Game console

A game console is a computer designed for one job: running video games. It plugs into a TV, you hold a controller instead of a keyboard and mouse, and you turn it on and play without installing drivers or tweaking settings. The best-known families today are Sony's PlayStation, Microsoft's Xbox and the Nintendo Switch, which is also a handheld you can take out of the dock.

Inside, a console has the same kind of parts as a gaming PC: a CPU, a GPU, memory and fast storage. The difference is that every unit of a given model is identical. Game studios know exactly what hardware they are writing for, so they can squeeze performance out of it for years, while PC games have to adapt to thousands of combinations.

Consoles are also a business model. Makers often sell the hardware with thin margins, sometimes at a loss, and earn money from games, online subscriptions and a cut of every game sold in their digital store. That is why each console mostly runs games approved for its own platform, and why some games are "exclusives" that only exist on one of them.