Video Game WI: How Long Can The 16-Bit Era Last?

[Emperor Norton I]

The Playstation was the result of Nintendo and Sony's relationship collapsing. Nintendo had asked Sony to work on a CD attachment for the SNES. Sony did, but it evolved into more of an independent console and Sony wanted a lot of control over it that Nintendo was not willing to give. Nintendo dropped Sony and went to work with Phillips, resulting in the disastrous Phillips CD-I. Sony launched the Playstation circa 1995 -- just about four years after the Super Nintendo had launched. Though the Super Nintendo remained popular years afterward, Sony had clearly forced the console technology to move forward. The Nintendo 64 followed on a year later, and Sega tried to come out with a series of attachments for the Genesis/Mega Drive, and came out with the Saturn in 1995.

Let's say the Sony Playstation is never a thing. What would have been the natural lifespan of the 16-bit or 16/32 bit era of video gaming? The SNES remained popular until possibly the millennium. Donkey Kong Country was a major hit for the console, and popularized it in the global market when much of the global market had been more for Sega -- and Donkey Kong Country came out in 1995, right on the dot of when the Playstation came out. It seems to me that the era of the SNES and Genesis/Mega Drive could have continued for years more. Sega may have come out with a console to tackle the SNES' capabilities; the Genesis/Mega Drive had come out to complete with the NES, not SNES. And updating graphics may have been to 32-bits rather than the leap to 3D graphics. Or would the upgrade to the Playstation/N64/Saturn graphics and technology era have occurred anyway?

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Looking 15 minutes into the future from 1994/1995, it seems both Nintendo and Sega were interested in refining their existing consoles rather than releasing a new console. OTL, Sega released the 32X and Sega CD, before going over to the Saturn to compete with Playstation. The 32X and Sega CD suffered from a lack of a library of quality games, from being gangly attachments to the existing console, but most of all because the release of the Saturn was only months away from their release and they were very expensive and therefore not worth it. Nintendo would have gone a similar direction if the Sony deal did not fall through.

Without the Playstation, there would not have been the pressure to go to a new system. It could have easily been the case that both Nintendo and Sega simply offered attachments for their existing consoles. If Nintendo also did it, the gangly attachment issue would have just been something everyone had to suck up rather than a competition topic. Without the Playstation, there is no upcoming next generation of console, meaning the attachments don't become unnecessary, and there is also time for a stronger game library to come out, and for price to drop. On the whole, I think the problem is that I can't see attachments bringing the hardware up to the capacity of a PS1 or N64. So we may have been stuck with much more limited technology and graphics capability compared to the OTL for much longer. The Western market has also traditionally been wary and resilient to things like that, so you may not see major sales of attachments in the West. Meaning we don't see better graphics capability until much later. And there's the issue that 3D gaming had an awkward birth as it was; it took the entire PS1 era for them to iron out such things as character movement and camera angle. Assuming 3D gaming is delayed, we may end up dealing with that at the time the OTL was already moving on to the PS2.

 

[Nivek]

Japan vs The West Again and Cronus not so invictus

Hi i'm Nivek, you may know me alongside Rysenkari as the co-creator and co-writer of player two start(shamesly promotion end here), so will throw my two cents here, i'm apologized if i'm a little rude.

Your Pod is pretty intersting, as you say Nintendo-Sony never making their infamous deal(let's say Nintendo saw Pc engine cd and say nah, we will be good with Cartidge, being right with the hindsight and besided NEC,nobody do it good) but again that is a new point, no Sony, maybe NEC will reorganized and do something better that PC-FX(but that is pararell, predate a little sony so ceteris paribus they would walk out consoles like otl).

the other, SNES in japan endure almost a decaded, the last third party japanese game was like 1998-1999 and own nintendo fire emblem thracia 776 and HAL metal slader glory where the system swansongs for the snes via an special rewritable cartidge purcharse system called Nintendo Power(No relation the magazine besided owned by nintendo)

OTL Snes got game as late 1998 in the west(konami frogger, Kirby's Dream Land 3) maybe i think the late as that even ITTL, why, a simple reason: SEGA

When dealing about game history, some people think sega post genesis(even late genesis, cocffc32xfocffo) was so suicide, stupid, pure OTL ASB stuff, some people say they got outbased by sony(may or may not, i'm inclinning the later) other internal rivalty and self-sabotage(like the previous, but for me more likely what happened) between arcade and console groups. Still without sony(and with 3do being a fiasco, all other electronics company would be warry to enter videogames),sega have the lifetime chance do something with Saturn, who poised to launch 1994 as OTL without issue(Genesis is 6 year old already in japan and got third place behind NEC of all companies).

So Saturn come 1994, Nintendo Counter with DKC, whatever nintendo is doing for a next gen console(who will be 3d, since 1993 with starfox nintendo already worked in 3D fella norton) will be launch 1996 at minimum in japan, as they never feared sega.

I used to worked in a related scenario, just to OTL convergent in hindsight, here is there to read: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/OhgaShrugs


some ideas or stuff to elaborated, where videogames, companies or other would land would be TL worthy.

but to answer, i think even in 1999-2000 we could still get snes games using 48mbit(6MB like 4 floppy of 3 1/2) carts and the SDD-1 Chip(the one of Star Ocean) and being pretty nice.

 

[pattersonautobody]

I think the 3DO or Jaguar might do better if they worked better with game developers, because eventually the SNES and Genisys are going to be too old, regardless of the add ons.

 

[Nivek]

I think the 3DO or Jaguar might do better if they worked better with game developers, because eventually the SNES and Genisys are going to be too old, regardless of the add ons.

3DO is so-so even if price is reduced to 300 bucks to an aceptable level, even saturn eat it in every parameter possible, but with some luck who knews would be possible, the issue was that 700 bucks price tag killed at introduction any chance with mass market and price drops were so little and to late.

Jaguar is pure ASB(even thande just used a reskinned and simplyfi 3DO as jaguar/panther) that machine was a mess made saturn looks sensible, was a amiga with a weird PPU/GPU.

Still the ball are Nintendo and sega field, NEC may have the chances with the butterflies

 

[RySenkari]

Without the Playstation, the Saturn probably could've limped through the fifth-gen even with all the horrible mistakes Sega made at the time. So there's probably no way to butterfly the Saturn. However, with Sega stumbling through 1995 and 1996 like a drunk with two left feet, Nintendo might've kept the Super Nintendo going a year or two longer. I doubt that's as far as it could've gone, though, 1998 or maybe 1999.

 

[Nivek]

Without the Playstation, the Saturn probably could've limped through the fifth-gen even with all the horrible mistakes Sega made at the time. So there's probably no way to butterfly the Saturn. However, with Sega stumbling through 1995 and 1996 like a drunk with two left feet, Nintendo might've kept the Super Nintendo going a year or two longer. I doubt that's as far as it could've gone, though, 1998 or maybe 1999.

without sony, sega is in better position by default, but as you say, sega pure ASBish mistake in Fifth-gen is hard to butterfly away, specially as saturn was pure made in japanese market to counter snes, ps1 was a unexpected rival hit sega hard as fierce juridisciton friction make thing worse.

I thinj 1998-1999 with regular game, a sports game in 2000 as the swansong would be possible.

The millon dollar question, what will nintendo do it in fifth gen, n64 born directly failed sony deal and own nintendo 3d experimetns, sony is gone so that will be a massive butterfly.

 

[ScrewySqrl]

if Sega and NES are limping along farther on their 16-bit machines into 1998-99, do cutting edge video games stay with PC? and does a Gaming PC become a standard household appliance? I know that with PC's I had only one, decidedly secondary Console (a Sega Genesis) between the death of my Atari 2600 in 1984 and buying a Playstation 2 late in its run. (2003, I think)

 

[The Byronic Hero]

if Sega and NES are limping along farther on their 16-bit machines into 1998-99, do cutting edge video games stay with PC? and does a Gaming PC become a standard household appliance? I know that with PC's I had only one, decidedly secondary Console (a Sega Genesis) between the death of my Atari 2600 in 1984 and buying a Playstation 2 late in its run. (2003, I think)

I think the PC would start to take a major lead in gaming if no one made the move to 32 bit or better. With what PCs were accomplishing by 1996 alone vs 16 bit gaming, the shift would have happened. From 1995-1999 I was spending way more time on my PC than on my other systems (having owned a SNES at the time and a N64 that really collected dust after the first year I owned it.)

It would have only been a matter of time before some other party (Microsoft, Sony, etc.) would see what PC gaming could do vs what SEGA and Nintendo refused to pursue and jump into console gaming themselves to steal the market. I think 1996 was the latest 16 bit could survive before outside forces made all involved to advance.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

One benefactor of an even slightly delayed N64 (or Ultra...or whatever it may have been) is Donkey Kong Country. DK3 was released after the N64, as was totally blown over. Which is a shame, as that is a solid series. On the other hand, Rare did go Kong crazy and was getting to the point of too many peripheral characters. DK3 featured Dixie Kong and the new character of Kiddy Kong. Those were not strong characters for a game. So it may have faced sales problems regardless.

 

[Nivek]

One benefactor of an even slightly delayed N64 (or Ultra...or whatever it may have been) is Donkey Kong Country. DK3 was released after the N64, as was totally blown over. Which is a shame, as that is a solid series. On the other hand, Rare did go Kong crazy and was getting to the point of too many peripheral characters. DK3 featured Dixie Kong and the new character of Kiddy Kong. Those were not strong characters for a game. So it may have faced sales problems regardless.

Nice to mention that game, again i think you was half rigth again, again another characther change was not that good(after the teasin in 2) and mostly the game was ultra experimental(i consider it the predecesoor of Banjo Kazooie and called it a 2D collecacton in that regard, yeah some seeds existed in 2 but were as egrerious as here) i think will fare a little better but not so much

I think the PC would start to take a major lead in gaming if no one made the move to 32 bit or better. With what PCs were accomplishing by 1996 alone vs 16 bit gaming, the shift would have happened. From 1995-1999 I was spending way more time on my PC than on my other systems (having owned a SNES at the time and a N64 that really collected dust after the first year I owned it.)

It would have only been a matter of time before some other party (Microsoft, Sony, etc.) would see what PC gaming could do vs what SEGA and Nintendo refused to pursue and jump into console gaming themselves to steal the market. I think 1996 was the latest 16 bit could survive before outside forces made all involved to advance.

if Sega and NES are limping along farther on their 16-bit machines into 1998-99, do cutting edge video games stay with PC? and does a Gaming PC become a standard household appliance? I know that with PC's I had only one, decidedly secondary Console (a Sega Genesis) between the death of my Atari 2600 in 1984 and buying a Playstation 2 late in its run. (2003, I think)

I Restrained mention PC as that is a world appart and mostly Quake and 3dfx revolution will come regardless, so pc would be safe of butterflies, the rest if more people decided to adopt pc(who still cost a fortune but more acessible unlike 80's) as gaming platform depend but still pc is always a game platform and count as itsself. that another want to jump based on pc is still a stech, see how well 3DO and Atari performed

the rest....more ideas for it? maybe more 16bit would be localized at the tail of system life