This is a continuation of our History of Gaming series. You can find our first entry in the January 29 issue of Scoop.

The 1980s came to a close with Nintendo having a total stranglehold on the home gaming console market, thanks to the 35 million Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicom units they had moved worldwide by the end of the decade. The tail-end of the ‘80s also featured the introduction of the company’s Nintendo Power magazine, as well as their first handheld system, the legendary grey-brick Game Boy.

The 8-bit era of gaming – called as such because of the 8-bit processors in the machines – also included machines such as the Sega Master System (also known as the Sega Mark III), the ZX Spectrum, and the Commodore 64. Notable games released in this time period were Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda, Enix’s Dragon Quest, Square’s Final Fantasy, and Konami’s Metal Gear. All of these have since become significant franchises in the three-plus decades since their original launch.

As technology continued to improve worldwide, it was reflected in improvements in gaming consoles. The 16-bit era of gaming technically kicked off in 1987 with the TurboGrafx-16’s release in Japan; the system released in limited quantities in America in 1990. The TurboGrafx came about because Hudson Soft, part of the manufacturing team, had wanted to sell advanced graphics cards to Nintendo and failed at doing so; they instead partnered with NEC to create the console. It was notable for being the first gaming console to have a CD-ROM peripheral as well as having the first portable counterpart with identical hardware to the console version. It was successful in Japan, at one point becoming the top-selling system in the nation, but failed to make a splash in overseas markets.

The first worldwide success for 16-bit machines arrived with the release of the Sega Genesis, also known as the Sega Mega Drive. The system launched in Japan in October of ’88 before arriving in North America in August of the following year. The system’s sales were driven by the popularity of the Sega-exclusive title, Sonic the Hedgehog, a series which would rival Nintendo’s Super Mario in many ways for years to come and essentially beginning the first “console war” between the companies.

The rivalry between Sega and Nintendo truly got started when the latter released the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, or SNES, in November 1990 in Japan and in North America in August ’91. Sega was actually able to outsell Nintendo for four holiday seasons in a row, actually outselling the SNES two-to-one during the ’91 holiday rush, thanks to the popularity of Sonic, which was packed in with the Genesis. Another “killer app” title for the system was the first John Madden Football; by January of 1992 Sega had a 65% share of the 16-bit console market, marking the first time that Nintendo was not the console leader in the market since the NES’s launch.

Sega’s advertising also contributed to its success during this period, with a “cooler” approach echoing the pop culture of the time, and now-legendary slogans such as “Genesis Does What Nintendon’t” used frequently in television and print ads.

Sega also introduced their own handheld device, the Game Gear, in the early 1990s, releasing in Japan in 1990 and in the west in 1991. The Game Gear shared much of its hardware with the Sega Master System and because of that, was able to render full-color graphics and was far technologically superior to Nintendo’s Game Boy. However, despite being several years ahead of Nintendo’s handheld in terms of pure tech, it suffered from poor battery life and an overall lack of support in terms of software. The Game Boy wouldn’t go full-color until 1998, but the original black-and-white 8-bit edition outpaced any and all of its colorful competition for the majority of the decade.

As far as Nintendo consoles during the early 1990s, the NES continued to sell over its 16-bit counterparts, though the SNES eventually overtook the market by the middle of the decade. Nintendo was in no rush to get another console to the market, seeing as their first one still performed so well against its technologically-superior competition; it wasn’t until Sega’s systems took off that Nintendo opted to come into the 16-bit market. Neither the Genesis nor the SNES maintained any sort of huge lead for any significant length of time – it wasn’t until the release of Donkey Kong Country in 1994 that the Super Nintendo took over the market. The SNES also came packed with the popular Super Mario World, drawing people away from other potential purchases.

The Super Nintendo console featured a number of peripheral devices, some more successful than others. One of these was the Super Game Boy, an adapter cartridge that allowed for gamers to play their Game Boy titles through the SNES. Beyond the advantages of a significantly larger screen to see the games on, the Super Game Boy also allowed players to substitute the in-game palettes and customize the look of the screen border.

Beyond that, the SNES’s hardware was built as to not become obsolete within just a few years; it was easy for software developers to interface a special chip within the cartridge to display graphics that were supposedly beyond the system’s capabilities. The Super FX chip, as it came to be called, provided advanced graphics to the point that 3D structures could be rendered. Its most notable usage was in Star Fox, the first game to use polygonal graphics.

Because of this capability, the 16-bit Super Nintendo was able to hold its own even as competitors moved on into 32-bit processing. The SNES became the bestselling console of its era, moving more than 49 million units worldwide during its lifetime. Meanwhile, Sega continued to move forward with new technology, with mixed success.

The Sega Saturn console released around the world between the fall of ’94 and summer of ’95. Though the company had found worldwide success with the Genesis – thanks to Sonic the Hedgehog and the head start on Nintendo – the 32-bit Saturn wouldn’t be a repeat of that.

Though its initial launch was pretty successful, thanks to a near-perfect port of the popular arcade fighting game Virtua Fighter being a launch title for the system, and it sold out the initial shipment of 200,000 units on the first day. The system eventually exceeded a million sales within the first six months of release. However, interest rapidly declined after the holiday season thanks to stiff competition from both Nintendo and newcomer Sony.

The other big mistake Sega made with the Saturn was the North American release. The original plan was to launch it on “Saturnday,” September 2, 1995; however, in a surprise move at the first Electronic Entertainment Expo on May 11 of that year, Sega of America announced that they had already shipped 30,000 units for immediate release at some major gaming retailers. The announcement upset retailers who weren’t in on the release, including KB Toys, who responded to it by dropping Sega from their gaming lineup entirely. The Expo also proved disastrous for Sega in general, as after they announced the price of the Saturn at $399 (or $449 with a game), Sony unveiled the PlayStation’s US price point. Then-president of Sony Computer Entertainment, Steve Race, famously got on stage, announced the $299 price point of the PlayStation, and walked off stage to applause.

Because of the surprise months-early Saturn launch, American retailers had no time to prepare for the system, its line of games, or to promote anything for it. The Saturn only had six games available for the West at launch as well. The Saturn was praised critically for its technological advancements over the previous generation, though gamers never quite warmed up to the bizarre controller layout it had; it only sold 9.26 million units worldwide, and was discontinued in the US by 1998.

As Sega faltered, a newcomer to the field arrived in the form of Sony and their PlayStation, which arrived worldwide between 1994 and 1995. The console actually came about, ironically enough, because of dealings between Sony and Nintendo. Nintendo had, at one point, approached Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Nintendo, tentatively titled the “Play Station.” Sony during this time planned out an SNES-compatible Sony-branded gaming console as well. However, things quickly fell apart between the two companies, as Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi cancelled the plans after he discovered the contract was heavily in Sony’s favor. Sony actually then took their plans to Sega, who shot them down.

Sony still wanted to develop a gaming console, so they moved forward with the PlayStation (now without the space) on their own. After they saw the positive reception to Virtua Fighter’s 3D graphics on the Sega Saturn, Sony made those graphics their focus on what they wanted out of their hardware. Thanks to the previously-mentioned successful E3 presentation, hype for the PlayStation was massive in anticipation of its release. The system was an instant success in Japan, moving more than 2 million consoles in the first six months.

The PlayStation was the first successful CD-ROM-based console and was largely responsible for putting cartridge-based systems to rest. CDs allowed for developers to push their games past what would be allowed by a cartridge, and they were also significantly less costly to produce than cartridges. The appeal of developing on a CD drew major third-party developers away from Nintendo, who maintained cartridges through the 64-bit era, including Square, Enix, and Konami. Major third-party releases on the PlayStation included Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy VII.

As the Saturn struggled, the biggest console war of the 64-bit era was between the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64. The N64 released in Japan in June ’96, in North America of September of that year, and elsewhere around the world in 1997. Though they largely had to play catch-up to Sony, who got the jump on them in the 64-bit era, Nintendo’s popular first-party titles helped to make the system a success.

The Nintendo 64 arrived at a price of just $199 – matching the price of the PlayStation and the Saturn, both of which had already spent time on the market – and was in incredible demand at launch; it outsold both Sony and Sega in 1997, moving more than 3.6 million consoles in its first full year. Nintendo’s sales jumped by more than 150% during this time. The fact that Nintendo had already dominated the console market meant that, despite the strong showing from newcomer Sony, gamers were largely brand-loyal during this period of time.

The Nintendo 64 was also able to see wild early success thanks to in-house “killer app” titles such as Super Mario 64, Donkey Kong 64, Super Smash Bros., and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – the last of which is still considered to be one of the single greatest games ever made. However, sales declined as the end of the decade approached, as developers were drawn away from the cartridge-based system of the N64 to the CD capabilities of the PlayStation. The system’s total lifetime sales were roughly 33 million – a respectable number, far ahead of Sega, but trailing significantly behind Sony.

Nintendo’s successor to the Game Boy, the Game Boy Color, also arrived during this time, in the fall of 1998. As you can tell by the name, it was their first full-color handheld system and the true sequel to the original grey brick Game Boy (the Game Boy Pocket, a slimmer version of the Game Boy, released in 1996). Though the Game Boy Color had just three launch titles of its own – Tetris DX, Wario Land II, and Pocket Bomberman – it was bolstered by the fact that it was backwards-compatible with any other previous Game Boy title. The wild popularity of the first Pokémon titles played also into the early success of the Game Boy Color, as they were among games that could have a limited color palette displayed on a GBC.

PC gaming during the 1990s also remained strong as computers became faster and more powerful. Many PC titles during the early half of the decade were distributed on floppy discs, giving rise to shareware distribution; companies would put a trial or demo portion of their game on a floppy for just a few dollars so people could try the game before buying it. This practice later gave rise to “demo discs” given away for free in gaming magazines as floppys became less of a viable option for game distribution.

New PC technology included affordable 3D accelerator cards, allowing for more detailed 3D graphics on computers. As genres evolved on consoles, they did the same on PC. Text-based adventures gave rise to graphic-based adventures, such as Myst, which also included puzzle elements. Real-time strategy was also popular, and titles such as Warcraft and Starcraft helped to introduce the world to easy online gaming through the genre. Quake was one of the early pioneers of online play in the first-person shooter genre. Meanwhile, coding in general advanced, and browser plug-ins such as Java and Flash gave rise to browser-based gaming.

As the world neared the end of the century, it was a time of incredibly rapid technological advancement that would be reflected in gaming consoles, handhelds, and personal computers. Stay tuned to Scoop in the coming weeks for more on the history of gaming as we head into the Y2K era.