The Bit Wars: An Alternate History Part 1

I’ve always wondered what the console market would be like if things had played out differently during the Bit Wars. If Sega had stayed a top dog after the Genesis, perhaps if Sony had never released the Playstation. What if Microsoft focused on different means of gaming like PC hardware and what if Gabe Newell had never left Microsoft but released Steam and Valve gaming as the head of Microsoft Games Division? The first multi-part series I’ve decided to include is a Command and Conquer: Red Alert style retrospective and alternate history of the 90s console wars. I hope you’ll subscribe and enjoy reading about my ideas for how the face of video game hardware and software could have been radically different from that which we know today.

1984: The Third Generation

Following the video game crash of 1983 in the US, two home consoles from Japan rose from the ashes of the over-saturated market and reclaimed it with superior hardware and quality titles.One was the highly popular Famicom, also known in the United States as the Nintendo Entertainment System. This system dominated in both the US and Japan thanks to innovative and addicting games such as Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, and also thanks in part to restrictions on software development. The other system was the Sega Master System, while also having high popularity in the US and Japan it didn’t have nearly as many sales in either market. The Sega Master System did however have a substantial lead over its competitor in Europe, Brazil, and Oceania. While long time veteran Atari did release their own 8-bit console, the Atari 7800, to compete with Nintendo and Sega they failed to gain even a small percentage of the market share and finally dropped out of hardware development in 1987. After 5 years on the market at the end of the decade Sega and Nintendo knew it was time to release the new wave of 16-bit consoles and turn the cold-war between them hot.

1987:The Genesis of the 16-bit Era

Noticing the lucrative business models of companies like Nintendo and Sega, Japanese company NEC partnered with Hudson Soft who fell out of an agreement for advanced graphics chips from Nintendo. Thus, the PC-Engine, the world’s first 16 bit game console was born. Thanks to an efficient 3 chip architecture and the use of proprietary game cards rather than cartridges the PC-Engine became a fast seller and rivaled the aging Famicom in Japan. The PC-Engine was then brought out of its native country and into the US, redesigned with composite video out, and an extra controller port to appeal to the US multiplayer market. NEC didn’t want to chance making a big flop outside Japan and made an aggressive ad campaign posing the PC-Engine as Faster and more cutting edge than The NES or Sega Master System.It worked, and following the launch of the PC-Engine in North America NEC/Hudson Soft were on top of the world Console market.

What they hadn’t realized was Nintendo and Sega had both been working on 16-bit machines of their own. They had urinated on sleeping giants, and come 1988 Sega was the first to respond to the PC engine with superior sound and graphics on the Sega Mega-Drive. Fans of the Master System happily upgraded to their brand new Sega systems complete with a new game that was to become the mascot rivaling the edginess of PC-Engine and the cuteness of characters like Mario that had made Nintendo a household name combined, with the launch of Sonic The Hedgehog. It had proved to be a killer app as it appealed to all age groups, whereas the PC-Engine had a more adult feel to its library of arcade games and shoot-em-ups.

Another benefit of the Sega Genesis was the choice of cartridges for its game medium which allowed for much longer and more complex games making the initial cool-factor of the PC-Engine’s rather limiting in size HuCards a major concern for developers who quickly developed an add on using the latest in CD technology in Japan that same year, to increase the space available and as an added benefit the ease of production for the PC-Engine games. The initial japanese CD model was a success and paved the way for a cheaper more marketable model in the United States.

Unfortunately due to failed partnerships and the foresight for a small market relative to an expensive add-on for an already expensive console, Sega decided to shelve their plans of their own 16-bit CD add on, works for many Sega CD games other than those that were to include a gimmick of low quality “Full Motion Video Graphics” were translated into Mega Cartridges. This included what became Sonic 2, with a Sonic 3 done by Sonic team in US following relatively quickly.

Finally in 1990 Nintendo had bided their time riding the continuing success and longevity of NES long enough to acquire more cutting edge and powerful hardware than either NEC or Sega who had already released their 16-bit machines. They released the Super Nintendo with a plethora of launch titles. Although they had considered a CD add-on like Sega and NEC they decided to move their plans and ideas with their partners Sony into a new console project for the next generation, as their cartridge technology still provided better graphics and only lacked the fidelity in sound the the PC-Engine’s audio was capable of rendering.

Meanwhile NEC had designed and released an all in one unit for the PC-Engine and the CD add on which also included more memory and a second set of video chips, known as the PC-Engine Duo. This model completely replaced the core PC-Engine system as well as the add-on and was cheaper together rather than separate. All 3 Systems were in a fierce competition and all had roughly equally 30% of the market share beating out even the newer smaller consoles like the Panasonic 3DO, the Phillips CD-I, and to a lesser extent the Neo Geo by SNK Playmore who still had a niche market of arcade cabinet quality cartridge units and superior arcade joysticks as well as wonderful fighting games and shooters.

By the mid 90s, Nintendo and Sega both knew that CD would be absolutely essential to their success in the coming console generation as the the newcomer PC-Engine rose from nowhere to virtually a 3-way tie with its inclusion this time.