Television (Ohga Shrugs)

Television is a medium for receiving images and sound. Television sets are the primary output devices for video game consoles, as well as a medium through which video games gain exposure through advertisement and original programming.

Hardware
Over time, television sets have had a number of upgrades. One of the most notable has been the resolution of imagery and refresh rate. For much of early gaming history, the televisions used had a limited number of lines, and thus pixels, and occasionally cut off the edges of the images being shown by the game being played.

With the advent of High Definition television, the means through which games were shown changed. The originally common 4:3 ratio was steadily replaced by a more widescreen 16:9 ratio, with the common 480i resolution being steadily replaced by today's 1080p. This has allowed games to display much larger sprites, objects, and models, but has also demanded greater processing power to take full advantage of the resolution.

Advertising
Advertising for console and handheld games typically during children's oriented programming, on channels such as Cartoon Network, Disney, and Nickelodeon. These commercials are seen as vital for advertising games made for young or broad audiences. More mature games, including many PC titles, are advertised on channels such as MTV and Comedy Central.

Video Game-related Broadcasting
A large number of television shows, specials, and movies, both by Japanese and Western studios, have been made based on video games. This is partly due to the fact that many of the most popular game series have been children-friendly, and thus easy to translate into cartoons.

Typically, Nintendo has allowed 4Kids Entertainment to license its various animated series, including the long-running Pokemon anime series. This has attracted some criticism, as 4Kids Entertainment is notorious for its flanderization of source material.

List of Animated Shows based off of Video Games

 * Kirby of the Stars
 * Metal Gear Solid: Special Ops
 * Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic SatAM)
 * Star Fox Adventures
 * Street Fighter