The 4th Generation Consoles

The 4th Generation of video games is commonly known as the 16-bit era, as opposed to the 8-bits of the 3rd Generation. With increased graphical power and expanded memory, it can be said the gaming as we know it today started in this era, even if the great majority of games were still limited to the 2D plane. In many ways, the advancements in this generation was instrumental in developing the home game market as opposed to the Arcades, since games started being developed with longer running time, story, and continuity in mind.

As such, we can consider the 16-bit era a maturation of the previous generation, building on solid foundations to make games that stand the test of time today. The improvement in sprite graphics and expanded soundscape is a major reason why the games of the 4th generation, as opposed to the early 3D works of the 5th generation, still look good today.

One major thing worth noting is that this is one of the few generations where an actual “console war” was going on (the other generation being the WiiPS360 era), with the battle between Sega and Nintendo becoming the stuff of legends. In every other generation, a single console usually dominated the sales.

Another oddity of this generations is the proliferation of add-ons to existing console that increased the power of the base console throughout the generation. Although mid-generation refreshes remain common, the idea of purchasing a separate peripheral that increased the power of the base console mostly remains as an oddity of this generation.

This is also the first generation that had a portable component to it, which technology-wise was a step-back in exchange for portability. While there were four major portable consoles released, Nintendo easily dominated this field with the Game Boy.

The Major 4th Generation Consoles:

• PC Engine/ TurboGrafx-16 (NEC, October 1987)
• Mega Drive/ Genesis (Sega, October 1988)
• Super Famicom/ SNES (Nintendo, November 1990)
• Neo Geo (SNK, June 1991)

Of these consoles, the Sega Genesis and the SNES dominated the market. The PC Engine, while the first 16-bit console released, frankly does not have as strong a library as either of the big two. From a performance point of view, nothing could touch the Neo Geo, which still is the most expensive console of all time (its initial $500 price costing $1,189 today), and that’s why it was considered a luxury console. It did, however, provide the closes experience to the arcades of the time.

Considering their gaming libraries and reputation, I reviewed the Top 100 games of both the Sega Genesis and SNES. I will repost those reviews in my new blogging format in the coming months.

I started blogging in Destructoid way back in 2015, more than a decade ago, with my SNES reviews project, where I planned to play and review the games in the IGN Top 100 SNES games that I haven’t played before. Little did I know that my blogging journey would develop into reviewing similar list for the Sega Genesis, and then the Sega Saturn and PlayStation 1. As such, unlike the start of my 5th Generation Consoles review, I did not have a plan for the 4th Generation Consoles, so this is a plan written in retrospect after I already completed my blogs.