TurboGrafx-16 The PC Engine was the result of a collaboration between
Hudson Soft and
NEC and launched in Japan on October 30, 1987. It launched under the name TurboGrafx-16 in
North America on August 29, 1989. Initially, the PC Engine was quite successful in Japan, partly due to titles available on the then-new
CD-ROM format. NEC released a CD add-on in 1990 and by 1992 had released a combination TurboGrafx and CD-ROM system known as the
TurboDuo. In the United States, NEC used
Bonk, a head-banging caveman, as their mascot and featured him in most of the TurboGrafx advertising from 1990 to 1994. The platform was well received initially, especially in larger markets, but failed to make inroads into the smaller metropolitan areas where NEC did not have as many store representatives or as focused in-store promotion. The TurboGrafx-16 failed to maintain its sales momentum or to make a strong impact in North America. The TurboGrafx-16 and its CD combination system, the Turbo Duo, ceased manufacturing in North America by 1994, though a small amount of software continued to trickle out for the platform.
Mega Drive/Genesis The Mega Drive was released in Japan on October 29, 1988. The console was released in
New York City and
Los Angeles on August 14, 1989, under the name Sega Genesis, and in the rest of North America later that year. It was launched in Europe and Australia on November 30, 1990, under its original name. Sega built its marketing campaign around its new mascot
Sonic the Hedgehog, pushing the Genesis as the "cooler" alternative to Nintendo's console and inventing the term "Blast Processing" to suggest that the Genesis was capable of handling games with faster motion than the SNES. Their advertising was often directly adversarial, leading to commercials such as "Genesis does what Nintendon't" and no scream at all. When the arcade game
Mortal Kombat was ported for home release on the Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo decided to censor the game's gore, but Sega kept the content in the game, via a code entered at the start screen. Sega's version of
Mortal Kombat received generally more favorable reviews in the gaming press and outsold the SNES version three to one. This also led to Congressional hearings to investigate the marketing of violent video games to children, and to the creation of the
Interactive Digital Software Association and the
Entertainment Software Rating Board. Sega concluded that the superior sales of their version of
Mortal Kombat were outweighed by the resulting loss in consumer trust, and cancelled the game's release in Spain to avoid further controversy. With the new ESRB rating system in place, Nintendo reconsidered its position for the release of
Mortal Kombat II, and this time became the preferred version among reviewers. The Toy Retail Sales Tracking Service reported that during the key shopping month of November 1994, 63% of all 16-bit video game consoles sold were Sega systems. The console was never popular in Japan (being regularly outsold by the
PC Engine), but still managed to sell 30.75 million units worldwide. By late 1995, Sega was supporting five different consoles and two add-ons, and Sega Enterprises chose to discontinue the Mega Drive in Japan to concentrate on the new
Sega Saturn. While this made perfect sense for the Japanese market, it was disastrous in North America: the market for Genesis games was much larger than for the Saturn, but Sega was left without the inventory or software to meet demand.
Super NES Nintendo's fourth-generation console, the Super Famicom, was released in Japan on November 21, 1990; Nintendo's initial shipment of 300,000 units sold out within hours. The machine reached North America as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System on August 23, 1991, and Europe and Australia in April 1992. Despite stiff competition from the
Mega Drive/Genesis console, the Super NES eventually took the top selling position, selling 49.10 million units worldwide, and would remain popular well into the
fifth generation of consoles. Nintendo's market position was defined by its machine's increased video and sound capabilities, including exclusive first-party franchise titles such as
F-Zero,
Super Mario World,
Star Fox,
Super Mario Kart,
Donkey Kong Country,
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and
Super Metroid.
Compact Disc Interactive (CD-i) The
CD-i format was announced in the late 1980s, with the first machines compatible with the format being released in 1991. The Philips CD-i's main selling point was that it was more than a game machine and could be used for multimedia needs. Due to an agreement between Nintendo and Philips about
an abortive CD add-on for the SNES (which eventually evolved into
Sony's
PlayStation), Philips also had rights to use some of Nintendo's franchises. The CD-i was a
commercial failure and was discontinued in 1998, selling only 1 million units worldwide despite several partnerships and multiple versions of the device, some made by other manufacturers.
Neo Geo Released by
SNK in 1990, the Neo Geo was a home console version of the major arcade platform. Compared to its console competition, the Neo Geo had much better graphics and sound, however, the prohibitively expensive launch price of $649.99 and games often retailing at over $250 made the console only accessible to a niche market. A less expensive version, retailing for $399.99, did not include a memory card,
pack-in game or extra joystick.
Add-ons Nintendo, NEC and Sega also competed with hardware
peripherals for their consoles in this generation. NEC was the first with the release of the TurboGrafx CD system in 1990. Retailing for $399.99 at release, the CD add-on was not a popular purchase, but was largely responsible for the platform's success in Japan. The
Sega CD was released with an unusually high price tag ($300 at its release) and a limited library of games. A unique add-on for the Sega console was
Sega Channel, a subscription-based service (a form of online gaming delivery) hosted by local television providers. It required hardware that plugged into a cable line and the Genesis. Nintendo also made two attempts with the
Satellaview and the
Super Game Boy. The Satellaview was a satellite service released only in
Japan and the Super Game Boy was an adapter for the SNES that allowed Game Boy games to be displayed on a TV in color. Nintendo, working along with
Sony, also had plans to create a
CD-ROM drive for the SNES (plans that resulted in a prototype version of the
Sony PlayStation), but eventually decided not to go through with that project, opting to team up with
Philips in the development of the add-on instead (contrary to popular belief, the
CD-i was largely unrelated to the project).
European importing The fourth generation was also the era when the act of buying imported US games became more established in Europe, and regular stores began to carry them. The
PAL region has a
refresh rate of 50 Hz (compared with 60 Hz for
NTSC) and a vertical resolution of 625 interlaced lines (
576 effective), compared with 525/480 for NTSC. Because the simulation speed of contemporary game systems was directly linked to the output
frame rate, which was in turn synchronized with the TV's refresh rate, this meant that the game would run more slowly on a PAL television. The smaller number of vertical lines in the NTSC signal would also lead to black bars appearing on the top and bottom of a PAL television. Developers often had a hard time converting games designed for the American and Japanese NTSC standard to the European and Australian PAL standard. Companies such as
Konami, with large budgets and a healthy following in Europe and Australia, readily optimized several games (such as the
International Superstar Soccer series) for this audience, while most smaller developers did not. Also, few
RPGs were released in Europe because the market for the genre was not as large as in Japan or North America, and the increasing amount of time and money required for translation as RPGs became more text-heavy, in addition to the usual need to convert the games to the
PAL standard, often made localizing the games to Europe a high-cost venture with little potential payoff. As a result, RPG releases in Europe were largely limited to games which had previously been localized for North America, thus reducing the amount of translation required. • CD-ROM (
Neo Geo CD)
Game Boy (using
Super Game Boy)}} •
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (6 million) }} •
TurboGrafx-CD (1988) •
System Card (1988) •
Super System Card (1991) •
Arcade Card (1994) •
TurboTap (1987) •
TurboStick •
TurboBooster •
TurboBooster Plus •
Mega CD/
Sega CD (1991) • Sega CD Backup Ram carts (1992 JP) (1994 NA) •
Sega 32X (1994) •
Mouse •
Menacer (1992) •
Power Base Converter •
Sega Activator (1993) •
Multitap •
Super Scope •
Super NES Mouse (1992) •
Super Multitap (1993) •
Super Game Boy (1994) •
Super Advantage •
Satellaview (1995) • Neo Geo Controller Pro (1995) • Neo Geo Memory Card (1990) • Neo Geo MVS to AES Converter (1998) •
Motorola 68000 (16/32-bit
CISC)7.67 MHz (7.61 MHz PAL) (1.4 MIPS) (12.5 MHz CD) (2.19 MIPS) • Nintendo custom
Ricoh 5A22 (based on
16-bit 65C816)3.58 MHz (3.55 MHz PAL) (1.5 MIPS)
SA-1 enhancement chip: • Nintendo custom 65C81610.74 MHz (4.5 MIPS) •
Motorola 68000 (16/32-bit CISC)12 MHz (2.1 MIPS) •
Zilog Z80 (8/16-bit)4 MHz (0.58 MIPS) Upgrades: •
SVP chip:
Samsung SSP1601
DSP @ 23 MHz (25 MIPS) (1994) • CD add-on: Sega
ASIC coprocessor •
Ricoh PPU1 (Picture Processing Unit 1) •
Ricoh PPU2 (Picture Processing Unit 2) (1990) •
Super FX: 10.5 MHz (1994) •
Super FX 2: 21.477 MHz (21 MIPS) (1995) • SNK LSPC2-A2 (line sprite generator & VRAM interface) • SNK PRO-B0 (palette arbiter) •
Hudson Soft HuC6280A PSG • CD add-on:
Oki MSM5205 •
Yamaha YM2612 • Yamaha VDP
PSG (
SN76496) Upgrades: • CD add-on:
Ricoh RF5c164 • 32X add-on:
Pulse-code modulation • S-SMP (8-bit Sony SPC700) • S-DSP (16-bit DSP) • 8
KB main RAM • 64 KB
video RAM Upgrades: • Super System Card: 64 KB DRAM, 192 KB
SRAM • Arcade Duo Card: 2048 KB
FPM DRAM, 192 KB SRAM • Arcade Pro Card: 2240 KB+192 kB • 64 KB main
PSRAM • 64 KB video
DRAM • 8 KB Z80/audio
SRAM Upgrades: • SVP chip: 128 KB DRAM, 2 KB
cache, 1 KB DSP RAM • CD add-on: 512 KB main, 256 KB Video, 64 KB Audio, 16 KB cache, 8 KB Internal Back-up •
Tilemap: 1
scrolling background • Colors on screen: 482 (241 for backgrounds, 241 for sprites) •
Color palette: 512 (
9-bit color) • CD add-on:
Full motion video (FMV) • Resolution: 320×224, 256×224 (NTSC), 320×240, 256×240 (PAL) (progressive), 320×448 to
320×480 (interlaced) • Sprites: 80 on screen, 20 per scanline, 8×8 to 32×32 sizes, 16 colors per sprite,
integer sprite zoom, sprite flipping •
Tilemaps: 2
parallax scrolling planes with
line & row scroll effects (standard), 192 (shadow/highlight), • CD add-on:
Sprite/tilemap scaling & rotation, • 32X add-on: Color palette: 32,768 (
15-bit high color), 256–32,768 colors on screen, • Color palette: 32,768 (
15-bit high color) Enhancement chips: • Super FX: 2,000
flat shading polygons/sec, 1,000
texture mapping polygons/sec • Super FX 2: 4,000
flat shading polygons/sec, 2,000
texture mapping polygons/sec • Capcom Cx4: Sprite rotation/Calculations for wireframe effects • DSP-1: Advance Scaling and Rotation via Mode 7 • DSP-2: Dynamic Scaling Capability and Transparency effects • DSP-3: Bitstream decompression, and bitplane conversion of graphics • DSP-4: Draw Distance • Resolution: 320×224 to 384×264 • Colors on screen: 4096 • Color palette: 65,536 (
16-bit high color) • 6
programmable WS channels/voices •
Square,
sine,
sawtooth,
triangle and other
waveforms •
White noise generation on 2 channels •
LFO or
FM on 2 channels • Optional streaming of samples through any channel CD add on: • 1
ADPCM channel,
12-bit audio, CD add on: • 8 PCM channels (16-bit, 32 kHz) • 1 ADPCM channel (16-bit) @ 1.8 to 55.5 kHz sampling rate CD BackUp Ram Carts: • 8 KB to 512 KB 32.088 kHz
sampling rate • 1
streaming CD-DA channel, 16-bit
CD audio, 44.1 kHz sampling rate • Optional
Dolby Surround support • 6
programmable WS channels/voices •
Square,
sine,
sawtooth,
triangle and other
waveforms •
White noise generation on 2 channels •
LFO 32.088 kHz
sampling rate • 1
streaming CD-DA channel, 16-bit
CD audio, 44.1 kHz sampling rate • Optional
Dolby Surround support • 8 ADPCM channels • 8 PCM channels (16-bit, 32 kHz) • 2-channel stereo streaming CD-DA (16-bit, 44.1 kHz) File:CDTV.jpg|
Commodore CDTVReleased in 1991 File:Blank.svg|
Video Information System by
Tandy Released in 1992 File:Kids Computer Pico-01.jpg|
Sega PicoReleased in 1993 File:Pioneer-LaserActive-Set-FL.jpg|
LaserActive by
PioneerReleased in 1993 File:Blank.svg|
CPS Changer by
CapcomReleased in 1994 File:Super-ACan-Console-set-h.jpg|
Super A'CanReleased in Taiwan on October 25, 1995
Worldwide sales standings ==Handheld systems==