Dedicated console

A dedicated console is a video game console that is dedicated to a built in game or games, and is not equipped for additional games, via cartridges, discs or other media.

Most of the earliest home video game systems were dedicated consoles, most popularly Pong and its many imitators. Unlike almost all later consoles, these systems were typically not computers (in which a CPU is running a piece of software), but contained a hardwired game logic.

By the end of the 1970s, cartridge-based systems, beginning with the Fairchild Channel F, had risen to prominence during the second generation of consoles due to the success of the Atari 2600, though stand-alone systems such as Coleco's Mini-Arcade series continued to have a smaller presence in the home market until the North American video game crash of 1983. Since the Nintendo Entertainment System, cartridge-based consoles have dominated the home market until CD-based consoles such as the PlayStation gained prominence in the mid-to-late 1990s.

Developing from earlier non-video electronic game cabinets such as pinball machines, arcade-style video games (whether coin-operated or individually owned) are usually dedicated to a single game or a small selection of built-in games and do not allow for external input in the form of ROM cartridges. Although modern arcade games such as Dance Dance Revolution X and Half-Life 2: Survivor do allow external input in the form of memory cards or USB sticks, this functionality usually only allows for saving progress or for providing modified level-data, and does not allow the dedicated machine to access new games. The game or games in a dedicated arcade console are usually housed in a stand-up cabinet that holds a video screen, a control deck or attachments for more complex control devices, and a computer or console hidden within that runs the games.

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