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EspañolHISTORY OF VIDEO GAME CONSOLES (SIXTH GENERATION)
(Redirected from History of video games (Sixth generation era))
The 'sixth-generation era' (sometimes referred to as the '128-bit era'; see "Number of bits" below) refers to the computer and video games, video game consoles, and video game handhelds available at the turn of the 21st century. Platforms of the sixth generation include Sega's Dreamcast, Sony's PlayStation 2, Nintendo's GameCube, and Microsoft's Xbox. This era began on November 27, 1998 with the release of the Dreamcast, and it was joined by the PlayStation 2 in March 2000. The Dreamcast was discontinued in March 2001 and that same year saw the launch of the Nintendo GameCube in September and Xbox in November.
Sony's PlayStation 2 achieved sales dominance, with nearly twice the sales of all its competitors combined with over 115 million shipped, making the Playstation 2 the best selling console in history. Microsoft's Xbox came in second with 24 million and the Nintendo GameCube was third with 21 million. The Dreamcast, which arrived prior to all of the others and was discontinued prematurely (1998-2002), came in fourth with 10.6 million, representing 6.5% of the sixth generation sales.
The release of the Nintendo DS on November 21, 2004 is often considered the start of the seventh generation. The sixth generation started to come to a close when the Xbox was succeeded by the Xbox 360 in late 2005. The GameCube was discontinued when the Wii was released in late 2006; however, PlayStation 2 sales have continued to be strong as of March 2007[1], due to the system's large software library, continuing software support, and affordable price. Games are still being produced for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Nintendo GameCube as of 2006, while Dreamcast games were officially discontinued in 2001. There are still a few games being released for the Dreamcast in 2007, but they are mostly NAOMI arcade ports released only in Japan.
Sega's Dreamcast was the first console of the sixth generation and introduced several innovations. It was the first generation in history to offer a controller with a screen in the top. It also introduced Internet gaming as a standard feature through its built-in modem system, and online gaming would later be adopted by the Xbox and PlayStation 2, and the GameCube to a very limited extent.
Initially, the Dreamcast was successful, due to its lineup of critically and commercially successful titles, setting video game sales records at its launch. The console helped to restore Sega's reputation which had been damaged by the earlier Sega Saturn, Sega 32X, and Sega Mega-CD. Nonetheless, the Dreamcast was overall unsuccessful due to numerous factors. The impending and much-hyped PlayStation 2 slowed Dreamcast sales momentum a year before it was even released, preventing Sega from grabbing a dominant position in that generation. In addition, the failure of the Saturn (due in part to Sega's decision to quickly end the Saturn in favour of the Dreamcast - much as it had done with the earlier 32X in favor of the Saturn) had left developers (such as Electronic Arts) and customers skeptical, with some holding out to see whether the Dreamcast or PS2 would come out on top.
Sega's decision to implement a GD-ROM (though publicly advertised as a CD-ROM) for storage medium did save costs but it did not compare well against the PS2's much touted DVD capabilities. As the Dreamcast was released a year before the PS2, and with the announcements of the Xbox and GameCube in late 2000, Sega's console was considered by some to be outdated only two years after its release. The previous losses from the Saturn, 32X, and Mega-CD, stagnation of sales due to the PS2, and impending competition from Microsoft and Nintendo convinced Sega to pull out of console manufacturing entirely, devoting its resources to game development instead.
The brand Sony had established with the original PlayStation was a major factor in its dominance, both in terms of securing a consumer base and attracting third party developers; the gradual increase in one tending to reinforce the other. The PlayStation 2 was also able to play DVDs and was backwards-compatible with PlayStation games, which many say helped the former's sales. Sony Computer Entertainment secured exclusive licensing for key games such as Grand Theft Auto III, Metal Gear Solid 2, and the Kingdom Hearts series enabling the PS2 to outperform its competitions' launches.
Despite the hardware's technical shortcomings, the PS2 remains a force to be reckoned with in 2007. It continues to outsell the Xbox 360 and even its successor, the Playstation 3 in North America by a comfortable margin.
While the Xbox had the formidable financial backing of Microsoft, it was unable to significantly threaten the dominance of the PlayStation 2 as market leader; however, the Xbox has attracted a large fanbase and strong third-party support in the United States and Europe and has become a recognizable brand amongst the mainstream. The Xbox Live online service with its centralized model proved particularly successful, prompting Sony to add online capabilities to the PlayStation 2, while the GameCube had a near total lack of online games. The flagship of Xbox Live is the game Halo 2, which is the best selling Xbox game with 8 million copies sold worldwide.
In Japan, its sales are far poorer, partly due to Microsoft's inability to attract major Japanese developers for their franchises as well as the size of the Xbox which did not fit local aesthetics and brand loyalty to Japanese console manufactures.
Nintendo struggled with conflicting brand images, particularly the family-friendly one developed during the 1990s. Its arsenal of franchises and history in the industry, though earning it a loyal fan base, failed to give it an advantage against the Xbox and PlayStation 2 which captured the majority of the audience that preferred 'Mature' titles. Nintendo also made little headway into online gaming (in fact only releasing a small handful of online-capable games, the most popular of which was ''Phantasy Star Online'', which was in fact a port of the Dreamcast game), instead emphasizing GBA connectivity. As a result, the GameCube failed to match the sales of its predecessor Nintendo 64.
Nintendo did however rejuvenate its relationship with many developers, often working in close collaboration with them to produce games based upon its franchises, in contrast to the past where it was frequently seen as bullying developers. As a result, the GameCube had more first and second party releases than its competitors, whose most successful titles were mainly third party developers.
Currently, the Nintendo GameCube sits comfortably in second place in Japan, and in a close third place in the United States and Europe.
Bit ratings for consoles largely fell by the wayside after the 32-bit era. The number of "bits" cited in console names referred to the CPU word size, but there was little to be gained from increasing the word size much beyond 32 bits; performance depended on other factors, such as processor speed, graphics processor speed, bandwidth, and memory size.
The importance of the number of bits in the modern console gaming market has thus decreased due to the use of components that process data in varying word sizes. Previously, console manufacturers advertised the “''n''-bit talk” to over-emphasize the hardware capabilities of their system. The Sega Dreamcast and the PlayStation 2 were the last systems to use the term “128-bit” in their marketing to describe their capability.
It is not easy to compare the relative "power" of the different systems. Having a larger CPU word size does not necessarily make one console more powerful than another. Likewise the operating frequency (clock rate) of a system's CPU is not an accurate measure either.
The Microsoft Xbox uses a 32-bit (general purpose) CISC x86 architecture CPU, with an instruction set equal to that of the Coppermine core Mobile Celeron, though it has less cache memory (128 kB) than the PC equivalent. It has 64 MB RAM (shared) and runs at 733 MHz the highest of the sixth generation. Most notably, its ''NV2A'' GPU, which is based upon the GeForce 3 for desktop computers, makes it the only console in its time with vertex and pixel shaders. [2] The power of the Xbox was not exploited by many game developers early in it's lifecycle. Some games like Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell were originally meant to be exclusive to the xbox and to utilize the power of the xbox to the fullest, but however when they where ported over to the Playstation 2 and Gamecube a lot of graphical sacrifices had to be made and levels had to be redesigned to be on par with the relatively weaker hardware of the consoles. These sacrifices include duller colors, lower polygon counts, reduced number of enemies per level, truncated level design, weaker AI and shorter draw distance. However many of this generation's late PC games, for example Far Cry Instincts, Doom 3 and Half Life 2, which were meant to be released for all consoles managed to make it only to the Xbox owing to its superior hardware power. The xbox however still remains a force to be reckoned with showing slightly better graphical performance than the Nintendo Wii
The Nintendo GameCube is the most compact and cost-efficient to produce. Its IBM "Gekko" PowerPC CPU runs at 485 MHz, while its "Flipper" graphics processor is comparable to the ATI Radeon 7200, and it has 32 MB of system memory. The GameCube supports Dolby Pro Logic II.[3]
The PlayStation 2's CPU (known as the “128-bit Emotion Engine”) has a 64-bit double-precision core based on MIPS architecture. It includes three separate execution units inside the one processor and each one is capable of executing two instructions per cycle. The PS2's Graphics Synthesizer has fast dedicated video memory, though it is limited in the amount of data it can hold. Consequently, many of the PS2's games have reduced textures compared with versions for other consoles. It also does not have a transform and lighting unit like the ones found in the Xbox and GameCube GPUs.
Also notable is that the PS2 has been extremely difficult to reverse-engineer due to its custom-designed architecture.
The Sega Dreamcast has a 64-bit double-precision superscalar SuperH-4 RISC MPU core with a 32-bit integer unit using 16-bit fixed-length instructions, a 64-bit data bus allowing a variable width of either 8, 16, 32 or 64-bits, and a 128-bit floating point unit. [4]
[5]
The PowerVR 2DC CLX2 chipset uses a unique method of rendering a 3D scene called Tile Based Deferred Rendering (TBDR): While storing polygons in triangle strip format in memory, the display is split into tiles associated with a list of visibly overlapping triangles onto which, using a process similar to ray tracing, rays are cast and a pixel is rendered from the triangle closest to the camera. After calculating the depths associated with each polygon for one tile row in 1 cycle, the whole tile is flushed to video memory before passing on to render the next tile. Once all information has been collated for the current frame, the tiles are rendered in turn to produce the final image. [6]
During the sixth generation era, the handheld game console market exploded, with the introduction of new devices from many different manufacturers. Nintendo maintained its dominant share of the handheld market with the release in 2001 of the highly upgraded Game Boy called the Game Boy Advance. Two redesigns of this system followed. The first, the Game Boy Advance SP in 2003 and the second, the Game Boy Micro in 2005. Also introduced was the Neo Geo Pocket Color in 1998 and Bandai's WonderSwan Color launched in Japan in 1999. Notably, South Korean company Game Park introduced its GP32 handheld in 2001, and with it came the dawn of open-source handheld consoles.
A major new addition to the market was the trend for corporations to include a large number of "non-gaming" features into their handhelds. Everything from cell phones, MP3 players, portable movie players, to PDA-like features began to pop up on a regular basis during this generation. The first of these was Nokia's N-Gage, which was released in 2003 and doubled primarily as a mobile phone. It subsequently went through a redesign in 2004 and was renamed the N-Gage QD. A second handheld, the Zodiac from Tapwave was released in 2004 and was based on the Palm OS offering specialized gaming-oriented video and sound capabilities, but an unwieldy development kit due to the underlying PalmOS foundation.
With more and more PDAs arriving during the previous generation, the difference between consumer electronics and traditional computing began to blur and cheap console technology grew from that blur. It was said of PDAs that they are "the computers of handheld gaming" because of their multi-purpose capabilities and the increasingly powerful computer hardware that resided within them— the capability existed to move gaming beyond the last generation's 16-bit limitations. However, PDAs were still geared towards the typical businessman, and lacked new, affordable software franchises to compete with dedicated handheld gaming consoles.
Major publishers such as Activision, Electronic Arts, and Ubisoft adopted a cross-platform strategy, releasing versions of their games for PC, all major consoles, and in some cases, handhelds as well. The sixth generation was the first to help console and computer software grow closer together as well as outperform the arcade market in features, graphics and business. The Xbox, which was made from off the shelf PC parts and hosted many PC ports, factored into this also.
Main articles: Video game controversy
This generation was noted to have extensive criticism by public figures of "objectionable" content in gaming such as sex, crime, violence, profanity, drug use, and social propaganda as well as topics of debate such as religion, politics, feminism, and economics. However, this has been widely dismissed as a myth; many people will note that controversies are hardly unique to the sixth generation, and extend much farther back into gaming history with ''Wolfenstein 3D'', ''Doom'', ''Mortal Kombat'', and ''Night Trap''. The earliest occurrences of such public outcry dated, in fact, as far back as the 1970s, with perceived violent or explicit games such as ''Death Race'' and ''Custer's Revenge''.
The sixth generation was notable because it saw the continuation of lawmakers taking actions against the video game industry. The most famous was the ''Grand Theft Auto'' games with ''Grand Theft Auto III'' and '' facing lawsuits over alleged racial slurs and influencing minors to commit crimes, while '' was briefly given an adult rating and banned from stores over the availability of an abandoned sex mini-game using the Hot Coffee mod.
The sixth generation also coincided with September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City and The Pentagon, which had a huge impact on the entertainment industry as well as the video game industry; in the subsequent market climate many games were edited in response to the sensitivity surrounding the event. Most notable was '', which prior to its release depicted the destruction of the Statue of Liberty and a good portion of Manhattan. Similarly, several undisclosed modifications were made in ''Grand Theft Auto III'', most notably the change of the police cars' color scheme (the old scheme resembled that of NYPD's older blue and white design). The Dreamcast game ''Propeller Arena'' was never officially released, the main reason probably being that a certain level was visually very similar to the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Main articles: Console emulator
Due to the increased usage of emulators and the increasing ease of finding ROM images of previous video game consoles, most notably the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Sega Master System, the Mega Drive/Genesis and most impressively, the Nintendo 64 (as well as PlayStation game CDs ISO images), the sixth generation of consoles coincided with the rise of console emulation.
It was also a time when an increasing number of retro games were being enhanced or redistributed on newer systems. Nintendo, for example, introduced a line of "classic" NES and SNES games for its Game Boy Advance handheld. Enhanced games include ''Wild ARMs: Alter Code F'', Square Enix's '', and Nintendo's ''. Also, an increasing number of third-party developers released anthology collection games such as Midway Games, Capcom, Namco, Atari, and Sega, even though Atari and Sega both released new, enhanced versions of their retro titles. Additionally, this is also a time when certain video games or video game series that were originally confined to Japan came to North America and Europe.
Online gaming, which in previous generations had been the exclusive domain of PC games, was becoming more prominent in the console space. The Dreamcast initiated this change with its built in modem, internet browsing software, and ability to play certain games online. The PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube also offered online gaming, though their approaches and commitment to it varied greatly. The Xbox offered an integrated service called Xbox Live that cost $50 per year, which was only compatible with a broadband connection. Its ability to connect gamers for online multi-player matches was a considerable factor in its gaining a foothold in the western market; the FPS genre in particular flourished on the console. The PlayStation 2 left its online gaming service to each individual game publisher. It was free to use, but not always an ideal experience. The '' series is reported to be one of the most popular online competitive games for the PS2. The GameCube did not offer online play for any of its first-party titles, with only Sega's ''Phantasy Star Online'' series making use of it. In addition, online capability was not out-of-the-box; an adapter was needed to hook the internet connection to the console.
Many game publishing companies with a long established history merged with their competitors. Squaresoft merged with Enix and then later bought Taito, Sega merged with Sammy, Konami bought a majority share of Hudson, and Namco merged with Bandai to form Namco Bandai Holdings.
Main articles: List of console game franchises
★ ''Resident Evil 4'' revamped the franchise in a new, more action-oriented direction. The decision to port the former GameCube exclusive to the PS2 was met with some controversy. It remains one of the highest rated games of the generation. The over-the-shoulder camera view influenced 7th generation games like ''Gears of War''.
★ ''Shenmue'' for the Sega Dreamcast went down in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most expensive video game ever produced to date (US$70,000,000).[11] Produced by Sega's AM2 division, this game helped set the graphics standards of its time.
★ ''Halo'' was the Microsoft Xbox's most successful launch title. Its sequel ''Halo 2'' set records as the fastest grossing release in entertainment history [2] and still is a very successful killer app for the Xbox Live online gaming service.
★ ''Grand Theft Auto III'' and its sequels for PlayStation 2 (later Xbox and PC) popularized "sandbox" style gameplay in an urban crime setting, which has since been widely imitated. In addition, it brought violence and other potentially objectionable content in video games back into the mainstream spotlight, thus reviving the video game controversy. The series remains the highest selling franchise in the US for the past ten years. It signaled the prominence of M rated games in today's market.
★ ''Metroid Prime'' remains the Nintendo GameCube's highest rated title, as well as an outstanding example of how cooperation between Nintendo and a second-party studio revived a franchise that not only was missing for a long period of time, but had even lost its creator- Gunpei Yokoi.
★ ''Soul Calibur'' for the Sega Dreamcast is widely considered one of the greatest fighting games of all time, and is the only game of its genre, on any platform, to have ever received a perfect 10.0 rating from IGN (review) and GameSpot (review) and also a perfect 40/40 (second of only six games) by Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu.
★ A game for the ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' series is, for the first time, created for a non-Sega console with ''Sonic Pocket Adventure'' for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, ''Sonic Advance'' for the Game Boy Advance and '' for the Gamecube. The series also goes multi-console with the introduction of ''Sonic Heroes''.
★ ''Eternal Darkness'' for the GameCube was the first M rated game published by Nintendo.
★ The ''Kingdom Hearts'' series was a landmark collaboration between Square-Enix and Disney that has shipped over 8.5 million units worldwide.[12]
1. http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/08/technology/personaltech/harrison/index.htm?postversion=2007030818
2. AnandTech.com: Hardware Behind the Consoles - Microsoft's Xbox vs. Sony PlayStation 2, November 21st, 2001
3. AnandTech.com: Hardware Behind the Consoles - Nintendo GameCube vs. Sony PlayStation 2 vs. Microsoft Xbox, December 7th, 2001
4. SegaTech.com - Dreamcast Technical Pages: Hitachi SuperH-4
5. Technology Partner - Design Solutions from Hitachi Semiconductor (America) Inc.: SH7750 (SH-4 Series) MPU (November/December 1997)
6. PowerVR Technology
7. Cumulative Production Shipments of Hardware / PlayStation®2
8. [1]
9. CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS
10. Good Enough: Why graphics aren't number one
11. Most Expensive Video Game
12. Square-Enix press release
★ The Xbox factor, a November 22, 2005 article from ''The Economist''
★ Article on the Sega Dreamcast's CPU, including notes on its "bit-rating".
The 'sixth-generation era' (sometimes referred to as the '128-bit era'; see "Number of bits" below) refers to the computer and video games, video game consoles, and video game handhelds available at the turn of the 21st century. Platforms of the sixth generation include Sega's Dreamcast, Sony's PlayStation 2, Nintendo's GameCube, and Microsoft's Xbox. This era began on November 27, 1998 with the release of the Dreamcast, and it was joined by the PlayStation 2 in March 2000. The Dreamcast was discontinued in March 2001 and that same year saw the launch of the Nintendo GameCube in September and Xbox in November.
Home systems
Sony's PlayStation 2 achieved sales dominance, with nearly twice the sales of all its competitors combined with over 115 million shipped, making the Playstation 2 the best selling console in history. Microsoft's Xbox came in second with 24 million and the Nintendo GameCube was third with 21 million. The Dreamcast, which arrived prior to all of the others and was discontinued prematurely (1998-2002), came in fourth with 10.6 million, representing 6.5% of the sixth generation sales.
The release of the Nintendo DS on November 21, 2004 is often considered the start of the seventh generation. The sixth generation started to come to a close when the Xbox was succeeded by the Xbox 360 in late 2005. The GameCube was discontinued when the Wii was released in late 2006; however, PlayStation 2 sales have continued to be strong as of March 2007[1], due to the system's large software library, continuing software support, and affordable price. Games are still being produced for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Nintendo GameCube as of 2006, while Dreamcast games were officially discontinued in 2001. There are still a few games being released for the Dreamcast in 2007, but they are mostly NAOMI arcade ports released only in Japan.
Dreamcast
Sega's Dreamcast was the first console of the sixth generation and introduced several innovations. It was the first generation in history to offer a controller with a screen in the top. It also introduced Internet gaming as a standard feature through its built-in modem system, and online gaming would later be adopted by the Xbox and PlayStation 2, and the GameCube to a very limited extent.
Initially, the Dreamcast was successful, due to its lineup of critically and commercially successful titles, setting video game sales records at its launch. The console helped to restore Sega's reputation which had been damaged by the earlier Sega Saturn, Sega 32X, and Sega Mega-CD. Nonetheless, the Dreamcast was overall unsuccessful due to numerous factors. The impending and much-hyped PlayStation 2 slowed Dreamcast sales momentum a year before it was even released, preventing Sega from grabbing a dominant position in that generation. In addition, the failure of the Saturn (due in part to Sega's decision to quickly end the Saturn in favour of the Dreamcast - much as it had done with the earlier 32X in favor of the Saturn) had left developers (such as Electronic Arts) and customers skeptical, with some holding out to see whether the Dreamcast or PS2 would come out on top.
Sega's decision to implement a GD-ROM (though publicly advertised as a CD-ROM) for storage medium did save costs but it did not compare well against the PS2's much touted DVD capabilities. As the Dreamcast was released a year before the PS2, and with the announcements of the Xbox and GameCube in late 2000, Sega's console was considered by some to be outdated only two years after its release. The previous losses from the Saturn, 32X, and Mega-CD, stagnation of sales due to the PS2, and impending competition from Microsoft and Nintendo convinced Sega to pull out of console manufacturing entirely, devoting its resources to game development instead.
PlayStation 2
The brand Sony had established with the original PlayStation was a major factor in its dominance, both in terms of securing a consumer base and attracting third party developers; the gradual increase in one tending to reinforce the other. The PlayStation 2 was also able to play DVDs and was backwards-compatible with PlayStation games, which many say helped the former's sales. Sony Computer Entertainment secured exclusive licensing for key games such as Grand Theft Auto III, Metal Gear Solid 2, and the Kingdom Hearts series enabling the PS2 to outperform its competitions' launches.
Despite the hardware's technical shortcomings, the PS2 remains a force to be reckoned with in 2007. It continues to outsell the Xbox 360 and even its successor, the Playstation 3 in North America by a comfortable margin.
Xbox
While the Xbox had the formidable financial backing of Microsoft, it was unable to significantly threaten the dominance of the PlayStation 2 as market leader; however, the Xbox has attracted a large fanbase and strong third-party support in the United States and Europe and has become a recognizable brand amongst the mainstream. The Xbox Live online service with its centralized model proved particularly successful, prompting Sony to add online capabilities to the PlayStation 2, while the GameCube had a near total lack of online games. The flagship of Xbox Live is the game Halo 2, which is the best selling Xbox game with 8 million copies sold worldwide.
In Japan, its sales are far poorer, partly due to Microsoft's inability to attract major Japanese developers for their franchises as well as the size of the Xbox which did not fit local aesthetics and brand loyalty to Japanese console manufactures.
GameCube
Nintendo struggled with conflicting brand images, particularly the family-friendly one developed during the 1990s. Its arsenal of franchises and history in the industry, though earning it a loyal fan base, failed to give it an advantage against the Xbox and PlayStation 2 which captured the majority of the audience that preferred 'Mature' titles. Nintendo also made little headway into online gaming (in fact only releasing a small handful of online-capable games, the most popular of which was ''Phantasy Star Online'', which was in fact a port of the Dreamcast game), instead emphasizing GBA connectivity. As a result, the GameCube failed to match the sales of its predecessor Nintendo 64.
Nintendo did however rejuvenate its relationship with many developers, often working in close collaboration with them to produce games based upon its franchises, in contrast to the past where it was frequently seen as bullying developers. As a result, the GameCube had more first and second party releases than its competitors, whose most successful titles were mainly third party developers.
Currently, the Nintendo GameCube sits comfortably in second place in Japan, and in a close third place in the United States and Europe.
Number of bits and system power
Bit ratings for consoles largely fell by the wayside after the 32-bit era. The number of "bits" cited in console names referred to the CPU word size, but there was little to be gained from increasing the word size much beyond 32 bits; performance depended on other factors, such as processor speed, graphics processor speed, bandwidth, and memory size.
The importance of the number of bits in the modern console gaming market has thus decreased due to the use of components that process data in varying word sizes. Previously, console manufacturers advertised the “''n''-bit talk” to over-emphasize the hardware capabilities of their system. The Sega Dreamcast and the PlayStation 2 were the last systems to use the term “128-bit” in their marketing to describe their capability.
It is not easy to compare the relative "power" of the different systems. Having a larger CPU word size does not necessarily make one console more powerful than another. Likewise the operating frequency (clock rate) of a system's CPU is not an accurate measure either.
The Microsoft Xbox uses a 32-bit (general purpose) CISC x86 architecture CPU, with an instruction set equal to that of the Coppermine core Mobile Celeron, though it has less cache memory (128 kB) than the PC equivalent. It has 64 MB RAM (shared) and runs at 733 MHz the highest of the sixth generation. Most notably, its ''NV2A'' GPU, which is based upon the GeForce 3 for desktop computers, makes it the only console in its time with vertex and pixel shaders. [2] The power of the Xbox was not exploited by many game developers early in it's lifecycle. Some games like Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell were originally meant to be exclusive to the xbox and to utilize the power of the xbox to the fullest, but however when they where ported over to the Playstation 2 and Gamecube a lot of graphical sacrifices had to be made and levels had to be redesigned to be on par with the relatively weaker hardware of the consoles. These sacrifices include duller colors, lower polygon counts, reduced number of enemies per level, truncated level design, weaker AI and shorter draw distance. However many of this generation's late PC games, for example Far Cry Instincts, Doom 3 and Half Life 2, which were meant to be released for all consoles managed to make it only to the Xbox owing to its superior hardware power. The xbox however still remains a force to be reckoned with showing slightly better graphical performance than the Nintendo Wii
The Nintendo GameCube is the most compact and cost-efficient to produce. Its IBM "Gekko" PowerPC CPU runs at 485 MHz, while its "Flipper" graphics processor is comparable to the ATI Radeon 7200, and it has 32 MB of system memory. The GameCube supports Dolby Pro Logic II.[3]
The PlayStation 2's CPU (known as the “128-bit Emotion Engine”) has a 64-bit double-precision core based on MIPS architecture. It includes three separate execution units inside the one processor and each one is capable of executing two instructions per cycle. The PS2's Graphics Synthesizer has fast dedicated video memory, though it is limited in the amount of data it can hold. Consequently, many of the PS2's games have reduced textures compared with versions for other consoles. It also does not have a transform and lighting unit like the ones found in the Xbox and GameCube GPUs.
Also notable is that the PS2 has been extremely difficult to reverse-engineer due to its custom-designed architecture.
The Sega Dreamcast has a 64-bit double-precision superscalar SuperH-4 RISC MPU core with a 32-bit integer unit using 16-bit fixed-length instructions, a 64-bit data bus allowing a variable width of either 8, 16, 32 or 64-bits, and a 128-bit floating point unit. [4]
[5]
The PowerVR 2DC CLX2 chipset uses a unique method of rendering a 3D scene called Tile Based Deferred Rendering (TBDR): While storing polygons in triangle strip format in memory, the display is split into tiles associated with a list of visibly overlapping triangles onto which, using a process similar to ray tracing, rays are cast and a pixel is rendered from the triangle closest to the camera. After calculating the depths associated with each polygon for one tile row in 1 cycle, the whole tile is flushed to video memory before passing on to render the next tile. Once all information has been collated for the current frame, the tiles are rendered in turn to produce the final image. [6]
Comparison
| Name | Dreamcast | PlayStation 2 | Nintendo GameCube | Xbox |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Console |  |  |  |  |
| Price (USD) | US$199.99 (at launch) US$49.99 (final) | US$299.99 (at launch) US$129.99 (current) | US$199.99 (at launch) US$99.99 (final) | US$299.99 (at launch) US$149.99 (final) |
| Top-Selling Game | ''Sonic Adventure'' | '' | ''Super Smash Bros. Melee'' | ''Halo 2'' |
| Release Date | November 27 1998 September 9 1999 October 14 1999 | March 4 2000 October 26 2000 November 24 2000 November 30 2000 | September 14 2001 November 18 2001 May 3 2002 May 17 2002 | November 15 2001 February 22 2002 March 14 2002 |
| Accessories (retail) | ★ Visual Memory Unit ★ Dreamcast mouse and keyboard ★ Fishing Rod ★ Microphone ★ Light Gun ★ Dreameye camera ★ Samba de Amigo Maracas (controller) ★ More... | ★ PlayStation 2 HDD Internal hard drive supported by PlayStation 2 Expansion Bay (model 30000 and 50000 only) ★ Network adapter Built-in for slim case model (PSTwo, model 70000) ★ EyeToy ★ PlayStation 2 DVD remote control ★ Guitar Hero Controller ★ More... | ★ Wavebird ★ GameCube-GBA cable ★ Modem adaptor and Broadband adapter ★ Game Boy Player ★ DK Bongos ★ Dance pad ★ Nintendo GameCube Microphone ★ More... | ★ Xbox Live Starter Kit ★ Xbox Media Center Extender ★ DVD Playback Kit ★ Xbox Music Mixer ★ Memory Unit (8 MB) ★ Logitech Wireless Controller (2.4 GHz) ★ More... |
| CPU | 200 MHz SuperH SH-4 | 294 MHz MIPS "Emotion Engine" | 485 MHz PowerPC "Gekko" | 733 MHz x86 Intel Celeron/PIII Custom Hybrid |
| GPU | 100 MHz NEC/VideoLogic PowerVR CLX2 | 147 MHz "Graphics Synthesizer" | 162 MHz ATI "Flipper" | 233 MHz Custom Nvidia NV2A |
| RAM | Main RAM 16 MB SDRAM Video RAM 8 MB Sound RAM 2 MB | Main RAM 32 MB RDRAM Video RAM 4 MB embedded DRAM | Main RAM 24 MB 1T-SRAM Video RAM 3 MB embedded 1T-SRAM 16 MB DRAM | 64 MB unified DDR SDRAM |
| Online service | Dreamarena, GameSpy, SegaNet | Non-unified service | Sega, Lan play, Emulation-online adapter required | Xbox Live |
| Backward compatibility | N/A | PlayStation | GB, GBC, and GBA (using Game Boy Player) | N/A |
| System software | SegaOS, WindowsCE, KallistiOS | proprietary OS, Linux DVD Playback Kit | proprietary OS, startup disc for Game Boy Player | Xbox Music Mixer DVD Playback Kit |
| Consumer programmability | Homebrew possible | Yabasic software | Homebrew possible via hack | Softmods and hardware modchips |
Worldwide sales standings
| Console | Units Sold | Date |
|---|---|---|
| PlayStation 2 | 117.89 million [7] | March 31 2007 |
| Xbox | 24 million[8] | May 10, 2006 |
| GameCube | 21.6 million [9] | September 30, 2006 |
| Dreamcast | 10.6 million [10] | August 7, 2006 |
Handheld systems
During the sixth generation era, the handheld game console market exploded, with the introduction of new devices from many different manufacturers. Nintendo maintained its dominant share of the handheld market with the release in 2001 of the highly upgraded Game Boy called the Game Boy Advance. Two redesigns of this system followed. The first, the Game Boy Advance SP in 2003 and the second, the Game Boy Micro in 2005. Also introduced was the Neo Geo Pocket Color in 1998 and Bandai's WonderSwan Color launched in Japan in 1999. Notably, South Korean company Game Park introduced its GP32 handheld in 2001, and with it came the dawn of open-source handheld consoles.
A major new addition to the market was the trend for corporations to include a large number of "non-gaming" features into their handhelds. Everything from cell phones, MP3 players, portable movie players, to PDA-like features began to pop up on a regular basis during this generation. The first of these was Nokia's N-Gage, which was released in 2003 and doubled primarily as a mobile phone. It subsequently went through a redesign in 2004 and was renamed the N-Gage QD. A second handheld, the Zodiac from Tapwave was released in 2004 and was based on the Palm OS offering specialized gaming-oriented video and sound capabilities, but an unwieldy development kit due to the underlying PalmOS foundation.
With more and more PDAs arriving during the previous generation, the difference between consumer electronics and traditional computing began to blur and cheap console technology grew from that blur. It was said of PDAs that they are "the computers of handheld gaming" because of their multi-purpose capabilities and the increasingly powerful computer hardware that resided within them— the capability existed to move gaming beyond the last generation's 16-bit limitations. However, PDAs were still geared towards the typical businessman, and lacked new, affordable software franchises to compete with dedicated handheld gaming consoles.
Gallery
Trends
Market convergence
Major publishers such as Activision, Electronic Arts, and Ubisoft adopted a cross-platform strategy, releasing versions of their games for PC, all major consoles, and in some cases, handhelds as well. The sixth generation was the first to help console and computer software grow closer together as well as outperform the arcade market in features, graphics and business. The Xbox, which was made from off the shelf PC parts and hosted many PC ports, factored into this also.
Controversial games
Main articles: Video game controversy
This generation was noted to have extensive criticism by public figures of "objectionable" content in gaming such as sex, crime, violence, profanity, drug use, and social propaganda as well as topics of debate such as religion, politics, feminism, and economics. However, this has been widely dismissed as a myth; many people will note that controversies are hardly unique to the sixth generation, and extend much farther back into gaming history with ''Wolfenstein 3D'', ''Doom'', ''Mortal Kombat'', and ''Night Trap''. The earliest occurrences of such public outcry dated, in fact, as far back as the 1970s, with perceived violent or explicit games such as ''Death Race'' and ''Custer's Revenge''.
The sixth generation was notable because it saw the continuation of lawmakers taking actions against the video game industry. The most famous was the ''Grand Theft Auto'' games with ''Grand Theft Auto III'' and '' facing lawsuits over alleged racial slurs and influencing minors to commit crimes, while '' was briefly given an adult rating and banned from stores over the availability of an abandoned sex mini-game using the Hot Coffee mod.
The sixth generation also coincided with September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City and The Pentagon, which had a huge impact on the entertainment industry as well as the video game industry; in the subsequent market climate many games were edited in response to the sensitivity surrounding the event. Most notable was '', which prior to its release depicted the destruction of the Statue of Liberty and a good portion of Manhattan. Similarly, several undisclosed modifications were made in ''Grand Theft Auto III'', most notably the change of the police cars' color scheme (the old scheme resembled that of NYPD's older blue and white design). The Dreamcast game ''Propeller Arena'' was never officially released, the main reason probably being that a certain level was visually very similar to the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Emulation and retro gaming
Main articles: Console emulator
Due to the increased usage of emulators and the increasing ease of finding ROM images of previous video game consoles, most notably the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Sega Master System, the Mega Drive/Genesis and most impressively, the Nintendo 64 (as well as PlayStation game CDs ISO images), the sixth generation of consoles coincided with the rise of console emulation.
It was also a time when an increasing number of retro games were being enhanced or redistributed on newer systems. Nintendo, for example, introduced a line of "classic" NES and SNES games for its Game Boy Advance handheld. Enhanced games include ''Wild ARMs: Alter Code F'', Square Enix's '', and Nintendo's ''. Also, an increasing number of third-party developers released anthology collection games such as Midway Games, Capcom, Namco, Atari, and Sega, even though Atari and Sega both released new, enhanced versions of their retro titles. Additionally, this is also a time when certain video games or video game series that were originally confined to Japan came to North America and Europe.
Rise of online gaming
Online gaming, which in previous generations had been the exclusive domain of PC games, was becoming more prominent in the console space. The Dreamcast initiated this change with its built in modem, internet browsing software, and ability to play certain games online. The PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube also offered online gaming, though their approaches and commitment to it varied greatly. The Xbox offered an integrated service called Xbox Live that cost $50 per year, which was only compatible with a broadband connection. Its ability to connect gamers for online multi-player matches was a considerable factor in its gaining a foothold in the western market; the FPS genre in particular flourished on the console. The PlayStation 2 left its online gaming service to each individual game publisher. It was free to use, but not always an ideal experience. The '' series is reported to be one of the most popular online competitive games for the PS2. The GameCube did not offer online play for any of its first-party titles, with only Sega's ''Phantasy Star Online'' series making use of it. In addition, online capability was not out-of-the-box; an adapter was needed to hook the internet connection to the console.
Mergers
Many game publishing companies with a long established history merged with their competitors. Squaresoft merged with Enix and then later bought Taito, Sega merged with Sammy, Konami bought a majority share of Hudson, and Namco merged with Bandai to form Namco Bandai Holdings.
Remakes
Software
Main articles: List of console game franchises
Milestone titles
★ ''Resident Evil 4'' revamped the franchise in a new, more action-oriented direction. The decision to port the former GameCube exclusive to the PS2 was met with some controversy. It remains one of the highest rated games of the generation. The over-the-shoulder camera view influenced 7th generation games like ''Gears of War''.
★ ''Shenmue'' for the Sega Dreamcast went down in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most expensive video game ever produced to date (US$70,000,000).[11] Produced by Sega's AM2 division, this game helped set the graphics standards of its time.
★ ''Halo'' was the Microsoft Xbox's most successful launch title. Its sequel ''Halo 2'' set records as the fastest grossing release in entertainment history [2] and still is a very successful killer app for the Xbox Live online gaming service.
★ ''Grand Theft Auto III'' and its sequels for PlayStation 2 (later Xbox and PC) popularized "sandbox" style gameplay in an urban crime setting, which has since been widely imitated. In addition, it brought violence and other potentially objectionable content in video games back into the mainstream spotlight, thus reviving the video game controversy. The series remains the highest selling franchise in the US for the past ten years. It signaled the prominence of M rated games in today's market.
★ ''Metroid Prime'' remains the Nintendo GameCube's highest rated title, as well as an outstanding example of how cooperation between Nintendo and a second-party studio revived a franchise that not only was missing for a long period of time, but had even lost its creator- Gunpei Yokoi.
★ ''Soul Calibur'' for the Sega Dreamcast is widely considered one of the greatest fighting games of all time, and is the only game of its genre, on any platform, to have ever received a perfect 10.0 rating from IGN (review) and GameSpot (review) and also a perfect 40/40 (second of only six games) by Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu.
★ A game for the ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' series is, for the first time, created for a non-Sega console with ''Sonic Pocket Adventure'' for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, ''Sonic Advance'' for the Game Boy Advance and '' for the Gamecube. The series also goes multi-console with the introduction of ''Sonic Heroes''.
★ ''Eternal Darkness'' for the GameCube was the first M rated game published by Nintendo.
★ The ''Kingdom Hearts'' series was a landmark collaboration between Square-Enix and Disney that has shipped over 8.5 million units worldwide.[12]
References
1. http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/08/technology/personaltech/harrison/index.htm?postversion=2007030818
2. AnandTech.com: Hardware Behind the Consoles - Microsoft's Xbox vs. Sony PlayStation 2, November 21st, 2001
3. AnandTech.com: Hardware Behind the Consoles - Nintendo GameCube vs. Sony PlayStation 2 vs. Microsoft Xbox, December 7th, 2001
4. SegaTech.com - Dreamcast Technical Pages: Hitachi SuperH-4
5. Technology Partner - Design Solutions from Hitachi Semiconductor (America) Inc.: SH7750 (SH-4 Series) MPU (November/December 1997)
6. PowerVR Technology
7. Cumulative Production Shipments of Hardware / PlayStation®2
8. [1]
9. CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS
10. Good Enough: Why graphics aren't number one
11. Most Expensive Video Game
12. Square-Enix press release
★ The Xbox factor, a November 22, 2005 article from ''The Economist''
External links
★ Article on the Sega Dreamcast's CPU, including notes on its "bit-rating".
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