Console Wars

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Console Wars: The Bit Wars

It was October 1987 and NEC joined the console war with the birth of the PC Engine in Japan. When this console was released, the graphical capabilities were mind-boggling, as it was a 16-bit console. Sega would follow suit and release the Sega Mega Drive a year after the PC Engine was released and it was prepared to not only fight with the PC Engine, but Nintendo’s console that would come in 1990.

The PC Engine and Mega Drive we’re launched in the summer of ’89 only two weeks apart and we’re rebranded as the TurboGrafx 16, and the Sega Genesis, and in November 1990, Nintendo entered the fray with the Super Famicom, and later in the summer of 1991 a whole two years after both the Genesis and TG-16 were released, and the bit wars, had officially begun.

Now I could talk about handhelds from here on out, since this was a major part of the bit wars but since handhelds has such a detailed history, and a deep one as well, there’ll be an article dedicated to the handheld console war that ravaged in the 90s onwards.

This part of the war that was the definition of The Fourth Generation of consoles was an eruption of games and hardware and not only that, it was a cultural revolution, as you were either rocking blue with Sega’s new mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog, or you were the Italian plumber, Mario with his cousin Luigi and their confidant Yoshi, while the TurboGrafx 16 was, unfortunately, the very underrated system from this part of the console war, and there’s actually a reason behind it. NEC did smart marketing and advertising plan in Japan where they would advertise the PC Engine in every major city in Japan, which is smart because the major cities of Japan were very close to each other, and they tried to see if that would work in America… welp. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out too well because every single major city in America was very spread out, and obviously, Japan is way smaller than America. It didn’t sell too well in the states, but it is a console gem and a half to own, and a YouTube channel called Game Sack reviews the TurboGrafx 16 in great detail with these two videos:

But it wasn’t just a three-way war, as Neo-Geo came so far out of left field, it makes Babe Ruth’s home runs look like bunts. Neo-Geo became one of the kings of the arcades in the late 80s and owned the arcades in the 90s, but they said “how about we make a console as well, and it’ll be able to play our arcade cartridges?” And they did, and it was called the Neo-Geo AES system and the cost was quite a bit, while the games were just as expensive. They pretty much went all out with the system and it was the most powerful console to own in the fourth generation of consoles in the bit wars. Once again, Game Sack is here to explain the badassery of the AES:

There were two other consoles that made an appearance which were the Pioneer LaserActive and the Phillips CD-i, and I reeeeaally don’t have much to say about those systems, so Game Sack will have to cover me again on these consoles as I have little knowledge of these two consoles, besides they exist, they were commercial failures, and the CD-i was a failed joint project with Nintendo that Phillips said “screw it, we’ll make our own console” and it wasn’t that good. So, here are the links:

The Fourth Generation was also the Add-on era, with TurboGrafx taking the first dig with their CD add-on which although good, was overwhelmingly expensive at 500 dollars, which probably contributed to their little amount of success in the states, but it also makes the system and games rare to own for collectors and it was popular in Japan. Not too much of a surprise there. Sega while going really successful with with the Sega CD, they went bowling shoe ugly with the 32X and not only that, it made the Genesis look like it was on life support with the fact that you can actually have both things running on the actual console itself, making it look like a massive Frankenstein project, or a really bad tumor depending on how you look at it, and the Sega CD was the release of easily the best Sonic game to be released, Sonic CD. Nintendo only had the Super Game Boy and SGB 2 and both were very successful things to own but they were unable to hit the CD add-on market because even Nintendo makes some blunders, but unfortunately they spawned one blunder out of the failed relationship with Phillips, and unfortunately, they would spawn their worst nightmare and worst enemy in the next generation out of Sony with the failed project that should’ve been the PlayStation.

In The Fourth Generation of consoles, I can’t declare a winner in this at all as even though the numbers don’t lie, there can’t be a decisive winner with my words, so I’ll leave it to you guys reading the article. The Sega Genesis came out guns blazing especially with very aggressive advertising against Nintendo for the Genesis and their handheld the Game Gear as their marketing was heavily aimed for the teens and high schoolers alike, which unfortunately pissed off parents and it gave us the extremely useless system known as the ESRB while Nintendo took a more family-friendly approach (where have we heard that before?) and the consoles in between as well as the add-ons, well, added on to the wildness that was the Fourth Generation, and you’d be hard-pressed to choose a winner from the number of games each system had, so for that, I can’t declare a winner, and I’ll have to let you all decide on the winner.

But even though the Fourth Generation was the revolution, something massive was on the way, and it wasn’t gonna be “this is better” or “that’s better” because the Fifth Generation, everyone knew, who was the best.

To Be Continued…

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Console Wars: The Crash and The Rise

1983 was pretty much like the great depression for gaming. When the video game crash happened, a lot of consoles suffered from this, as now all appeal had been lost. Not only that, the rise of home computers, like the Apple Macintosh and the legendary Commodore 64 were on the rise for this period between 1983 and 1985. To put into perspective as to how bad this crash was, the Vectrex and Atari 5200 were discontinued in 1984, and by the time the NES came to America in 1985, the video game industry went from 3.2 billion dollars, to 100 million. That is a 97 percent decline in two years, and that was a drop that could’ve ended the video gaming industry.

The Third Generation was pretty much a Renaissance period of gaming, as at this point, it was all or nothing, and the company that was the spearhead of this generation, was Nintendo. Nintendo released the Family Computer in 1983 in Japan, otherwise known as the Famicom and it was a success in the Japanese market, along with the release of the disk system they would release alongside the Famicom not long after in 1986, but it wasn’t until October of 1985 where it was released to America, and it was a resounding success.

Sega made their debut in the console market with the SG-1000 in 1983, and while it was the beginning of the blue brand, it didn’t sell too well due to the fact that the Famicom was more popular than the system, and was eventually discontinued in 1985 and was never released to the American market. They did bounce back however with the release of the Sega Master System in October of 1985, however, this comeback was… shit. It didn’t sell too well at all in Japan or America due to the fact that now, the NES and Famicom were dominating the market and they pretty much had the weight of the whole gaming industry on their shoulders trying to revive it, and although Sega did have a helping hand, it was one of those “too little too late” moments and was soon discontinued in America in 1992. However, the system did do well in Europe selling several million units and discontinuing in 1996. And last but not least, Brazil. Now you’d think that the lifespan of the PS2 was ridiculous, from 2000 to 2013, get this: the Master System has yet to be discontinued in Brazil. You read that right, you don’t need to rub your eyes or clean your glasses, the Master System is still being made in Brazil to this day, which means that the Master System has a life of 30 years, making it the longest-running console that is being sold today. I legit can’t imagine being someone from Brazil who owns this in the modern-day, but technically this means that the Third Generation of gaming, although ending in 2003 with the end of the Famicom, is still technically in existence since the Master System has yet to be discontinued. Jesus that’s a long time and then some.

And the last console to talk about is the Atari 7800. Has anyone noticed that the Atari consoles actually went up in 2600s? That’s an interesting little Easter Egg I just found out. But there’s really not much to say about it as there are no sales numbers to the system and how it did. It was released in 1986 but discontinued on New Year’s Day, 1992. It’s both an enigmatic system, but also a forgotten one, and the 2600 was still going on during this generation and pretty much became the Commodore 64 of the console bunch. Cheap, underpowered, but still fun to use even with the consoles that were out at this time.

There’s almost no question about it that Nintendo were the winners of the Third Generation of the Console Wars. They pretty much saved the entire gaming industry from what could’ve been the end had Nintendo never came into America with the NES, but they pretty much made gaming cool again, especially when they started releasing their famous magazine “Nintendo Power” in 1988.

But in 1987, a new challenger had approached that had graphical capabilities that surpassed the NES and the Sega Master System, and it began a gaming revolution that lasted for the entirety of the 90s.

Enter: The Bit Wars

Console Wars: The Bit Wars

Console Wars: The Crash and The Rise

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