Even Dead Week can’t quiet the sounds of the taunts, excuses, and celebrations that emanate from Grant Lehman and Steve Pohl playing Nintendo 64’s “Madden NFL 2000.”

“The gaming hasn’t stopped yet this semester. A lot of Nintendo gets played in my room,” Pohl, junior in business, says. “After class, before class, during class, it doesn’t matter. All day long.”

Lehman and Pohl are not alone. Newsweek reported that 59 percent of home console gamers are older than 18. Video gaming has become a full-fledged part of American culture.

Newsweek also reported that 25 million Playstations have been sold, putting a Playstation in one in every four U.S. homes. “They’re definitely a new generational form of entertainment,” says Amy Bix, associate professor of history and instructor of American Popular Culture. “It’s yet another one in the whole menu of entertainment options that are available to kids and young people growing up today.”

“I think the major change that is going to come about is that the video game system will start becoming like a home essential,” says Edward Cupps, assistant manager of Software Etc. in Ames.

This change will only be intensified by the flood of next-generation gaming consoles that promise to be faster and more realistic than their predecessors.

Last September the winds of change began when Sega unveiled the Dreamcast. It will continue this fall with the release of Sony’s highly anticipated Playstation 2.

Also poised to break new ground in the gaming market next year are Nintendo with the Dolphin and Microsoft with the X-Box.

The long-awaited sequel to Sony’s original Playstation, Playstation 2, will play several roles as an entertainment device. The Playstation 2 will be equipped to serve as not only a video game machine, but also a CD and DVD player.

Playstation 2 will also be backwards compatible, enabling virtually every game in the original Playstation’s library to be played on its successor.

The Playstation 2 became a subject of controversy this month. The Associated Press reported that the Japanese Trade Ministry is requiring a special permit for the export of the machine after determining that it could be adapted as a military device due to parts of the system that resemble a super computer. Those parts possess the ability to process high quality images quickly, a similarity that is found in missile guidance systems.

The controversy hasn’t cooled off consumers though. Software Etc. has already taken close to 200 reservations for the Playstation 2 locally, and over 150,000 reservations nationwide, Ames store manager Matt Ryan says.

“Everybody wants Playstation 2,” says Andy Reiner, senior associate editor of Game Informer magazine. “Everybody I’ve talked to is all about Playstation 2. I think Sony is going to be your front runner and everybody else is going to be playing catch-up.”

Sega, though, is unshaken by the release of the Playstation 2 or any other home gaming system.

“By the time the competition launches, we will be on our second generation of games,” Heather Hawkins, Sega of America’s press relations manager, says. “We feel that we’re targeting a totally different slice of the pie than those guys, though, so by the time there are four in the marketplace, we’ll have an established install base significant enough to support continued development for the system.”

Others seem to agree. “I think Sony is a little more nervous about Sega than Sega is about Sony,” Ryan says. “I’m sure Sony will make more money than Sega will in the long run just because they have the user base to do that, but Sega is going to be the more innovative company and do a lot more gaming that the Playstation doesn’t seem poised to do. Playstation seems to have a wait and see attitude whereas Sega is like, ‘Well, let’s do this and make the mistakes and bring the gaming forward.'”

Sega’s early entry into the next-generation gaming market proved to be to their advantage. Newsweek reported that last year Sega sold over 4 million Dreamcasts, exceeding several expectations of failure following the Sega Saturn debacle.

“A lot of people think Sega is going to fail. I don’t think so,” Ryan says. “I think Sega is doing a lot of innovative things that are going to keep their user base pretty big and actually grow.”

Those innovations include the release of an MP3 player, a Dreameye video camera and a microphone that will turn the Dreamcast into a videophone.

“The beauty of the Dreamcast is that it is so upgradeable,” Hawkins says.

Also on the horizon for Sega is the formation of Sega.com, a new company that will act as an independent, privately held online interactive entertainment company.

At Sega.com’s foundation is SegaNet, a high-speed online gaming network and Internet service provider that will at its heart offer 3-D multiplayer gaming among other options.

Complementing SegaNet’s online multiplayer gaming network will be a fall lineup of 10-12 games including “Quake III Arena,” “NFL 2K1” and “NBA 2K1.”

To kick-start SegaNet, Sega is giving away the Dreamcast and a keyboard at no cost. Users, though, must sign up for two years of SegaNet at $21.95 per month. Those who currently own a Dreamcast and sign up for SegaNet will receive a $200 rebate and a free keyboard, regardless of when they purchased their Dreamcast.

Not to be lost in the shuffle, but possibly arriving too late, are Nintendo and Microsoft. Both will launch consoles next year with DVD players.

Nintendo’s system, the Dolphin, remains largely a mystery. What is known is that the Dolphin will be created through several partnerships that include IBM and Panasonic. Nintendo will also for the first time abandon the cartridge format for games and move on to CD format.

“I’m sort of worried about Nintendo as far as they need to get their user base back from Sony if they are going to take us anywhere because they have really nice systems and stuff,” Ryan says.

Microsoft is also a mystery machine. The announcement of the X-Box, which is already promising to be the most powerful of the three game consoles, sent shock waves through the industry.

The X-Box will use the Intel Pentium III processor with streaming SIMD Extensions to provide realistic game play and will offer broadband Internet connectivity.

“We can’t really say what Microsoft will do, we’ve never seen them in action before on the game front,” Reiner says. “But they do have a lot of money if they do want to win. It takes money to do that so they can definitely compete.”

As we near the release of the Playstation 2 and other next-generation systems, one question must be raised. When, if ever, will it stop?

“I think a large part does depend on the way the technology goes because expectations keep rising,” Bix says. “They have to keep pumping up the volume. They’ve got to make it more exciting and the question is, how are they going to do that?”