History MediaNotes / TheFifthGenerationOfConsoleVideoGames

->''"Funny how the world of gaming was turned completely upside on its head by the incremented of a single digit by one, that digit being the 2 at the start of 2D. If only they'd known that one day 90% of the indie games on Platform/{{Steam}} would be [[{{Retreaux}} aping]] the [[UsefulNotes/The16BitEraOfConsoleVideoGames 16-bit era]] [...] It was a painful, transitionary period when the old kings collapsed syphilitically from their thrones and the crowns were up for grabs."''

The big word of this era was 3D. The [[UsefulNotes/The16bitEraOfConsoleVideoGames 16-bit era]] had a few scattered experiments to bring polygons to primarily sprite-based consoles (most notably ''VideoGame/{{Star Fox|1}}''), but when the revolutionary ''VideoGame/VirtuaFighter'' hit the arcades, polygons finally took off. Suddenly, the addition of a third dimension seemed to make the sprites of the past look outdated, and polygons were said to be the future of video gaming. Both Creator/{{Nintendo}} and their newly emergent rival [[Creator/SonyInteractiveEntertainment Sony Computer Entertainment]] caught onto the excitement towards polygons, and so they designed their respective consoles, the Platform/Nintendo64 and the Platform/PlayStation, around polygonal rendering from the very start. Creator/{{Sega}}, depending on who you ask, didn't catch on until their own console was too far in development, panicked and "stuffed" another CPU inside the Saturn, while others will contend that the multi-CPU design was little different from what their arcade boards had been sporting. Thus, the Platform/SegaSaturn became notorious among developers for its difficulty to develop 3D games in the same fashion as the other two consoles. While it certainly was ''possible'' to squeeze 3D graphics out of the Saturn, it was an extremely cumbersome task to pull off making them look and run decently, even for experienced code wizards. Ironic, considering that ''Virtua Fighter'', the game that caused the 3D boom, was Sega's own product.

The era marked many developments in terms of how games were controlled. The Platform/Nintendo64's controller was rather awkwardly designed compared to the more practical format codified by the Platform/{{SNES}}, but the controller featured a revolutionary development: a thumb-controlled analog stick. The analog stick was key to controlling 3D games because they allowed a fuller range of control over the player character that couldn't be achieved with a D-pad. The Platform/PlayStation controller didn't initially have an analog stick, but it eventually one-upped the N64 with the [=DualShock=] controller, which featured not one but ''two'' analog sticks: one primarily for controlling the player's movement, and one primarily for the camera (thankfully this idea caught on and is now considered the standard). Unlike the [=N64's=] C-pad, a second analog stick gave the camera more freedom in movement -- and Sony didn't [[ExecutiveMeddling patent using the right stick for this purpose]] like Nintendo did with their C-pad -- making CameraScrew and thus InterfaceScrew much less common than in N64 games. The "rumble" feature standard in most controllers today also originated in this era. It originated as the Rumble Pak peripheral for the N64 (originally packaged with ''VideoGame/StarFox64''), and it proved highly popular for giving games a new sense of "realism" by vibrating the controller whenever something "forceful" happened within the game. The [=PlayStation=] also adopted this feature for itself in the [=DualShock=] controller, in its case incorporating the rumble into the controller itself rather than it being an add-on. With very few exceptions, every console from that point on has incorporated rumble into the controller.[[note]]The later UsefulNotes/PlayStation3's original "Sixaxis" controller omitted rumble, due to fears it would interfere with the controller's motion control, though it would come back with the later [=DualShock 3=].[[/note]]

->''"Funny how the world of gaming was turned completely upside on its head by the incremented of a single digit by one, that digit being the 2 at the start of 2D. If only they'd known that one day 90% of the indie games on {{UsefulNotes/Steam}} would be [[{{Retreaux}} aping]] the [[UsefulNotes/The16BitEraOfConsoleVideoGames 16-bit era]] [...] It was a painful, transitionary period when the old kings collapsed syphilitically from their thrones and the crowns were up for grabs."''

* UsefulNotes/GameCom (1997-2000)
* UsefulNotes/NeoGeoPocket (1998-1999)

The era marked many developments in terms of how games were controlled. The UPlatform/Nintendo64's controller was rather awkwardly designed compared to the more practical format codified by the Platform/{{SNES}}, but the controller featured a revolutionary development: a thumb-controlled analog stick. The analog stick was key to controlling 3D games because they allowed a fuller range of control over the player character that couldn't be achieved with a D-pad. The Platform/PlayStation controller didn't initially have an analog stick, but it eventually one-upped the N64 with the [=DualShock=] controller, which featured not one but ''two'' analog sticks: one primarily for controlling the player's movement, and one primarily for the camera (thankfully this idea caught on and is now considered the standard). Unlike the [=N64's=] C-pad, a second analog stick gave the camera more freedom in movement -- and Sony didn't [[ExecutiveMeddling patent using the right stick for this purpose]] like Nintendo did with their C-pad -- making CameraScrew and thus InterfaceScrew much less common than in N64 games. The "rumble" feature standard in most controllers today also originated in this era. It originated as the Rumble Pak peripheral for the N64 (originally packaged with ''VideoGame/StarFox64''), and it proved highly popular for giving games a new sense of "realism" by vibrating the controller whenever something "forceful" happened within the game. The [=PlayStation=] also adopted this feature for itself in the [=DualShock=] controller, in its case incorporating the rumble into the controller itself rather than it being an add-on. With very few exceptions, every console from that point on has incorporated rumble into the controller.[[note]]The later UsefulNotes/PlayStation3's original "Sixaxis" controller omitted rumble, due to fears it would interfere with the controller's motion control, though it would come back with the later [=DualShock 3=].[[/note]]

The big word of this era was 3D. The [[UsefulNotes/The16bitEraOfConsoleVideoGames 16-bit era]] had a few scattered experiments to bring polygons to primarily sprite-based consoles (most notably ''VideoGame/{{Star Fox|1}}''), but when the revolutionary ''VideoGame/VirtuaFighter'' hit the arcades, polygons finally took off. Suddenly, the addition of a third dimension seemed to make the sprites of the past look outdated, and polygons were said to be the future of video gaming. Both Creator/{{Nintendo}} and their newly emergent rival [[Creator/SonyInteractiveEntertainment Sony Computer Entertainment]] caught onto the excitement towards polygons, and so they designed their respective consoles, the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 and the UsefulNotes/PlayStation, around polygonal rendering from the very start. Creator/{{Sega}}, depending on who you ask, didn't catch on until their own console was too far in development, panicked and "stuffed" another CPU inside the Saturn, while others will contend that the multi-CPU design was little different from what their arcade boards had been sporting. Thus, the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn became notorious among developers for its difficulty to develop 3D games in the same fashion as the other two consoles. While it certainly was ''possible'' to squeeze 3D graphics out of the Saturn, it was an extremely cumbersome task to pull off making them look and run decently, even for experienced code wizards. Ironic, considering that ''Virtua Fighter'', the game that caused the 3D boom, was Sega's own product.

Another big development of the fifth generation was story and presentation. Two of the UsefulNotes/PlayStation's biggest {{Killer App}}s, ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' and ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', gained much fame for tipping the StoryToGameplayRatio towards the story end. These two games were noted for their highly complex stories which delved into deep characterization, forgoing the more traditional role that stories in games played in [[ExcusePlot justifying the gameplay]]. The latter, especially, took full advantage of its 3D space to introduce several tricks from the world of film. On the N64 side, ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' was released to great fanfare for its groundbreaking depth of control, varied atmosphere, and cinematic presentation.

The fifth generation was the time when optical discs became the standard for consoles. The CD-ROM was an ideal format for developers at the time, as it was relatively cheap and fast to produce and had a higher capacity than cartridges of previous eras (cartridges had a limit of 60 MB storage space, while a CD-ROM could contain upwards of 700 MB of data). The only real drawback to the format was the potential of piracy, which, in reality, was a small price to pay for most third-party studios, as well as a longer loading time. The UsefulNotes/PlayStation and the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn both used [=CD-ROMs=] as their format because of their benefits, with the N64 being the only console to reject this trend. Nintendo's early experiment with discs, the [[UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem Famicom]] Disk System, was lacking in sufficient antipiracy measures, and the massive losses for the add-on as a result of this rendered Nintendo massively cautious about piracy going forward. The N64 suffered from a lack of third-party support because of its use of cartridges, which were expensive and time-consuming to produce, hard to program on, and had low capacity compared to the CD-ROM. The use of cartridges also hampered what could have been the N64's greatest advantage, namely that it was, at least on paper, the console with the most powerful graphical capabilities, but this technical edge over Sony's UsefulNotes/PlayStation only ever rarely managed to shine through in practice due to the relatively high difficulty in squeezing such graphics out of cartridges. The only real exception to this was in the multiplayer department; with the [=PlayStation=] being the weaker console and requiring an add-on for four-player parties, many developers couldn't justify the heavy amount of extra work that was needed to give a game 4-player support[[note]]It was often more than simply splitting the screen four ways, since you now had to draw polygons from four different perspectives, and the games were already generally pushing the system's power as it stood, so the multiplayer would often have to sacrifice a lot of visual fidelity to keep the performance up[[/note]], where the Nintendo 64's extra horsepower made it significantly less of a hassle and players were far more likely to experience it at some point. In fact, one of the console's greatest hits, the Franchise/JamesBond tie-in ''VideoGame/{{GoldenEye|1997}}'' managed to become one of the most iconic games of the generation due to its multiplayer mode, which allowed four players to duke it out in action-packed split-screen FPS combat against each other.

The era marked many developments in terms of how games were controlled. The UsefulNotes/Nintendo64's controller was rather awkwardly designed compared to the more practical format codified by the UsefulNotes/{{SNES}}, but the controller featured a revolutionary development: a thumb-controlled analog stick. The analog stick was key to controlling 3D games because they allowed a fuller range of control over the player character that couldn't be achieved with a D-pad. The UsefulNotes/PlayStation controller didn't initially have an analog stick, but it eventually one-upped the N64 with the [=DualShock=] controller, which featured not one but ''two'' analog sticks: one primarily for controlling the player's movement, and one primarily for the camera (thankfully this idea caught on and is now considered the standard). Unlike the [=N64's=] C-pad, a second analog stick gave the camera more freedom in movement -- and Sony didn't [[ExecutiveMeddling patent using the right stick for this purpose]] like Nintendo did with their C-pad -- making CameraScrew and thus InterfaceScrew much less common than in N64 games. The "rumble" feature standard in most controllers today also originated in this era. It originated as the Rumble Pak peripheral for the N64 (originally packaged with ''VideoGame/StarFox64''), and it proved highly popular for giving games a new sense of "realism" by vibrating the controller whenever something "forceful" happened within the game. The [=PlayStation=] also adopted this feature for itself in the [=DualShock=] controller, in its case incorporating the rumble into the controller itself rather than it being an add-on. With very few exceptions, every console from that point on has incorporated rumble into the controller.[[note]]The later UsefulNotes/PlayStation3's original "Sixaxis" controller omitted rumble, due to fears it would interfere with the controller's motion control, though it would come back with the later [=DualShock 3=].[[/note]]

Meanwhile on the portable scene, the UsefulNotes/GameBoy continued to go almost entirely unchallenged. [=SNK's=] UsefulNotes/NeoGeoPocket and Bandai's UsefulNotes/WonderSwan would only find small audiences in the markets they reached and do little to dent the fortunes of the monochrome machine. Indeed, the aging brick was only just hitting a new stride when ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'', if not the first, then definitely the codifier of the social game, became the [[SleeperHit unexpected mega hit]] of the generation, spawning countless tie-ins and spinoffs to rival even the plumber himself. The console would finally get revised into the smaller Game Boy Pocket, but the big update to the line would be the self-explanatory UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor, which finally gave players on the go a colour screen system with decent battery life.

* [[UsefulNotes/Sega32X 32X]][[labelnote:*]]Yes, it was an add-on for the Genesis/Mega Drive, but it is still considered part of this generation.[[/labelnote]] (1994-1996)

* UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn (1994-2000)

* UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor (1998-2003)

* UsefulNotes/VirtualBoy (1995-1996)
* UsefulNotes/WonderSwan (1999-2003)

* UsefulNotes/ThreeDOInteractiveMultiplayer (1993-1996)
* UsefulNotes/AmigaCD32 (1993-1994)
* UsefulNotes/AtariJaguar (1993-1996)
* UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 (1996-2002)
* UsefulNotes/{{PlayStation}} (1994-2006)

* [[/index]]''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'':[[index]]

* ''VideoGame/FZero X''

* ''VideoGame/{{Bug}}''

* ''VideoGame/{{Atelier}}''
** ''Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg''
** ''Atelier Elie: The Alchemist of Salburg 2''

* UsefulNotes/GameDotCom (1997-2000)

* [[/index]]''VideoGame/StarFox'':[[index]]