8 Days of Gaming, day 4: the Bit wars
Before this generation the term “bit” wasn’t really known or used outside of the technical world, but with the release of the TurboGrafx-16 the term became a popular as a means of measuring both a system’s power and the generation the system was in. It was only logical, 16bit systems were far more powerful than the 8bit NES. But with time the usage of bits became unpopular, and those companies that didn’t realize this fell behind in more important areas, but we’ll see that on the next generation.
BACKGROUND HISTORY
The 16bit era, or 4th generation of gaming, began with the release of the TurboGrafx-16, a machine with a 16bit CPU, double the bits of the NES, better graphics capable of a wider range of colors, better sound, and overall better in every hardware aspects. This lead to consumers wrongfully conclude that the amount of bits was also significant of the processing power and graphics capabilities of a device, and while it’s true that bits matter to some extent, it only really matters when software grows and the amount of bits a CPU has becomes a must to be able to handle heavier tasks, the problem is this applies to pretty much every aspect of the CPU and GPU nowadays, not just bits. This is why we aren’t seen commercially available 128bit CPUs, but we do see much more powerful GPUs, faster CPUs with less power consumption, faster and more capable FPUs (Float Processing Unit, used for floating point operations, a big must on games), and a long list of etc.
By the end of this generation and start of the next one, companies who were able to see past that and forget the dumb bits discussions were the ones who succeeded (mainly the PlayStation, who was a 32bit system that beat the living heck out of its 64bit competition), and those companies who didn’t (Nintendo and Atari mainly) were left behind (Nintendo slightly less due to still being a huge company with great games) and by the start of the 6th gen, bits were not even talked about.
The TurboGrafx-16, albeit a great console with really nice hardware, was quickly pushed into obscurity by the ongoing battle between the SNES and the Genesis/MegaDrive, who had better hardware (although not by a long shot) and had much better games with recognizable franchises.
Sega with the Genesis used really clever campaigns to outthrow Nintendo, which included comparing fast-paced Sega games with slower-paced Nintendo equivalents, the term “blast processing” was coined by Sega to define this, which is nothing more than Sega saying that the Genesis CPU was better than the SNES, even though the SNES hardware was way better at graphics and pretty much everything else. Sega knew that the console wars was fought by kids in the school playground, so they gave their target audience “weapons” to use as arguments that their system was better, it’s as if Sony came up with a cool term to say the PS4 is better than the Xbox One.
Although sales and popularity were evenly matched, Sega’s marketing and lineup of games made it look like the clear winner of the generation, until they f*cked it up. So how can a company who initially had little to no fanbase, come out on top of the already really popular Nintendo franchise, only to screw it all up? most of you already know that the answers are the 32X and the SegaCD.
The 32X was an addon for the Genesis that incorporated a 32bit processor (because of the bits wars) and graphics processor that allowed for more colors and some polygon 3D graphics. By itself it might not be a bad idea to increase the lifespan of the Genesis, somewhat similar to the PSP Street and superslim PS3s.
The problem is, this thing required its own power supply, it needed to connect a few cables to the Genesis, it was expensive as an addon (150 bucks) and it came out around the same time the Sega Saturn was announced, so people preferred to hold on to their money and wait for the far more advanced Saturn.
The games are not really bad and it could have done much better if Sega simply released it as a standalone console rather than an ugly, mushroom-shaped, addon.
The SegaCD was a different story. CD-ROMs were all the craze back then as they were cheaper to make than cartridges, they had a lot more capacity, could produce way better sound, could hold Full Motion Video and a lot of other extras, so companies were all trying to come up with their own CD technology for either existing consoles or upcoming ones. This was the case of the Genesis, and you might think, why does something like this not work out? a lot of it had to do with the games. For whatever reason the people making games for the SegaCD thought that the future of gaming was basically all FMVs and little gameplay, thus a lot of shovelware titles were made that centered around movie-like experiences with bad actors, bad gameplay, horrible controls, etc. One of the most infamous examples is Night Trap.
Here’s the AVGN episode for the SegaCD, it explains a lot more visually the situation of this addon and why it was so bad.
Nintendo also tried to make their own addons, first with Philips, but when Nintendo realized that they had given Philips legal rights to create games from Nintendo franchises like Mario or Zelda, they ended the contract. Philips continued with their prototype and went on to create the CD-i, a console highly hated for the creations of the Zelda games Zelda: Wand of Gamelon, Link: Faces of Evil and Zelda Adventure, games that raped the childhoods of those that grew up with The Legend of Zelda and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. After their disaster with Philips, Nintendo tried teaming up with Sony for the CD addon for the SNES, titled the PlayStation, but after seeing the commercial disaster of the SegaCD they abandoned the project and all contracts with Sony. Just as Philips did, Sony continued with the PlayStation project, but unlike Philips, they aimed at a real next gen console (back when the PS1 was next gen) instead of a multimedia device with crappy games, and they found a lot of success. But I’ll talk about this on the next chapter.
- Previous – 8 Days of Gaming Day 3: Rise of the Big N
- Next – 8 Days of Gaming Day 5: Here comes a new challenger
nobody can say they are first now
HAHAHAAHAHA
no. but i can say this
FIRST POTATO
You’re GOD XD
I, too, think that his claim of ownership on the first comment on a single post makes him equal to the almighty.
Second!
I’m so happy for you. Really.
I’m crying tears of joy on your behalf.
:’) That’s how happy I am for you. Remember me when you become famous. If only I could have been second, then maybe I would be famous like you, some day.
Very cool article, I enjoyed the read. Brought back fond memories. I used to have a Super Wildcard addon for my snes. It was sweet.
Fourth! Lol
I’m so happy for you. Really.
I’m crying tears of joy on your behalf.
:’) That’s how happy I am for you. Remember me when you become famous. If only I could have been fourth, then maybe I would be famous like you, some day.
Until Playstation 2 I was still used to refer to consoles by bits, due to the PS2 being the next gen console after the Nintendo 64, I’ve called it 128 bit.
Noobness is limitless.
You’d be forgiven, as the processor in the PS2 was marketed as 128-bit. Mainly because it used 128-bit registers and had instructions to operate on 128-bit words.
The processor was 64 bits MIPS, it only had some 128 bit registers and word load for the GPU (vector graphics) and FPU (quad precision floating point).
the 32x only ran an extra 16 bit processor, but split the work across the 32x and genesis
(16+16=32 made sense back then some how…)kind of like the jaguar
the saga cd was pretty good for its time but more of an issue of the technology not being ready to support it yet
but the Saturn’s downfall was the opposite of atari 2600, to much control over 3rd party game development…if sony fires an idiot for very stupid ideas, he might not be a great guy to hire as your lead controller of 3rd party games licensing. this idiot only wanted 3d games on the Saturn in the us, this is why games like magic knights rayearth went from a mid lifespan game for the Saturn to the very last game for the system in the us…many games companies were hurt by this ***, and several were literally bankrupted by this ***…
yap, it wasn’t really 32 bits but two 16 bit CPUs. The jaguar was more of the same.
I was so bummed when they discontinued the 32x
The video on this site was epic, I couldn’t help but laugh, laugh and laugh some more.
The CPU was a 8 bits one.
The GPU (HuC6270 ) was 16 bits.
😉
😉 Because everyone knows exactly what you’re referring to without any sort of context whatsoever. 😉 😉
I think I have read that CD thing between Philips, Nintendo, & Sony in one of your previous articles.
well I don’t recall that
Does the term bit in this sense still hold true to eight bits equals one byte?
I guess so. Bits, bytes and other primitive and object data types are standard units of measurement in the CS world.
Yes, 8 bits is still 1 byte. It’s a standard measurement that can’t change unless you want to f*ck up all computer systems and software made up to date.
That’s pretty much the only measurement that hasn’t changed. Now if you type “kb” nobody knows whether you mean 1024 bits, 1024 bytes, or 1000 bytes, and there are plenty of marketers out there who take advantage of that.
bits or bytes thing is easy KB = KiloByte, Kb = Kilobits.
As for 1024 or 1000, it’s 1024, only memory manufacturers use 1000 as it means that 1GB for them is actually less for you.
I did not know that capitalization made a difference.
The TG-16 aka PC-Engine had a 8 bit cpu and 16 bit graphics not a 16 bit cpu…. if your gonna blog it get the facts straight.
CPU: 8-bit HuC6280A, a modified 65SC02
GPU: A dual graphics processor setup. One 16-bit HuC6260 Video Color Encoder (VCE), and one 16-bit HuC6270A Video Display Controller (VDC). The HuC6270A featured Port-based I/O similar to the TMS99xx VDP family.
WOULDN’T THAT MAKE 40 BITS!?!!>>!? GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT!!!!!1!
My facts are straight and no that wouldnt make it 40 bits as the 3 chips are not parallel processing the data.
And how much more straight can my facts be when Im listing the exact silicon chip that is soldered to its circuit board?
NO ITS 40 BITS. THEY ARE WORKING AT THE SAME TIME THAT MAKES THEM PARALLEL PROCESSING.
“And how much more straight can my facts be when Im listing the exact silicon chip that is soldered to its circuit board?”
BECAUSE LISTING A RANDOM COLLECTION OF RELEVANT LETTERS AND NUMBERS DEFINITELY MEANS YOU’RE RIGHT.
Hudson Soft HuC6280. NOW WHO’S RIGHT??? IT’S ME, ***.
MY POINT IS, BEING ABLE TO QUOTE A MEANINGLESS STRING OF RELEVANT INFORMATION DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY MEAN YOUR FACTS ARE STRAIGHT.
8 bit cpu = 8 bit processing power the end lamer.
SO THE CLEARLY 8BIT CPU = 1.21 BIT PROCESSING POWER. GOSH YOU’RE SUCH A NOOB. HOW CAN YOU COME OFF FEELING SUPERIOR WHEN YOU’RE SAYING SOMETHING AS STUPID AS 8 != 8. YOU DIDN’T EVEN REPLY TO ANY OF THE THINGS I SAID IN MY POST, YOU JUST PULLED THAT RANDOM INCORRECT STATEMENT OUT OF YOUR FARTHOLE.
No true gamer would hate on the Nintendo 64. ;P
(insulting the 32X and the Sega CD is excusable, though they both did have a small number of high quality games)
GENERALIZATIONS ARE ALWAYS TRUE.
NO TRUE GAMER WOULD HATE ON THE WII U.
Despite being a system with great games (as one would expect from any Nintendo console) it had a lot of flaws that were its ultimate doom against the far superior PlayStation.