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Riding high on the success of the NES, SuperNES and GameBoy, Nintendo was finishing up development work on its next hardware offering: the Nintendo Ultra 64 (the Ultra was later dropped from the name). At the graphical heart of this system was a powerful (for the day) 64-bit, 62.5MHz GPU developed by Silicon Graphics (which was originally developed for, and rejected by, SEGA for its upcoming Saturn). Nintendo was definitely not shy in promoting the horsepower of this system before its launch, hoping to distract from the CD/cartridge debate that was raging between gamers at that time.
Portable consoles have come a long way since their introduction in the late 1980s — compare the Nintendo GameBoy, released in 1989, with Sony's 2005 PlayStation Portable. The advancement is staggering, though it took a bit of time to get there. Generally screen sizes were small, blurry and monochrome (unless you could tolerate a battery life of around only two hours to power a color screen) until around 2001, when Nintendo's GBA was released.
PocketGamer.co.uk looks at the notable portables throughout this period of gaming evolution comparing screen size, screen resolution, initial price, horsepower and physical size. Unfortunately some of the more unique systems, such as NEC's TurboExpress and SNK's NeoGeo Pocket, are not included in this comparison, but you still get an idea of how the technology has advanced and evolved through the years.
Gaming site Armchair Arcade is starting a month-long examination of the Amiga CD-32. It should be interesting to see what kind of info they dig up about this forgotten CD platform. Be sure to check it out!
SNK's attempt at the portable market was a powerful little package that did enjoy some success, but in the end it could not compete with the unstoppable Nintendo juggernaut. But it sure is a beautiful little package, with an amazing battery life.
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In the dawn of the 1970s, PONG machines were taking bars and restaurants by storm. Several companies noticed its popularity and capitalized on the new video game craze by making PONG clones available for home TV use. In 1972, Magnavox introduced the first home video game system that attempted variations in game play: the Magnavox Odyssey. Through the use of colored screen overlays and interchangeable jumper packs, the look and rules of the base Odyssey game could be altered, but the overall game remained the same.
In August 1976 Fairchild Consumer Products, a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation, introduced the Fairchild Video Entertainment System, also known as the Fairchild Channel F. Game systems of this time, such as the Magnavox Odyssey and numerous stand-alone PONG games, were mainly self-contained: a single game was built-in to the console. While the Channel F did contain two built-in games, "Tennis" and "Hockey", it also brought to market something that was radically different, but seems second-nature now: interchangeable, programmable game cartridges.
