are video games considered hardware

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Well, let me tell ya, this whole video game thing, it’s a bit of a puzzle, ain’t it? Are they hardware? Are they software? Makes an old woman’s head spin, I tell ya. But I’ve been pokin’ around, askin’ folks, and here’s what I’ve gathered.

First off, them young’uns, they love their games. Always starin’ at screens, fiddlin’ with them controllers. Now, them controllers, them’s hardware, for sure. You can hold ’em in your hand, feel the buttons, the plastic. That’s hardware, no doubt about it. Like a hammer or a shovel, somethin’ real, somethin’ you can touch.

But the game itself? That’s where it gets tricky. You can’t hold a game in your hand, can ya? You see it on the screen, hear the sounds, but it ain’t somethin’ you can touch. It’s like… a story, or a picture, but it moves and changes. That’s what they call software, I reckon.

• Hardware: The stuff you can touch. Like the game console, the controllers, the wires. The things that make the game work.
• Software: The stuff you can’t touch. The instructions, the code, the story. The things that tell the hardware what to do.

So, a video game, it’s kinda like a two-headed calf, see? It needs both parts to live. You need the hardware, the machine, to run the software, the game. You can’t have one without the other. It’s like tryin’ to bake a cake without flour and water, just ain’t gonna happen.

Now, some folks get all fancy talkin’ about “platforms” and “computing elements”. Don’t let that confuse ya. A platform, that’s just the thing the game plays on. Could be a fancy computer, could be one of them game boxes, like a PlayStation or an Xbox. And them “computing elements”, that’s just the brains of the machine, the parts that do the work. Like the engine in a car, makes it go.

Think of it like this: you got a record player, that’s hardware. And you got a record, that’s software. The record player needs the record to play music, and the record needs the record player to be heard. Same thing with a video game. The game console needs the game disc or download, and the game needs the console to be played. Makes sense, right?

These games, they come in all sorts. Some are like them old arcade games, shootin’ and jumpin’. Others are like long stories, with characters and adventures. They call ’em “genres,” like different kinds of books. But no matter what kind of game it is, it’s still that same two-headed calf: hardware and software, workin’ together.

And don’t forget, them computers and game consoles, they’re made of all sorts of hardware. Graphics cards, processors, hard drives… all them fancy words. But they’re all just parts of the machine, the hardware that makes the software, the game, come to life.

So, are video games hardware? No, not really. They need hardware to work, sure, but the game itself, that’s software. It’s the instructions, the story, the thing that makes the hardware do somethin’ fun. It’s like the soul of the machine, I guess you could say. And that’s somethin’ you can’t touch, no matter how hard you try.

It’s a whole new world, this video game thing. Back in my day, we played with sticks and stones. But times change, and now folks play with pixels and processors. Still, it’s all just fun and games, ain’t it? Whether it’s hardware or software, as long as folks are havin’ a good time, that’s all that matters.

Tags: Video Games, Hardware, Software, Gaming, Technology