Hobbies And Interests
Time Frame
The fifth generation had to follow one of the most competitive periods in gaming--the 16-bit era, which saw fierce competition between Sega and Nintendo in consoles and Commodore and Atari in home computers. This generation faded by 1993, and that same year the 32-bit era began with the release of the 3DO. It ended quite abruptly in 1996 when the Nintendo 64 arrived.
Notability
The fifth generation of consoles and computers is notable for a variety of important reasons. First, it marked the introduction of CD-ROMs for storage, replacing traditional cartridges. Furthermore, this generation witnessed a major shift in the industry--Nintendo was absent from it, and would not regain their dominance in the market until the late 2000s with the Wii. Conversely, Sony debuted as a gaming company to great success with the Playstation. Modern 3D gaming evolved rapidly during the fifth generation, being largely impossible to do with older technology.
This was also the last non-PC generation of home computers designed primarily around gaming and acting as consoles for all intents and purposes. These were soon supplanted by generic PCs. There was also controversy in this generation--some machines on the market weren't pure 32-bit, and had a lot of the 16-bit era still in them.
3DO
A joint venture between Panasonic, Sanyo and LG, then known as Goldstar, the 3DO was the first console ever with a built-in, out-of-the-box CD player. Games arrived on CDs, and the machine could also play music and video discs. Graphics were very good for those days, with full screen VGA possible. It had 2MB of RAM, which was also a lot. However, software developers didn't support the 3DO because of its eclectic heritage and possibly a too-diverse makeup. Without a significant game library, this first showing for the 32-bit era soon withdrew from the market.
Sony Playstation
Probably the archetypal modern console, Sony's first entry into gaming was the result of a failed project they were working on with Nintendo. Its scrapping led to the latter company not participating in the fifth generation, instead waiting to release the Nintendo 64.
Sony hit paydirt with the Playstation, which since debuting in 1994 has sold over 100 million units--the first console to ever achieve this milestone. The Playstation also had a built-in CD player and 32-bit processing, and saw the launch of several huge franchises, including Resident Evil, Gran Turismo, Twisted Metal and Syphon Filter. The Playstation was also notable for doing much better in the U.S and Europe than in its native Japan.
Sega Saturn
The Sega Saturn was the only serious competition Sony faced in the fifth generation, the era responsible for making gaming a pillar of their catalog. Sega began developing the Saturn in the early 1990s as a follow up to their successful 16-bit console, the Genesis/Megadrive. The Saturn arrived in 1994 with specs similar to those of the Playstation--2MB RAM, VGA resolutions, CD drive and around 30MHz of 32-bit processing power. The console wasn't a major success for Sega, prompting the company to hasten and release the Dreamcast in 1999. It had several decent-selling games, such as the Virtua Fighter and Virtua Cop series, and of course the Sonic games.
Additional consoles
Both the Atari Jaguar and the Nintendo 64, released 1993 and 1996, respectively, claimed to be 64-bit, but many regard them as part of the fifth generation nonetheless. The Atari Jaguar was the last console the company ever made, and it didn't do well despite being graphically superior to its peers. The Nintendo 64 was built around a 64-bit processor and had double the RAM of the three 32-bit machines. It isn't universally considered a fifth generation console, with many regarding it as a standalone. The N64 was somewhat of a success with almost 35 million units sold and several successful titles, including Super Mario 64 and James Bond Goldeneye. It was the last console to use cartridges as storage. Several other consoles appeared during those years, but made almost no difference--these include the Amiga CD32 and Neo Geo CD.
Computers and the importance of bits
Around this time, the age of dedicated-format, mutually incompatible home computers came to a close. All of these were derived from machines that revolved around gaming, but were still capable in other fields--productivity, word processing, graphics and music. Models of note include the Commodore Amiga 1200/3000/4000 and Atari ST Falcon. None of these succeeded, and by 1993 gave way to PCs as a single standard of home computing. Gaming on computers turned towards Windows PCs starting with the release of Windows 95.
As the fifth generation ended, the habit of highlighting bit counts also ceased. Marketing no longer made a big deal of how many bits a console had--the last to do so was the Nintendo 64, with few gamers ever considering subsequent consoles as 128 or 256 bit.