Gaming Console Industry

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Gaming Consoles — Presentation Transcript

Limitations

The video game console has a few disadvantages. Firstly, they are always released with a fixed specification and fixed components, which means that if significant advances are made in hardware technology a whole new model needs to be developed and retailed. If it's significant enough a change that older consoles won't play games designed for the new model it triggers a generation shift. 

There is also a greater difficulty developing for consoles, which is only just offset by the benefit of a fixed specification, in that developers can't develop the game directly onto a console like you can with a PC. 

Finally, because the console manufactures have monopoly over their individual console's market, they tend to force games developers to certify games for their platforms, which forces additional limitations on what developers can do and also drives the cost of console games up due to licensing.

From time to time, video games have been criticized by parents' groups, psychologists, politicians, and some religious organizations for allegedly glorifying violence, cruelty, andcrime and exposing children to these elements. It is particularly disturbing to some that some video games allow children to act out crimes (for example, the Katamari Damacyseries), and reward them for doing so. Concerns that children who play violent video games may have a tendency to act more aggressively on the playground have led to voluntary rating systems adopted by the industry, such as the ESRB rating system in the United States and the PEGI rating system in Europe (see above), that are aimed at educating parents about the types of games their children should or should not be playing.

Most studies, however, reach the conclusion that violence in video games is not causally linked with aggressive tendencies. This was the conclusion of a 1999 study by the U.S. government,...