Week 3, Ex. 7

Video game consoles have sure come a long way.

Remember when you would play a video game and as soon as you turned it off, your game was done? There was no saving games (with a few exceptions). Or remember when you actually had to invite people over to your house to play a game? Or how a console's only function was for video game playing? Or how a cord actually connected your game controller to your console?

This isn't the case anymore. Video game consoles nowadays are so much more than just... well, video games! You can save the place you were at if you're done playing for the day, play DVDs, CDs, mp3s, play and chat with friends online, and many other things I don't even know about. It is like having an entertainment center, all contained in a small box.

Microsoft is going to make their PC software more compatible with their console, Xbox 360, with their new Vista OS. This article about gaming on Vista (Top 10 reasons why Vista gaming will be hot) is a good example of how gaming consoles are evolving into something much more complex.

Along with large companies like Microsoft, the gamers (or smaller business owners) are also tweaking consoles to make them do things an 8-bit NES could never accomplish:
How to make a Wii laptop (part 1)
2002 article about the first Xbox modification chip
Buy your PS2 modchip here!

Now I'm not saying anything new. I just thought it was interesting to see how far video games have come.