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Main Contenders
While there were several video game consoles around this 32 and 64 bit era, most dropped out early from lack of support with the exception of three companies. This marked Sony's introduction into the gaming industry, at the same time Nintendo and Sega continued with its next systems. These were the main three contenders of the fifth generation console war in the United States.
The 32 Bit Systems
The fifth generation of home gaming systems had two main 32 bit contenders; Sega and Sony. Sega released its latest console with the Sega Saturn and this also marked the introduction of the Sony Playstation. Both systems were released in 1994 and used a CD-based format. The main benefit to the CD format was that they could hold a lot more information, and gaming developers had much more room to include things, such as video cut-scenes, symphonic music and dialogue in their games.
The 64 Bit System
The fifth generation really had but one real contender with 64 bit technologies. While Sony and Sega focused efforts on the new CD based technology, Nintendo held strong to the cartridge format that the company had met success with on their previous consoles.
The Nintendo 64 was released in 1996 in the United States. The decision to stick with the cartridge format was based solely on the fact that the CD format for gaming was still relatively new and had enormous loading times for its games. Cartridges were familiar formatting for Nintendo and had virtually no load times.
The Similarities
Both 32 bit and 64 bit consoles had a focus on new technologies that had not been seen in games up until then. A great focus was put into making games have 3D environments. Up until then, the focus had been on linear platform games, for the most part. Being able to explore the environment in any direction was revolutionary at the time. Many familiar titles received 3D "facelifts," taking characters introduced on previous gaming consoles and giving them the 3D treatment.
The Winner
While the true winner of the war that happened between the fifth generation consoles can be debated amongst gamers forever, there was a clear winner in terms of support, revenue earned and formats that were accepted. The 32 bit discs won with overwhelming support from fans and developers alike, proving that graphics alone were not enough to carry a system's success. Nintendo listened to the masses, and with their followup system, followed suit with disc technology.