Science Fair Project Encyclopedia

Science Fair Project Encyclopedia Contents Page

Categories: History of computer and video games

History of video games (32-bit era)

In the history of video games, the 32-bit era was the fifth generation of video game consoles. It featured both 32-bit and 64-bit consoles, and was dominated by the Nintendo 64 and Sony PlayStation. The Sega Saturn, 3DO and Atari Jaguar were also part of this era, but failed to make an impact like their competitors (though the Saturn was fairly popular in Japan). This era also saw three slightly improved versions of Nintendo's Game Boy: Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Light (Japan only).

Bit ratings for consoles largely fell by the wayside during this era, with the notable exception of the Nintendo 64. The number of "bits" cited in console names referred to the CPU word size, but there was little to be gained from increasing the word size much beyond 32 or 64 bits - performance depended on more varied factors, such as processor clock speed, bandwidth, and memory size.

The 32-bit era was also the era where the rise of console emulation happened. The first fan translation project, on Final Fantasy V, was released to the emulation community during this era.

Contents

1 'New school' gaming

2 System wars

3 Consoles of the 32-bit / 64-bit era

4 Video game franchises established during the 32-bit / 64-bit era

5 See also

'New school' gaming

It is the era that followed the 16-bit era. It is the birth of what some video game players call "new school" gaming, which uses 3D computer graphics. The Sony PlayStation was released in Japan near the end of the 16-bit era in 1994, and in the United States in 1995. The Nintendo 64 was released in Japan and the United States in 1996. Many critics, who some call themselves old school gamers, call this the beginning of an industrial revolution of video gaming, and think that SNES games are more amusing than 32-bit era video games and today's video games. Fundamental gameplay changes between the old school and new school era include gameplay actions revolving around a realistic animation instead of a quick action (which had already been tried with Prince of Persia, but really brought to the fore with games like Tomb Raider and Tekken). Another fundamental change was the widespread adoption of CD-ROM technology which allowed more storyline content into games, possibly focusing the developers away from developing gameplay content. The 32-bit era was also the time console emulation started to become popular. NES and SNES ROMs have been easier to find during the 128-bit era than they were during the 32-bit era.

System wars

More so than any other previous era however, the 32-bit era was home to the "system wars". The "system wars" was a phenomenon where people would attempt to evaluate the upcoming hardware of a system and purchase the system for that reason alone, speculating that the best games must be made for that hardware. Since it took a long time for the systems to come out, and even longer for most of the games to come out, people chose early and defended their choices in many online and offline arguments. Many events transpired to mislead gamer players during this era, further causing controversy and bitterness over the process:

Despite massive third party support, the 3DO Multiplayer was released in the US for a price of nearly $700.00 and failed to garner the quality and quantity of software needed to compete with its competitors despite unprecidented hype for a first time entrant into the game industry.
The Atari Jaguar was released in 1993 with a suprisingly successful start, but quality software for the platform arrived few and far between.

The Nintendo 64 was announced as "Ultra 64" and two arcade games (Killer Instinct and Cruis'n USA) were released claiming to use the hardware. These games, for their time, were by far the best looking games ever made (to this day the only more technologically advanced game using the pre-rendered 3D background technique of KI is called Dark Heart). This caused many gamers to abstain from buying systems like the 3DO, Saturn, and PlayStation, because they saw that what they thought was the Nintendo 64 hardware was clearly superior to any of those systems. In the end, the system was completely different than what was used for Killer Instinct and Cruis'n USA.
Video game magazines constantly did side by side hardware-specification comparisons of the systems using dubious statistics. Console makers routinely boasted theoretical maximum limits of each system's 3D polygon rendering without accounting for real world in-game performance when using game AI, lighting, and texturing ).
There were more competing consoles in this era than in any era since the Video game crash of 1983.

In the end, Atari, already on shaky ground, was permanently removed from the console industry, and Sega's failure set itself up for a similar fate in the next round of console wars.

Consoles of the 32-bit / 64-bit era

Nintendo Family Computer (Famicom) (1983-2003: Japan)
Super Famicom (1991-2003: Japan)
Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1991-1999: U.S.; 1992-1998: Europe)
AmigaCD32 (1993-1994: U.S.; Europe)
Atari Jaguar (1993-1996: Japan, U.S., Europe)
Sega Saturn (1994-1999: Japan; 1995-1998: U.S.; Europe)
Sony PlayStation (1994-present: Japan; 1995-present: U.S.; Europe)
Virtual Boy (1995-1996: Japan, U.S.)
Neo Geo Pocket (1996-1998 Japan)
Game.com (1997-2000 US)
Wonderswan (1997-2000 Japan)
Neo Geo Pocket Color (1998-2001 Japan: 1999-2000 US and Europe]]
Nintendo 64 (1996-2001: Japan, U.S.; 1997-2001: Europe)
Game Boy Pocket (handheld) (1996-2000: Japan, U.S., Europe)
Game Boy Light (handheld) (1996-2000: Japan)
Game Boy Color (handheld) (1998-2000: Japan, U.S., 1998-2003: Europe)
3DO Interactive Multiplayer 1993-1995 US]
Philips CD-i
PC FX
Laseractive

All Science Fair Projects