The Sony Playstation was first
introduced into the market in 1995, and met with rather quick success. This was due
to its technical superiority(at the time), and great developer support. Many new
games like Crash Bandicoot showed great promise for Sony's new console, and thus drew many
supporters. After a year, it was evident that the Playstation would be around for
some time, considering its huge line up of new and innovative games which
utilized its 3D
capabilities. The only real failing that the Playstation had was its inability to
display and store multiple sprites in the system's memory, which means that graphically
dependent 2D fighting games would strain the systems capabilities and incur some slowdown.
However, this still did not prove a major problem as after 4 years, the Playstation
shows promise of surviving until the next millennium.
The Nintendo 64 machine continues
Nintendo's former tradition of a cartridge-based console. This proved to be a rather
big limitation in the games of many developers, since cartridges, can at best, store a
maximum of about 32MB of data, compared to the 660MB provided by the CD-ROM format used by
computers and the Playstation. This meant that Nintendo was unable to implement
visually pleasing movies called Full Motion Video(FMV). Despite this, the Nintendo
64's data limitation meant that it was most suitable for 3D games, since 3D images were
much smaller than actual sprites. Also, the 64bit processor used by the console was
capable of displaying more colors and interpreting data at a faster speed, allowing for
more realistic graphics made Nintendo fans rejoice. The cartridge format did have
its advantages as well, since the machine did not have to "seek" for data like
consoles which used CD-ROMs. Load times are often the most annoying aspects of
gaming, and with cartridges, the Nintendo 64 boasted virtually zero load time,
giving the more established Playstation problem.
Sega Dreamcast
Sega's Saturn was originally a 32-bit
machine, and seeing that the Nintendo 64 was doing rather well, Sega made the smart move
of creating a 128bit machine! This meant double the processing power of the Nintendo
64! Sega introduced the Dreamcast rather aggressively, stunning gamers with splendid
graphics that were unmatched. So captivated by this aspect, gamers overlooked Sega's
paltry line up of games, which is now steadily increasing in number since the Japanese
launch of the Dreamcast. However, gamers are still wary of Sega, given its previous
track record of failing systems like the Sega CD, the 32X and the Saturn. Now, it
seems like Sega is ready to take back its share of the market, and with greater force...
Now...the Comparative
Review!
