Who is winning console war 2011

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Nintendo's plunge into mobile gives shares a new lease of life. Fastest mobile games. In the handheld wars, Nintendo 's Game Boy came out well on top and far outlived the Game Gear and Atari Lynx , becoming one of the most successful handheld consoles of all time. However, Nintendo continued to research into improving the screen and first released the Game Boy Pocket , with a true black-and-white screen.

Later, Nintendo created the Game Boy Color , with near-total backward compatibility. The Game Boy had many ports of games from popular Nintendo franchises. It was also launched with the extraordinarily popular puzzle game Tetris as a pack-in. Many other companies attempted to get in on the handheld market and they could also be added into this category. In the "bit era", the Saturn was released first and despite success in Japanese markets, it ultimately lacked sufficient third-party support outside of Japan for it to viably survive.

SEGA's decision to use dual processors was roundly criticized, and some believe the second CPU was added as a knee-jerk reaction to the PlayStation 's specifications. The SEGA Saturn was the more difficult console to program for with some titles being dropped during the development process STI 's Sonic X-treme for example , and therefore the 3D graphics on its third party games often lacked the luster of the PlayStation or Nintendo 64 N64 , a severe disadvantage at the dawn of 3-D games on home consoles.

One of the major reasons being there were few software titles ready. Sony took an early advantage by initiating an expensive ad campaign and appealing to an older demographic who had grown up playing video games. The securing of this demographic is widely credited as the key to the system's success. SEGA and particularly Nintendo's offerings were characterized as appealing more to children both companies, for instance, featured mascots that appeared in Saturday morning cartoons. With Sony's greater hardware sales came greater third party support; ultimately the PlayStation won the era virtually unopposed.

Sony carried this momentum over into the release of the PlayStation 2. However, the Saturn was a success in Japan, where it outsold the Nintendo 64 and is considered the most successful SEGA console in the country. As a result, the Saturn continued selling in Japan for several years longer than in other regions. Although this era is known as the "bit era", the bit Nintendo 64 was released later than the other two consoles with which it was originally meant to compete directly.

By the time of its release, Sony had already established their dominance and the Saturn was struggling to keep momentum. Despite this, Nintendo managed to carve out a profitable niche in this era, selling over 30 million consoles. As the first console to feature a built-in modem, the Dreamcast offered players a new console gaming experience; users were able to play games with one another via the Internet.

The Dreamcast was the sole sixth-generation console for over a year, until Sony released the PlayStation 2. Despite being a commercial failure in Japan, the Dreamcast would become successful in North America. However, due to the PlayStation 2's built-in DVD player and heavy advertising, the Dreamcast would be largely overshadowed by the PlayStation 2's hype.

Despite this, the Dreamcast in fact managed to outsell the PlayStation 2 in the North American market in In early , SEGA announced its discontinuation of the Dreamcast ; it adjusted its company strategy to abandon the console industry and focus on third-party development.

Nevertheless, SEGA have continued to manufacture arcade machines through to the present day. The console featured a Unlike previous consoles, the PlayStation 2 could play DVDs , creating additional value for consumers interested in purchasing both a DVD player and gaming console. Within two days of the PlayStation 2 's release, Sony set a new record by selling 1 million consoles. Nintendo released the GameCube in Japan on September 14, The console offered signature family-friendly games, such as Luigi's Mansion , in addition to third-party titles, including the more mature video games Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem and Resident Evil 4.

The Xbox featured an 8 GB of internal storage capacity, allowing users to save games and download content directly to the console. The release of Xbox Live , a subscription-based online gaming service, allowed users to play compatible titles online.

Within two months of Xbox Live 's debut, , users had subscribed, exceeding the company's projections. Overall, the sixth generation expanded gaming consoles into a broader entertainment experience, whether through online gaming or the ability to play DVDs. As seventh-generation consoles overtook the market, Nintendo and Microsoft discontinued the GameCube and Xbox.

Sony , on the other hand, continued to produce the PlayStation 2 after the PlayStation 3 's release in In , Sony announced that PlayStation 2 production would continue until demand decreases. During the sixth generation era, the handheld game console market expanded with the introduction of new devices from many different manufacturers. Nintendo maintained its dominant share of the handheld market with the release in of the Game Boy Advance , which featured many upgrades and new features over the Game Boy.

South Korean company Game Park introduced its GP32 handheld in , and with it came the dawn of open source handheld consoles. The Game Boy Advance line of handhelds has sold By the early s, mobile games gained popularity in Japan's mobile phone culture , years before the United States or Europe.

By , a wide variety of mobile games were available on Japanese phones, ranging from puzzle games and virtual pet titles that utilized camera phone and fingerprint scanner technologies to 3D games with exceptionally high quality graphics. Older arcade-style games became particularly popular on mobile phones, which were an ideal platform for arcade-style games designed for shorter play sessions. Namco began to introduce mobile gaming culture to Europe in Nokia tried to create its own mobile gaming platform with the N-Gage and later N-Gage QD in but this effort failed mainly because, at the time, the convergence of a cell phone and a handheld gaming platform did not mix.

Many users complained of having to talk on the phone 'taco-style' by tilting it sideways in order to speak and hear. There were hardware issues as well, and though some quality games came out, support for the platform was anemic. All three consoles have had major shortages both at their launches and directly afterwards, with the Xbox 's continuing for months after release and Wii's still [update] continuing after two holiday seasons; the PlayStation 3 saw high demand for its first week of release, but it did not continue, being in stock at most major retailers shortly after release.

The seventh generation is best known for major consoles branching out into other types of media rather than solely focusing on video games. All three consoles offer basic abilities such as photo-viewing, listening to music and browsing the internet, as well as the ability to connect to external memory devices such as USB flash drives and SD cards. The Xbox originally boasted a higher-quality DVD player and music player, and over the years has released other features such as an external HD-DVD drive now a dead standard, surpassed by Blu-ray , Zune downloadable content, Netflix streaming and Last.

PlayStation 3, on the other hand, has Blu-ray , Netflix streaming, and Qriocity music. This new generation for the first time has all of the major consoles focusing on online integration. Competition has branched now from simply offering the best games to the best online content; smaller games can now be purchased and downloaded from online stores within the consoles, and extra applications such as Netflix streaming and Facebook connectivity are heavily supported.

Almost all games sold in retail have online support, including online multiplayer and downloadable content for bug patches and new features, potentially increasing replay value in certain games for even years.

Another notable feature in current-gen gaming is the use of avatar characters. Nintendo first introduced Miis with the Wii console, caricatures of players that could be created and used in flagship titles such as Wii Sports ; however they lack the ability to customize that Xbox's avatars have, as clothes and accessories can be purchased online or unlocked in games played.

PlayStation 3, instead of an in-game character, offers PlayStation Home , a social simulator where avatars can talk and explore, and customize their homes based on games played. Initially only the Wii was completely backward compatible with the exception of the Game Boy Player with its predecessor, the GameCube , while the Xbox and PlayStation 3 only offered partial support.

A revised version of the Wii known as the Wii Family Edition was released in North America in October and in Europe in November , which, unlike previous versions, lacks GameCube backwards compatibility, controller ports and memory card slots. When the PlayStation 3 was released in PAL regions however, the Emotion Engine chip was removed to reduce costs and instead partial software emulation was used. This lowered the level of backwards compatibility with PlayStation 2 software, although PS1 software was unaffected.

With the release of the 40 GB PS3 model in late , the Graphics Synthesizer was also removed from the system, thus also removing compatibility with PlayStation 2 software. No new model since has contained this hardware and thus PlayStation 2 software remains incompatible on all but the earliest consoles. The Xbox uses software emulation for backwards compatibility via game-specific patches automatically downloaded from Xbox Live or downloaded and burned to a CD or DVD from the Xbox website.

Overall, the Wii would outsell its competitors worldwide. However, Wii sales considerably fell in To this day, the PS3 and Xbox have been catching up. Nevertheless, the Wii has still outsold its rivals by about 30 million units. Although Nintendo and Sony originally denied competing with each other with their handheld products, it was widely believed that a new handheld war had begun with the releases of the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable PSP in late and early , respectively the Nintendo DS Lite , a smaller and sleeker version of the Nintendo DS, was released in late This could be taken as recognition of a new handheld war.

The Nintendo DS's power is comparable to that of Nintendo It also sports a microphone input. It showed considerable early success, particularly in branching out from the usual core demographic of video game players due to the intuitiveness of the touch screen control system.

The Nintendo DS is the less expensive of the two systems, and has longer battery life. It was advertised as a portable multimedia system, as well as a handheld console much in the same way as the PS2. The PlayStation Portable also supports a large relatively high-resolution display, an analog nub, and standard controller buttons. Other features include the ability to make internet phone calls using Skype , [72] and a Global Positioning System via an add-on.

Based on figures from GfK Chart-Track. On November 18, , Nintendo released the Wii U , the first home console of the eighth generation. Sony then released the PlayStation 4 in , alongside Microsoft's release of the Xbox One , in Nintendo would later release the first hybrid console , the Nintendo Switch , in late Sony's online service got there in the end, but it's signature achievement remains one of the world's biggest ever data breaches and the inability to support cross-game chat fives years after it became a standard feature.

On Xbox , meanwhile, a far more successful Achievement flourished. The digital rewards that debuted with Microsoft's second console have become an industry standard.

Valve lifted them in their entirety for Steam, Sony rebranded them as Trophies, but neither challenged Microsoft's design. Similarly sincere flattery was extended to the Xbox 's controller, with Nintendo mimicking it entirely for its "pro"gamepad. Admittedly, Microsoft returned the favour with Kinect, but even that's a mark in the Xbox 's favour: its motion sensor became the fastest-selling consumer electronic device in history, and Microsoft releasing it as a peripheral meant it did so without compromising the console's strengths in traditional "hardcore" gaming.

And what strengths they were. It was the Xbox on which we first experienced the spectacular environmental storytelling of Bioshock, the vast universe of Mass Effect, and the huge open worlds of Dead Rising and Crackdown. It was Xbox that lead the way in digital distribution, starting with Zuma and stepping up to classics like Geometry Wars 2, Braid and Shadow Complex. Amid Sony's recent touting of its indie credentials, it's worth pointing out that Microsoft blazed a trail in digital distribution of smaller titles, and went so far as to open a completely homebrew route to market in the form of its Xbox Live Indie Games channel.