Video game console
A video game console is a device for playing video games. There are two main types of consoles:
Living room consoles, which connect on a screen to display the game, and to which it incidentally connected joysticks;
Portable consoles, small size, which have their own screen and are thus easily transportable and autonomous.
Video game consoles are gradually passed the State of toy for connoisseur of family multimedia center.

 Principle of operation

Atari 2600.
Since the first consoles salon and to the 2000s, the heart of the architecture of a game console, portable or salon, is identical. It consists of a microprocessor, memory RAM, a graphics card, as well as control devices and more often of joysticks.
Construction of video game consoles is similar to that of computers, since Pong via the Nintendo 64 and portable game consoles (PSP, DS, Game Gear, and others). All consoles developed so far following the same overall design. In 2012, the industry of video game consoles is the seventh generation.
Each game console has its own operating system; programs are located on external racks, which can be of cartridges for the early generations, or more recently disks, including CD-ROM or DVD. From the sixth generation consoles become more compatible with conventional computers, sharing some functions such as playback of movies, photos and music. Indeed, the first console to be compatible with the Microsoft Windows operating system was the Dreamcast, launched in 1998.
On the same basic architecture have been grafted over time various extensions, such as additional graphic processors (with the first PlayStation console for example), modems or hard disks.
The boundary between computer, Media Center and game console is also more marked since the Playstation 2 which offers other features than the video game - for the first time on a console - allowing natively read DVD-video. Before this, Sega and others already had limited multimedia console/platform attempts, without great echo. A step is also taken with the appearance of the Xbox and its hard disk integrated in standard. The Wii, which was released in 2006, proposed a together with two joysticks wireless (the Wii remote and the nunchuk) with a gyroscope and accelerometer that can detect movements of the player.
In addition, since the release of seventh generation such as Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation 3 consoles, consoles salon include operating systems more advanced allowing updates via a connection to the Internet. The most striking example is the case of Xbox 360 basis on an OS closer many of the Microsoft Windows System. There are including the functions of Windows Media Center. 

 The market of consoles

The original PlayStation.
In contrast to the PC market, console manufacturers are not as many and diverse. In addition, most of the actors are both equipment manufacturers and providers.
In 2001, the world market for game consoles amounted to more than $ 20 billion.
History seems to have proved that the market is not able to accommodate more than 3 players simultaneously. What the last decade tends to prove as great rivals Sony and Nintendo have released Sega by the laws of the market and that the video game market is saturated and is tightening around a trio, in which Microsoft is now.
Beyond the big three of the video game market is a market towards saturation. A trade war and marketing at odds them since the launch of the Wii, the Xbox 360 and the PS3, and whose main weapons will inevitably become the sectoral diversification. If the Microsoft monopoly in the computer field may be sufficient to ensure returns on investment in its branch video games and game consoles, Nintendo has a loyal clientele to its know-how and its virtual universe, which remains the oldest among these three major. But while the PlayStation 2 accounted for more than half of the revenues of Sony, its last edition, PS3 require according to the economic press at least 50 million copies sold so that Sony can get a first return on investment.
Launch of a new generation console current costs are very high. They include mass production, the purchase of licenses video games juicy or the research and development that arise from the innovations concerning the gameplay or depth of a virtual universe.
Required investments allow the maintenance of these three great in the video game market, but condemn them in addition to a promotional one-upmanship to awareness of players around the world the merits of their own innovations. These heavy investments are carried out on a global economic market and are that these three major video game live more within their means. According to the press and sales and recovery video game franchises, Microsoft and Sony sell each console to loss to a stage of several tens of millions of copies sold.