![]() ![]() The TurboGrafx-16 failed to maintain its sales momentum or to make a strong impact in North America. 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. 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. NEC released a CD add-on in 1990 and by 1992 had released a combination TurboGrafx and CD-ROM system known as the TurboDuo. Initially, the PC Engine was quite successful in Japan, partly due to titles available on the then-new CD-ROM format. It launched under the name TurboGrafx-16 in North America on August 29, 1988. The PC Engine was the result of a collaboration between Hudson Soft and NEC and launched in Japan on October 30, 1987. Main article: TurboGrafx-16 TurboGrafx-16 CD-ROM support via add-ons, allowing larger storage space and full motion video playback. ![]() Sprites that can individually be scaled and rotated.Backgrounds with pseudo-3D scaling and rotation.Advanced music synthesis ( FM synthesis and/or wavetable sample-based synthesis)Īdditionally, in specific cases, fourth generation hardware featured:.Stereo audio, with multiple channels and digital audio playback ( PCM, ADPCM, streaming CD-DA audio).Elaborate color, 64 to 4096 colors on screen, from palettes of 512 ( 9-bit) to 65,536 ( 16-bit) colors.Large sprites (up to 64×64 or 16×512 pixels), 80–380 sprites on screen, 16–96 sprites per scan line.Parallax scrolling of multi-layer tilemap backgrounds.Multi-button game controllers with many buttons (3 to 8).This generation ended with the discontinuation of the Neo Geo in 2004.ĭifferences from third generation consoles įeatures that distinguish some fourth generation consoles from third generation consoles include: In 1996, however, there was a major drop in sales of hardware from this generation and a dwindling number of software publishers supporting fourth generation systems, which together led to a drop in software sales in subsequent years. The emergence of fifth generation video game consoles, circa 1994, did not significantly diminish the popularity of fourth generation consoles for a few years. As games became more complex, concerns over video game violence, namely in titles such as Mortal Kombat and Night Trap, led to the eventual creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board. While as with prior generations, game media still continued to be primarily provided on ROM cartridges, though the first optical disk systems, such as the Philips CD-i, were released to limited success. Nevertheless, there were other companies that started to take notice of the maturing video game industry and begin making plans to release consoles of their own in the future. Several other companies released consoles in this generation, but none of them were widely successful. Sega, however, was extremely successful in this generation and began a new franchise, Sonic the Hedgehog, to compete with Nintendo's Super Mario series of games. Nintendo was able to capitalize on its success in the previous, third generation, and managed to win the largest worldwide market share in the fourth generation as well. Cartridge-based handheld consoles became prominent during this time, such as the Nintendo Game Boy (1989), Atari Lynx (1989), Sega Game Gear (1990) and TurboExpress (1990). Though NEC released the first console of this era, sales were mostly dominated by the rivalry between Sega and Nintendo across most markets: the Sega Mega Drive ( Sega Genesis in North America) and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES Super Famicom in Japan). In the history of video games, the fourth generation of video game consoles, more commonly referred to as the 16-bit era, began on October 30, 1987, with the Japanese release of NEC Home Electronics' PC Engine (known as the TurboGrafx-16 in North America). ![]()
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