Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of the home video game console market in the 1990s. This period was the height of the multimedia boom, and various companies of all stripes entered the video game console market, but failed. The reasons for their failure vary, but the main reasons were that they were driven by the false image of the multimedia market and that their performance as game consoles was inadequate. The one that finally succeeded in this environment was Sony's PlayStation, which was a major turning point in the history of the video game industry.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
The successor to the FM TOWNS (FM TOWNS II), which was on the market at the time of the release of the TOWNS Marty, was equipped with an Intel 486SX compatible CPU, but the CPU installed in the Marty was the same Intel 386SX compatible CPU as the original FM TOWNS, and its performance was at the level of 4 years earlier.
- 2.
First, a PC-FXGA board for the C-bus, an expansion bus for the PC-9801, was put on the market, followed by an FX board specifically for the 98CanBe. After that, PC-FXGA board with ISA bus was released for DOS/V machines. The PC-FXGA was different from the 98CanBe board in that it had a chip for 3D graphics. When playing games, the RGB monitor for the PC could not be used, and the only way was to connect the composite terminal on the PC-FXGA to the TV, which was not very convenient.
- 3.
Other than that, Creative, a PC peripheral company, has released a card called “3DO Blaster” that allows you to play 3DO games.
- 4.
In the USA, the price was reduced to $499 in May 1994.
- 5.
This is a standard that makes it possible to play video on CD-ROM. In the case of NTSC signals, the screen resolution is 352 × 240 pixels, which is about the same quality as VHS video. In Japan and the USA, where VCRs were already widespread, Video CD was hardly popular, but in Southeast Asia, it was quite popular.
- 6.
Even after that, Matsushita did not give up on the game market. In October 2010, the company announced that it was developing a portable game console, The Jungle, and even tested it, but stopped selling it in 2011.
- 7.
Other game consoles that were not accepted in the market exist but will be omitted because they do not make a significant difference to the structure of the discussion. The omitted game machines include Laser Active (Pioneer, 1993) and Jaguar (Atari, US market launch 1993, Japanese market launch 1994).
- 8.
According to Ueda (1995), at the end of March 1995, shipments of Super32X were 50,000 units in Japan, 800,000 units in the USA, and 200,000 units in Europe.
- 9.
Gunpei Yokoi (1941–1997). Joined Nintendo in 1965. Developed toys such as Ultra Hand (1967), Love Tester (1969), Kousenju(Light Gun) SP, and Ten Billion (1980). Later, he developed the Game & Watch, the controller for the Family Computer, and the Game Boy. Yokoi had a strong sense of crisis over the situation where games were becoming more complex as the performance of game consoles increased, creating many people who could not keep up. This awareness of the problem led to the Nintendo DS and Wii. Yokoi left Nintendo in 1996 and established Koto Co., Ltd. but died in a traffic accident in 1997. The Wonder Swan (1999), released by Bandai, was conceptualized by Yokoi and developed by Koto. GUNPEY, a launch title for Wonder Swan, is a puzzle game supervised by Yokoi and is effectively his last work.
- 10.
Parallax is “the difference in the results of observation that occurs when an object of observation is observed from two different points.” In this case, it refers to the slight difference between the images seen by the left eye and the right eye. Humans perceive images as having depth by processing the parallax between the left and right eyes in the brain, while Virtual Boy expresses a 3D effect by producing images with parallax.
- 11.
It was shortly after mass production shipments of the SH-1 RISC processor had begun that Hitachi began development of the SH-2, an improved version of the SH-1, in response to Sega’s decision to adopt the processor and request for performance improvements. The adoption of the SH-2 by Saturn led to the SH-2 gaining the world’s second largest share of the RISC processor market for a period.
- 12.
According to a retrospective of SH processor development, Sega began claiming lack of performance around the time it was announced that Nintendo’s new model (called the “Ultra 64” at the time) would include a chip jointly developed with Silicon Graphics. At the time, Sega paid little attention to Sony, a newcomer to the game industry, and regarded Nintendo as its rival. The fact that they called Saturn “64-bit class (with two 32-bit SH-2 CPUs)” in a TV commercial at the time of its release suggests that they were very conscious of Nintendo.
- 13.
Originally, SH-2 was not planned to be equipped with a multiprocessor function. A request to incorporate multiprocessor functionality into the SH-2 under development at the time for experimental terminals in the laboratory resulted in the successful implementation of a simple multiprocessor function.
- 14.
All parts of the BG layer on a normal 2D screen are considered sprites, and the Z value (a parameter indicating height and depth) in normal 3D graphics is used to prioritize the drawing of overlapping sprites, making them functionally equivalent to existing 2D graphics. This was possible because the object rendering performance of PlayStation was far superior to that of previous generations.
- 15.
Super Donkey Kong was a game developed by the British company Rare. Rare created a game with the best graphics of its time using a technique they called ACM (Advanced Computer Modeling). This method involved designing characters using 3D computer graphics on the high-performance computers of the time, then creating 2D graphics dots from animations of the characters in motion and using them as characters in the game. Super Donkey Kong, which was developed using ACM, had superior graphics to games (such as Star Fox) that used an auxiliary chip (Super FX chip) for 3DCG in the ROM cartridge, and had a significant impact on subsequent Super Nintendo games.
- 16.
The joint development project between Nintendo and Silicon Graphics was called Project Reality. This is why the chip was named Reality.
- 17.
When software gives instructions to a computer (CPU), the instructions must be in the form of an instruction set that the CPU can understand (instruction set architecture). In the microcode method, instructions in accordance with the instruction set architecture are further divided into simpler instructions, microcode, and executed in the CPU. The instructions can be divided into several different microcode groups, and it is possible to program which instructions of the instruction set architecture are to be executed as which microcode group. The microcode system in the Nintendo 64 allows the RCP to be used for both high-performance 2D graphics chips capable of displaying large numbers of sprites superimposed on each other, and for 3D graphics chips, which is its intended use.
- 18.
This drive was eventually released as the 64DD in 1999, one year before the PlayStation 2 was released. As a result, (1) titles originally developed for the 64DD were released on ROM cartridges and (2) social attention had shifted to the next generation of the three hardware platforms. The 64DD was already outdated from the time of its launch. In addition, Nintendo established a joint venture company (RandnetDD) with Recruit Co., Ltd. and launched Randnet in February 2000, a network connection service for players to interact with each other and download and play games using Nintendo 64 and 64DD as Internet terminals. However, the company withdrew from the service after only 1 year, until the end of February of the following year, as it attracted only 15,000 members instead of its initial goal of 100,000.
- 19.
Sony ran a campaign called “Ikuze 100 man dai (Let’s Go Million Units)” in 1995 to promote the 1 million units sold, by which time the Saturn had already sold more than 1 million units.
- 20.
Sega also began to introduce lower-priced versions under the name Satakore, which is abbreviation of Saturn Collection, but there was a delay of about a year with the first Satakore release in April 1997. This difference was significant in the face of fierce competition.
- 21.
This also meant hardware abstraction, which also served to reduce compatibility issues when new machines were launched.
- 22.
Eventually, the Saturn was also provided with a library developed by Sega’s AM2 Lab.
- 23.
When the results of the hardware sales competition become clear, companies continue to enter the market on winning hardware, while companies continue to exit on losing hardware. When the proportion of in-house titles is examined over the entire period in which game titles were released, the results are excessively harsh on losing hardware. For this reason, results up to the third year, when the hardware winners and losers are not yet visible, were compared.
- 24.
At the time of its launch, the Saturn was priced 5000 yen higher than the PlayStation at 44,800 yen, but stores often sold it at about the same price as the PlayStation, with the price reduced by 5000 yen. Therefore, it is safe to assume that the prices of the two were competitive for a long time.
- 25.
An exception in past game hardware is the Core Graphics II, a game console from NEC that reduced the price of the PC Engine from 24,800 yen to 19,800 yen. However, the internal architecture is the same.
- 26.
The Nintendo 64 sold more than 20 million units in the USA and was able to secure revenue there. In this sense, it was saved by the US market, just like the previous generation Sega(Mega Drive).
- 27.
Since the Nintendo 64 was supplied on ROM cartridges, the price did not drop as much as the PlayStation or Saturn, but the launch title, Super Mario 64, cost 9800 yen, and Nintendo made every effort to keep the game price under 10,000 yen.
- 28.
In Yata (1996), the game company’s share for a Super Famicom game priced at 10,000 yen per copy is about 20% as far as the figure is read (p. 32). Yamashita (1998) also estimates the game company’s share at 1792 yen for a Nintendo ROM cassette game with a list price of 9800 yen in the Super Famicom era. In the case of PlayStation/Sega Saturn CD-ROM software, Yata’s (1996) figure indicates that the game company’s share is about 35–40% (P63 and P65).
- 29.
Para Pappa Rappa is a title created mainly by musician Masaya Matsuura. The game was a hit because of the adorable characters designed by Rodney Alan Greenblatt and the simple game design of pressing buttons to the rhythm of rap music. A sequel, Um Jammer Lammy (1999), was also released.
- 30.
Saturn was the only home video game console that allowed the release of X-rated games (so-called “adult games”), but this was banned in 1996. However, even after the X-rated game was banned, checks on game expression were still relatively lenient.
References
(1) Japanese-language Document
Ueda, S. (1995). [SEGA, a comprehensive amusement company] (Sogo Amusement Company “Sega”). Meta Brain.
Yamashita, A. (1998). [The truth about the PlayStation hit] (PlayStation Dai Hit no Shinjitsu). JMA Management Center.
Yata, M. (1996). [The future of the game nation: All about the world's leading content business] (Game Rikkoku no Miraizo – Sekai wo Lead suru Contents Business no Subete). Nikkei Business Publisher.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Koyama, Y. (2023). Console Games (2) The Age of the Three Major Hardware Platforms. In: History of the Japanese Video Game Industry. Translational Systems Sciences, vol 35. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1342-8_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1342-8_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-99-1341-1
Online ISBN: 978-981-99-1342-8
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)