bit CPU with set of 128-bit registers | |||
| Nintendo (Japan) | (as of December 31, 2016)[15] | PowerPC 750-based IBM PowerPC "Broadway" @ 729 MHz; 2.9 GFLOPS | 32-bit (CPU) | |||
| EVO Smart Console | November 20, 2008 | Envizions (U..S.) | AMD 64x2 @ 2.9 GHz | 64-bit (CPU) | ||
| Zeebo | Zeebo Inc. (U.S.) / TecToy (Brazil) | ? | ARM11 / QDSP-5 in Qualcomm MSM SoC running at 528 MHz[16] | 32-bit (CPU) | ||
| CT510 | April 29, 2012 | eedoo | ? | Unknown dual core at 1.8 GHz | ||
| Wii U | Nintendo (Japan) | [17] | PowerPC 750-based 1.24 GHz Tri-Core IBM PowerPC "Espresso" | 32-bit (CPU) | ||
| Sony (Japan) | [18] | Semi-custom 8-core AMD x86-64 Jaguar 1.6 GHz CPU (integrated into APU) | 64-bit (CPU) | |||
| Microsoft (U.S.) | [19] | Custom 1.75 GHz AMD 8-core APU (2 quad-core Jaguar modules) | 64-bit (CPU) | |||
| Nintendo Switch | Nintendo (Japan) | [20] | Octa-core (4×ARM Cortex-A57 & 4×ARM Cortex-A53) @ 1.020 GHz | 64-bit (CPU) | ||
| Xbox Series X/S | Microsoft (U.S.) | [21] | 64-bit (CPU) | |||
| PlayStation 5 | Sony (Japan) | [22] | Custom 8-core AMD Zen 2, variable frequency, up to 3.5 GHz[23] | 64-bit (CPU) | ||
| Atari VCS | June 10, 2021[24] | Atari, Inc. (U.S.) | 14 nm AMD R1606G Zen processor with 2 cores and 4 threads @ 2.6 GHz (up to 3.5 GHz) | 64-bit (CPU) | ||
| Polymega | September 12, 2021 | Playmaji, Inc (U.S.) | ? | Unknown Intel Coffee Lake | 64-bit (CPU) | |
| Evercade VS | December, 2021 | Blaze Entertainment (UK) | ? | Unknown ARM Cortex-A7 4-core at 1.5 GHz | 32-bit (CPU) | |
| Name | Release date | Manufacturer | CPU | "Bits" | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intellivision Amico | TBA | Intellivision Entertainment | Octa-core Snapdragon 624 @ 1.8 GHz[25] [26] [27] | x86 (64/32-bit) | |
| KFConsole | TBA | Cooler Master/KFC U.K./Ireland | Asus RTX 2070 Intel Nuc 9 Extreme Compute Element 2 Seagate Barracuda 1TB SSDs[28] | x86 (64/32-bit) |
| Name | Release date | Manufacturer | CPU | "Bits" | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atari Game Brain | cancelled (supposed to be released in June 1978) | Atari (U.S.) | ? | ? | |
| Atari 2700 | cancelled (supposed to be released in 1981) | Atari, Inc. (U.S.) | MOS Technology 6507 | 8-bit (CPU) | |
| Video Arcade System | cancelled (supposed to be released in 1983) | Ultravision (U.S.) | ? | ? | |
| RDI Halcyon | cancelled (supposed to be released in January 1985) | RDI Video Systems (U.S.) | Zilog Z80 | 8-bit (CPU) | |
| Control-Vision | cancelled (supposed to be released in 1989) | Digital Pictures & Hasbro (U.S.) | ? | ? | |
| Krokha[29] | cancelled | (Russia) | K580VM80A 2 MHz | ? | |
| Konix Multisystem | cancelled (supposed to be released in August 1989) | Konix (UK) | Intel 8086 based processor | 16-bit (CPU) | |
| Atari Panther | cancelled (supposed to be released in 1991) | Atari Corporation (U.S.) | Motorola 68000 | 32-bit | |
| WOWOW[30] | cancelled (supposed to be released in 1992) | Taito (Japan) | Motorola 68000 | 16-bit / 32-bit (CPU) | |
| SNES-CD | cancelled (development stopped in 1993) | Nintendo (Japan) | ? | 16-bit | |
| Sega Neptune | cancelled (supposed to be released in Fall 1995) | Sega (Japan) | ? | 32-bit | |
| L600 | cancelled (development stopped in April 2001) | Indrema (U.S.) | x86 @ 600 MHz | 32-bit | |
| Panasonic M2 | cancelled (supposed to be released in 1997) | Panasonic (Japan) | Dual PowerPC 602 Processors @ 66 MHz | 64-bit (dual 32-bit) | |
| Phantom | cancelled (supposed to be released in September 2005) | Phantom (U.S.) | ? | ? | |
| Chameleon | cancelled (supposed to be released in 2016) | Coleco Holdings Retro | ? | ? |