A year before the PlayStation 3 debuted and two years before the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, the PlayStation 2 dominated at retail around the globe. It left in its wake the Xbox and Nintendo GameCube, the latter trailing behind so badly, the cries of "become a third-party" had started to sound out. All three consoles were graphically on par but the addition of DVD support on the PS2 was the coup de grâce that catapulted it into the ionosphere. 2004 was a year in which, looking back, we had a certain innocence as gamers, and the industry hadn't yet seen the shift that would come by late 2006. Who could have imagined that Blu-ray would have been the hot ticket or that much shinier-looking oceans were actually a thing that would garner insane sales? That graphics would not only continue to be pushed past what we thought possible on a single console, but that the next generation of them would last past the normal cycle of five years? There was much that we didn't, and couldn't see. There were a multitude of changes, innovations and tectonic shifts that would change the face of gaming and the gaming industry forever, from 2005 to now. Let's take a look into the past and see just how much things have changed in 10 years.
10. Media Apps
This has to be one of the biggest changes, but also a natural evolution, to the game console. While the PS2 and Xbox were DVD playing machines, meaning we could play movies to our hearts content, in 2004 we thought that was the pinnacle of media entertainment on home consoles. Yes, Blu-ray made a big come-up on the PS3 but just seemed more of an extension rather than a change or shift to what we already had been experiencing on these two consoles. But what could represent a change big enough to challenge, or even placate, disc-based media? Two words: broadband internet. After the launches of the PS3 and Xbox 360, we were still heavily in the physical disc-based media era of digital entertainment. That all changed with streaming video apps. Whether it was YouTube, Netflix or Hulu Plus, how we watched our favourite shows and movies changed almost overnight. No longer needing a separate computer with mouse and keyboard, we were free to watch what we wanted in High Definition on our flat-screen TVs , or on our handheld consoles, wherever we wanted. Thank you broadband!
Shawn “Loc Da’Borg” Jackson is a native of Mississippi, born in Vicksburg and raised in Philadelphia in Neshoba County. At the age of 15 he was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome and, later into his early 20s, he became Profoundly Deaf. Writing has been one of the main staples of his life and he has dedicated a good portion of it to educate, entertain and enthrall with the written word.
