Interactive TV Based Games

1953: A children's television programme called Winky Dink and You, begins the move towards interactive TV. Kids in the US buy a special transparent sheet to place over the screen and, using ordinary crayons, help the show's characters draw things like pathways or tools. The series is discontinued because children begin drawing directly on the TV screen.

An interactive movie is a video game that features highly cinematic presentation and heavy use of scripting, often through the use of full-motion video of either animated or live-action footage.

This genre came about with the invention of laserdiscs and laserdisc players (1978), the first nonlinear or random access video play devices. The fact that a laserdisc player could jump to and play any chapter instantaneously (rather than proceed in a linear path from start to finish like videotape) meant that games with branching plotlines could be constructed from out-of-order video chapters in much the same way as Choose Your Own Adventure books could be constructed from out-of-order pages, or the way an interactive film is constructed by choosing from a web of linked narratives.

Interactive movies were animated or filmed with real actors like movies (or in some later cases, rendered with 3D models), and followed a main storyline. Alternative scenes were filmed to be triggered after wrong (or alternate allowable) actions of the player (such as 'Game Over' scenes).

Laserdisc games:

A laserdisc video game is a video game that uses pre-recorded video (either live-action or animation) played from a laserdisc, either as the entirety of the graphics, or as part of the graphics. The first arcade laserdisc game was Sega's Astron Belt, an early third-person space combat rail shooter featuring live-action full-motion video footage (largely borrowed from a Japanese science fiction film) over which the player/enemy ships and laser fire are superimposed. Developed in 1982, the game's unveiling at the 1982 AMOA show in Chicago marked the beginning of laserdisc fever in the videogame industry, and its release in Japan the following year marked the first commercial release of a laserdisc game. However, its release in the United States was delayed due to several hardware and software bugs, by which time Dragon's Lair had beaten it to public release there.

The first laserdisc game to gain popularity in the United States was Dragon's Lair in 1983. It contained animated scenes, much like a cartoon. The scenes would be played back and at certain points during playback the player would have to press a specific direction on the joystick or the button to advance the game to the next scene, like a quick time event. For instance, a scene begins with the hero falling through a hole in a drawbridge and being attacked by tentacles. If the player presses the button at this point, the hero fends off the tentacles with his sword, and pulls himself back up out of the hole. If the player fails to press the sword button at the right time, or instead presses a direction on the joystick, the hero is attacked by the tentacles and crushed. Each move of the joystick, however, would produce a few moments of black screen, when the laserdisks switched between either a successful outcome or the death of the character, which interrupted the continuous flow of gameplay found in other videogame graphic systems of the time; this was a common criticism of some players and critics.

Despite the high cost of the animation, a deluge of similar laserdisc video games followed Dragon's Lair because of its immense popularity. To cut costs, several companies simply hacked together scenes from several Japanese anime movies that were obscure in America at the time, creating games like Cliff Hanger (from Hayao Miyazaki's Castle of Cagliostro and Mystery of Mamo) and Bega's Battle (from Harmagedon), both of which were released roughly around the same time as Dragon's Lair. Later arcade laserdisc games include Freedom Fighter, Badlands, Space Ace, and Road Blaster.

Other laserdisc video games followed the lead of Astron Belt by integrating more and more computer graphics with the pre-recorded video. For example, Funai's Inter Stellar in 1983 was a forward-scrolling third-person rail shooter that used computer graphics for the ships and full-motion video for the backgrounds. Similarly, M.A.C.H. 3 and Cube Quest were vertical scrolling shooters that used the laserdisc video for the background and computer graphics for the ships. The Firefox arcade game included a Philips Laserdisc player to combine live action video and sound from the Firefox film with computer generated graphics and sound. The game used a special CAV Laserdisc containing multiple storylines stored in very short, interleaved segments on the disc. The player would seek the short distance to the next segment of a storyline during the vertical retrace interval by adjusting the tracking mirror, allowing perfectly continuous video even as the player switched storylines under control of the game's computer. This method of seeking was noted for being extremely strenuous on the player and frequently led to the machines breaking, slightly hindering the appeal of laserdisc arcade games. In the 1990s, American Laser Games produced a wide variety of live-action light gun laserdisc video games, which played much like the early laserdisc games, but used a light gun instead of a joystick to affect the action.

Bega's Battle, released by Data East in 1983, took a different approach and introduced a new form of video game storytelling: using brief full-motion video cut scenes to develop a story between the game's shooting stages. Years later, this would become the standard approach to video game storytelling. Bega's Battle also featured a branching storyline.

DVD (DVDi) games:

A DVD game (Sometimes called DVDi, "DVD interactive") is a standalone game that can be played on a set-top DVD player. The game takes advantage of technology built into the DVD format to create an interactive gaming environment compatible with most DVD players without requiring additional hardware. DVD TV games were first developed in the late 1990s. They were poorly received and understood as an entertainment medium. However, DVD-based game consoles like the PlayStation 2 popularized DVD-based gaming, and also functioned as a DVD video player. In addition, the format has been used to import some video games to the DVD format, allowing them to be played with a standard DVD player rather than requiring a PC. Examples include Dragon's Lair and Who Shot Johnny Rock?. The PC/console game Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness was released in 2006 as a DVD game entitled Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Action Adventure. Japanese games such as visual novels and eroge that were originally made for PC are commonly ported to DVDPG (a term that stands for DVD Players Game). Instead of standard save methods, DVDPGs use password save systems. Similar game types include BDPG (Blu-ray Disc Players Game) and UMDPG (Universal Media Disc Players Game).

Criticism:

Although interactive movies had a filmic quality that sprite-based games could not duplicate at the time, they were a niche market— the lack of direct interactivity put off many gamers. The popularity of FMV games declined after around 1995, as more advanced consoles were released.

Cost was also an issue, as these games were often very expensive to produce: Ground Zero: Texas cost Sega around US$3 million, about the same as a low-budget movie would cost in 1994.

Another issue that drew criticism was the quality of the video itself. While the video was often relatively smooth, it was not actually "full motion" as it was not of 24 frames per second or higher. In addition to this, the hardware it was displayed on, particularly in the case of the Sega CD, had a limited color palette (of which a maximum of 64 colors were displayable simultaneously), resulting in notably inferior image quality.

Interactive TV games:

Interactive TV allows people to play games through the TV remote that comes with their digital TV.  Initial games included platform based games such as lunar lander and expanded to puzzle games.  As interactive TV developed further the red button became a popular feature of modern TVs.  Broadcasters saw an option to provide viewers with a new level of interactivity by providing play a long games, quizzes and competitions linked to popular TV shows.

In 1994, Visiware has established itself as the authority in creating custom TV user experiences for gaming and interactive TV. With established partners throughout the world our portfolio and expertise allows us to offer design, development and integration with multiple technologies and multiple platforms. With our end user focus and team of experienced game editors and interactive TV specialists we are on the forefront of technology and use case evolution, Visiware provides a complete end to end solution for IPTV, cable, satellite, and web operators.

Visiware, S.A. is an interactive television agency in North America and Europe. It is based in France.

Founded in 1994 by Laurant Weill, Visiware is a French publisher and distributor of video games for interactive television, mobile phone and internet, and a specialist in casual gaming. Its main interactive channel Playin' TV, airs on more than 30 cable, satellite and ADSL networks in 77 countries. Since October 2009, Visiware is also the head of a skill gaming website, PlayinStar.

In 2010, Visiware created PlayAlong, a new system that allows synchronisation between TV and mobile devices as TV shows are broadcasting. The first TV show to use this system is Endemol's The Million Pound Drop. TV viewers could play and answer the questions as they were appearing -and their answers revealed- on TV.

Playin' TV is a North American, European and Latin American Interactive Television channel, owned by Visiware America.

Playin’ TV is known to propose several different games in six categories. The board and card games include Solitaire, Poker, Chess and Backgammon. Action and adventure games include Carrot Mania, Johnny Megatone, King Kong and Miss Pearl. Sports games include Football, Tennis, Golf and Basketball. Strategy and puzzle games include Scrabble, Magic 4 and Mine Mania. Ludo-educative games include Spot the differences, Jigsaw and Memory. Casino games include French Roulette, Black Jack, Texas Hold’em and Slot machines.

Each week a new pack of 35 different games, become available.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_movie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visiware

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playin%27_TV

PC Based Games

PC games, also known as computer games, are video games played on a general-purpose personal computer rather than a dedicated video game console or arcade machine. Their defining characteristics include a lack of any centralized controlling authority and greater capacity in input, processing, and output.

PC games reached widespread popularity following the video game crash of 1983, particularly in Europe, leading to the era of the "bedroom coder". From the mid-90s onward they lost mass-market traction to console games before enjoying a resurgence in the mid-2000s through digital distribution.

The uncoordinated nature of the PC game market and its lack of physical media make precisely assessing its size difficult.

Although personal computers only became popular with the development of the microprocessor and microcomputer, computer gaming on mainframes and minicomputers had previously already existed. OXO, an adaptation of tic-tac-toe for the EDSAC, debuted in 1952. Another pioneer computer game was developed in 1961, when MIT students Martin Graetz and Alan Kotok, with MIT student Steve Russell, developed Spacewar! on a PDP-1 mainframe computer used for statistical calculations.

The first generation of computer games were often text adventures or interactive fiction, in which the player communicated with the computer by entering commands through a keyboard. An early text-adventure, Adventure, was developed for the PDP-11 minicomputer by Will Crowther in 1976, and expanded by Don Woods in 1977. By the 1980s, personal computers had become powerful enough to run games like Adventure, but by this time, graphics were beginning to become an important factor in games. Later games combined textual commands with basic graphics, as seen in the SSI Gold Box games such as Pool of Radiance, or Bard's Tale for example.

By the late 1970s to early 1980s, games were developed and distributed through hobbyist groups and gaming magazines, such as Creative Computing and later Computer Gaming World. These publications provided game code that could be typed into a computer and played, encouraging readers to submit their own software to competitions. Microchess was one of the first games for microcomputers which was sold to the public. First sold in 1977, Microchess eventually sold over 50,000 copies on cassette tape.

As with second-generation video game consoles at the time, early home computer game companies capitalized on successful arcade games at the time with ports or clones of popular arcade games. By 1982, the top-selling games for the Atari 400 were ports of Frogger and Centipede, while the top-selling game for the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A was the Space Invaders clone TI Invaders. That same year, Pac-Man was ported to the Atari 800, while Donkey Kong was licensed for the Coleco Adam. In late 1981, Atari attempted to take legal action against unauthorized clones, particularly Pac-Man clones, despite some of these predating Atari's exclusive rights to the home versions of Namco's game.

Gaming on home computers:

While the fruit of development in early video games appeared mainly (for the consumer) in video arcades and home consoles, the rapidly evolving home computers of the 1970s and 80s allowed their owners to program simple games. Hobbyist groups for the new computers soon formed and game software followed.

 Soon many of these games (at first clones of mainframe classics such as Star Trek, and then later clones of popular arcade games) were being distributed through a variety of channels, such as printing the game's source code in books (such as David Ahl's Basic Computer Games), magazines (Creative Computing), and newsletters, which allowed users to type in the code for themselves. Early game designers like Crowther, Daglow and Yob would find the computer code for their games -- which they had never thought to copyright -- published in books and magazines, with their names removed from the listing. Early home computers from Apple, Commodore, Tandy and others had many games that people typed in.

Another distribution channel was the physical mailing and selling of floppy disks, cassette tapes and ROM cartridges. Soon a small cottage industry was formed, with amateur programmers selling disks in plastic bags put on the shelves of local shops, or sent through the mail. Richard Garriott distributed several copies of his 1980 computer role-playing game Akalabeth in plastic bags before the game was published.

The 1980s - Emergence of gaming computers:

In the early 1980s, the computer gaming industry experienced its first major growing pains. Publishing houses appeared, with many honest businesses (and in rare cases such as Electronic Arts, successfully surviving to this day) alongside fly-by-night operations that cheated the games' developers. While some early 80s games were simple clones of existing arcade titles, the relatively low publishing costs for personal computer games allowed for many bold, unique games, a legacy that continues to this day. The primary gaming computers of the 1980s emerged in 1982: the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum.

               

Battlezone (1980) used wireframe vector graphics to create the first true three-dimensional game world. 3D Monster Maze (1981) was the first 3D game for a home computer, while Dungeons of Daggorath (1982 – above right) added various weapons and monsters, sophisticated sound effects, and a "heartbeat" health monitor. Pole Position (1982) used sprite-based, pseudo-3D graphics when it pioneered the "rear-view racer format" where the player's view is behind and above the vehicle, looking forward along the road with the horizon in sight. The style would remain in wide use even after true 3D graphics became standard for racing games. Pac-Man (1980) was the first game to achieve widespread popularity in mainstream culture and the first game character to be popular in his own right. Dragon's Lair (1983) was the first laserdisc game, and introduced full-motion video to video games.

With Adventure establishing the genre, the release of Zork in 1980 further popularized text adventure games in home computers and established developer Infocom's dominance in the field. As these early computers often lacked graphical capabilities, text adventures proved successful. When affordable computers started catching up to and surpassing the graphics of consoles in the late 1980s, the games' popularity waned in favor of graphic adventures and other genres. The text adventure would eventually be known as interactive fiction and a small dedicated following has kept the genre going, with new releases being nearly all free.

 Also published in 1980 was Roberta Williams' Mystery House (left), for the Apple II. It was the first graphic adventure on home computers. Graphics consisted entirely of static monochrome drawings, and the interface still used the typed commands of text adventures. It proved very popular at the time, and she and husband Ken went on to found Sierra On-Line, a major producer of adventure games. Mystery House remains largely forgotten today.

In August of 1982, the Commodore 64 was released to the public. It found initial success because it was marketed and priced aggressively. It had a BASIC programming environment and advanced graphic and sound capabilities for its time, similar to the Colecovision console. It would become the most popular home computer of its day in the USA and many other countries and the best-selling single computer model of all time internationally.

At around the same time, the ZX Spectrum was released in the UK and quickly became the most popular home computer in most of Western Europe, and later the Soviet bloc due to the ease with which clones could be produced.

SuperSet Software created Snipes, a text-mode networked computer game in 1983 to test a new PC based computer network and demonstrate its capabilities. Snipes is officially credited as being the original inspiration for Novell Netware. It is believed to be the first network game ever written for a commercial personal computer and is recognised alongside 1974's Maze War (a networked multiplayer maze game for several research machines) and Spasim (a 3d multiplayer space simulation for time shared mainframes) as the precursor to multi-player games such as Doom and Quake.

The true modern adventure game would be born with the Sierra King's Quest series in 1984. It featured color graphics and a third person perspective. An on-screen player-controlled character could be moved behind and in front of objects on a 2D background drawn in perspective, creating the illusion of pseudo-3D space. Commands were still entered via text. Lucasarts would do away with this last vestige feature of text adventures when its 1987 adventure Maniac Mansion (left) built with its SCUMM system allowed a point-and-click interface. Sierra and other game companies quickly followed with their own mouse-driven games.

With Elite in 1984, David Braben and Ian Bell ushered in the age of modern style 3d graphics in the home, bringing a convincing vector world with full 6 degree freedom of movement and thousands of visitable planetary systems into the living room. Initially only available for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron, the success of this title caused it eventually to be ported to all popular formats, including the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST and even the Nintendo Entertainment System, although this version only received a European release.

In computer gaming, the later 1980s are primarily the story of the United Kingdom's rise to prominence. The market in the U.K. was primely positioned for this task: personal computer users were offered a smooth scale of power versus price, from the ZX Spectrum up to the Amiga, developers and publishers were in close enough proximity to offer each other support, and the NES made much less of an impact than it did in the United States, being outsold by the Master System.

The arrival of the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga in 1985 was the beginning of a new era of 16-bit machines. For many users they were too expensive until later on in the decade, at which point advances in the IBM PC's open platform had caused the IBM PC compatibles to become comparably powerful at a lower cost than their competitors. The VGA standard developed for IBM's new PS/2 line in 1987 gave the PC the potential for 256-color graphics. This was a big jump ahead of most 8-bit home computers but still lagging behind platforms with built-in sound and graphics hardware like the Amiga, causing an odd trend around '89-91 towards developing to a seemingly inferior machine.

Increasing adoption of the computer mouse, driven partially by the success of adventure games such as the highly successful King's Quest series, and high resolution bitmap displays allowed the industry to include increasingly high-quality graphical interfaces in new releases. Meanwhile, the Commodore Amiga computer achieved great success in the market from its release in 1985, contributing to the rapid adoption of these new interface technologies. Although at first hampered by poor PC speaker sound and limited (when compared to the popular home computer platforms of the day) EGA graphics, the VGA standard gave the PC graphics that outmatched the Amiga.

 

1990s – 3D games

In 1991, id Software produced an early first-person shooter, Hovertank 3D, which was the company's first in their line of highly influential games in the genre. There were also several other companies that produced early first-person shooters, such as Arsys Software's Star Cruiser, which featured fully 3D polygonal graphics in 1988, and Accolade's Day of the Viper in 1989. Id Software went on to develop Wolfenstein 3D in 1992, which helped to popularize the genre, kick-starting a genre that would become one of the highest-selling in modern times. The game was originally distributed through the shareware distribution model, allowing players to try a limited part of the game for free but requiring payment to play the rest, and represented one of the first uses of texture mapping graphics in a popular game, along with Ultima Underworld.

While leading Sega and Nintendo console systems kept their CPU speed at 3–7 MHz, the 486 PC processor ran much faster, allowing it to perform many more calculations per second. The 1993 release of Doom on the PC was a breakthrough in 3D graphics, and was soon ported to various game consoles in a general shift toward greater realism. In the same time frame, games such as Myst took advantage of the new CD-ROM delivery format to include many more assets (sound, images, video) for a richer game experience.

To enhance the immersive experience with their unrealistic graphics and electronic sound, early PC games included extras such as the peril-sensitive sunglasses that shipped with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or the science fiction novella included with Elite. These extras gradually became less common, but many games were still sold in the traditional over-sized boxes that used to hold the extra "feelies". Today, such extras are usually found only in Special Edition versions of games, such as Battlechests from Blizzard.

By 1996, the rise of Microsoft Windows and success of 3D console titles such as Super Mario 64 sparked great interest in hardware accelerated 3D graphics on the IBM PC compatible, and soon resulted in attempts to produce affordable solutions with the ATI Rage, Matrox Mystique and S3 ViRGE. Tomb Raider, which was released in 1996, was one of the first 3D third-person shooter games and was praised for its revolutionary graphics. As 3D graphics libraries such as DirectX and OpenGL matured and knocked proprietary interfaces out of the market, these platforms gained greater acceptance in the market, particularly with their demonstrated benefits in games such as Unreal. However, major changes to the Microsoft Windows operating system, by then the market leader, made many older MS-DOS-based games unplayable on Windows NT, and later, Windows XP (without using an emulator, such as DOSbox).

The faster graphics accelerators and improving CPU technology resulted in increasing levels of realism in computer games. During this time, the improvements introduced with products such as ATI's Radeon R300 and NVidia's GeForce 6 Series have allowed developers to increase the complexity of modern game engines. PC gaming currently tends strongly toward improvements in 3D graphics.

Unlike the generally accepted push for improved graphical performance, the use of physics engines in computer games has become a matter of debate since announcement and 2005 release of the nVidia PhysX PPU, ostensibly competing with middleware such as the Havok physics engine. Issues such as difficulty in ensuring consistent experiences for all players, and the uncertain benefit of first generation PhysX cards in games such as Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and City of Villains, prompted arguments over the value of such technology.

Similarly, many game publishers began to experiment with new forms of marketing. Chief among these alternative strategies is episodic gaming, an adaptation of the older concept of expansion packs, in which game content is provided in smaller quantities but for a proportionally lower price. Titles such as Half-Life 2: Episode One took advantage of the idea, with mixed results rising from concerns for the amount of content provided for the price.

Platform characteristics:

 Openness:

 The defining characteristic of the PC platform is the absence of centralised control; all other gaming platforms (except Android phones, to an extent) are owned and administered by a single group.

The advantages of openness include:

 Reduced software cost Prices are kept down by competition and the absence of platform-holder fees. Games and services are cheaper at every level, and many are free.  Increased flexibility PC games decades old can be played on modern systems (through emulation software if need be). Conversely, newer games can often be run on older systems by reducing the games' fidelity and/or scale. Increased innovation one does not need to ask for permission to release or update a PC game, and the platform's hardware and software are constantly evolving. These two factors make PC the centre of both hardware and software innovation. Closed platforms, by comparison, tend to remain much the same throughout their lifespan.

But there are also disadvantages, including:

 Increased complexity A PC is a general-purpose tool. Its inner workings are exposed to the owner and misconfiguration can create enormous problems. Hardware compatibility issues are also possible. Increased hardware cost PC components are generally sold individually for profit (even if one buys a pre-built machine), whereas the hardware of closed platforms is mass-produced as a single unit and often sold at a loss. Games will also use PC hardware less efficiently than that of a closed platform, since the huge variety of possible makes and models prohibits focused optimisation. Reduced security It is difficult, and in most situations ultimately impossible, to control the way in which PC hardware and software is used. This leads to far more software piracy and cheating than closed platforms suffer from.

Local area network gaming:

Multiplayer gaming was largely limited to local area networks (LANs) before cost-effective broadband Internet access became available, due to their typically higher bandwidth and lower latency than the dial-up services of the time. These advantages allowed more players to join any given computer game, but have persisted today because of the higher latency of most Internet connections and the costs associated with broadband Internet.

LAN gaming typically requires two or more personal computers, a router and sufficient networking cables to connect every computer on the network. Additionally, each computer must have a network card in order to communicate with other computers on the network, and its own copy (or spawn copy) of the game in order to play. Optionally, any LAN may include an external connection to the Internet.

Online games:

Online multiplayer games have achieved popularity largely as a result of increasing broadband adoption among consumers. Affordable high-bandwidth Internet connections allow large numbers of players to play together, and thus have found particular use in massively multiplayer online role-playing games, Tanarus and persistent online games such as World War II Online.

Although it is possible to participate in online computer games using dial-up modems, broadband internet connections are generally considered necessary in order to reduce the latency between players (commonly known as "lag"). Such connections require a broadband-compatible modem connected to the personal computer through a network interface card (generally integrated onto the computer's motherboard), optionally separated by a router. Online games require a virtual environment, generally called a "game server". These virtual servers inter-connect gamers, allowing real time, and often fast paced action. To meet this subsequent need, Game Server Providers (GSP) have become increasingly more popular over the last half decade. While not required for all gamers, these servers provide a unique "home", fully customizable (such as additional modifications, settings, etc.) – giving the end gamers the experience they desire. Today there are over 510,000 game servers hosted in North America alone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_game

Handheld Game Platorms

A handheld video game console is a lightweight, portable electronic device with a built-in screen, game controls, speakers and replaceable and/or rechargeable batteries or battery pack.]Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video game consoles and contain the console, screen, speakers, and controls in one unit, allowing people to carry them and play them at any time or place.

Handheld video gaming has always been a few steps behind its console counterpart, but that’s proven to be a small trade-off for the benefits of portability and, to some, even part of the appeal.

So, while most gamers are now enjoying their PSPs and Micros and DSs, we thought we'd take a little trip back and look at some of the handhelds from whence they came before them. Although we have to warn you, reading this feature may cause an uncontrollable urge to jump over to eBay.

The Early Years:

Mattel’s LED-based Handhelds - 1977-78

The idea of handheld video games with interchangeable cartridges wouldn’t take hold for about another decade, but Mattel managed to pry video games away from quarter-swallowing arcades and dim televisions with their successful line of LED-based, single-game handhelds. Most people today will remember Football, but the company also released the creatively-titled Baseball and Basketball, as well as the non-sports titles Missile Attack, Armour Battle, and Sub Chase. Mattel also managed to jump on the retro-chic bandwagon, re-releasing Football and Baseball in 2000.

Milton Bradley Microvision - 1979

Milton Bradley, a company then better known for Hungry Hungry Hippos than video games, has the distinction of being the first to introduce a handheld video game console with interchangeable cartridges with its Microvision. The system had only a handful of games and was plagued with problems from the start, including a 16x16 pixel LCD screen that was prone to rotting and cartridges that could be permanently damaged by even a relatively small static charge.

Nintendo’s Game & Watch Series - 1980-91

Upping the ante from Mattel’s LED handhelds, Nintendo introduced their first Game & Watch handheld in 1980 and would go on to produce dozens more throughout the decade, offering a small glimpse of what was to come from the company. As the name suggests, the handhelds featured a clock and alarm but the real attraction was the games, which included titles like Donkey Kong, Mario Bros, and Balloon Fight.

The New Wave:

Nintendo Game Boy - 1989

Nintendo released the Game Boy on April 21, 1989 (or in September 1990 for UK). The design team headed by the late Gunpei Yokoi had also been responsible for the Game & Watch system, as well as the Nintendo Entertainment System games Metroid and Kid Icarus. The Game Boy came under scrutiny by some industry critics, saying that the monochrome screen was too small, and the processing power was inadequate. The design team had felt that low initial cost and battery economy were more important concerns, and when compared to the Microvision, the Game Boy was a huge leap forward.

Yokoi recognized that the Game Boy needed a killer app—at least one game that would define the console, and persuade customers to buy it. In June 1988, Minoru Arakawa, then-CEO of Nintendo of America saw a demonstration of the game Tetris at a trade show. Nintendo purchased the rights for the game, and packaged it with the Game Boy system. It was almost an immediate hit. By the end of the year more than a million units were sold in the US, and 25 million were sold by 1992.[verification needed] As of March 31, 2005, the Game Boy and Game Boy Colour combined to sell 118.69 million units worldwide.

Atari Lynx / Lynx II - 1989

In 1987, Epyx created the Handy Game; a device that would turn into the Atari Lynx in 1989. It was the first color handheld console ever made, as well as the first with a backlit screen. It also featured networking support with up to 17 other players, and advanced hardware that allowed the zooming and scaling of sprites. The Lynx could also be turned upside down to accommodate left-handed players. However, all these features came at a very high price point, which drove consumers to seek cheaper alternatives. The Lynx was also very unwieldy, consumed batteries very quickly, and lacked the third-party support enjoyed by its competitors. Due to its high price, short battery life, production shortages, a dearth of compelling games, and Nintendo's aggressive marketing campaign, and despite a redesign in 1991, the Lynx became a commercial failure. Despite this, companies like Telegames helped to keep the system alive long past its commercial relevance, and when new owner Hasbro released the rights to develop for the public domain, independent developers like Songbird have managed to release new commercial games for the system every year until 2004's Winter Games.

Sega Game Gear  - 1990

The Sega Game Gear was the third colour handheld console, after the Lynx and the TurboExpress. Released in Japan in 1990 and in North America and Europe in 1991, it was based on the Sega Master System, which gave Sega the ability to quickly create Game Gear games from its large library of games for the Master System. While never reaching the level of success enjoyed by Nintendo, the Sega Game Gear proved to be a fairly durable competitor, lasting longer than any other Game Boy rivals.

While the Game Gear is most frequently seen in black or navy blue, it was also released in a variety of additional colours: red, light blue, yellow, clear, and violet. All of these variations were released in small quantities and frequently only in the Asian market.

Following Sega's success with the Game Gear, they began development on a successor during the early 1990s, which was intended to feature a touchscreen interface, many years before the Nintendo DS. However, such a technology was very expensive at the time, and the handheld itself was estimated to have cost around $289 were it to be released. Sega eventually chose to shelve the idea and instead release the Sega Nomad, a handheld version of the Mega Drive (Genesis), as the successor.

Game Boy Colour - 1998

The Game Boy Colour (also referred to as GBC or CGB) is Nintendo's successor to the Game Boy and was released on October 21, 1998, in Japan and in November of the same year in the United States. It features a colour screen, and is slightly bigger than the Game Boy Pocket. The processor is twice as fast as a Game Boy's and has twice as much memory. It also had an infrared communications port for wireless linking which did not appear in later versions of the Game Boy, such as the Game Boy Advance.

 

The Game Boy Colour was a response to pressure from game developers for a new system, as they felt that the Game Boy, even in its latest incarnation, the Game Boy Pocket, was insufficient. The resulting product was backward compatible, a first for a handheld console system, and leveraged the large library of games and great installed base of the predecessor system. This became a major feature of the Game Boy line, since it allowed each new launch to begin with a significantly larger library than any of its competitors. As of March 31, 2005, the Game Boy and Game Boy Colour combined to sell 118.69 million units worldwide.

The console was capable of displaying up to 56 different colours simultaneously on screen from its palette of 32,768, and could add basic four-color shading to games that had been developed for the original Game Boy. It could also give the sprites and backgrounds separate colours, for a total of more than four colours.

Game Boy Advance / Advance SP - 2001

In 2001, Nintendo released the Game Boy Advance (GBA or AGB), which added two shoulder buttons, a larger screen, and more computing power than the Game Boy Color.

The design was revised two years later when the Game Boy Advance SP (GBA SP), a more compact version, was released. The SP featured a "clamshell" design (folding open and closed, like a laptop computer), as well as a frontlit color display and rechargeable battery. Despite the smaller form factor, the screen remained the same size as that of the original. In 2005, the Game Boy Micro was released. This revision sacrificed screen size and backwards compatibility with previous Game Boys for a dramatic reduction in total size and a brighter backlit screen. A new SP model with a backlit screen was released in some regions around the same time.

Along with the Nintendo GameCube, the GBA also introduced the concept of "connectivity": using a handheld system as a console controller. A handful of games use this feature, most notably Animal Crossing, Pac-Man Vs., Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, and Sonic Adventure 2: Battle.

The Now Generation:

Nintendo DS / DS Lite - 2004 / 2005

Ever since the first concept designs appeared on the web, the Nintendo DS was met with skepticism. To many, the design seemed like a step backward after the elegant GBA SP, and the dual screens and stylus input seemed more like novelties than the revolution in handheld gaming Nintendo was promising. But gamers were slowly won over as more and more great games kept coming out for the DS, including what are arguably some of the most innovative titles on any system -- the built-in WiFi doesn’t hurt either, which they've used to finally move on pervasive portable online gameplay. Nintendo went on to launch the DS Lite, a smaller, thinner, lighter version of the same device and in 2010 the 3Ds, with its 3D visual gameplay experience.

PlayStation Portable – 2004

 

The most technically advanced handheld system to date, Sony’s PlayStation Portable seems to be holding on to its (comparatively smaller) piece of the market in the face of Nintendo’s array of handhelds, despite its high price tag and relatively few stand-out games. Sony also keeps pushing the UMD format for movies, although many users have opted for more practical means of viewing content on their PSPs.

PlayStation Vita – 2011

The PlayStation Vita is the successor to Sony's PSP Handheld series. It was released in Japan and parts of Asia on December 17, 2011[1] and was released in Europe, Australia, and Latin and North America on February 22, 2012. The handheld includes two analog sticks, a 5-inch (130 mm) OLED multi-touch capacitive touchscreen, and supports Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and optional 3G. Internally, the Vita features a 4 core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor and a 4 core SGX543MP4+ graphics processing unit.  The device is fully backwards-compatible with PlayStation Portable games digitally released on the PlayStation Network via the PlayStation Store. However, PS One Classics and TurboGrafx-16 titles were not compatible at the time of the primary public release in Japan. The Vita's dual analog sticks will be supported on selected PSP games. The graphics for PSP releases will be up-scaled, with a smoothing filter to reduce pixelation.

There's nothing quite like the Nvidia Shield. With its traditional game controller, it's competing with portable games consoles like the Sony PS Vita and the Nintendo 3DS. But it's got more in common with smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S4, thanks to its Android operating system and 5-inch touchscreen display.

It also does something no other device can - it will stream full PC games from a local computer. Is this the handheld games console to rule them all? 

PDAs and SmartPhones:

PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant) is a device similar to a computer that fits in the palm of your hand and allows the user to collect such information as contacts, appointments, files, programs, and more.

A smartphone is a mobile phone that allows you to do more than just make phone calls and send text messages. Smartphones can browse the Internet and run basic software programs like a computer and the user often interacts with the smartphone by using their finger on the touch screen.

PDAs Emulators

PDAs might not be the most natural fit for gaming (outside of point-and-click friendly fare) but that hasn’t stopped developers from producing original games for them and, yes, emulators as well. Sure, it’s no GP2X, but it’s a heck of a lot more discreet, so you can bust out Super Mario Bros 3 and pretend you're working while you try to beat it for the umpteenth time. Don't use the warp pipes, dude, beat it like a real gamer.

Nokia N-Gage / N-Gage QD - 2003-04

Before they introduced the N-Gage, Nokia wasn’t a company that anyone would associate with gaming -- and now, a few years later, they still haven’t really managed to get gamers to take notice. The N-Gage (and it’s most recent revision the QD) is a fairly capable system but it seems that most people still prefer to keep their phoning and their gaming separate. Nokia, however, is hoping that'll change in the next couple of years, and intends to incorporate N-Gage gaming capabilities into future smartphones, not just game-phones.

Xperia PLAY

The Xperia Play, (stylized Xperia PLAY and codenamed Zeus) is a handheld game console smartphone produced by Sony Ericsson. Under the Xperia smartphone brand running Android 2.3 Gingerbread, the device is the first to be part of the PlayStation Certified program which means that it can play PlayStation Mobile games. The device was originally thought to carry the PlayStation branding, though this has been clarified to be a certification of being part of the PlayStation Certified program.

On March 4, 2010, the device was announced for the first time codenamed the PlayStation Phone, but rumors were going around long before Sony announced the device as early as 2005.

On February 13, 2011, at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2011, it was announced that the device would be shipping globally in March 2011, with a launch lineup of around 50 software titles. In the US, the Xperia Play was initially available only on the Verizon network, until the release of the Xperia Play 4G on AT&T. In Mexico it is available through Telcel. In the UK, carriers O₂, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and Three have confirmed that they were to stock the handset. In Canada, the device is carried exclusively by Rogers Wireless.

The device is a horizontally sliding phone with its original form resembling the Xperia X10 while the slider below resembles the slider of the PSP Go. The slider features a D-pad in an indented area on the left side, a set of standard PlayStation touch buttons(Triangle, Circle, Cross and Square) in an indented area on the right, a long rectangular touchpad in the middle, start and select buttons in an indented area on the bottom right corner, an option button on the bottom left corner, and two shoulder buttons (L and R) on the back of the device. The original form, has a long rectangular touchscreen, and four buttons below, for back, option, home, and search. The device features a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, a Qualcomm Adreno 205 GPU, a 4.0 in (100 mm) display with a resolution of 854 × 480, a 5.1-megapixel camera, 512 MB RAM, 400 MB internal storage and a micro-USB connector. It supports microSD cards, in contrast to the PSP consoles, which use Memory Stick variants, and the PlayStation Vita, which uses a custom, proprietary flash storage medium.

The device runs on the Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system, with early prototypes running Android 2.2. It is one of two successors to the PlayStation Portable, the other being the PlayStation Vita.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handheld_game_console 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xperia_Play