Learn This: Game Systems for Those Of Us Who Don’t Know the Difference Between Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft Consoles

Posted by Mary Pat Whaley Published in Innovation

Twenty years ago we bought our son a Nintendo. That was the last time I felt up-to-date on the game system world.

Today gaming isn’t just for kids anymore. It’s for kids and adults of all ages; it’s for fitness, eye-hand coordination, relaxation, sports improvement, strategy-development, cooking and much more. I recently asked my 21-year old daughter to give me some insight into the current world of gaming. Here are her descriptions of the three competing gaming companies and her comments on each.

Nintendo:

Japanese Company
Translated from Japanese to English, Nintendo means “leave luck to heaven.” (Potential Jeopardy question.)
Product evolution is Nintendo (NES), Super Nintendo (SNES), Nintendo 64, GameCube (GCE), Nintendo Wii (pronounced “we”) which was introduced in 2007 as the world’s first interactive gaming system.
Handheld players evolved from Gameboy, Gameboy Color, GameBoy Advanced, GameBoy SP, to Nintendo DS (Dual Screen.)
Least expensive systems.
Most famous game of all time from any company is made by Nintendo: the Mario series.
Add-ons include the cross-bow and the steering wheel.
Comments: More family-oriented; games are colorful and happy. The Wii took the company from competing on graphics to competing on interactivity. My favorite games because there’s never been much blood.

Sony:

Japanese Company
Product evolution is PlayStation 1, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3, introduced in 2006.
Widely recognized as the gaming system with the best graphics.
More premium systems can play older version games.
PlayStation 3 has a Blu-ray high definition DVD player.
The handheld player is the PSP (PlayStation Portable.)
Comments: I never had a strong attachment to this player; I watched my brother play but never wanted to play myself. I think the games available are limited.

Microsoft:

US Company
Product evolution is XBox and the XBox 360 introduced in 2006.
The XBox 360 has a DVD player and an HD DVD player can be added.
Music can be uploaded from CDs and can be listened to regularly or instead of game music.
MS introduced the Halo series, which is a first-person shooter game and is one of the best-selling games of all time.
The system allows play by Internet with players around the world.
No handheld is currently available.
Comments: Cool that you can play your music through it, but I despise Halo because of its violence.