Cartridges
Standard game cartridges for several consoles popular in the 1980s and 1990s. From front to back: Game Boy Color's Rayman 2, Sega Genesis's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and Atari 2600's Kaboom!.
Game cartridges consist of a printed circuit board housed inside of a plastic casing, with a connector allowing the device to interface with the console. The circuit board can contain a wide variety of components. All cartridge games contain at the minimum, read only memory with the software written on it. Many cartridges also carry components that increase the original console's power, such as extra RAM or a coprocessor. Components can also be added to extend the original hardware's functionality (such as gyroscopes, rumble packs, tilt-sensors, light sensors, etc.); this is more common on handheld consoles where the user does not interact with the game through a separate video game controller.
Cartridges were the first external media to be used with home consoles and remained the most common until 1995 continued improvements in capacity (Nintendo 64 being the last mainstream game console to use cartridges). Nevertheless, the relatively high manufacturing costs saw them completely replaced by optical media for home consoles by the early 21st century, although they are still in use in some handheld video game consoles.
Due to the aforementioned capabilities of cartridges such as more memory and coprocessors, those factors make it harder to reverse engineer consoles to be used on emulators.
Cards
Further information: Smart Card
Several consoles such as the Sega Master System and the TurboGrafx-16 have used different types of smart cards as an external medium. These cards function similar to simple cartridges. Information is stored on a chip that is housed in plastic. Cards are more compact and simpler than cartridges, though. This makes them cheaper to produce and smaller, but limits what can be done with them. Cards cannot hold extra components, and common cartridge techniques like bank switching (a technique used to create very large games) were impossible to miniaturize into a card in the late 1980s.
Compact Discs reduced much of the need for cards. Optical Discs can hold more information than cards, and are cheaper to produce. The Nintendo GameCube and the PlayStation 2 use memory cards for storage, but the PS Vita and Nintendo 3DS are currently the only modern systems to use cards for game distribution. Nintendo has long used cartridges with their Game Boy line of hand held consoles because of their durability, small size, stability (not shaking and vibrating the handheld when it is in use), and low battery consumption. Nintendo switched to cards starting with the DS, because advances in memory technology made putting extra memory on the cartridge unnecessary. The PlayStation Vita uses Sony's own proprietary flash-memory Vita cards as one method of game distribution.
Magnetic media
Two forms of magnetic media commonly used in the 1980s and 1990s for video games. From front to back: Cassette and floppy disk.
Home computers have long used magnetic storage devices. Both tape drives and floppy disk drives were common on early microcomputers. Their popularity is in large part because a tape drive or disk drive can write to any material it can read. However, magnetic media is volatile and can be more easily damaged than game cartridges or optical discs.
Among the first consoles to use magnetic media were the Bally Astrocade and APF-M1000, both of which could use cassette tapes through expansions. In Bally's case, this allowed the console to see new game development even after Bally dropped support for it. While magnetic media remained limited in use as a primary form of distribution, three popular subsequent consoles also had expansions available to allow them to use this format. The Starpath Supercharger can load Atari 2600 games from audio cassettes; Starpath used it to cheaply distribute their own games from 1982 to 1984 and today it is used by many programmers to test, distribute, and play homebrew software. The Famicom Disk System, a floppy disk-reading add-on to the Famicom (as the NES was known in Japan), was released by Nintendo in 1986 for the Japanese market. Nintendo sold the disks cheaply and sold vending machines where customers could have new games written to their disks up to 500 times. In 1999, Nintendo released another Japan-only floppy disk add-on, the Nintendo 64DD, for the Nintendo 64.
Optical media
The most widely used forms of optical media are DVDs and compact discs. Shown is a CD-ROM (left) and a game in Nintendo's proprietary optical disc format similar to a MiniDVD.
In the mid-1990s, various manufacturers shifted to optical media, specifically CD-ROM, for games. Although they were slower at loading game data than the cartridges available at that time, they were significantly cheaper to manufacture and had a larger capacity than the existing cartridge technology. Sega released the second CD based gaming system with the Mega-CD in Japan on December 12, 1991. Commodore followed shortly after with the Amiga-CD32 in September 1993, the first 32-bit game console. By the early 21st century, all of the major home consoles used optical media, usually DVD-ROM or similar disks, which are widely replacing CD-ROM for data storage. The PlayStation 3 system uses even higher-capacity Blu-ray optical discs for games and movies while the Xbox 360 formerly used HD DVDs in the form of an external USB player add-on for movies, before it was discontinued. However, Microsoft still supports those who bought the accessory.
Internet distribution
All three seventh generation consoles (the PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360) offer some kind of Internet games distribution service, allowing users to download games for a fee onto some form of non-volatile storage, typically a hard disk or flash memory. Recently, the console manufacturers have been taking advantage of internet distribution with games, video streaming services like Netflix, Hulu Plus and film trailers being available.
Microsoft's Xbox Live service includes the Xbox Live Arcade and Xbox Live Marketplace, featuring digital distribution of classic and original titles. These include arcade classics, original titles, and games originally released on other consoles. The Xbox Live Marketplace also includes many different hit movies and trailers in high definition, and is accessible with a Xbox Live Free Membership. There is also an "Indie Games" section where small time developers can buy a license and release their own games onto the marketplace. Such is their volume, these games are not viewed by Microsoft as standard and are instead rated by the public.
Sony's online game distribution is known as the PlayStation Network (PSN). It offers free online gaming, downloadable content such as classic PlayStation games, high definition games and movie trailers, and original games such as flOw and Everyday Shooter as well as some games that also release on Blu-ray Disc such as Warhawk and Gran Turismo 5: Prologue. A networking service, dubbed PlayStation Home, was released in December 2008. Sony also announced a video/movie service and music service for some time in 2008.
Nintendo's Virtual Console service emulates games from previous-generation consoles and is available for Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U. Nintendo also has original content available for download through its online stores, the Wii Shop Channel (WiiWare), Nintendo DSi Shop (DSiWare) and Nintendo eShop.
In the case of the Wii console, Nintendo offers information and videos of upcoming software through the Nintendo Channel, which also allows users to download demos to the Nintendo DS through wireless connection. Other free services for Wii include the Forecast Channel, where people can access a weather forecast for cities around the world, News Channel, which provides users with the current world news in different categories such as International or Technology, and also the Internet Channel that allows users to browse the web and watch videos in sites like YouTube (which now has its own channel). The Wii Message Board also allows Nintendo to communicate with Wii owners with letters that include update information or contests on the Check Mii Out Channel, Everybody Votes Channel and games like Mario Kart Wii.
Eight-generation Nintendo consoles (Nintendo 3DS and Wii U) and later (will) take advantage of the services provided by the Nintendo Network. This includes being able to purchase and download classic Virtual Console games, downloadable games (including most DSiWare/WiiWare downloadable games), downloadable game content, non-gaming apps, game demos, videos, and even certain retail games via the Nintendo eShop. Nintendo Network will allow content, online-gaming support, non-gaming interactions to be provided either for free or for a premium cost. Nintendo also offers its own social network in the form of Miiverse, supported by the Nintendo Network.
The Ouya has its games distributed entirely over the internet, instead of using any physical media like a disk or cartridge. Users purchase games over the Ouya shop, just like Playstation Network Store and the Xbox Live Arcade.
Standard game cartridges for several consoles popular in the 1980s and 1990s. From front to back: Game Boy Color's Rayman 2, Sega Genesis's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and Atari 2600's Kaboom!.
Game cartridges consist of a printed circuit board housed inside of a plastic casing, with a connector allowing the device to interface with the console. The circuit board can contain a wide variety of components. All cartridge games contain at the minimum, read only memory with the software written on it. Many cartridges also carry components that increase the original console's power, such as extra RAM or a coprocessor. Components can also be added to extend the original hardware's functionality (such as gyroscopes, rumble packs, tilt-sensors, light sensors, etc.); this is more common on handheld consoles where the user does not interact with the game through a separate video game controller.
Cartridges were the first external media to be used with home consoles and remained the most common until 1995 continued improvements in capacity (Nintendo 64 being the last mainstream game console to use cartridges). Nevertheless, the relatively high manufacturing costs saw them completely replaced by optical media for home consoles by the early 21st century, although they are still in use in some handheld video game consoles.
Due to the aforementioned capabilities of cartridges such as more memory and coprocessors, those factors make it harder to reverse engineer consoles to be used on emulators.
Cards
Further information: Smart Card
Several consoles such as the Sega Master System and the TurboGrafx-16 have used different types of smart cards as an external medium. These cards function similar to simple cartridges. Information is stored on a chip that is housed in plastic. Cards are more compact and simpler than cartridges, though. This makes them cheaper to produce and smaller, but limits what can be done with them. Cards cannot hold extra components, and common cartridge techniques like bank switching (a technique used to create very large games) were impossible to miniaturize into a card in the late 1980s.
Compact Discs reduced much of the need for cards. Optical Discs can hold more information than cards, and are cheaper to produce. The Nintendo GameCube and the PlayStation 2 use memory cards for storage, but the PS Vita and Nintendo 3DS are currently the only modern systems to use cards for game distribution. Nintendo has long used cartridges with their Game Boy line of hand held consoles because of their durability, small size, stability (not shaking and vibrating the handheld when it is in use), and low battery consumption. Nintendo switched to cards starting with the DS, because advances in memory technology made putting extra memory on the cartridge unnecessary. The PlayStation Vita uses Sony's own proprietary flash-memory Vita cards as one method of game distribution.
Magnetic media
Two forms of magnetic media commonly used in the 1980s and 1990s for video games. From front to back: Cassette and floppy disk.
Home computers have long used magnetic storage devices. Both tape drives and floppy disk drives were common on early microcomputers. Their popularity is in large part because a tape drive or disk drive can write to any material it can read. However, magnetic media is volatile and can be more easily damaged than game cartridges or optical discs.
Among the first consoles to use magnetic media were the Bally Astrocade and APF-M1000, both of which could use cassette tapes through expansions. In Bally's case, this allowed the console to see new game development even after Bally dropped support for it. While magnetic media remained limited in use as a primary form of distribution, three popular subsequent consoles also had expansions available to allow them to use this format. The Starpath Supercharger can load Atari 2600 games from audio cassettes; Starpath used it to cheaply distribute their own games from 1982 to 1984 and today it is used by many programmers to test, distribute, and play homebrew software. The Famicom Disk System, a floppy disk-reading add-on to the Famicom (as the NES was known in Japan), was released by Nintendo in 1986 for the Japanese market. Nintendo sold the disks cheaply and sold vending machines where customers could have new games written to their disks up to 500 times. In 1999, Nintendo released another Japan-only floppy disk add-on, the Nintendo 64DD, for the Nintendo 64.
Optical media
The most widely used forms of optical media are DVDs and compact discs. Shown is a CD-ROM (left) and a game in Nintendo's proprietary optical disc format similar to a MiniDVD.
In the mid-1990s, various manufacturers shifted to optical media, specifically CD-ROM, for games. Although they were slower at loading game data than the cartridges available at that time, they were significantly cheaper to manufacture and had a larger capacity than the existing cartridge technology. Sega released the second CD based gaming system with the Mega-CD in Japan on December 12, 1991. Commodore followed shortly after with the Amiga-CD32 in September 1993, the first 32-bit game console. By the early 21st century, all of the major home consoles used optical media, usually DVD-ROM or similar disks, which are widely replacing CD-ROM for data storage. The PlayStation 3 system uses even higher-capacity Blu-ray optical discs for games and movies while the Xbox 360 formerly used HD DVDs in the form of an external USB player add-on for movies, before it was discontinued. However, Microsoft still supports those who bought the accessory.
Internet distribution
All three seventh generation consoles (the PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360) offer some kind of Internet games distribution service, allowing users to download games for a fee onto some form of non-volatile storage, typically a hard disk or flash memory. Recently, the console manufacturers have been taking advantage of internet distribution with games, video streaming services like Netflix, Hulu Plus and film trailers being available.
Microsoft's Xbox Live service includes the Xbox Live Arcade and Xbox Live Marketplace, featuring digital distribution of classic and original titles. These include arcade classics, original titles, and games originally released on other consoles. The Xbox Live Marketplace also includes many different hit movies and trailers in high definition, and is accessible with a Xbox Live Free Membership. There is also an "Indie Games" section where small time developers can buy a license and release their own games onto the marketplace. Such is their volume, these games are not viewed by Microsoft as standard and are instead rated by the public.
Sony's online game distribution is known as the PlayStation Network (PSN). It offers free online gaming, downloadable content such as classic PlayStation games, high definition games and movie trailers, and original games such as flOw and Everyday Shooter as well as some games that also release on Blu-ray Disc such as Warhawk and Gran Turismo 5: Prologue. A networking service, dubbed PlayStation Home, was released in December 2008. Sony also announced a video/movie service and music service for some time in 2008.
Nintendo's Virtual Console service emulates games from previous-generation consoles and is available for Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U. Nintendo also has original content available for download through its online stores, the Wii Shop Channel (WiiWare), Nintendo DSi Shop (DSiWare) and Nintendo eShop.
In the case of the Wii console, Nintendo offers information and videos of upcoming software through the Nintendo Channel, which also allows users to download demos to the Nintendo DS through wireless connection. Other free services for Wii include the Forecast Channel, where people can access a weather forecast for cities around the world, News Channel, which provides users with the current world news in different categories such as International or Technology, and also the Internet Channel that allows users to browse the web and watch videos in sites like YouTube (which now has its own channel). The Wii Message Board also allows Nintendo to communicate with Wii owners with letters that include update information or contests on the Check Mii Out Channel, Everybody Votes Channel and games like Mario Kart Wii.
Eight-generation Nintendo consoles (Nintendo 3DS and Wii U) and later (will) take advantage of the services provided by the Nintendo Network. This includes being able to purchase and download classic Virtual Console games, downloadable games (including most DSiWare/WiiWare downloadable games), downloadable game content, non-gaming apps, game demos, videos, and even certain retail games via the Nintendo eShop. Nintendo Network will allow content, online-gaming support, non-gaming interactions to be provided either for free or for a premium cost. Nintendo also offers its own social network in the form of Miiverse, supported by the Nintendo Network.
The Ouya has its games distributed entirely over the internet, instead of using any physical media like a disk or cartridge. Users purchase games over the Ouya shop, just like Playstation Network Store and the Xbox Live Arcade.
