The Costco Connection - December 2014

DECEMBER 2014 ;e Costco Connection 51

By Steven L. Kent

WHEN AN MIT student named Steven Russell created the first computer game, in

1962, he had to make it a two-player duel because the most powerful computers of the day lacked the processing ability needed to create drone opponents. My, how things have changed.

Nintendo’s original Game Boy, released in 1989, had more processing power than all of the computers NASA used to send the first man to the moon. Processors went from the 8-bit Nintendo entertainment systems to Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis systems, with their 16-bit processors—and then to Sony PlayStation, with a 32-bit processor, and to Nintendo 64, with 64 bits.

Let’s put it this way: In evolutionary terms, the original arcade game Pac-Man was stored on 16 kilobytes of read-only memory. By comparison, most Xbox One and PlayStation 4 games are stored on 50-gigabyte Blu-ray discs that hold over 3 million times more data than those Pac-Man discs.

So what can you do with 3 million times the memory and several thousand times the processing power? A lot, if you look at today’s modern consoles.

Sony: games, games, games
Having released three previous consoles
and two handheld systems, Sony Computer
Entertainment is comfortable with the tradi-
tional model of a game-centered uni-
verse displayed by its new PlayStation
4 (PS4). Sony is preparing to release a
pantheon of exclusive new titles, with
headliners like Uncharted 4: A Thief’s
End and The Order: 1886, a violent
quasi-steam-punk thriller.
Too much suspense?
Sony also has the free-
wheeling LittleBigPlanet 3
and a truly magical adven-
ture game called Rime.
And those are just the games Sony is
publishing itself. PlayStation 4 owners can
also look forward to popular third-party
offerings such as the latest Call of Duty,
Madden NFL, Need 4 Speed and LEGO
adventure games.
Games galore

Consoles have come a long way

The PS4 is much more social than its predecessor. The new console supports up to 2,000 online friends. And the PlayStation app, on Apple and Android platforms, enables smartphones and tablets to become second screens for games that support the feature.

Microsoft looks for more

Make no mistake, Xbox One has not,

will not and cannot abandon the traditional gaming scene, but Microsoft has its eye on the changing future. The company released Halo:

Master Chief Collection in Racing fanatics will be pleased to see Forza Horizon 2, an intricately detailed driving simulation featuring more than 200 cars.

Microsoft’s other big game this Christmas will be Sunset Overdrive, an exciting, hard-core, end-of-the-world shooter that combines a punk-rock mentality with Tony Hawk physics. And those third-party hits like Call of Duty—they’re all available on Xbox One as well.

While PlayStation 4 has a bigger library of games, Xbox One is redefining the role consoles play in the home. In an opening bid to show Xbox One can do more than play games, Microsoft added Skype, an audio and video alternative to telephone calls, to their console operating system. Now Xbox owners can call and video chat with friends and family around the world at no charge.

Skype is great, but Microsoft insists that even more impressive innovations are just around the corner.

Complete entertainment systems

Both of these consoles are all-in-one entertainment systems, which means they play movies on Blu-ray and DVD, offer Internet browsing and can be used to stream movies from Netflix, Amazon Instant Video and your UltraViolet library. Which system is on your wish list? C

Steven L. Kent is a video game historian and science-fiction novelist.

special section electronics

The Costco Connection

Costco features Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4 consoles, as well as a variety of video games, in the warehouses and at Costco.com. You can also find Nintendo products on Costco.com.