History of video games (16-bit era)
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Template:CVG history In the history of video games, the 16-bit era was the fourth generation of video game consoles. It was dominated by the rivalry between the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Genesis, making it one of the most intense periods of competition in North American video game history. The TurboGrafx 16 was also part of this era; however, it had little success breaking into the fray in the North American market, but was quite successful in Japan.
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The beginning
In 1989 Sega and NEC simultaneously released the Genesis and TurboGrafx 16 just before Christmas. The two systems did very brisk business despite the fact that Nintendo had about a 90% share of the market for the Nintendo Entertainment System, proving that the market was ripe for new technologies. The more powerful Genesis quickly outpaced the TG-16's sales, and took a commanding lead starting in early 1990. In 1991, Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog, in response to the impending release of Nintendo's updated system, the Super NES.
Sega advertisements during the 1991 holiday season underscored the speed of their new mascot. Also in late 1991, Nintendo released the 16-bit Super NES to compete with the Genesis. Packaged with the new system was Super Mario World, a new game from the very popular Mario franchise. The 16-bit war was born.
The "console war"
Sega and Nintendo pushed hard for advantages in the marketplace. The Sega mascot Sonic the Hedgehog was swiftly marketed as the "cooler" alternative to Nintendo's Mario. Sega coined a marketing term called "Blast Processing" - a buzz word, posed as a technical advantage for the Genesis. Sega marketing was very confrontational in this time, with slogans like "Sega does what Nintendon't" and the "Sega scream".
Nintendo countered with franchise games such as the Mario series, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Super Metroid, Donkey Kong Country, and many others for the Super NES and Game Boy. Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in 1992 amidst a huge marketing push (in the UK, it was released on "Sonic Tuesday", an odd pun), which became more popular than the first game. Less than a year later, Nintendo released enhanced remakes of the original NES Super Mario games on the Super NES titled Super Mario All-Stars.
When the Mortal Kombat controversy hit the consoles, Nintendo decided to censor the game's gore, while Sega turned a blind eye. Nintendo had long had a policy of censorship, but now Sega began to position itself as the more "mature" console, willing to give gamers the content Nintendo deemed "not family friendly".
Many (particularly younger) gamers labelled themselves as either a Nintendo fan or a Sega fan, and the two were mutually exclusive. Even single-format magazines got in on the rivalry, with poorly constructed attacks at eachother's hardware and software fuelling the flames of fanboyism.
By 1994 the TurboGrafx 16 and its CD combination sytem the Turbo Duo were out of manufacture in North America, though a small amount of software continued to trickle out for the platform. NEC released the 32-bit PC-FX console the same year in Japan. Plans were underway for a US release of the PC-FX but an already flodded market of platforms including the far more powerful 3DO and Atari Jaguar systems caused TTI (who had taken over running the TurboGrafx platform) to halt their North American release plans.
Add-ons
Nintendo and Sega also competed with hardware peripherals for their consoles. Sega made two attempts: the Sega Mega-CD (Sega CD in the US) and the Sega 32X, neither of which were very successful.
Nintendo made an attempt with their successful Satellaview and Super Game Boy. The former was a satellite service released only on the Japanese market and the latter an adapter for the Super Nintendo that allowed Game Boy games to be displayed on a TV.
Interestingly, Nintendo, working along with Sony, also had plans to create a CD-ROM drive for the Super NES, similar to the Sega CD, but eventually decided not to go through with that project. The project was cancelled, and Sony used the name ("PlayStation") for their own stand-alone CD-based console, overseen by former SNES sound-chip engineer, Ken Kutaragi.
European importing
The 16-bit era was also the era when the act of buying imported US games became more established in Europe, and regular stores began to carry them. This was especially popular with SNES games, due to several reasons:
- The European PAL-games were usually much slower than their American NTSC-US-counterparts. European and American televisions have different refresh rates, and developers often had a hard time converting games designed for the American and Japanese NTSC standard to the European standard.
- Few RPGs were released in Europe because they would have needed to been translated into many different languages. RPGs tend to contain much more text than other genres, so one of the biggest problem was simply fitting all of the full translations into one cartridge! The cost of creating multiple full translations was also prohibitive.
So-called multi-x chips (modchips), which were installed in the consoles and converters, were common at this time. The chips were accessories that bypassed the built-in lockout mechanism. However, due to Super FX chips and different copy protection techniques, European consumers were often forced to buy new converters at regular intervals or "mod" (i.e. install a modchip) their consoles in order for the imported games to function properly.
Popular US games imported at this time:
* - It did have a European release, but the game was rather unsuccessful commercially. The Swedish video game magazine Super PLAY's editor in chief attributed its failure to the fact that by the time the game was released in Europe, RPG fans had already bought grey imported US versions.
'Secret of Mana was actually released officially in all of Europe, but long after the US release. RPG fans had already bought the game through grey importers, which led to low sell numbers.'
- Tobias Bjarneby, editor in chief. Rollspel (May, 1996). Super PLAY, p. 15.
To this day, the game remains rather hard to get hold of in the Scandinavian market and are often auctioned off at high-prices (about 50 EUR as of 2004) for the complete PAL-set; cartridge, box, manual and the map.
In the end
By 1995, the 16-bit craze had started to die down due to Nintendo and Sega both having new consoles in the works, as well as "outsider" manufacturers such as Sony, Commodore, and Phillips. These machines were referred to in the specialist press as the "superconsoles" due to their use of then-innovative 3D graphics, and are known as the 32-bit era.
Consoles of the 16-bit era
- Sega MegaDrive (1988-1996: Japan; 1990-1998: Europe)
- Sega Mega CD (add-on) (1991-1996: Japan; 1993-1996: Europe)
- Nintendo Game Boy (handheld) (1989-1996: Japan, U.S.; 1990-1996: Europe)
- Sega Genesis (1989-1996: U.S.)
- Sega CD (add-on) (1992-1996: U.S.)
- NEC TurboGrafx 16 (1989-1994: U.S.)
- Sega Game Gear (handheld) (1990-1997: Japan; 1991-1997: U.S.; 1992-1997: Europe)
- Super Famicom (1991-2003: Japan)
- Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1991-1999: U.S.; 1992-1998: Europe)
- Neo-Geo (1990-2004)
Video game franchises established during the 16-bit era
- ActRaiser
- Breath of Fire
- Chrono
- Donkey Kong Country
- Doom
- Dragon Ball Z
- Fire Emblem (confined to Japan until 128-bit era)
- Front Mission
- F-Zero
- Ganbare Goemon
- Harvest Moon
- International Superstar Soccer
- Killer Instinct
- King of Fighters (includes Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting)
- Mario Kart
- Mortal Kombat
- Pocky & Rocky
- SaGa
- Seiken Densetsu
- SimCity
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Soul Blazer
- Star Fox
- Star Ocean
- Street Fighter
- Namco's Tales RPG series
See also
References
- Bjarneby, Tobias. (May, 1996). Rollspel. Super PLAY, p. 15.