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The console market has steadily developed from simple one-off games ( PongPong an adaptation of table tennis to the video screen, was the first widely popular arcade game. Actually, since it used a video screen, it was the first video game. Pong was first released by Atari in 1972, although other video games in this form had be) to fully featured general purpose games systems.
Older game consoles and their software now live on in emulators as they are no longer supported by their manufacturers; however, console makers try to prevent their games from being played on emulators, using a special mask work copyright and a protection of encrypted media created by the United StatesThe United States of America also referred to as the United States U. America ¹ or the States is a federal republic in central North America, stretching from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. It shares land borders with Canada in' Digital Millennium Copyright ActThe Digital Millennium Copyright Act DMCA is a controversial United States copyright law which criminalizes production and dissemination of technology that can circumvent measures taken to protect copyright, not merely infringement of copyright itself, an and foreign counterparts, this is especially true for the newer game consoles. The emulation of older video game consoles, such as the NES and SNES, is generally less contested by the manufacturers.
Note that the "bit" names of generations were in large part created by the console makers' marketing departments and may have little to do with the actual architecture of the systems.