The release of two new consoles is helping old-school gamers rediscover a childhood pastime. Which machine is right for you?

With the release of PlayStation 5, Sony could have a hit product this holiday season. Here’s how the Japanese electronics giant built the popular gaming system that would become the company’s crown jewel. Photo illustration: Mariya Pylayev/WSJ

By
Travis Weir

FOR THOSE WHO grew up in the 1970s and ’80s, few thrills could match the feeling of sprinting across an arcade to your favorite machine, slipping a quarter through its slot and being blasted to a state of euphoria by the music that announced the game had begun. Systems like the original Nintendo, launched in 1985, helped us bring that feeling home, but over the decades, Americans who earned their videogame stripes thumping turtles and hopping lava pits have been left behind. As that generation juggled work and family, there was no time to grasp sophisticated gaming mechanics or fattened, ever-more-complex controllers,…