Many people today can have very hectic schedules which can mean they are not able to go out and do physical activites to divert their minds from work.  That's why it is sometimes the easy option to opt for tasks that can be done sitting at home. That's how these game consoles are becoming more popular. More and more people are opting for the latest gaming consoles today that are loaded with all the features they desire.  For the majority of people, the last thing they want to do when they arrive home after a long day at work, is do some physical activity.  With the technology that surrounds us today, it is by far easier, and much more appealing to sit back and relax on the sofa and get engrossed in your favourite games on your video game console.

Only a hand full of gamers,  remember right back in the day of the very early video game consoles.  In December, 1975 Atari was the first to mass produce and distribute a game console to the public.  The game console had two knobs that was restricted to left and right movements, moving a little rectangle block up and down the screen, one block on the left side and the other on the right.  By controlling this rectangle allowed the "player" to hit a small ball back and forth between the two players, trying to "play the angle" by hitting it on the edge of your paddle to "give it English" or a sharp angle to gain a point.  The first "Video Tennis or Ping Pong" game was called "PONG".  Two years after that, the development of a cartridge-based console called the Video Computer System (VCS), which was later named the Atari 2600 and the next generation of creators brought us games such as galaxian, space Invaders, Asteroids, Moon Patrol, Frogger, and Donkey Kong.  The first football game ever to be released was from Atari for their 2600 console, and allowed you to control one player on offense and your opponent controlled either the 3 man D-Line or a single player.   Although these early consoles were deemed great at the time, things have moved on leaps and bounds over recent years.

The Xbox 360 is the latest console from Microsoft. It is their high definition gaming console, and is extremely popular with serious gamers due to its online community.  The console makes use of the IBM PowerPC chip.  It has three of these processing chips which increases it's computational speed and allows the system to put high definition video onto a HDTV. In terms of sound, it supports 5.1 Dolby digital so you can get brilliant full surround sound when playing a games, which can bring you much closer to the experience of the game.  The Xbox 360 has a HD DVD player that can be used as a DVD player for standard DVD movies and HD DVD generation movies.

All of today’s consoles have seen the introduction of many gaming accessories, with the Nintendo Wii seeing the most.  The Nintendo Wii has a range of wii products built to provide extended functions when playing games.  Some of the accessories are as follows:

The Nunchuk is a device that can be plugged into the Wii remote.  It has a simple analogue stick and two buttons and can be used with many of the Nintendo Wii’s games.  The Nunchuk also has motion sensors and allows gamers to perform specific character actions, by using their natural movement, such as the various boxing moves used on Wii Sports.  Nintendo’s Nunchuk is becoming an extremely popular accessory for the Wii.

The Nintendo Classic Controller is an old skool style expansion controller that is used with the Wii remote slotted in to play games by using a traditional game pad.  It is to be used to play games that are available on the Nintendo Wii platform. The controller basically fits around the Wii-mote in order to offer a control pad interface.