The Playstation 2 is quite a piece of hardware. Running off
Sony's patented "Emotion Engine" the console can
play PS2 games, PSX (PSOne) games, music CDs and even DVD
movies. It has a port for a hard-drive, broadband modem and
even USB ports for keyboard, mouse or even a digital camera.
The first American console since the Atari, Microsoft is
really keen to take a piece of Sony's pie in this lucrative
industry. Testament to this fact, Bill Gates' advertising
budget for the Xbox is a paltry $US500,000,000. It comes with
a 733Mhz Pentium 3 processor, an NVidia-based graphics chipset,
four controller ports, an ethernet port, DVD player and it
is also the only console to come with a hard drive.
Nintendo is back on the scene with a rather unique take on
the whole console war. Rather than doing the Sony and Microsoft
thing, including DVD movie playback and other entertainment
options into its console, the GC is first and foremost a games
machine - it plays games and nothing else. Making use of a
custom IBM 'Gekko' CPU, running at 485MHz and a graphics processor
capable of subpixel anti-aliasing, alpha blending, MIP mapping
and scores of other cool graphical tricks, the Game Cube is
here to stay.
Featuring a 128-bit Hitachi RISC processor and an advanced
NEC PowerVR video card, the Sega Dreamcast is the gamers console.
Production of the machine has ceased, but that won't stop
the 6 million owners of the console from supporting it. It
plays Dreamcast games, music CDs and has a special port for
an analogue/broadband modem.
Nintendo's ageing N64 is now the only cartridge-based console
on the market. Thanks to this old-school technology, the console
is limited in scope, as are the games. However, it hasn't
stopped Nintendo doing a great job for the younger gamers
out there, especially with the Pokemon franchise.
