By Kyle Lee
Berthoud Recorder

When we last left off Sony had thrown their hat into the ring against previously uncontested fighters Sega and Nintendo. Sega had been experimenting with compact disc technology previous to this new development with the Sega CD attachment for the Genesis coming out in North America in 1992. From there they went on to release the 32X and Sega Saturn.

These systems failed largely because they were difficult to program for and therefore good games were hard to come by. Sega also had a misguided love affair with a technology afforded to them with the CD capabilities known as Full Motion Videos, or FMV’s. The effort to place these poorly acted scenes effectively made the games gimmicky and borderline unplayable.

Thus when Sony’s Playstation was released, many scoffed and thought the stereo and TV manufacturer would bankrupt themselves with the silly notion they could compete with such a poor track record laid out before them by Sega. But Sony was the little dog in the fight and wanted to prove they could succeed by providing something the Saturn wasn’t at that time; well made and playable games. With quality titles like “Crash Bandicoot,” “Spyro the Dragon,” and “Tomb Raider,” Playstation stepped up quickly and came face to face with their old partner Nintendo.

The house that Mario built had put out the Nintendo 64 as a direct competitor to the Playstation. Relying on the cartridge system they helped revolutionize, the N64 was the next step up from the Super Nintendo while still able to work in the 3-D world that was looking like the future of gameplay. “Mario 64” kept Nintendo’s inventive streak alive, setting the course for “Crash” and other games Sony would come to rely on in the future.

In the battle between the Playstation and N64, there was no clear winner but there was one clear loser. The Sega Saturn was lost in the middle of this battle; far too expensive and with a minuscule library to boot, it just couldn’t compete with the giants that had been created in this console war.

To be concluded …