Unit 20 - GameDen Timeline.
50's:
In the 50's, it was the time when the TV began to come to every house and start to be really popular, the technology was really great and it allowed for great entertainment never seen before as well as generated great profits for those who knew how to monetize their businesses. Many shows sprung within the 50's on the TV, within them, one of the first 'games' that would foreshadow the coming of the games industry in the future, one of the first shows to attract a lot of attention that was a really revolutionary show at what it does was The Winky Dink and You which introduced sticky paper overlays for a TV. It allowed the viewers to stick the overlays on their screen and follow what was going on in the show, for example, follow a maze with your finger, or play a very simplisitic game with the commentator on the show. It allowed for great interaction between the user and the TV show and therefore was very attractive and popular, the addition of those overlays sprung many great ideas into the minds of other people and thats how video games started to slowly appeared out of all the new technology that was introduced at the time. Such technology and innovation at the time was really spectacular to the general public and people were overjoyous.
Several other games like this were developed as well as other shows tried to ape the Winky Dink and You success by using different overlays which allowed the viewers to 'kind of' interact with the commentator and the action. This linked the games with the TV which at the time was very advanced and great.
However, there were many limitations to the interactive games on the TV, the overlays weren't something amazing and could only do simple interactions with the TV shows, the controller was a TV remote and therefore wouldn't offer a lot of control simply because it wasn't designed to be used as a controller in the first place. For all of the interactive video games, the only hardware you needed was a laserdisc with the game, a TV remote and the TV itself.
In 1958, Tennis for two made an apperance, according to the history, it was the second video game ever created right after A.S Douglas OXO. It was a game where two players used two pads to play a tennis game on a oscilloscope (a machine used for electronic tests by research facilities and army before), the game itself wasn't very graphical, the screen was very small and the only graphics was a blue line at the bottom of the screen and two dots bouncing one dot around. The game was very simple yet spun great controversy, some people argue to this day that it was the first game ever made and that it was the game that started the games industry. Nonetheless, it was a very important moment in history and it assured that gaming would become an industry in the future as technology developed further on.
60's:
The 60's were the time that the first video games started to appear and become recognised as something that potentially could exist on its own and could be something great, the first computer games were then developed, but at the time, there was nothing such as a gaming industry, there was no industry and therefore there were no game developers, publishers etc. all the games that were developed at the time were done by various engineers in their hobby time in their work places, such as army bases, research facilities and any other place that had the first computers in them, which were massive and very powerful at its time (but not very powerful to todays standard, our phones have more power than the PCs of those times). In those times, several engineers such as Ralph Baer appeared on the scene who would create the first generation of consoles in the future.
70's:
In the 70's, first arcade machines appeared in massive numbers and that is when gaming really started to appear as its own industry, not just a bunch of hobbies for engineers at research facilities, the arcade machines became very popular in public places and were very addictive and fun to play, it was the time when people started to recognise games and play them publicly and on a world wide scale, it caused many great responses for the industry, for example in Japan there was a coin shortage in the national bank due to arcade machines holding too many coins of the national bank in them at a time nation wide which meant that a ton of people were playing the arcade machines. It also caused great responses in America and Europe.
In 1972 the first generation of consoles was also started, Ralp Baer (American-German engineer) and his co-workers created the Magnavox Oddysey which would symbol the start of the gaming industry as its own. Later on in the 70's, not only did the arcade machines enter their 'golden age' with the introduction of games such as Space Invaders but also other companies started to create their own consoles for the first generation, creating good competition for both the Magnavox and the Arcades. Consoles such as Color TV Game by Nintendo (released in 1977 - only released in Japan), Coleco's Telstar in 1976 or APF TV Fun, also released in 1976 and developed by APF Electronics Inc, all of these consoles had varied results for various reasons, not one of them did sold in massive numbers since the industry really only started to appear and people weren't so sure about the emerging new media and entertainment. However, the Magnavox Oddyssey was the most important since it started the cycle of console generations which is going to this day.
The Magnavox Odyssey was the first console to be commercialy sold and be available for normal citizens in their homes. Created and developed by Ralp Baer it was released in 1972. Like all the other video game consoles that would be created in the future up until the 8th generation (PS4, Nintendo Wii U and Xbox One) the Magnavox was a digital console but often was confused that it was analog since the gamepads were analog, it also used analog video output since all the television sets were analog at the time. The system was powered by batteries and had no CPU, it also lacked any sound capability (which was corrected in later version of Magnavox Oddysey, the 'pong systems') The system was sold with translucent plastic overlays that gamers could put on their TV screen to simulate color graphics, though only two TV sizes were supported. Some of these overlays could even be used with the same cartridges, though with different rules for playing. It was also sold with dice, poker chips and score sheets to help keep score, much like a traditional board game. The Odyssey used a type of removable printed circuit board card that inserts into a slot similar to a ROM cartridge slot. Magnavox also supported a range of peripherals such as guns to play games like the Shooting Gallery. Ralp Baer started to work on the Odyssey in 1966 and finished the prototype two years later in 1968, originally it was called the Brown Box.
The Magnavox Oddyssey started the console market and thus first generation of consoles was born. The graphics for the consoles of first generation were black and white on black and white TV's, they were also very simple and had a simple gameplay to them. The consoles also lacked certain hardware features such as GPU. The Magnavox had very little competition apart from things like Caleco Telstar, Magnavox itself wasn't doing very well until the game Pong was released, Magnavox noticing the chance, cancelled the Magnavox Oddyssey and quickly created a scaled down version called the Magnavox 100 which could only run Pong and hockey, later on a second console was released called the Magnavox 200 which had additional features such as scoring, up to four players play and a third game - Smash. The consoles back then had their games hardcoded onto them i.e. was was initially installed on them was the only thing that a user could play, there were not things such as cartridges or cd's back then. The first generation of consoles ended in 1976 and the second one began.
80's:
Interactive video games also were growing, with interactive movies/games being developed, the most popular one at the time was Dragon's Lair. This was another major breakthrough for interactive TVs at the time after Winky Dink and You , Dragon's Lair basically presented a very good looking animated movie but introduced the idea of a user being able to interact with the story, i.e. where the character went, which option did he choose, which door he went through etc. the game was played through the TV remote which wasn't very good for control but the game itself was still amazing since it was really something new and good looking and with good mechanics. 2nd and 3rd generation consoles also made an appearance throughout the 80's as well as some of the first handhelds being released such as the revolutionary Game Boy by Nintendo.
90's:
The 90's was the time when the Industry started to flourish, a lot of block busting consoles and handhelds were released throughout the 90's and many important technologies were also developed, New players started to make their way into the market to release their product and to expand the games industry.
00's:
In the 00's, the market in games industry started to calm down and many companies have fallen out, only the so called 'grand three' remained (Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft). It was the time when the three compete really hardly on the market and released some very famous consoles, we are slowly getting out of this time period and moving onto the future.
Present day:
In the present day we are faced with the eight generation of consoles, the Wii U, Xbox One, Steam Box and Playstation 4. Those 4 will compete on the market for the next years as the technology develops on and new competitors and consoles will emerge.
Sources:
Text:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2E9iSQfGdg (Description)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_games#Late_1950s.E2.80.931960s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnavox_Odyssey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_game_consoles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_TV_Game
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telstar_(game_console)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APF_TV_Fun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_H._Baer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_(second_generation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_television
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Sinclair
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Russell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Daglow
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcade_game
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Arts
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.307453-PC-Console-games-vs-Handheld-games
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_console
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_(fifth_generation)
Clive Sinclair - Now know as Sir Clive Sinclair, is an English inventor and enterpreneur, born on the 30th July 1940. He is widely known for creating a lot of consumer electronic in the late 70's and 80's. He created two companies, the first one was created after Sinclair quit his job of being an assistant editor at Practical Wireless. The first one was called Sinclair Radionics, where he produced the first slim-line electronic pocket calculator in 1972, Sinclair then moved onto producing one of the first home computers to come, he created the Sinclair ZX80, he then created a new company called the Sinclair Research and created the Sinclair ZX81 as well as the famous ZX Spectrum which was available for less than 100 pounds each and was widely available to public. Today he continues to invent new things, however he decided to concentrate onto creating new types of transport for public rather than stick with the electronics. He is famously known for opening the new era of PC Gaming as because many first great PC Games were made for the Spectrum.
Steve Russell - Steve Russel, nicknamed 'Slug', born in America, 1937 is an American video game designer, programmer and computer scientist which is mostly famous for creating Spacewar, one of the earliest video games and one of the revolutionary ones. He worked for Atari.
Don Daglow - Don Daglow, born on 1953 is an American computer and video game designer, programmer and producer. He is famously known for two main things, first, for creating several very early games that were revolutionary and introduced many great things as well as were great to their core, such games include titles such as: role playing game Dungeon (1975), Baseball (1971) as well as many different interactive sports , many of those games being the first of its kind. As well as pioneering simulation game Utopia from Intellivision in 1981, he also developed the first graphical MMORPG called the Neverwinter Nights which to this date claims many awards as a revolutionary title. Don Daglow also went onto creating a development studio called Stormfront Studios which was a very longstanding company and developed many amazing games.
Electronic Arts - Electronic Arts, commonly refereed to as EA, is a multinational game developer, publisher and game distributor, they were founded in May the 28th of 1982 by Trip Hawkins, a former worker of Atari, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and is very famous for being one of the first companies within the gaming industry that promoted designers and programmers that worked for them. Today, EA is the third largest gaming company by revenue after Nintendo and Activision Blizzard, they own various genres of games such as racing games, the sports game and various FPS games which many of them are leading the market. They also own a lot of developers.
Decline of arcade games - Eventually, arcade games started to decline overall, it was for many reasons but one of the main ones was that the general idea and the technology got outdated, people owned home consoles and didn't want to go to public places to play their games any more and spend a lot more money as well. From now on, they could just buy a cartridge and play the game in their homes and not worry about having enough coins etc. Other reasons were included as well, such as the technology for arcades being outdated and inferior in comparison to the consoles. The final nail in the coffin for the arcades was that the developers eventually stopped developing so many games for the arcades and manufacturers stopped producing so many copies of arcades, this resulted in the general disappearance of arcade throughout the globe and nowadays they can only be found in pubs or public beaches etc. (POZNE LATA 90)
Resurgence of arcade games - In the 90's, arcade were very rarely used, the golden age of arcades with games like Pac-man or the blockbuster Space Invaders have been long gone. However Capcom has decided it was time for a change, in 1991 they have released a new blockbuster that would revive the arcades so they could compete once more on the market, the new blockbuster was called Street Fighter . The game was from a fighting genre and it quickly spruced a lot of attention globe wide, players started to have competitive games for money which created one of the earliest models for what would become e-sports in the future. The arcade really fitted into becoming a platform for fighting games to be played on, it had perfect controls and for players there were nothing more exciting than standing in a big crowd and watch a match between two good players happen. Other fighting games by other companies were soon made, such as Mortal Kombat by Midway Games or Fatal Fury: King of Fighters and many other games were made throughout the 90's, then came other companies, after the introduction of 3D, many racing games were introduced to the arcades with their own cabins in which players sat in and drove around just like in a virtual reality, all of this solidified the platform as to being recognised as, the platform where fighting games and racing games are best.
Modern arcade games - There aren't that many arcade machines or arcade games being developed or produced nowadays, the arcades have disintegrated into being a side activity in pubs or on public beaches, and most of the games for them are fighting games or racing games, most of them with outdated graphics and game mechanics. In terms of looks, arcades haven't really changed from their predecessors back in the 80's. They still look the same and feel the same and have a very similar control panel for the games.
On-line gaming - On line gaming is something that can be described as an experiment to many, since the development of internet, people started to want to play with others throughout their PC's in something bigger and better than a LAN party. On line gaming allows players throughout the world to connect and play together in their favourite titles that do support multi-player, this has many advantages, people can start to socialise with each other, get to know each other which wouldn't be possible otherwise because of the distance barrier between them. On line gaming also has many other advantages, such as educational features that can actually teach players how to cooperate, communicate and be respectful and polite to each other as well as additional features that make the game a very entertaining place. On line gaming is developing throughout all of the platforms but PC is currently leading with games such as World of Warcraft, considered the best ever MMO created to this day or Planetside 2, a massive FPS MMO shooter. On line gaming allows the players to play with their friends and learn a thing on two in the process as well as meet new people and experience new things.
Handheld Portability - Portability of the handhelds is very useful to a lot of people and not very useful for others, depending on a lifestyle that a person is going through, handhelds can either be useful or not useful. For people who are actively travelling and constantly on the move will like the portability of handhelds, it allows them to entertain themselves, organise their life and contact people on the move without the need to find and use something like a stationary PC. Handhelds are also much smaller than a laptop, they can be carried in a pocket and so they are much more convenient. Portability is one of the strongest points that handhelds have, even people who don't travel a lot can own quite a cheap handheld and play when they are waiting for a bus for example or on their was to school/work.
Handheld advantages over PC/Consoles - Handheld have many advantages over their competitors, i.e. the consoles and the PC. One of the strongest ones is the portability, a person cannot travel and use a console or a PC, but they can do it with a handheld since it is small to carry and it is very portable. This gives a crucial edge for the handhelds since people that live a lifestyle of constantly moving will prefer handhelds over anything else, whether it would be for contacts, entertainment or research. Another advantage that handhelds have over others is how cheap the entertainment can be, a player can very easily get about 10 games for 1 pound on a handheld while for a PC one game might cost about 40 pounds. This makes a handheld a much more viable choice for a person who does not want to spend a lot on entertainment, additionally, most handhelds will be cheaper than a console and most certainly than a PC. Handhelds have also became a good platform for casual games which means that players who look for very easy and to some of the much more fun experiences can experience them there rather than be exposed to some hardcore gaming that can be found on PC and consoles. Handheld games are also cheaper to produce for the developers.
Limitation of handhelds - Handhelds have a pretty strong set of advantages over the PC and consoles however there are also many limitation to the handhelds. First off is the hardware, the hardware of handheld in comparison to PC or consoles is many times laughable as a handheld will never reach a quality that a console or PC will have. This means that the games will look worse and possibly will have some limitation with them which can put off some customers, another disadvantage for many can be that a handheld is a platform for casual players, people that are hardcore gamers and usually play on PC's will most likely have no interest in handhelds as because they prefer to play games with much better graphics and sound design, better mechanics and better experiences. Therefore, a handheld is not for all the groups of gamers. Another bad thing about the handheld is that it is not good for all the genres of games, it is very hard to play shooters or a fighting game or anything like it on a handheld because the controls are not designed for it as well as the screen resolution is too tiny. Those disadvantages can therefore be very negative towards the handheld and can affect the market a lot.
Limitation of arcade games - Arcade games had many limitations, the machines themselves were very expensive and very immobile, the arcades were very big machines that had to be transported on vehicles. The hardware was also a limitation as to developers had to make something be good enough to be played publicly but also thief proof so that the machines would not easily be wrecked by vandals or anything else. The controls on the arcades were also quite limited and that lead to a couple of problems when developers would try to develop something like a platformer etc.
2nd generation of consoles - The 2nd generation started in 1976. It has been opened with console known as The Channel F, otherwise known as the Fairchild Video Entertainment System (VES), this console was the first ever to use single chip cartridges, i.e. cartridges with games on it, rather than cartridges with entire console system to be inserted into an empty box (Telstar) or cartridges that only served additional functions such as the ability to flip a certain switch (Odyssey). Other consoles soon made their way onto the market with things such as Mattel releasing their Intellivision or the best selling console of the generation, the Atari 2600 released by Atari. Coleco coming out with its brand new ColecoVision, Magnavox with the Magnavox Odyssey 2, and later on at the end of the generation Atari coming out with Atari 5200 which wasn't anywhere near as successful as its predecessor, the Atari 2600 because of something that happened that also shut down the 2nd generation for good, the gaming crash of 1983. The 2nd generation is considered as the starting era of 8bit technology being developed and used for better quality on graphics and memory.
3rd generation of consoles - The 3rd generation of consoles had a very rough time to begin, it was because a massive gaming crash happened and millions of people lost interest towards the industry as well as the developers and manufacturers, on continents like North America people didn't even wanted to see the gaming industry name anywhere anymore. Fortunately for games industry, Nintendo came in and released a family computer, in Japan it was called the Famicom. The Famicom featured many advanced features such as high resolution sprites, 8 bit technology, larger color palettes and tiled background which allowed the games that were developed for the Famicom be much longer in length, have advanced at the time graphics and have revolutionary mechanics. When Nintendo tried to introduce the Famicom onto North American market it did not go as planned, Americans didn't want to see another games console, thus Nintendo renamed the Famicom to Nintendo Entertainment System to distinguish their name from the products of the past that have been haunting the American market. The NES became the biggest block buster for the games industry to date. The market was fuming with the new console and many great games were released for the console for the first time that are going to this day and also spawned a couple of great role characters, such as Mario. Those games included Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Dragon Quest and Pokemon. Most of those games are going to present day and are very famous for being very educational and amazing. The NES was and is the best selling console of all time in North America and it revitalized the gaming industry. To prevent another gaming crash and to make sure that Nintendo would stay as a dominant manufacturer for this generation, they have made a very special law that required third party developers to only release 3 titles per year for the NES and forbid them from releasing titles for other consoles. This law became obsolete at the end of the lifespan of this generation. There weren't many competitors for the NES, Sega attempted to fell the giant by introducing their Sega Master System, but it never managed the task and it fell flat, it was barely profitable and even though it was more advanced than the NES, it was too expensive for everyday users and it marketing didn't stand a chance against the fame that NES collected. Atari, after serious revamps of new directors firing most of the staff and fixing the legal issues, tried to came back to the market by releasing Atari XEGS, which was a smaller, slimmer and more advanced version of Atari 2600 and was also back compatible with the Atari 2600 and later on Atari 7800, but the consoles didn't stand a chance against Nintendo either, since Atari was low on funds they could not afford good technology for their consoles good marketing, good distribution or good game range and therefore both of the consoles failed and put a final nail into Atari's coffin. The 3rd generation ended in 1994 and made sure that Games Industry would flourish from now on, thanks to Nintendo.It was also the time when the market leaders switched from America to Japan.
4th generation of consoles - NEC has started the 4th generation of consoles in 1991 by creating a console known as Turbografx 16 or the PC Engine. The console itself was very good because it had a very advanced graphics chip developed by Hudson Soft. They've been turned away by Nintendo several times, blinded by the NES success they did not want to listen to the company. The small sizes of the essential microchips for the console allowed it to be released later on as a handheld. The NEC was advertised as a 16 bit console and thus this generation from now on was considered the beginning of 16 bit era. Very quickly, other consoles started to be released to compete with the NEC, such as the Sega Genesis which was scaled down and adapted from Sega System 16, the Sega Genesis had very advanced graphics for its time . An arcade gaming company has also developed a high end console called the Neo Geo MVS, the last console to be released in the fourth generation was the Nintendo's product, the Super Famicom, or the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) in 1990, which had superior graphics and sound design than other systems and had very high quality across the board, it also had the special Super FX graphics chip which allowed the first and many to come 3D game to be developed, the first game was called Star Fox. Before the release of Nintendo's product, Sega prepared themselves to fight against their market share, to do so they had to create a character that would counter Mario and so they have created Sonic the Hedgehog which immediately spiked the sales for Sega, later on they have also developed licenses for the first NFL football games which were Joe Montanna II and Madden '92, both of those games were available only for the Genesis and spiked the sales tremendously. This has started a trend that is going to this date, i.e. however owns the license for NFL titles on their console will win the market share. The release of the SNES completely destroyed the market share of Neo Geo and Turbografx 16. The technology in the 4th generation consoles overall was very peculiar, since different consoles had different strengths, there were hundreds of games that were developed as exclusives, for example a game on Genesis could have superior graphics but a weaker sound design and a game for SNES could have good graphics and superior sound design. Midway through the generation, CD disc came out and developers had tough time adding in the new feature to already existing consoles, some tried to add it as an addon, other as additional parts to the consoles but ultimately CD's weren't largely used by the consoles until the 5th generation came around. This gave the PC age since the PC users could swap the floppy discs immediately. Nintendo itself tried to battle the problem by making a contract to develop an advanced CD disc for their next console with Sony however disbanded the contract when they found out that Sony wanted too much power, the research done by Sony during this time would be used to develop their own console in the future, the Playstation. The graphics chips allowed the consoles to reproduce the art styles that were popular in arcades and home computers, such games usually featured large scenery, broader color palettes and increased emphasis on individual texture work and sound design. Other famous games were also made during this time period, such as the Megaman series which were able to very cunningly work with the limitations of the consoles. Lastly in the 4th generation Atari dissapeared off the market as it was having trouble barely keeping itself alive.
5th generation of consoles - Commonly referred to as the 32 bit era, the 5th generation lasted from 1993 to 2001. Albeit many consoles were released for this generation, only 3 came out on top and dominated the market, the Sega Saturn created by Sega in 1994, the PlayStation by Sony also released in 1994 and Nintendo's Nintendo 64 released in 1996. Those 3 consoles were the main competitors. The first console to make an appearance in the 5th generation was the 3DO Company which introduced their 3DO Interactive Multiplayer console, quite advanced for its time, it signalized the start of the sudden 5th generation of consoles, and while the hype for it was very big because of it being the first to entry the industry as a true 32 bit system and third party publishers being very supportive of the console, it failed to achieve success because of its high price of 700 dollars. After 3DO, Amiga CD 32 has also made an appearance but a very minor at that, it was not considered a real threat by any other competitor, it was mainly because Amiga couldn't sell its consoles in North America because of Commodores bankruptcy and general trouble with the law. Atari made the last ditch effort to climb back into the market with their Atari Jaguar, a supposed 64 bit system (but considered by many to really not be). The console did not make a huge impact, the controller was very complicated, third party publishers were skeptical about the console since it was hard to code games for it as well as hard general short supply of games, before the Jaguar was released, Atari wanted to release something called Atari Panther yet it was cancelled when work on Jaguar suddenly sped up and therefore was replaced by it. Atari only sold about 250,000 Jaguars due to mentioned above problems. Add ons for the Jaguar were made such as the ad on that allowed CD discs to be used, but because so few units of Jaguar were made in the first place, the CD ad on failed to impact anything, after this, Atari was bought by the JT Storage and backed away from producing hardware, this was the final breath of Atari as a company. Sega came in with their new console as well, the Sega Saturn, which albeit was the most advanced console of the 5th generation had many problems to compete with others, it lacked a good library of games and was more expensive than the PlayStation and Nintendo 64, it also had another very severe problem which ultimately doomed the console, the console was released 4 months earlier in the U.S. from planned release and therefore everything collapsed, the first games that were being developed for the console were not ready and therefore the console lacked games (the ones that made it rushed the games and were terrible in quality), distributors of the console were not ready to launch as well and had massive problems with distribution, to the point where many distributors were so angry about it that decided to back off from distributing the console which hurt Sega severely and massively impacted sales, this therefore made the console fail to suffice, being placed in the 3rd spot of most selling consoles in Sega list, behind their Master System and Mega Drive. Sega wasn't ever able to recover after the Sega Saturn failure and the amount of budget spent on the technology for it. About 5 months before the release of Sega Saturn, the company has also made another mistake by releasing Sega 32X, an ad-on for Mega Drive and Genesis, another console called Sega Neptune was set to emerge from Sega 32X but ultimately got cancelled. The main flaw of 32X was that Sega failed to supply it with good library of games as well as released the 32X in the most awkward timing, between two generations, and therefore the players did not want to buy it because the PlayStation and Sega Saturn were on the horizon and would be coming out in about 4 months. This ultimately lead to a total failure of 32X. In December, 1994, the PlayStation made its debut and was met with outstanding results of the first Sony console, the console started selling very rapidly, its new CD disc technology as well as 32 bit system made it a great system, the PlayStation had massive game library, massive hype behind, the system was easy to program games on, out of all the consoles, it had the most 1st and 3rd party developers attention and therefore achieved absolute dominance in the 5th generation, being the first console in the history to ship over a 100 million units of it. Meanwhile, NEC, creator of the TurboGrafx, TurboDuo, Coregrafx and SuperGrafx have created PC-FX which was a very advanced machine and had superior full motion video than any other console, it also featured a revolutionary design, instead of the console being a block, it was a tower design with attachment being able to be attached to the sides, the machine however ultimately failed due to the platform being marketed as an ultimate side scrolling action in times when 3D games were popular. After this, NEC, stopped with console production and generally with the hardware. The last console to come out in the 5th generation was the Nintendo 64, since Nintendo failed to strike a good deal with Sony about the new CD technology, and failed the second time trying to do it with Phillips. Nintendo, running out of options and time had to decide on what technology would be used and they decided to stick with outdated cartridges, cartridges had much less space than the CD's and were far more expensive to make (3,50 dollars for each cartridge, 0,35 dollars for each CD). The only thing cartridges were better as were the loading times of games, they loaded much faster than the CD's in those times, and that is what Nintendo used as their excuse for sticking with the cartridges even though everyone were still alienated with them, both player base and developers. Not to mention other problem with the console being late to arrive in the market, by the time Nintendo released the commonly known N64, PlayStation already managed to establish their dominance. Nintendo's popularity was also damaged by recently released Virtual Boy, which was marketed as a very immersive, mobile and great virtual reality device, in reality, the device was very immobile, unpractical, and when user looked through the goggles, he could only see in Black and Red which gave massive headaches and caused health problems, virtual boy was discontinued within a year of its release and to this day is considered the worst console in the history of gaming. Despite all of that as well as Nintendo dropping the price of N64 by 50 dollars 6 months after its release (which annoyed the players who already bought the console beforehand) Nintendo 64 still managed to be sold in 32.93 million units, and the most popular market was North America which sold 20.63 million alone - more than half of the general units sold. It was a good success for Nintendo and a great library of games such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie and Super Smash Bros ensured that the console would be remember as a legendary one and as a good last console that ever used cartridges. Nintendo 64 beat the sales of Atari, Sega and 3DO which fell out of competition but were nowhere close to beating the PlayStation with over 100 million units sold. The generation ended in 2001 with new big names appearing in the 6th generation.
6th generation of consoles - The 6th generation was met with many changes, both in technology and market competitiveness. Because of introduction of many new revolutionary technologies the consoles of 6th generation were able to achieve something that the fifth generation could only dream of doing. The sixth generation was commonly known as the 128 bit era, it has started in the year of 1998 when the new Sega product was released, the Sega Dreamcast, in Japan. The Dreamcast featured many new things, including things like being able to game with people using the internet via the built in modem in the console, it also featured a web browser and was the first home console ever to display always on full SD resolution. The Dreamcast helped out Sega immensely in terms of repairing their broken reputation after the failures of Sega Saturn, 32X and Mega CD.