Activity 1.

9 Design
Innovation: Gaming Console
By: Nathan Eckhoff and John Bizzell
IED Pd.4

When was the product invented? and Who invented the product?

1967, by a German-born television engineer named Ralph Baer

History

Between 1967 and 1969, Ralph Baer, a German-born television engineer

working at Sanders Associates Inc., conducted experiments with his
colleagues Bill Harrison and Bill Rusch to invent the first console that
would allow people to play games on their television. In 1969, the Brown
Box was invented.
This was the first prototype for a multiplayer gaming console and was sold
to Magnavox.
The product wasnt put on the market until 1972 when the Magnavox
Odyssey was released to the public, starting the ever growing gaming
system product.

History

In 1972 Nolan Bushnell founded Atari, the 3 years later Pong is sold in
Sears under Atari.
Atari then began working on Stella in 1977, a cartridge-based system that
could play multiple games.Soon Space Invaders, Breakout, Missile
Command and Combat came out through Atari.
In 1980, Mattel releases the Intellivision, which was Ataris 1st rival.
5 years later, in 1985, Nintendo releases its 1st console. The Nintendo
Entertainment System featured games like Super Mario Bros., Metroid,
and The Legend of Zelda.
Then Nintendo came out with its GameBoy in 1989. It had and 8-bit CPU,
NES, and black-and-white LCD screen. This was the 1st major handheld
console.

History

Also In 1989, the Genesis was released by Sega. this offered Sonic the
Hedgehog
In 1990, the Neo-Geo was released by SNK. It was an arcade style gaming
console.
In return to the Genesis release, Nintendo launches the Super Nintendo
Entertainment System in 1991. Here Nintendo upgraded Super Mario
Bros., Metroid, and Zelda
The playstation was launched in 1995, by Sony. This device featured
games like Resident Evil, Gran Turismo, Tekken, Crash Bandicoot, Metal
Gear Solid and Electronic Arts Sports games
Nintendo released the Nintendo 64 in 1996. This console didnt have a big
range of games, but offered Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina
of Time, and a really popular GoldenEye 007.

History

In 2000, the Playstation 2 was released. This is where the 1st GTA was
released as well as Metal Gear, and Final Fantasy
Microsoft releases its 1st console, the Xbox, in 2001. Here the Halo
franchise starts with Halo:Combat Evolved. This franchise is one of the
most popular video game franchises in video game history.
Nintendo releases its GameCube in 2001. Not creating new games it piggy
backs off the earlier versions of Mario, Zelda, and Metroid.
Then in 2002 the Gameboy Advanced comes out in color.
Next to the Gameboy, the Nintendo DS comes out in 2004. It features
compatibility for older Gameboy games.
Sony come out with the Playstation Portable in 2005. This featured
Wireless capability, high-quality graphics, and non-gaming functions like
photo storage, and digital audio/video capabilities.

History

Microsoft also released the Xbox 360 in 2005. this console eventually held
other Halo franchise games like Halo 2 (2004), Halo 3 (2007), Halo Reach
(2010), and Halo 4 (2012), as well as other games.
In 2006, Nintendo releases the Wii. This competed with the Xbox 360 and
Playstation3. The feature of this console was the handheld wii controller.
Also in 2006, the Playstation 3 was released just 2 days before the Wii.
The PS3 could play Bluray and DVD discs on it
In 2010, Sony released the Playstation Move. The controller was handheld
and the PS could detech the movement of the player though the controller
Soon after the PS3 came out with PSMove, The Xbox360 came out with
the Xbox360 Kinect. Just like the PS3, the Kinects could use motions to
select items instead of controllers.

History

Envisions came out with the EVO 2 in 2012. It runs on Android, this makes
it the 1st console to do so. The console plays over 1300 games and over
4000 apps.
Later in 2012, Nintendo came out with the Wii U. This features and
controller with a touch screen embedded in it. If the television is off, the
user can still play games.
In 2013, Sony released its PS4. The new controller came featured with a
touch pad.

Xbox One

The Xbox One was released by Microsoft in late 2013.

It features the Halo franchise in The Master Chief Collection
The Xbox One originally coundnt support previous Xbox 360 games,but in
a new update, Microsoft is making that happen
In the continuation of the Halo franchise, Halo 5 Gaurdians will be released
only compatible with the Xbox One will be released sometime this Autumn
In addition to Halo 5, Halo wars 2 willbe coming out in Autumn of 2016
There where be many more games like Forza Mototsport 6 and Call of
Duty: Black Ops 3, Stars Wars: Battlefront, Recore, and much much more.

Playstation 4

The Playstation 4 is the leading console in the current generation.

As of June 30, 2015, according to Kyle Orlands article on ARSTechnias site, the
Playstation 4 has sold 25.3 million units since its launch in November, 2013, while the
Xbox One has only sold a total of approximately 13.3 million units.
The Playstation 4 also has a stronger graphics processor and more RAM reserved for
running applications, making the gameplay smoother and clearer.
Some games such as Call of Duty: Ghosts and Battlefield 4 have a lower native
resolution on the Xbox One.
While CoD: Ghosts runs at a full 1080p on the PS4, Xbox One runs the game at 900p.
Activision, the publisher of Call of Duty, has even moved the console exclusivity deal
from Microsoft to Sony.
The Xbox One also came launched as arguably a streaming device rather than a
console.

What need did the product address?

The 1st market game console was released
as the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972.
Although Baer created the Brown Box a few
years after 1967.

List any existing patents

Console development companies have many patents on their products and features.
One specific example is the patent of the Playstation 4 controller which was patented on
7/11/13.
There are patents on the software the company uses and the interfaces they even have.
The image below shows a patent made recently by Sony on a game device which was
officially filed on 2/7/14.

What materials were originally used to make the

product?

The Brown Box prototype consisted of knobs, switches, and tons of wiring. The
design was not built for an A in aesthetics.
The Brown Box had cards which told you what switches to flip in order to access
the game you wanted to play.
Youd have to flip the switches toward the card in order for it to work properly.

How was the product originally made?

The Brown Box had two paddle controllers and consisted of many switches which
allowed the user to swap between the games that were to come with Baers design.
Baer had his controllers connected to the Brown Box with cables and many many
wires for the interior of the brown box which contained the games themselves.

What improvements have been made to the product?

Overtime, consoles have developed in many ways.
The storage of consoles has increased, the methods of
memory storage have improved, the processing speed of
consoles has improved.
The gamecubes block systems ratio of blocks to MB was
about 15:1. Nowadays, consoles are being built with 1TB
memory, which in blocks would be about 15,360,000 blocks!

Why were these improvements made?

In order for consumers to buy, and for the companies to make more
money, new products needed to be made.
In order for new products to be made, improvements need to be made.
For example, The Xbox 360 came out in 2005, but Kinect came out in
2010.
The Kinect was based off the PS Move, and was connected to the Xbox
360.
If consumers wanted the Kinect, and they had a Xbox, the companies.
forced them to buy a 360 to get Kinect.
Even more recently, Halo 5 is going to be made exclusively for Xbox One.
The compatibility wont allow it to be played on the 360.
Therefore consumers will have to buy the One if they want to play Halo 5

Who uses the product?

The consumers of videogames now has a wide variety.

With the creation of YouTube and just our generation, you can find people on
video games that cant even tell you the difference between their, theyre and
there.
Below is a graph of a survey taken that asked video game users their age.

What is the global impact on society of the invention and

subsequent innovations?

The first gaming console to hit the market sold under 200,000 units, which wasnt
very successful.
However, games like pong and Nintendos NES brought the world of videogames
to the surface.
After Atari was founded in 1972, the company developed pong which was a huge
success, but a stand-alone and not enough to last years on end.
As Atari worked on their next console, Mattel develops their own console and
later, Nintendo introduces their self with the NES, breaking sales records for a
single console in 1985.
With competition, companies had to always improve to attract the fans attention
and get sales.

If you had the ability to change this product in any way, what
would you change?
John:
If I could add or change anything in gaming consoles, I would
definitely ship them with larger memory storage.
The first model of the current generation consoles both only came
with 500GB of storage.
I know this sounds like a lot of storage, but after the consistent system
updates, game updates, and the installation of games themselves,
storage runs out quick.

If you had the ability to change this product in any way, what
would you change?
Nathan:
If I could change the design of the next game console, Id add the
ability to switch out hard drives, easily, in the console so different
games could be stored on different hard drives.
Then all the updates and other normal functions could be stored on
one big hard drive.
When someone loads a game, theyll be prompted to switch the hard
drive to that game.
Until they switch the hard drive, the game will not play.

Sources

"The Father of the Video Game: The Ralph Baer Prototypes and Electronic Games." National Museum of American
History. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Aug. 2015.

"Video Game Consoles: Past, Present, and Future Timeline." Timetoast. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Aug. 2015.

"A History of Video Game Consoles." Time. Time Inc., n.d. Web. 13 Aug. 2015.

"Age of Video Game Players in the U.S. 2015 | Survey." Statista. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Aug. 2015.

"Magnavox Odyssey Video Game Unit, 1972." National Museum of American History. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Aug. 2015.
Orland, Kyle. "Analysis: Sony Pushes past 50 Percent of the Worldwide Console Market." N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Aug. 2015.
"PS4 vs Xbox One: Which Is Better?" TechRadar. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Aug. 2015.
"Patent US8146166 - System and Method for Providing Content in Two Formats on One DRM Disk." Google Books. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 12 Aug. 2015.