List of Retro Style Video Game Consoles

List of retro style video game consoles

This is a list of retro style video game consoles in chronological order, only officially licensed consoles are listed. Starting in the 2000s, the trend of retrogaming spawned the launch of several new consoles that usually imitate the styling of pre-2000s home consoles and only play games that released on those consoles. Some retro style consoles play the games of pre-2010s handheld consoles. Most retro style consoles are dedicated consoles, but many have an SD Card slot that allows the user to add additional games, an internet connection that allows users to download games, or even support the cartridges of older video game systems such as the Nintendo Entertainment System. Most of these consoles do not sport the original hardware and are thus equipped with a modern microprocessor, prominently an ARM CPU and supporting chips running an emulator to allow the rendering of the particular system.

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Seventh generation of video game consoles

The seventh generation of video game consoles began on November 22, 2005, with the release of Microsoft's Xbox 360 home console. This was soon followed by the release of Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation 3 on November 17, 2006 and Nintendo's Wii on November 19, 2006, the following year. Each new console introduced new technologies. The Xbox 360 offered games rendered natively at high-definition video (HD) resolutions, the PlayStation 3 offered HD movie playback via a built-in 3D Blu-ray Disc player, and the Wii focused on integrating controllers with movement sensors as well as joysticks. Some Wii controllers could be moved about to control in-game actions, which enabled players to simulate real-world actions through movement during gameplay. By this generation, video game consoles had become an important part of the global IT infrastructure; it is estimated that video game consoles represented 25% of the world's general-purpose computational power in 2007. Joining Nintendo in releasing motion devices and software, Sony Computer Entertainment released the PlayStation Move in September, 2010, which featured motion-sensing gaming similar to that of the Wii. In November, 2010, Microsoft released Kinect for use with the Xbox 360. Kinect did not use controllers, instead using cameras to capture the player's body motion and using that to direct gameplay, effectively making the players act as the "controllers". Having sold eight million units in its first 60 days on the market, Kinect claimed the Guinness World Record of being the "fastest selling consumer electronics device". Among handheld consoles, the seventh generation began somewhat earlier than the home consoles. November 2004 saw the introduction of the Nintendo DS (NDS), and the PlayStation Portable (PSP), came out in December. The NDS features a touch screen and built-in microphone, and supports wireless standards. The PSP became the first handheld video game console to use an optical disc format as its primary storage media. Sony also gave the PSP multimedia capability; connectivity with the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, other PSPs; as well as Internet connectivity. Despite high sales numbers for both consoles, PSP sales have consistently lagged behind those of the NDS. A crowdfunded console, the Ouya, received $8.5 million in preorders before launching in 2013. Post-launch sales were poor, and the device was a commercial failure. Additionally, microconsoles like Nvidia Shield Console, Amazon Fire TV, MOJO, Razer Switchblade, GamePop, GameStick, and more powerful PC-based Steam Machine consoles have attempted to compete in the video game console market; however they are seldom classified as "seventh generation" consoles. The seventh generation slowly began to wind down when Nintendo began cutting back on Wii production in the early 2010s. In 2014, Sony announced they were discontinuing the production of the PSP worldwide. Microsoft announced in 2016, that they would discontinue the Xbox 360. The following year, Sony announced that it would soon discontinue the PlayStation 3. Around that time, the remaining Wii consoles were discontinued, ending the generation as all hardware was discontinued. Despite this, Just Dance 2019 was made available for the Wii in the Western world in late 2019 and a limited 3,000-copy print run of a Wii port of the 2019 video game Shakedown Hawaii is being planned for a summer 2020 release, exclusively in PAL territories. The eighth generation had already begun in early 2011, with the release of the Nintendo 3DS.