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Before this generation the term “bit” wasn’t really known or used outside of the technical world, but with the release of the TurboGrafx-16 the term became a popular as a means of measuring both a system’s power and the generation the system was in. It was only logical, 16bit systems were far more powerful than the 8bit NES. But with time the usage of bits became unpopular, and those companies that didn’t realize this fell behind in more important areas, but we’ll see that on the next generation.
BACKGROUND HISTORY
The 16bit era, or 4th generation of gaming, began with the release of the TurboGrafx-16, a machine with a 16bit CPU, double the bits of the NES, better graphics capable of a wider range of colors, better sound, and overall better in every hardware aspects. This lead to consumers wrongfully conclude that the amount of bits was also significant of the processing power and graphics capabilities of a device, and while it’s true that bits matter to some extent, it only really matters when software grows and the amount of bits a CPU has becomes a must to be able to handle heavier tasks, the problem is this applies to pretty much every aspect of the CPU and GPU nowadays, not just bits. This is why we aren’t seen commercially available 128bit CPUs, but we do see much more powerful GPUs, faster CPUs with less power consumption, faster and more capable FPUs (Float Processing Unit, used for floating point operations, a big must on games), and a long list of etc.
By the end of this generation and start of the next one, companies who were able to see past that and forget the dumb bits discussions were the ones who succeeded (mainly the PlayStation, who was a 32bit system that beat the living hell out of its 64bit competition), and those companies who didn’t (Nintendo and Atari mainly) were left behind (Nintendo slightly less due to still being a huge company with great games) and by the start of the 6th gen, bits were not even talked about.
The TurboGrafx-16, albeit a great console with really nice hardware, was quickly pushed into obscurity by the ongoing battle between the SNES and the Genesis/MegaDrive, who had better hardware (although not by a long shot) and had much better games with recognizable franchises.
Sega with the Genesis used really clever campaigns to outthrow Nintendo, which included comparing fast-paced Sega games with slower-paced Nintendo equivalents, the term “blast processing” was coined by Sega to define this, which is nothing more than Sega saying that the Genesis CPU was better than the SNES, even though the SNES hardware was way better at graphics and pretty much everything else. Sega knew that the console wars was fought by kids in the school playground, so they gave their target audience “weapons” to use as arguments that their system was better, it’s as if Sony came up with a cool term to say the PS4 is better than the Xbox One.
Although sales and popularity were evenly matched, Sega’s marketing and lineup of games made it look like the clear winner of the generation, until they f*cked it up. So how can a company who initially had little to no fanbase, come out on top of the already really popular Nintendo franchise, only to screw it all up? most of you already know that the answers are the 32X and the SegaCD.
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The 32X was an addon for the Genesis that incorporated a 32bit processor (because of the bits wars) and graphics processor that allowed for more colors and some polygon 3D graphics. By itself it might not be a bad idea to increase the lifespan of the Genesis, somewhat similar to the PSP Street and superslim PS3s.
The problem is, this thing required its own power supply, it needed to connect a few cables to the Genesis, it was expensive as an addon (150 bucks) and it came out around the same time the Sega Saturn was announced, so people preferred to hold on to their money and wait for the far more advanced Saturn.
The games are not really bad and it could have done much better if Sega simply released it as a standalone console rather than an ugly, mushroom-shaped, addon.
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The SegaCD was a different story. CD-ROMs were all the craze back then as they were cheaper to make than cartridges, they had a lot more capacity, could produce way better sound, could hold Full Motion Video and a lot of other extras, so companies were all trying to come up with their own CD technology for either existing consoles or upcoming ones. This was the case of the Genesis, and you might think, why does something like this not work out? a lot of it had to do with the games. For whatever reason the people making games for the SegaCD thought that the future of gaming was basically all FMVs and little gameplay, thus a lot of shovelware titles were made that centered around movie-like experiences with bad actors, bad gameplay, horrible controls, etc. One of the most infamous examples is Night Trap.
Here’s the AVGN episode for the SegaCD, it explains a lot more visually the situation of this addon and why it was so bad.
Nintendo also tried to make their own addons, first with Philips, but when Nintendo realized that they had given Philips legal rights to create games from Nintendo franchises like Mario or Zelda, they ended the contract. Philips continued with their prototype and went on to create the CD-i, a console highly hated for the creations of the Zelda games Zelda: Wand of Gamelon, Link: Faces of Evil and Zelda Adventure, games that raped the childhoods of those that grew up with The Legend of Zelda and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. After their disaster with Philips, Nintendo tried teaming up with Sony for the CD addon for the SNES, titled the PlayStation, but after seeing the commercial disaster of the SegaCD they abandoned the project and all contracts with Sony. Just as Philips did, Sony continued with the PlayStation project, but unlike Philips, they aimed at a real next gen console (back when the PS1 was next gen) instead of a multimedia device with crappy games, and they found a lot of success. But I’ll talk about this on the next chapter.