Talk:History of video game consoles (fourth generation)

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[edit] Old stuff

"Sega took a huge advantage that Sonic was fast and used it to get gamers' attention. After word about Sonic the Hedgehog got out, many people started thinking that Sonic was cooler then Mario due to the speed of the character."

I have a feeling that this was not a reason that people picked Sega over Nintendo, or at least that it was the opinion of very few gamers. Speed of characters seems like such a minor factor that I don't remember it even being mentioned while growing up on these systems. - Bamos 20:54, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

As even the opening paragraph admits, the article is currently focused on "North American video game history". Did Sega run the same ads worldwide? Were marketing and release dates the same across the world? Probably not, in most cases. Perhaps we should divide the article into sections on North America, Japan, and Europe. I don't know enough about what gaming was like in Europe or Japan to flesh those sections out by myself, though. ~ FriedMilk 00:38, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)


The whole thing's a bit of a tit-for-tat mess anyway, it reads like two folk took pot shots at eachother on the Wiki then someone came in and tried to make it worth keeping (like me).

Sockatume 01:07, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I guess the problem is that the fouth generation would apply to the fouth generation of american gaming. Remember that the American market is older than the others. Perhaps start another timeline? --66.102.16.10 16:16, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Right, I made some edits to make this NPOV which were reverted. I challenged the user who made the revert yesterday, but they haven't answered yet, so I'm going to take another attempt at making it NPOV. For completion, I'll state the problems I have with the article here:

"After word about Sonic the Hedgehog got out, many people started thinking that Sonic was cooler than Mario due to the speed of the character. Also, Sega came up with a marketing term called "Blast Processing" -- made-up jargon used to explain the speed in the games (and Genesis superiority).

Nintendo countered with franchise games such as the Mario series, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Super Metroid, Donkey Kong Country, and many others for the Super NES and Game Boy.

Gamers became either a Nintendo fan or a Sega fan, and the two were mutually exclusive. Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in 1992 and it became more popular than the first game. Less than a year later, Nintendo released enhanced remakes of the original NES Super Mario games on the Super NES titled Super Mario All Stars."

Firstly, I was a gamer but wasn't a Nintendo or Sega "fan" during the time, and I imagine many other people were equally enamoured with each system. Secondly, I thought the info about "sonic 2's day" was interesting and should've been kept. Thirdly, I don't think that the first sentence has any place in an encyclopedia.

Also, I changed the following paragraphs for a reason:

"By 1995, the 16-bit craze started to die down due to Nintendo and Sega both having new consoles in the works. Nintendo went on to have much success with the release of the Nintendo 64 in 1996 and greater success with the Nintendo GameCube in 2001, as well as the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance in the Handheld console market. However, Sega was not as successful after the 16-bit era. Their Sega Saturn was released in 1995, but it was a complete failure. Eager to jump-start their skeptical console fanbase in 1999, Sega released the Sega Dreamcast, which saw a bit more success but ultimately not enough to keep Sega in the console hardware business. Sega left the home console market in late 2001.

By the end of the Genesis' run in the U.S., it out-sold the Super NES by roughly a 5% margin. However, total world sales of the Super NES were about twice as much as the Genesis, making Nintendo the world-wide winner of the 16-bit war."

As they're clearly not NPOV.

Sockatume 21:36, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)


[edit] "Established Franchises"

I had issues with the following in the "Video game franchises established during the 16-bit era" list:

-Earthbound was a sequel to Mother, a Famicom game -Doom was established on PC, not console -SimCity: See Doom -ActRaiser: Two-game series; nobody played the second one (it was a pretty bad game)

The list is also very SNES-biased, as there are very few Genesis series on the list, and really should be changed. I added Phantasy Star, but please add more.

Doom was released on the PC in 1993. I believe the game id software game in question is Quake, as it was released in 1996 and really brought deathmatch/multiplayer (through TCP/IP anyways) to the average gamer. The article should reflect this. Reverend Raven 18:32, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Games Computers

Shouldn't 16-bit games computers such as the Amiga and Atari ST be mentioned alongside these consoles, for completeness? Gp100mk 10:16, 24 February 2006 (UTC)]

[edit] Omission of ESRB

I think this article should include the fact that the 4th generation was the beginning of video game ratings.

The creation of rating systems and the ratings organizations (like the ESRB) was a key event in the history of video games.

Describing the controversies and controversial games (like Mortal Kombat) that lead to the rating systems would provide a fascinating history lesson for readers.

This would be particularly true for today's kids, since they aren't old enough to remember the time when video games did not have ratings.

07:33, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The WWII of console wars

Am i right?!

[edit] Do we count the Amiga in this era?

Should the the Amiga count in this era? It's an oddball to place because it's as much a personal computer as it was a console, but the Amiga 500, 600 and 1200 were most certainly games machines. The Lemmings, Populous and Worms series all have their origins there, amongst others, and the system had specialist hardware built in for graphics and sound. --Jonathan Drain 19:48, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rise of Franchises?

Most of the franchises listed started in the third-generation. Is it reeally appropriate to discuss them here? Also, should Sonic be listed? It is discussed in detail farther up. Ace of Sevens 10:50, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Handheld Atari?

Is there a reason for the total omission of the Atari Lynx in the 16-bit handheld block? I bought both a Gameboy and Lynx the same summer (1990), and the Lynx is still around although sadly lacking in new content or decent battery life.  :-) AndySocial 20:06, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mortal Kombat

If I'm not mistaken, both the Genesis and the SNES version of Mortal Kombat were censored, they both contained (this is the fact I can't check) the "blood code", and both releases (I know this for sure) of MKII were left uncensored. WhateverTS 06:05, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

The SNES didn't contain the "blood code". Gore could only be unlocked on the Mega Drive (and other Sega systems) version. Mr Wesker 16:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Virtual Boy

The Virtual Boy is listed in with the handhelds on the page. This is inaccurate as you don't hold it in your hand to use it, hence "handheld". I would consider it portable though. It could use AA batteries.Peter Tangney 02:48, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

i noticed that same thing. in addition to it not being held in your hands it had a separate controller. plus Nintendo didn't market it as a handheld, it far more similar to a console than a handheld, but really should be listed as an other. i'll fix that.J.L.Main 03:08, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TurboExpress

Isn't the TurboExpress 4th gen? Why isn't it in the handhelds section?

[edit] C64GS 8 bit

The C64 game system is basically an Commodore 64 ( 8-bit Personal Computer) without a keyboard, it should not be here, can I delete it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Charliechuck (talk • contribs) 13:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC).


[edit] Milestones

Most other articles of the history of video games series include a section called "Milestone Titles". I think one could easily add it to this article, as it covers the most influential era of videogaming ever. --80.136.48.194 00:18, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 'Fourth generation'

Come on, this name is silly and overly America biased.
No one used the name 'fourth generation', it was the 16-bit era.
In most of the world it wasn't even the 'fourth generation', here in Britain it was just the second. In Japan....The 3rd?...Maybe the second too as before then consoles were just released every so often, no co-ordinated battles for market share.
For the later generations of consoles for which there are no defined names (PS2 et al onwards) then yes, use this sort of name but for the generations with well publicised names it just doesn't make sense.--Josquius 22:02, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree, it was known as the '16-bit era', or just the 'new era' as at the time it was considered the second era. Another problem we have here is the Gameboy & Gamegear handhelds that came out at this time were 8-bit machines. This could get very confusing.Charliechuck 10:03, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Favors Nintendo

From reading several sections of this article it's obvious the author was extremely biased towards Nintendo. Note the second paragraph under "The second Sega vs. Nintendo console war"; statements like "And then there was the control pad" seem amateurish and biased. Somebody fix this, the best video game generation deserves a better article. -Grim (neuropod@gmail.com)

[edit] 'SNES is better' not NPOV

"It should be noted that despite Sega's aggressive and sometimes misleading marketing tactics during this era, Nintendo's platform was technically superior to Sega's platform in several key areas. In terms of graphics, far more colors were available on the 'Super, and far more colors could be used on screen at the same time. In terms of sound, the capabilities between the two systems was night and day, with the 'Super sounding much more like a true 16-bit experience (compare if to an early Sound Blaster card for a PC) while Genesis sounded similar if not identical to a PC "Ad-lib Sound" card, which in PC terms was the technology existing prior to "Sound Blaster". The control pad featured far more buttons, with an arguably more friendly layout. Also, the 'Super was first to introduce the "L and R" buttons on a console controller, this allowed greater options for controlling a game than was possible (or practical) previously." This does not seem very NPOV to me... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by VDZ (talk • contribs) 19:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC).

I've just removed all this stuff as part of my last edit, as I also found it highly non-NPOV. For the record, the SNES has a superior colour depth but the Mega Drive has a superior pixel resolution. The SNES has more capable sound hardware but the Mega Drive has a much more capable CPU and a dedicated sound CPU that can do much more than a PC "Ad-lib Sound" card. I don't consider either platform to be objectively technologically superior to the other, it'll always be a personal POV decision and therefore not encyclopaedic — ThomasHarte 19:32, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
It seems as though there has been quite a bit of weasel wording in the article both ways. I've done some work to correct it in the past, hopefully we can work out the rest of it soon. DestradoZero 19:21, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Two handheld lists

Is there a reason that there are two sections listing the handheld systems from this era? CB Droege 15:09, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

It's somewhat vague anyway as the handheld years overlap the main system releases. I agree though they should be in one place or the other, or perhaps just linked to a history of handheld games and consoles. As the "first generation" of home console history includes dedicated devices, so could the handheld history. 72.15.95.101 18:54, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

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