182-593: Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles , as well as applications (games), streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming , and online services such as the Xbox network and Xbox Game Pass . The brand is produced by Microsoft Gaming , a division of Microsoft . The brand was first introduced in the United States in November 2001, with the launch of the original Xbox console . The Xbox branding
364-465: A business the potential to reduce IT operational costs by outsourcing hardware and software maintenance and support to the cloud provider. This enables the business to reallocate IT operations costs away from hardware/software spending and from personnel expenses, towards meeting other goals. In addition, with applications hosted centrally, updates can be released without the need for users to install new software. One drawback of SaaS comes with storing
546-805: A display device , most commonly shown in a video format on a television set , computer monitor , flat-panel display or touchscreen on handheld devices , or a virtual reality headset . These games are addictive and can lead to the release of dopamine in the addict's synapses. Most modern video games are audiovisual , with audio complement delivered through speakers or headphones , and sometimes also with other types of sensory feedback (e.g., haptic technology that provides tactile sensations). Some video games also allow microphone and webcam inputs for in-game chatting and livestreaming . Video games are typically categorized according to their hardware platform , which traditionally includes arcade video games , console games , and computer (PC) games ;
728-457: A teletype printer , audio speaker , or similar device. This also distinguished from many handheld electronic games like Merlin which commonly used LED lights for indicators but did not use these in combination for imaging purposes. "Computer game" may also be used as a descriptor, as all these types of games essentially require the use of a computer processor, and in some cases, it is used interchangeably with "video game". Particularly in
910-544: A DEC PDP-1 computer in 1962. Each game has different means of display: NIMROD has a panel of lights to play the game of Nim , OXO has a graphical display to play tic-tac-toe, Tennis for Two has an oscilloscope to display a side view of a tennis court, and Spacewar! has the DEC PDP-1's vector display to have two spaceships battle each other. These inventions laid the foundation for modern video games. In 1966, while working at Sanders Associates , Ralph H. Baer devised
1092-456: A Service" , "Communications as a Service", "Compute as a Service", and " Data Storage as a Service" . Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) refers to online services that provide high-level APIs used to abstract various low-level details of underlying network infrastructure like physical computing resources, location, data partitioning, scaling, security, backup, etc. A hypervisor runs the virtual machines as guests. Pools of hypervisors within
1274-464: A Service) and dPaaS (Data Platform as a Service) . iPaaS enables customers to develop, execute and govern integration flows. Under the iPaaS integration model, customers drive the development and deployment of integrations without installing or managing any hardware or middleware. dPaaS delivers integration—and data-management—products as a fully managed service. Under the dPaaS model, the PaaS provider, not
1456-483: A broadband connection. It first competed with Dreamcast's online service but later primarily competed with PlayStation 2's online service . Although the two competing services were free, while Xbox Live required a subscription – as well as broadband-only connection, which was not completely adopted yet – Xbox Live was a success due to it having better servers , features such as a buddy list , and milestone titles such as Halo 2 (released in November 2004), which became
1638-538: A catalog of games from a range of publishers for a single monthly subscription price. The service was launched on June 1, 2017. Xbox Wire is Xbox's news blog , launched by Microsoft in May 2013 in preparation for the announcement of the Xbox One. It was Microsoft's first Xbox-focused blog since it shut down Gamerscore in early 2009. In March 2022, a Japanese-language version of the site was published as part of Microsoft's focus on
1820-451: A cloud platform instead of directly buying and managing the underlying hardware and software layers. With some PaaS, the underlying computer and storage resources scale automatically to match application demand so that the cloud user does not have to allocate resources manually. Some integration and data management providers also use specialized applications of PaaS as delivery models for data. Examples include iPaaS (Integration Platform as
2002-437: A combination of the limitations of the game platform and display device and the program efficiency of the game itself. The game's output can range from fixed displays using LED or LCD elements, text-based games , two-dimensional and three-dimensional graphics, and augmented reality displays. The game's graphics are often accompanied by sound produced by internal speakers on the game platform or external speakers attached to
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#17330936899962184-445: A developer's programming language of choice, or they may opt to also use game development kits that minimize the amount of direct programming they have to do but can also limit the amount of customization they can add into a game. Like all software, video games usually undergo quality testing before release to assure there are no bugs or glitches in the product, though frequently developers will release patches and updates . With
2366-405: A development environment to application developers. The provider typically develops toolkit and standards for development and channels for distribution and payment. In the PaaS models, cloud providers deliver a computing platform , typically including an operating system, programming-language execution environment, database, and the web server. Application developers develop and run their software on
2548-482: A digital D-pad . The right face of the controller features four digital action buttons; a green "A" button, red "B" button, blue "X" button and yellow "Y" button. The lower right houses the right analog stick, in the lower left is a digital D-pad and on the left face is the left analog stick. Both analog sticks can also be "clicked in" to activate a digital button beneath. In the center of the controller face are digital "Start", "Back" and "Guide" buttons. The "Guide" button
2730-420: A distributed set of machines in different locations, connected to a single network or hub service. It is possible to distinguish between two types of distributed clouds: public-resource computing and volunteer cloud. According to ISO /IEC 22123-1: "multi-cloud is a cloud deployment model in which a customer uses public cloud services provided by two or more cloud service providers". Poly cloud refers to
2912-414: A fictional piece of technology from Star Trek , arguing for the video game as a medium in which the player is allowed to become another person, and to act out in another world. This image of video games received early widespread popular support, and forms the basis of films such as Tron , eXistenZ and The Last Starfighter . Ludologists break sharply and radically from this idea. They argue that
3094-560: A form of virtualized computing." according to ISO . Function as a service is a form of serverless computing. The deployment of services to the cloud is referred to as cloud migration. Reverse cloud migration, also known as cloud repatriation, refers to moving cloud-based workloads back to on-premises infrastructures including enterprise data centers, colocation providers, and managed service providers. Cloud repatriation occurs due to security concerns, costs, performance issues, compatibility problems, and uptime concerns. Private cloud
3276-432: A game following its initial release. Several games offer players the ability to create user-generated content to share with others to play. Other games, mostly those on personal computers, can be extended with user-created modifications or mods that alter or add onto the game; these often are unofficial and were developed by players from reverse engineering of the game, but other games provide official support for modding
3458-415: A letter dated July 10, 1972. In the letter, Bushnell uses the term "video game" twice. Per video game historian Keith Smith, the sudden appearance suggested that the term had been proposed and readily adopted by those in the field. Around March 1973, Ed Adlum, who ran Cashbox ' s coin-operated section until 1972 and then later founded RePlay Magazine , covering the coin-op amusement field, in 1975, used
3640-455: A limited "Free" tier called Silver), the ability to stream multimedia content from PCs, while later updates added the ability to purchase and stream music, television programs, and films through the Xbox Music and Xbox Video services, along with access to third-party content services through third-party media streaming applications . Microsoft also released Kinect , a motion control system for
3822-504: A limited number of platforms, and exclusivity to a platform or brand is used by platform holders as a competitive edge in the video game market. However, games may be developed for alternative platforms than intended, which are described as ports or conversions. These also may be remasters - where most of the original game's source code is reused and art assets, models, and game levels are updated for modern systems – and remakes, where in addition to asset improvements, significant reworking of
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#17330936899964004-432: A minimum age is used by nearly all systems, along with additional descriptors to identify specific content that players and parents should be aware of. The regulations vary from country to country but generally are voluntary systems upheld by vendor practices, with penalty and fines issued by the ratings body on the video game publisher for misuse of the ratings. Among the major content rating systems include: Additionally,
4186-551: A platform, the hardware which contains computing elements, to process player interaction from some type of input device and displays the results to a video output display. Video games require a platform, a specific combination of electronic components or computer hardware and associated software , to operate. The term system is also commonly used. These platforms may include multiple brandsheld by platform holders , such as Nintendo or Sony, seeking to gain larger market shares. Games are typically designed to be played on one or
4368-464: A relatively recent development in the humanities. The two most visible schools in this emerging field are ludology and narratology . Narrativists approach video games in the context of what Janet Murray calls "Cyberdrama". That is to say, their major concern is with video games as a storytelling medium, one that arises out of interactive fiction . Murray puts video games in the context of the Holodeck ,
4550-503: A result, Compaq decided to sell server hardware to internet service providers . In the 2000s, the application of cloud computing began to take shape with the establishment of Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2002, which allowed developers to build applications independently. In 2006 Amazon Simple Storage Service, known as Amazon S3 , and the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) were released. In 2008 NASA 's development of
4732-455: A service . Today, video game development requires numerous interdisciplinary skills, vision , teamwork , and liaisons between different parties, including developers , publishers , distributors , retailers , hardware manufacturers, and other marketers, to successfully bring a game to its consumers. As of 2020 , the global video game market had estimated annual revenues of US$ 159 billion across hardware, software, and services, which
4914-728: A service that extends AWS infrastructure, services, APIs , and tools to customer data centers, co-location spaces, or on-premises facilities. Advocates of public and hybrid clouds claim that cloud computing allows companies to avoid or minimize up-front IT infrastructure costs. Proponents also claim that cloud computing allows enterprises to get their applications up and running faster, with improved manageability and less maintenance, and that it enables IT teams to more rapidly adjust resources to meet fluctuating and unpredictable demand, providing burst computing capability: high computing power at certain periods of peak demand. Additional value propositions of cloud computing include: One of
5096-511: A significant physical footprint, requiring allocations of space, hardware, and environmental controls. These assets have to be refreshed periodically, resulting in additional capital expenditures. They have attracted criticism because users "still have to buy, build, and manage them" and thus do not benefit from less hands-on management, essentially "[lacking] the economic model that makes cloud computing such an intriguing concept". Cloud services are considered "public" when they are delivered over
5278-590: A similar version running in a smaller coin-operated arcade cabinet using a less expensive computer. This was released as Computer Space , the first arcade video game , in 1971. Bushnell and Dabney went on to form Atari, Inc. , and with Allan Alcorn , created their second arcade game in 1972, the hit ping pong -style Pong , which was directly inspired by the table tennis game on the Odyssey. Sanders and Magnavox sued Atari for infringement of Baer's patents, but Atari settled out of court, paying for perpetual rights to
5460-532: A single attack—a process he called "hyperjacking". Some examples of this include the Dropbox security breach, and iCloud 2014 leak. Dropbox had been breached in October 2014, having over seven million of its users passwords stolen by hackers in an effort to get monetary value from it by Bitcoins (BTC). By having these passwords, they are able to read private data as well as have this data be indexed by search engines (making
5642-421: A specific community with common concerns (security, compliance, jurisdiction, etc.), whether it is managed internally or by a third-party, and hosted internally or externally, the costs are distributed among fewer users compared to a public cloud (but more than a private cloud). As a result, only a portion of the potential cost savings of cloud computing is achieved. A cloud computing platform can be assembled from
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5824-515: A system to play a basic table tennis game on a television screen. With the company's approval, Baer created the prototype known as the "Brown Box." Sanders patented Baer’s innovations and licensed them to Magnavox , which commercialized the technology as the first home video game console , the Magnavox Odyssey , released in 1972. Separately, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney , inspired by seeing Spacewar! running at Stanford University , devised
6006-487: A thin client interface, such as a web browser (e.g., web-based email), or a program interface. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, storage, or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exception of limited user-specific application configuration settings. In the software as a service (SaaS) model, users gain access to application software and databases . Cloud providers manage
6188-512: A variety of games. Most games released on the original Xbox are backwards compatible and can be played directly on its successor, Xbox 360 . Backward compatibility with Xbox 360 titles was added to Xbox One a year-and-a-half after its launch in June 2015, with specific titles requiring Kinect or USB peripherals not being supported. The Xbox Series X/S supports backward compatibility with all Xbox One titles (except for Kinect-required games), as well as all
6370-411: A version of Windows and DirectX to power the games on the console. This approach would make it easy for developers on Windows to build games for their new system, differentiating itself from the custom hardware solutions of most consoles. Numerous names were suggested for this console, including "Direct X Box", and the "Windows Entertainment Project". Microsoft's marketing team conducted consumer surveys of
6552-424: A video game are primarily determined by the underlying set of rules, demands, and expectations imposed on the player. While many games rely on emergent principles , video games commonly present simulated story worlds where emergent behavior occurs within the context of the game. The term "emergent narrative" has been used to describe how, in a simulated environment, storyline can be created simply by "what happens to
6734-412: A video game is first and foremost a game, which must be understood in terms of its rules, interface, and the concept of play that it deploys. Espen J. Aarseth argues that, although games certainly have plots, characters, and aspects of traditional narratives, these aspects are incidental to gameplay. For example, Aarseth is critical of the widespread attention that narrativists have given to the heroine of
6916-457: A way to distinguish them from console games , arcade games , or mobile games . Other terms such as "television game", "telegame", or "TV game" had been used in the 1970s and early 1980s, particularly for home gaming consoles that rely on connection to a television set . However, these terms were also used interchangeably with "video game" in the 1970s, primarily due to "video" and "television" being synonymous. In Japan , where consoles like
7098-411: A word from Billboard ' s description of movie jukeboxes, Adlum started to refer to this new breed of amusement machine as 'video games.' The phrase stuck." Adlum explained in 1985 that up until the early 1970s, amusement arcades typically had non-video arcade games such as pinball machines and electro-mechanical games . With the arrival of video games in arcades during the early 1970s, there
7280-504: Is a companion application available for Windows 8 , Windows 10 , Windows 11 , iOS , Android (version 4.0 and above), and Windows Server 2012 . It was announced by Microsoft during E3 2012 and released on October 26, 2012, coinciding with the release of Windows 8. It can connect with the console and allows more interactive entertainment, allowing mobile devices to potentially serve as second screens and remote controller. Xbox Game Pass Cloud Gaming (codenamed xCloud during development)
7462-412: Is a major component of their plans going forward, which powers its Xbox Cloud Gaming game streaming service. Spencer also cited mobile gaming as a potential area, and where Microsoft was trying to position itself with its services should this become the more preferred form for gaming. Spencer said "I don't think it's "hardware agnostic" as much as it's 'where you want to play'", in describing how Microsoft
Xbox - Misplaced Pages Continue
7644-539: Is a need for understanding complex technologies and their interconnections to have power and agency within them. The metaphor of the cloud can be seen as problematic as cloud computing retains the aura of something noumenal and numinous ; it is something experienced without precisely understanding what it is or how it works. Additionally, cloud migration is a significant challenge. This process involves transferring data, applications, or workloads from one cloud environment to another, or from on-premises infrastructure to
7826-539: Is a relatively recent model in cloud computing, with most BaaS startups dating from 2011 or later but trends indicate that these services are gaining significant mainstream traction with enterprise consumers. "Serverless computing is a cloud service category in which the customer can use different cloud capabilities types without the customer having to provision, deploy and manage either hardware or software resources, other than providing customer application code or providing customer data. Serverless computing represents
8008-431: Is a video game "appears highly eclectic and diverse". The gameplay experience varies radically between video games, but many common elements exist. Most games will launch into a title screen and give the player a chance to review options such as the number of players before starting a game. Most games are divided into levels which the player must work the avatar through, scoring points , collecting power-ups to boost
8190-552: Is cloud infrastructure operated solely for a single organization, whether managed internally or by a third party, and hosted either internally or externally. Undertaking a private cloud project requires significant engagement to virtualize the business environment, and requires the organization to reevaluate decisions about existing resources. It can improve business, but every step in the project raises security issues that must be addressed to prevent serious vulnerabilities. Self-run data centers are generally capital intensive. They have
8372-548: Is credited to David Hoffman, a General Magic communications specialist, based on its long-standing use in networking and telecom. The expression cloud computing became more widely known in 1996 when Compaq Computer Corporation drew up a business plan for future computing and the Internet . The company's ambition was to supercharge sales with "cloud computing-enabled applications". The business plan foresaw that online consumer file storage would likely be commercially successful. As
8554-488: Is estimated to be four times as powerful as Xbox One X, with support for 8K resolution and up to 120 frames-per-second rendering, with a nominal target of 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. The Xbox Series S is a digital-only unit with less graphic processing power, but can still render at a nominal 1440p resolution at 60 frames per second with support for 4K upscaling. Both consoles features support for new graphics rendering systems including real-time ray-tracing , and
8736-459: Is frequently a cross-disciplinary field. Video game developers , as employees within this industry are commonly referred to, primarily include programmers and graphic designers . Over the years, this has expanded to include almost every type of skill that one might see prevalent in the creation of any movie or television program, including sound designers , musicians, and other technicians; as well as skills that are specific to video games, such as
8918-421: Is from 1947—a " cathode-ray tube amusement device " was filed for a patent on 25 January 1947, by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann, and issued on 14 December 1948, as U.S. Patent 2455992. Inspired by radar display technology, it consists of an analog device allowing a user to control the parabolic arc of a dot on the screen to simulate a missile being fired at targets, which are paper drawings fixed to
9100-544: Is how many players are playing the games that they buy, how they play." which journalists have taken as a route to de-emphasize console hardware and prioritize games, subscriptions and services for players. Later in February 2020, Spencer said that moving forward, the company does not see "traditional gaming companies" like Nintendo and Sony as their competitors but instead those that offer cloud computing services such as Amazon and Google . Spencer identified that Microsoft Azure
9282-427: Is in the cloud at any time. It could accidentally or deliberately alter or delete information. Many cloud providers can share information with third parties if necessary for purposes of law and order without a warrant. That is permitted in their privacy policies, which users must agree to before they start using cloud services. Solutions to privacy include policy and legislation as well as end-users' choices for how data
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#17330936899969464-491: Is labelled with the Xbox logo, and is used to turn on the console/controller and to access the guide menu. It is also surrounded by the "ring of light", which indicates the controller number, as well as flashing when connecting and to provide notifications. The left and right "shoulders" each feature a digital shoulder button, or "bumper", and an analog trigger. The Xbox One console has a revised controller with forty improvements over
9646-489: Is more secure for them to use a public cloud. There is the risk that end users do not understand the issues involved when signing on to a cloud service (persons sometimes do not read the many pages of the terms of service agreement, and just click "Accept" without reading). This is important now that cloud computing is common and required for some services to work, for example for an intelligent personal assistant (Apple's Siri or Google Assistant ). Fundamentally, private cloud
9828-548: Is mostly isolated from the rest of the world due to the government's censorship, and all games published there must adhere to strict government review, disallowing content such as smearing the image of the Chinese Communist Party . Foreign games published in China often require modification by developers and publishers to meet these requirements. Video game development and authorship, much like any other form of entertainment,
10010-496: Is no hypervisor overhead. IaaS clouds often offer additional resources such as a virtual-machine disk-image library, raw block storage , file or object storage , firewalls, load balancers , IP addresses , virtual local area networks (VLANs), and software bundles. The NIST 's definition of cloud computing describes IaaS as "where the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating systems and applications. The consumer does not manage or control
10192-458: Is not limited to just Xbox and Windows platforms but also is compatible with the PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. Kinect (stylized as KINECT ) is a motion sensing input device by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 video game console and Windows PCs . Based around a webcam -style add-on peripheral for the Xbox 360 console, it enables users to control and interact with the Xbox 360 without
10374-454: Is reduced visibility and control. Cloud users may not have full insight into how their cloud resources are managed, configured, or optimized by their providers. They may also have limited ability to customize or modify their cloud services according to their specific needs or preferences. Complete understanding of all technology may be impossible, especially given the scale, complexity, and deliberate opacity of contemporary systems; however, there
10556-479: Is seen as more secure with higher levels of control for the owner, however public cloud is seen to be more flexible and requires less time and money investment from the user. The attacks that can be made on cloud computing systems include man-in-the middle attacks, phishing attacks, authentication attacks, and malware attacks. One of the largest threats is considered to be malware attacks, such as Trojan horses . Recent research conducted in 2022 has revealed that
10738-487: Is stored. Users can encrypt data that is processed or stored within the cloud to prevent unauthorized access. Identity management systems can also provide practical solutions to privacy concerns in cloud computing. These systems distinguish between authorized and unauthorized users and determine the amount of data that is accessible to each entity. The systems work by creating and describing identities, recording activities, and getting rid of unused identities. According to
10920-559: Is the Microsoft 's Xbox cloud gaming streaming service. In 2019, Microsoft released a content filtering to stop swearing and toxicity in online gaming. The service enables players to report messages, Gamertags , photos, and any other toxic content on its platform. Xbox Game Pass is a subscription service from Microsoft for use with the Xbox One , Xbox Series X/S , Windows 10 and Windows 11 . The Xbox Game Pass grants users access to
11102-468: Is the attempt of Microsoft to promote a message of responsible gaming. Released in 2001, the Xbox control pad was the first controller made for the original Xbox . The Xbox controller features two analog sticks , a pressure-sensitive directional pad, two analog triggers, a Back button, a Start button, two accessory slots and six 8-bit analog action buttons (A/Green, B/Red, X/Blue, Y/Yellow, and Black and White buttons). The original Xbox controller (nicknamed
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#173309368999611284-447: Is the primary means which one interacts with a video game. The narrative setting does not impact gameplay; a shooter game is still a shooter game, regardless of whether it takes place in a fantasy world or in outer space. An exception is the horror game genre, used for games that are based on narrative elements of horror fiction , the supernatural , and psychological horror . Genre names are normally self-describing in terms of
11466-571: Is three times the size of the global music industry and four times that of the film industry in 2019, making it a formidable heavyweight across the modern entertainment industry . The video game market is also a major influence behind the electronics industry , where personal computer component, console, and peripheral sales, as well as consumer demands for better game performance, have been powerful driving factors for hardware design and innovation. Early video games use interactive electronic devices with various display formats. The earliest example
11648-468: Is transparent to the cloud user, who sees only a single access-point. To accommodate a large number of cloud users, cloud applications can be multitenant , meaning that any machine may serve more than one cloud-user organization. The pricing model for SaaS applications is typically a monthly or yearly flat fee per user, so prices become scalable and adjustable if users are added or removed at any point. It may also be free. Proponents claim that SaaS gives
11830-459: The Berne Convention . This typically only applies to the underlying code, as well as to the artistic aspects of the game such as its writing, art assets, and music. Gameplay itself is generally not considered copyrightable; in the United States among other countries, video games are considered to fall into the idea–expression distinction in that it is how the game is presented and expressed to
12012-637: The Clue VCR Mystery Game which required players to watch VCR clips between turns. To distinguish between these two, video games are considered to require some interactivity that affects the visual display. Most video games tend to feature some type of victory or winning conditions, such as a scoring mechanism or a final boss fight. The introduction of walking simulators ( adventure games that allow for exploration but lack any objectives) like Gone Home , and empathy games (video games that tend to focus on emotion) like That Dragon, Cancer brought
12194-540: The United Kingdom and Western Europe , this is common due to the historic relevance of domestically produced microcomputers. Other terms used include digital game, for example, by the Australian Bureau of Statistics . However, the term "computer game" can also be used to more specifically refer to games played primarily on personal computers or other types of flexible hardware systems (also known as PC game ), as
12376-485: The Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle ( Entertainment Software Self-Regulation ) would refuse to classify, and thus allow sale, of any game depicting Nazi imagery, and thus often requiring developers to replace such imagery with fictional ones. This ruling was relaxed in 2018 to allow for such imagery for "social adequacy" purposes that applied to other works of art. China's video game segment
12558-585: The Windows NT operating system; the original Xbox and the Xbox 360 system software are based on Windows 2000 , and the latest system software for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S is based on Windows 11 , with support for Universal Windows Platform (UWP) applications. In May 2020, Xbox presented a preview version of an app that allows parents and guardians to set daily limits for their children's playing time, provides weekly activity reports, filters out age-restricted games, and places limits on online communication. This
12740-635: The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S that launched on November 10, 2020. Both are considered members of the ninth generation of video game consoles alongside the PlayStation 5 , also released that month. Like the Xbox One, the consoles use an AMD 64-bit x86-64 CPU and GPU with up to 16 GB of memory. The Xbox Series X and Series S are high-end and low-end versions comparable to the Xbox One X and Xbox One S models, respectively, with all games designed for this model family playable on both systems. The Xbox Series X
12922-466: The Xbox Series X and Series S , were released in November 2020. The head of Xbox is Phil Spencer , who succeeded former head Marc Whitten in late March 2014. When Sony Computer Entertainment first announced the PlayStation 2 in 1999, the company had positioned the console as a centerpiece for home entertainment, as it not only would play video games, but also could play audio CDs and video DVDs. Microsoft, whose business had been primarily in supporting
13104-476: The crash of the North American video game market in 1983 due to loss of publishing control and saturation of the market. Following the crash, the industry matured, was dominated by Japanese companies such as Nintendo , Sega , and Sony , and established practices and methods around the development and distribution of video games to prevent a similar crash in the future, many of which continue to be followed. In
13286-424: The eighth generation of video game consoles. It features an AMD Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) built around the 64-bit x86-64 instruction set and can come with up to 12 GB of memory. Announced on May 21, 2013, the Xbox One has an emphasis on internet-based features, including the ability to record and stream gameplay, and the ability to integrate with a set-top box to watch cable or satellite TV through
13468-611: The first-person shooter and the Grand Theft Auto clone , respectively, in the few years after their release. However, at times and more frequently at the onset of the industry, developers would intentionally create video game clones of successful games and game hardware with few changes, which led to the flooded arcade and dedicated home console market around 1978. Cloning is also a major issue with countries that do not have strong intellectual property protection laws, such as within China . The lax oversight by China's government and
13650-409: The game designer . All of these are managed by producers . In the early days of the industry, it was more common for a single person to manage all of the roles needed to create a video game. As platforms have become more complex and powerful in the type of material they can present, larger teams have been needed to generate all of the art, programming, cinematography, and more. This is not to say that
13832-525: The "Fatty" and later the "Duke") was the controller initially bundled with Xbox systems for all territories except Japan, which received a more compact controller called the Controller S. The Controller S was later made the standard included controller in all territories. Released in 2005, the Xbox 360 controller for the Xbox 360 succeeded its predecessor. A standard Xbox 360 controller features eleven digital buttons, two analog triggers, two analog sticks and
14014-473: The "backend" as a service (m) model, also known as "mobile backend as a service" (MBaaS), web app and mobile app developers are provided with a way to link their applications to cloud storage and cloud computing services with application programming interfaces (APIs) exposed to their applications and custom software development kits (SDKs). Services include user management, push notifications , integration with social networking services and more. This
14196-544: The "fastest selling consumer electronics device" after selling a total of 8 million units in its first 60 days. 24 million units of the Kinect sensor had been shipped as of January 2012. Video gaming A video game , also known as a computer game or just a game , is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick , controller , keyboard , or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from
14378-439: The 1950s and 1960s were simple extensions of electronic games using video-like output from large, room-sized mainframe computers . The first consumer video game was the arcade video game Computer Space in 1971. In 1972 came the iconic hit game Pong and the first home console , the Magnavox Odyssey . The industry grew quickly during the "golden age" of arcade video games from the late 1970s to early 1980s but suffered from
14560-519: The 1970s and 1980s before having a larger worldwide contribution. Today, the video game industry is predominantly led by major companies in North America (primarily the United States and Canada), Europe, and southeast Asia including Japan, South Korea, and China. Hardware production remains an area dominated by Asian companies either directly involved in hardware design or part of the production process, but digital distribution and indie game development of
14742-522: The 1983 crash, forming around the concept of publisher-developer dichotomies, and by the 2000s, leading to the industry centralizing around low-risk, triple-A games and studios with large development budgets of at least $ 10 million or more. The advent of the Internet brought digital distribution as a viable means to distribute games, and contributed to the growth of more riskier, experimental independent game development as an alternative to triple-A games in
14924-462: The 1993 game . A hierarchy of game genres exist, with top-level genres like "shooter game" and "action game" that broadly capture the game's main gameplay style, and several subgenres of specific implementation, such as within the shooter game first-person shooter and third-person shooter . Some cross-genre types also exist that fall until multiple top-level genres such as action-adventure game . A video game's mode describes how many players can use
15106-576: The 2000s, the core industry centered on " AAA " games, leaving little room for riskier experimental games. Coupled with the availability of the Internet and digital distribution , this gave room for independent video game development (or " indie games ") to gain prominence into the 2010s. Since then, the commercial importance of the video game industry has been increasing. The emerging Asian markets and proliferation of smartphone games in particular are altering player demographics towards casual gaming and increasing monetization by incorporating games as
15288-448: The 360's controller. This new controller is built to work with Kinect. The Start and Back buttons are replaced with Menu and View buttons. It has impulse triggers that replace the regular triggers. The Xbox button still brings up the mini-guide as of recent dashboard versions, though in earlier iterations it brought up the main dashboard menu while leaving the game uninterrupted. The fourth generation Xbox Controller doesn't change much from
15470-502: The Cloud Security Alliance, the top three threats in the cloud are Insecure Interfaces and APIs , Data Loss & Leakage , and Hardware Failure —which accounted for 29%, 25% and 10% of all cloud security outages respectively. Together, these form shared technology vulnerabilities. In a cloud provider platform being shared by different users, there may be a possibility that information belonging to different customers resides on
15652-637: The Internet or other communication methods as well as cloud gaming alleviate the need for any physical media. In some cases, the media serves as the direct read-only memory for the game, or it may be the form of installation media that is used to write the main assets to the player's platform's local storage for faster loading periods and later updates. Games can be extended with new content and software patches through either expansion packs which are typically available as physical media, or as downloadable content nominally available via digital distribution. These can be offered freely or can be used to monetize
15834-576: The Japanese gaming market. The main interface for all four generations of Xbox has been the Xbox Dashboard, which allows users to manage games stored on the console, play media, and access system settings. Since 2002, the Dashboard has been integrated with the Xbox network which provides online functionality and storefront options. The operating systems for all Xbox platforms are heavily modified versions of
16016-467: The Odyssey were first imported and then made within the country by the large television manufacturers such as Toshiba and Sharp Corporation , such games are known as "TV games", "TV geemu", or "terebi geemu". The term "TV game" is still commonly used into the 21st century. "Electronic game" may also be used to refer to video games, but this also incorporates devices like early handheld electronic games that lack any video output. The first appearance of
16198-487: The Trojan horse injection method is a serious problem with harmful impacts on cloud computing systems. The National Institute of Standards and Technology recognized three cloud service models in 2011: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) later identified additional models in 2023, including "Network as
16380-473: The Xbox 360 and original Xbox titles that were made available for Xbox One. Games using the Xbox and Xbox Live brands have also been released for Microsoft Windows , Windows Phone , Android , and iOS devices. Xbox games can also be played using the Xbox Cloud Gaming streaming service. Microsoft has used the razor and blades model to sell the family of Xbox consoles, selling the console at or below
16562-510: The Xbox 360 was the Xbox 360 E, released in 2013. It featured a case style similar to the upcoming Xbox One , and eliminated one USB port and the S/PDIF, YPbPr component and S-video connections, but otherwise shared the same specifications as the Xbox 360 S. The Xbox One was released on November 22, 2013, in North America, as the successor to the Xbox 360. The Xbox One competed with Sony's PlayStation 4 and Nintendo's Wii U and Switch as part of
16744-441: The Xbox 360 which uses an advanced sensor system. Two major revisions of the Xbox 360 were released following the initial launch. The Xbox 360 S (typically considered as "Slim"), launched in 2010, featured the same core hardware but with a redesigned, slimmer form factor with a smaller-sized 250 GB hard drive. It also added integrated 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, TOSLINK S/PDIF optical audio output, five USB 2.0 ports (compared to
16926-595: The Xbox One controller, but the new wireless Xbox Controller does add a capture and share button, a hybrid d-pad , and better gripping on the bumpers and triggers. The controller is also promised to be cross compatible with certain PC's and mobile devices . The Xbox Adaptive Controller is a special controller designed for accessibility features for players. Besides being physically larger than typical controllers, it includes additional ports to allow other devices to be connected and mapped to other controller functions. The controller
17108-427: The Xbox One line. Xbox head Phil Spencer said that while they do internally track sales figures, they do not want their developers to be focused on these numbers as to affect their products, and thus have opted not to report further sales of Xbox hardware going forward. In July 2023, Microsoft revealed that the Xbox One line has sold over 58 million units. The fourth generation of Xbox models, simply named Xbox, includes
17290-577: The Xbox Series X/S version over the first few years of the consoles' launch. The following table is a comparison of the four generations of Xbox hardware. Best selling non-bundled game: Grand Theft Auto V , 22.95 million See Xbox 360 accessories See Xbox One accessories See Xbox One accessories Various monitor resolutions available via VGA and HDMI/DVI (640×480, 848×480, 1024×768, 1280×720, 1280×768, 1280×1024, 1360×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050 & 1920×1080) Amid rumors that Microsoft may drop
17472-405: The Xbox first started on November 15, 2002, worldwide. The service is still active and continues to be played by gamers. Microsoft Store is an online marketplace made for Microsoft's Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S consoles. The marketplace is where you can buy games, apps, movies, etc. through digital download . The Xbox 360 console uses the previous Xbox Games Store client. The Xbox app
17654-399: The Xbox hardware product line to focus on multiplatform software releases, Spencer stated in February 2024 that Microsoft remains committed to the Xbox console, with its first party studios through Microsoft Gaming supporting day-one releases on the Xbox first and foremost. He further said that Microsoft plans to publicly discuss its next generation of hardware in late 2024. Each console has
17836-563: The Xbox went on sale), and Nintendo's GameCube . Built around a 733 MHz 32-bit Intel Pentium III CPU and a 233 MHz Nvidia GeForce 3-based NV2A GPU with 64 MB of memory, the Xbox was the first console offered by an American company after the Atari Jaguar stopped sales in 1996. Its name was derived from a contraction of DirectX Box , a reference to Microsoft's graphics API , DirectX . The integrated Xbox Live service launched in November 2002 allowed players to play games online with
18018-472: The ability to share their entire library with 10 designated "family" members, all games would have to be tied to the user's Xbox Live account and their Xbox One console, and the console would be required to connect to the Internet on a periodic basis (at least once every 24 hours) to synchronize the library, or else the console would be unable to play any games at all. After an overwhelmingly negative response from critics and consumers (who also showed concerns that
18200-728: The age of the "one-man shop" is gone, as this is still sometimes found in the casual gaming and handheld markets, where smaller games are prevalent due to technical limitations such as limited RAM or lack of dedicated 3D graphics rendering capabilities on the target platform (e.g., some PDAs ). Video games are programmed like any other piece of computer software. Prior to the mid-1970s, arcade and home consoles were programmed by assembling discrete electro-mechanical components on circuit boards, which limited games to relatively simple logic. By 1975, low-cost microprocessors were available at volume to be used for video game hardware, which allowed game developers to program more detailed games, widening
18382-426: The application runs. This eliminates the need to install and run the application on the cloud user's own computers, which simplifies maintenance and support. Cloud applications differ from other applications in their scalability—which can be achieved by cloning tasks onto multiple virtual machines at run-time to meet changing work demand. Load balancers distribute the work over the set of virtual machines. This process
18564-417: The avatar's innate attributes, all while either using special attacks to defeat enemies or moves to avoid them. This information is relayed to the player through a type of on-screen user interface such as a heads-up display atop the rendering of the game itself. Taking damage will deplete their avatar's health , and if that falls to zero or if the avatar otherwise falls into an impossible-to-escape location,
18746-546: The benefits of multiple deployment models. Hybrid cloud can also mean the ability to connect collocation, managed and/or dedicated services with cloud resources. Gartner defines a hybrid cloud service as a cloud computing service that is composed of some combination of private, public and community cloud services, from different service providers. A hybrid cloud service crosses isolation and provider boundaries so that it cannot be simply put in one category of private, public, or community cloud service. It allows one to extend either
18928-509: The best-selling Xbox video game and was by far the most popular online game for the original Xbox system. The Xbox 360 was released as the successor of the original Xbox in November 2005, competing with Sony 's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo 's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles. It featured a custom triple-core 64-bit PowerPC -based processor design by IBM with 512 MB of RAM memory. As of June 2014, 84 million Xbox 360 consoles have been sold worldwide. The Xbox 360
19110-483: The capabilities of the enterprise to deliver a specific business service through the addition of externally available public cloud services. Hybrid cloud adoption depends on a number of factors such as data security and compliance requirements, level of control needed over data, and the applications an organization uses. Another example of hybrid cloud is one where IT organizations use public cloud computing resources to meet temporary capacity needs that can not be met by
19292-441: The capacity or the capability of a cloud service, by aggregation, integration or customization with another cloud service. Varied use cases for hybrid cloud composition exist. For example, an organization may store sensitive client data in house on a private cloud application, but interconnect that application to a business intelligence application provided on a public cloud as a software service. This example of hybrid cloud extends
19474-434: The cars in front of them and the obstacle. The programmer never wrote code to specifically create a traffic jam, yet one now exists in the game. Most commonly, video games are protected by copyright , though both patents and trademarks have been used as well. Though local copyright regulations vary to the degree of protection, video games qualify as copyrighted visual-audio works, and enjoy cross-country protection under
19656-440: The cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired applications created using programming languages, libraries, services, and tools supported by the provider. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, or storage, but has control over the deployed applications and possibly configuration settings for the application-hosting environment. PaaS vendors offer
19838-407: The cloud infrastructure. In this model, the cloud user patches and maintains the operating systems and the application software. Cloud providers typically bill IaaS services on a utility computing basis: cost reflects the number of resources allocated and consumed. The NIST 's definition of cloud computing defines Platform as a Service as: The capability provided to the consumer is to deploy onto
20020-495: The cloud operational system can support large numbers of virtual machines and the ability to scale services up and down according to customers' varying requirements. Linux containers run in isolated partitions of a single Linux kernel running directly on the physical hardware. Linux cgroups and namespaces are the underlying Linux kernel technologies used to isolate, secure and manage the containers. The use of containers offers higher performance than virtualization because there
20202-452: The cloud provider, the company typically does not offer monetary compensation. Instead, eligible users may receive credits as outlined in the corresponding SLA. Cloud computing abstractions aim to simplify resource management, but leaky abstractions can expose underlying complexities. These variations in abstraction quality depend on the cloud vendor, service and architecture . Mitigating leaky abstractions requires users to understand
20384-459: The cloud. Cloud migration can be complicated, time-consuming, and expensive, particularly when there are compatibility issues between different cloud platforms or architectures. If not carefully planned and executed, cloud migration can lead to downtime, reduced performance, or even data loss. According to the 2024 State of the Cloud Report by Flexera , approximately 50% of respondents identified
20566-417: The console itself, while peripheral controllers are available as a separate purchase from the console manufacturer or third-party vendors. Similar control sets are built into handheld consoles and onto arcade cabinets. Newer technology improvements have incorporated additional technology into the controller or the game platform, such as touchscreens and motion detection sensors that give more options for how
20748-467: The console to function without Kinect. On June 13, 2016, Microsoft announced the Xbox One S at E3 2016 , which featured a smaller form factor, as well as support for 4K video (including streaming and Ultra HD Blu-ray ) and HDR . At E3 2017 , Microsoft unveiled Xbox One X , a high-end model with improved hardware designed to facilitate the playing of games at 4K resolution. Since November 2014, Microsoft has stated it will not release sales numbers for
20930-410: The console with an enhanced guide interface and Kinect-based voice control . Following its unveiling, the Xbox One proved controversial for its original digital rights management and privacy practices; while Microsoft touted the ability for users to access their library of games (regardless of whether they were purchased physically or digitally) on any Xbox One console without needing their discs, and
21112-444: The customer, manages the development and execution of programs by building data applications for the customer. dPaaS users access data through data-visualization tools. The NIST 's definition of cloud computing defines Software as a Service as: The capability provided to the consumer is to use the provider's applications running on a cloud infrastructure . The applications are accessible from various client devices through either
21294-423: The difficulty for foreign companies to take Chinese entities to court had enabled China to support a large grey market of cloned hardware and software systems. The industry remains challenged to distinguish between creating new games based on refinements of past successful games to create a new type of gameplay, and intentionally creating a clone of a game that may simply swap out art assets. The early history of
21476-502: The exact definitions according to NIST: By 2023, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) had expanded and refined the list. The history of cloud computing extends back to the 1960s, with the initial concepts of time-sharing becoming popularized via remote job entry (RJE). The "data center" model, where users submitted jobs to operators to run on mainframes, was predominantly used during this era. This
21658-552: The first open-source software for deploying private and hybrid clouds. The following decade saw the launch of various cloud services. In 2010, Microsoft launched Microsoft Azure , and Rackspace Hosting and NASA initiated an open-source cloud-software project, OpenStack . IBM introduced the IBM SmartCloud framework in 2011, and Oracle announced the Oracle Cloud in 2012. In December 2019, Amazon launched AWS Outposts,
21840-999: The following top challenges when migrating workloads to public clouds : Applications hosted in the cloud are susceptible to the fallacies of distributed computing , a series of misconceptions that can lead to significant issues in software development and deployment. In a report by Gartner , a survey of 200 IT leaders revealed that 69% experienced budget overruns in their organizations' cloud expenditures during 2023. Conversely, 31% of IT leaders whose organizations stayed within budget attributed their success to accurate forecasting and budgeting, proactive monitoring of spending, and effective optimization. Typically, cloud providers' Service Level Agreements (SLAs) do not encompass all forms of service interruptions. Exclusions typically include planned maintenance, downtime resulting from external factors such as network issues, human errors , like misconfigurations, natural disasters , force majeure events, or security breaches . Typically, customers bear
22022-430: The functionality of the solutions, cost , integrational and organizational aspects as well as safety & security are influencing the decision of enterprises and organizations to choose a public cloud or on-premises solution. Hybrid cloud is a composition of a public cloud and a private environment, such as a private cloud or on-premises resources, that remain distinct entities but are bound together, offering
22204-434: The game Tomb Raider , saying that "the dimensions of Lara Croft 's body, already analyzed to death by film theorists , are irrelevant to me as a player, because a different-looking body would not make me play differently... When I play, I don't even see her body, but see through it and past it." Simply put, ludologists reject traditional theories of art because they claim that the artistic and socially relevant qualities of
22386-642: The game at the same type. This is primarily distinguished by single-player video games and multiplayer video games . Within the latter category, multiplayer games can be played in a variety of ways, including locally at the same device, on separate devices connected through a local network such as LAN parties , or online via separate Internet connections. Most multiplayer games are based on competitive gameplay, but many offer cooperative and team-based options as well as asymmetric gameplay . Online games use server structures that can also enable massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) to support hundreds of players at
22568-406: The game can also be exploited. On some consoles, cheat cartridges allow players to execute these cheat codes, and user-developed trainers allow similar bypassing for computer software games. Both of which might make the game easier, give the player additional power-ups, or change the appearance of the game. To distinguish from electronic games, a video game is generally considered to require
22750-484: The game should they lose all their lives or need to stop the game and restart at a later time. These also may be in the form of a passage that can be written down and reentered at the title screen. Product flaws include software bugs which can manifest as glitches which may be exploited by the player; this is often the foundation of speedrunning a video game. These bugs, along with cheat codes , Easter eggs , and other hidden secrets that were intentionally added to
22932-501: The game. Video game can use several types of input devices to translate human actions to a game. Most common are the use of game controllers like gamepads and joysticks for most consoles, and as accessories for personal computer systems along keyboard and mouse controls. Common controls on the most recent controllers include face buttons, shoulder triggers, analog sticks , and directional pads ("d-pads") . Consoles typically include standard controllers which are shipped or bundled with
23114-399: The game. By definition, all video games are intended to output graphics to an external video display, such as cathode-ray tube televisions, newer liquid-crystal display (LCD) televisions and built-in screens, projectors or computer monitors , depending on the type of platform the game is played on. Features such as color depth , refresh rate , frame rate , and screen resolution are
23296-560: The game. Today, many games are built around a game engine that handles the bulk of the game's logic, gameplay, and rendering. These engines can be augmented with specialized engines for specific features, such as a physics engine that simulates the physics of objects in real-time. A variety of middleware exists to help developers access other features, such as playback of videos within games, network-oriented code for games that communicate via online services, matchmaking for online games, and similar features. These features can be used from
23478-485: The growth of the size of development teams in the industry, the problem of cost has increased. Development studios need the best talent, while publishers reduce costs to maintain profitability on their investment. Typically, a video game console development team ranges from 5 to 50 people, and some exceed 100. In May 2009, Assassin's Creed II was reported to have a development staff of 450. The growth of team size combined with greater pressure to get completed projects into
23660-586: The idea of games that did not have any such type of winning condition and raising the question of whether these were actually games. These are still commonly justified as video games as they provide a game world that the player can interact with by some means. The lack of any industry definition for a video game by 2021 was an issue during the case Epic Games v. Apple which dealt with video games offered on Apple's iOS App Store . Among concerns raised were games like Fortnite Creative and Roblox which created metaverses of interactive experiences, and whether
23842-410: The implementation details and limitations of the cloud services they utilize. Service lock-in within the same vendor occurs when a customer becomes dependent on specific services within a cloud vendor, making it challenging to switch to alternative services within the same vendor when their needs change. Cloud computing poses privacy concerns because the service provider can access the data that
24024-676: The information public). There is the problem of legal ownership of the data (If a user stores some data in the cloud, can the cloud provider profit from it?). Many Terms of Service agreements are silent on the question of ownership. Physical control of the computer equipment (private cloud) is more secure than having the equipment off-site and under someone else's control (public cloud). This delivers great incentive to public cloud computing service providers to prioritize building and maintaining strong management of secure services. Some small businesses that do not have expertise in IT security could find that it
24206-450: The infrastructure and platforms that run the applications. SaaS is sometimes referred to as "on-demand software" and is usually priced on a pay-per-use basis or using a subscription fee. In the SaaS model, cloud providers install and operate application software in the cloud and cloud users access the software from cloud clients. Cloud users do not manage the cloud infrastructure and platform where
24388-450: The larger " AAA " game studios, and are often experiments in gameplay and art style. Indie game development is aided by the larger availability of digital distribution, including the newer mobile gaming market, and readily-available and low-cost development tools for these platforms. Although departments of computer science have been studying the technical aspects of video games for years, theories that examine games as an artistic medium are
24570-713: The larger game and the individual experiences themselves were games or not in relation to fees that Apple charged for the App Store. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers , recognizing that there was yet an industry standard definition for a video game, established for her ruling that "At a bare minimum, video games appear to require some level of interactivity or involvement between the player and the medium" compared to passive entertainment like film, music, and television, and "videogames are also generally graphically rendered or animated, as opposed to being recorded live or via motion capture as in films or television". Rogers still concluded that what
24752-417: The late 2000s and which has continued to grow as a significant portion of the video game industry. Video games have a large network effect that draw on many different sectors that tie into the larger video game industry. While video game developers are a significant portion of the industry, other key participants in the market include: The industry itself grew out from both the United States and Japan in
24934-546: The late 2000s has allowed game developers to flourish nearly anywhere and diversify the field. Cloud computing "Cloud computing is a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand." according to ISO . In 2011, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) identified five "essential characteristics" for cloud systems. Below are
25116-452: The latter also encompasses LAN games , online games , and browser games . More recently, the video game industry has expanded onto mobile gaming through mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablet computers ), virtual and augmented reality systems, and remote cloud gaming . Video games are also classified into a wide range of genres based on their style of gameplay and target audience . The first video game prototypes in
25298-480: The main challenges of cloud computing, in comparison to more traditional on-premises computing, is data security and privacy. Cloud users entrust their sensitive data to third-party providers, who may not have adequate measures to protect it from unauthorized access, breaches, or leaks. Cloud users also face compliance risks if they have to adhere to certain regulations or standards regarding data protection, such as GDPR or HIPAA . Another challenge of cloud computing
25480-659: The major content system provides have worked to create the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC), a means to streamline and align the content ratings system between different region, so that a publisher would only need to complete the content ratings review for one provider, and use the IARC transition to affirm the content rating for all other regions. Certain nations have even more restrictive rules related to political or ideological content. Within Germany, until 2018,
25662-462: The market to begin recouping production costs has led to a greater occurrence of missed deadlines, rushed games, and the release of unfinished products. While amateur and hobbyist game programming had existed since the late 1970s with the introduction of home computers, a newer trend since the mid-2000s is indie game development . Indie games are made by small teams outside any direct publisher control, their games being smaller in scope than those from
25844-405: The market. Due to loss of publishing control and oversaturation of the market, the North American home video game market crashed in 1983 , dropping from revenues of around $ 3 billion in 1983 to $ 100 million by 1985. Many of the North American companies created in the prior years closed down. Japan's growing game industry was briefly shocked by this crash but had sufficient longevity to withstand
26026-590: The most recent being the Xbox Series X and Series S units. The Xbox has become a direct competitor to Sony's PlayStation brand, both offering high performance gaming systems at roughly similar specifications. Microsoft has been recently working to leverage the branding of "Xbox" beyond the console hardware but as a general video game brand, reflected in the renaming of Microsoft Studios to Xbox Game Studios in 2019. Phil Spencer stated in June 2019 that for Microsoft, "The business isn't how many consoles you sell. The business
26208-455: The name, using the name "Xbox" as a control believing this would be least desirable, but found that this had the highest preference from their tests, and was selected as the name of the console. While the original Xbox had modest sales, Microsoft took a large financial loss to support it. However, its performance was sufficient to convince the company to continue to produce the line. Since its release, there have been four generations of Xbox, with
26390-543: The need to touch a game controller , through a natural user interface using gestures and spoken commands . The project is aimed at broadening the Xbox 360's audience beyond its typical gamer base. Kinect competes with the Wii Remote Plus and PlayStation Move with PlayStation Eye motion controllers for the Wii and PlayStation 3 home consoles, respectively. A version for Windows was released on February 1, 2012. Kinect
26572-615: The new Xbox Velocity Architecture that works with the internal SSD drive to maximize the rate of texture streaming to the graphics processor, among other features. Besides games for this new console family, both consoles are fully compatible with all Xbox One games and most hardware, as well as all backward compatible games that were playable on the Xbox One from the Xbox 360 and original Xbox console. To help transition consumers, Microsoft introduced its Smart Delivery system which most of its first-party games and several third-party games will use to offer free updates to Xbox One versions of games to
26754-774: The original game and possibly from scratch is performed. The list below is not exhaustive and excludes other electronic devices capable of playing video games such as PDAs and graphing calculators . Early arcade games, home consoles, and handheld games were dedicated hardware units with the game's logic built into the electronic componentry of the hardware. Since then, most video game platforms are considered programmable, having means to read and play multiple games distributed on different types of media or formats. Physical formats include ROM cartridges , magnetic storage including magnetic-tape data storage and floppy discs , optical media formats including CD-ROM and DVDs , and flash memory cards. Furthermore digital distribution over
26936-472: The patents. Following their agreement, Atari made a home version of Pong , which was released by Christmas 1975. The success of the Odyssey and Pong , both as an arcade game and home machine, launched the video game industry. Both Baer and Bushnell have been titled "Father of Video Games" for their contributions. The term "video game" was developed to distinguish this class of electronic games that were played on some type of video display rather than on
27118-526: The personal computer (PC) business with its Windows operating system, software, and games, saw the PlayStation 2 as a threat to the personal computer. Four engineers from Microsoft's DirectX team—Kevin Bachus, Seamus Blackley , Ted Hase and DirectX team leader Otto Berkes, began to envision what a Microsoft console to compete against the PlayStation 2 would be like. They designed a system that would use many hardware components in common with PCs, effectively running
27300-409: The platform, as directed by the game's programming. This often will include sound effects tied to the player's actions to provide audio feedback, as well as background music for the game. Some platforms support additional feedback mechanics to the player that a game can take advantage of. This is most commonly haptic technology built into the game controller, such as causing the controller to shake in
27482-399: The player interacts with the game. Specialized controllers may be used for certain genres of games, including racing wheels , light guns and dance pads . Digital cameras and motion detection can capture movements of the player as input into the game, which can, in some cases, effectively eliminate the control, and on other systems such as virtual reality, are used to enhance immersion into
27664-502: The player that can be copyrighted, but not the underlying principles of the game. Because gameplay is normally ineligible for copyright, gameplay ideas in popular games are often replicated and built upon in other games. At times, this repurposing of gameplay can be seen as beneficial and a fundamental part of how the industry has grown by building on the ideas of others. For example Doom (1993) and Grand Theft Auto III (2001) introduced gameplay that created popular new game genres,
27846-433: The player will lose one of their lives . Should they lose all their lives without gaining an extra life or "1-UP" , then the player will reach the " game over " screen. Many levels as well as the game's finale end with a type of boss character the player must defeat to continue on. In some games, intermediate points between levels will offer save points where the player can create a saved game on storage media to restart
28028-419: The player's hands to simulate a shaking earthquake occurring in game. Video games are frequently classified by a number of factors related to how one plays them. A video game, like most other forms of media, may be categorized into genres . However, unlike film or television which use visual or narrative elements, video games are generally categorized into genres based on their gameplay interaction, since this
28210-430: The player." However, emergent behavior is not limited to sophisticated games. In general, any place where event-driven instructions occur for AI in a game, emergent behavior will exist. For instance, take a racing game in which cars are programmed to avoid crashing, and they encounter an obstacle in the track: the cars might then maneuver to avoid the obstacle causing the cars behind them to slow or maneuver to accommodate
28392-512: The price of its manufacturing costs, while earning revenue from licensing fees it collects from publishers and developers and from its services offered to players. Xbox network (formerly known as Xbox Live) is an online service with over 65 million users worldwide (as of July 2019). It comprises an online virtual market, the Xbox Games Store , which allows the purchase and download of games and various forms of multimedia. Online gaming on
28574-733: The private cloud. This capability enables hybrid clouds to employ cloud bursting for scaling across clouds. Cloud bursting is an application deployment model in which an application runs in a private cloud or data center and "bursts" to a public cloud when the demand for computing capacity increases. A primary advantage of cloud bursting and a hybrid cloud model is that an organization pays for extra compute resources only when they are needed. Cloud bursting enables data centers to create an in-house IT infrastructure that supports average workloads, and use cloud resources from public or private clouds, during spikes in processing demands. Community cloud shares infrastructure between several organizations from
28756-501: The public Internet, and they may be offered as a paid subscription, or free of charge. Architecturally, there are few differences between public- and private-cloud services, but security concerns increase substantially when services (applications, storage, and other resources) are shared by multiple customers. Most public-cloud providers offer direct-connection services that allow customers to securely link their legacy data centers to their cloud-resident applications. Several factors like
28938-450: The question of what are the essential factors of a video game that separate the medium from other forms of entertainment. The introduction of interactive films in the 1980s with games like Dragon's Lair , featured games with full motion video played off a form of media but only limited user interaction. This had required a means to distinguish these games from more traditional board games that happen to also use external media, such as
29120-509: The responsibility of monitoring SLA compliance and must file claims for any unmet SLAs within a designated timeframe. Customers should be aware of how deviations from SLAs are calculated, as these parameters may vary by service. These requirements can place a considerable burden on customers. Additionally, SLA percentages and conditions can differ across various services within the same provider, with some services lacking any SLA altogether. In cases of service interruptions due to hardware failures in
29302-490: The same data server. Additionally, Eugene Schultz , chief technology officer at Emagined Security, said that hackers are spending substantial time and effort looking for ways to penetrate the cloud. "There are some real Achilles' heels in the cloud infrastructure that are making big holes for the bad guys to get into". Because data from hundreds or thousands of companies can be stored on large cloud servers, hackers can theoretically gain control of huge stores of information through
29484-637: The same time. A small number of video games are zero-player games , in which the player has very limited interaction with the game itself. These are most commonly simulation games where the player may establish a starting state and then let the game proceed on its own, watching the results as a passive observer, such as with many computerized simulations of Conway's Game of Life . Most video games are intended for entertainment purposes. Different game types include: Video games can be subject to national and international content rating requirements. Like with film content ratings, video game ratings typing identify
29666-544: The scope of what was possible. Ongoing improvements in computer hardware technology have expanded what has become possible to create in video games, coupled with convergence of common hardware between console, computer, and arcade platforms to simplify the development process. Today, game developers have a number of commercial and open source tools available for use to make games, often which are across multiple platforms to support portability, or may still opt to create their own for more specialized features and direct control of
29848-605: The screen. Other early examples include Christopher Strachey 's draughts game, the Nimrod computer at the 1951 Festival of Britain ; OXO , a tic-tac-toe computer game by Alexander S. Douglas for the EDSAC in 1952; Tennis for Two , an electronic interactive game engineered by William Higinbotham in 1958; and Spacewar! , written by Massachusetts Institute of Technology students Martin Graetz, Steve Russell , and Wayne Wiitanen's on
30030-506: The short-term effects, and Nintendo helped to revitalize the industry with the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America in 1985. Along with it, Nintendo established a number of core industrial practices to prevent unlicensed game development and control game distribution on their platform, methods that continue to be used by console manufacturers today. The industry remained more conservative following
30212-416: The system could prevent or hinder the resale of used games ), Microsoft announced that these restrictions would be dropped. Microsoft was also criticized for requiring the Xbox One to have its updated Kinect peripheral plugged in to function, which critics and privacy advocates believed could be used as a surveillance device. As a gesture toward showing a commitment to user privacy, Microsoft decided to allow
30394-484: The target age group that the national or regional ratings board believes is appropriate for the player, ranging from all-ages, to a teenager-or-older, to mature, to the infrequent adult-only games. Most content review is based on the level of violence, both in the type of violence and how graphic it may be represented, and sexual content, but other themes such as drug and alcohol use and gambling that can influence children may also be identified. A primary identifier based on
30576-405: The term "video game" emerged around 1973. The Oxford English Dictionary cited a 10 November 1973 BusinessWeek article as the first printed use of the term. Though Bushnell believed the term came from a vending magazine review of Computer Space in 1971, a review of the major vending magazines Vending Times and Cashbox showed that the term may have come even earlier, appearing first in
30758-546: The term in an article in March 1973. In a September 1982 issue of RePlay , Adlum is credited with first naming these games as "video games": "RePlay's Eddie Adlum worked at 'Cash Box' when 'TV games' first came out. The personalities in those days were Bushnell, his sales manager Pat Karns, and a handful of other 'TV game' manufacturers like Henry Leyser and the McEwan brothers. It seemed awkward to call their products 'TV games', so borrowing
30940-452: The three from older versions) and a special port designed for the Kinect peripheral. The Xbox 360 S replaced the base Xbox 360 unit, which was discontinued, and sold at the same price. A cheaper Xbox 360 S unit, removing the 250 GB drive while adding 4 GB of internal storage, was released later in 2010; the unit allowed users to hook up an external storage solution or purchase a 250 GB internal add-on. The second major revision of
31122-503: The type of gameplay, such as action game , role playing game , or shoot 'em up , though some genres have derivations from influential works that have defined that genre, such as roguelikes from Rogue , Grand Theft Auto clones from Grand Theft Auto III , and battle royale games from the film Battle Royale . The names may shift over time as players, developers and the media come up with new terms; for example, first-person shooters were originally called "Doom clones" based on
31304-555: The underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, and deployed applications; and possibly limited control of select networking components (e.g., host firewalls)." IaaS-cloud providers supply these resources on-demand from their large pools of equipment installed in data centers . For wide-area connectivity, customers can use either the Internet or carrier clouds (dedicated virtual private networks ). To deploy their applications, cloud users install operating-system images and their application software on
31486-414: The use of multiple public clouds for the purpose of leveraging specific services that each provider offers. It differs from Multi cloud in that it is not designed to increase flexibility or mitigate against failures but is rather used to allow an organization to achieve more than could be done with a single provider. The issues of transferring large amounts of data to the cloud as well as data security once
31668-445: The users' data on the cloud provider's server. As a result, there could be unauthorized access to the data. Examples of applications offered as SaaS are games and productivity software like Google Docs and Office Online. SaaS applications may be integrated with cloud storage or File hosting services , which is the case with Google Docs being integrated with Google Drive , and Office Online being integrated with OneDrive . In
31850-422: The video game industry, following the first game hardware releases and through 1983, had little structure. Video games quickly took off during the golden age of arcade video games from the late 1970s to early 1980s, but the newfound industry was mainly composed of game developers with little business experience. This led to numerous companies forming simply to create clones of popular games to try to capitalize on
32032-496: Was a time of exploration and experimentation with ways to make large-scale computing power available to more users through time-sharing , optimizing the infrastructure, platform, and applications, and increasing efficiency for end users. The "cloud" metaphor for virtualized services dates to 1994, when it was used by General Magic for the universe of "places" that mobile agents in the Telescript environment could "go". The metaphor
32214-508: Was formerly, from 2012 to 2015, used as Microsoft's digital media entertainment brand replacing Zune . In 2022, Microsoft expanded its gaming business and reorganized Xbox to become part of its newly formed Microsoft Gaming division. Under Microsoft Gaming, Xbox's first-party publishers are Xbox Game Studios , ZeniMax Media ( Bethesda Softworks ), and Activision Blizzard ( Activision , Blizzard Entertainment , and King ), who own numerous studios and successful franchises. The original device
32396-434: Was initially some confusion in the arcade industry over what term should be used to describe the new games. He "wrestled with descriptions of this type of game," alternating between "TV game" and "television game" but "finally woke up one day" and said, "What the hell... video game!" While many games readily fall into a clear, well-understood definition of video games, new genres and innovations in game development have raised
32578-646: Was launched in North America on November 4, 2010, in Europe on November 10, 2010, in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore on November 18, 2010, and in Japan on November 20, 2010. Purchase options for the sensor peripheral include a bundle with the game Kinect Adventures and console bundles with either a 4 GB or 250 GB Xbox 360 console and Kinect Adventures . The Kinect claimed the Guinness World Record of being
32760-529: Was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detailed launch and game information divulged later that month at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). The console sold out completely upon release in all regions except in Japan. Several retail configurations of the core Xbox 360 model were offered over its lifetime, varying the amount of RAM and internal storage offered. The Xbox 360 showed an expanded Xbox Live service (which now included
32942-419: Was strategizing the Xbox branding for the future. The original Xbox was released in North America on November 15, 2001, in Japan on February 22, 2002, and in Australia and Europe on March 14, 2002, marking Microsoft's debut in the gaming console market. As part of the sixth generation of video game consoles , the Xbox competed with Sony's PlayStation 2 , Sega's Dreamcast (which stopped American sales before
33124-417: Was the first video game console offered by an American company after the Atari Jaguar stopped sales in 1996. It reached over 24 million units sold by May 2006. Microsoft's second console, the Xbox 360 , was released in 2005 and has sold 86 million units as of October 2021. The third console, the Xbox One , was released in November 2013 and has sold 58 million units. The fourth line of Xbox consoles,
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