In North America, the Nintendo Entertainment System (often shortened to NES or Nintendo) was released in the year 1985, which (as of 2012) was 27 years ago. Though its graphics are inferior by modern standards, it captivated the lives of children and adults living in the 1980's. An enchanced video game console, the Super NES (often shortened to SNES or Super Nintendo) was released in 1991. However, the NES was discontinued in 1995, and the Nintendo 64 was to come the following year.
The Nintendo 64 (often shortened to N64) made the leap to three-dimensional graphics. The N64 used 64Bit graphics (instead of the 8Bit NES graphics and 16Bit SNES graphics), thus there was a gimmick of placing the number 64 at the end of most titles released for the N64. The N64 was discontinued early in the 2000's (maybe in 2002, 2003, or 2004), and the Nintendo GameCube lay in its wake.
The Nintendo GameCube (or just simply GameCube) was released in 2001. It was Nintendo's first CD-Based console (not counting the 64DD, an add-on to the N64 that was never released outside of Japan). Despite the efforts to keep it alive, the GameCube lived a short lifespan. It was discontinued in 2007, and the Nintendo Wii was next to come (the WiiU, a redesigned Wii console, will be released sometime in 2012).
The original Xbox console was released in 2002 by Microsoft. What came afterwards was the Xbox 360.
Sony released the PlayStation 2 (often called the PS2) in the early 2000's (c. 2000 - 2003). What lay in its wake was the PlayStation 3 (PS3), and the PS4 will be released sometime in 2012.
That's how much I know about my game consoles.
