NEC brought the first fourth generation console to market with their PC Engine (or Turbografx16) when Hudson Soft approached them with an advanced graphics chip. Hudson had previously approached Nintendo, only to be rebuffed by a company still raking in the profits of the NES. The Turbografx used the unusual HuCard format to store games. The small size of these proprietary cards allowed NEC to rerelease the console as a handheld game console.
NEC advertised their console as “16 bit” to highlight its advances over the NES. This started the trend of all subsequent fourth generations consoles being advertised as 16 bit. Many people still refer to this generation as the 16-bit generation, and often refer to the third generation as 8-bit.
Sega scaled down and adapted their Sega System 16 (used to power arcade hits like Altered Beast and Shinobi) into the Mega Drive (or Genesis) and released it with a near arcade-perfect port of Altered Beast.
Arcade gaming company, SNK developed the high end Neo Geo MVS arcade system which used interchangeable cartridges similar to home consoles. Building on the success of the MVS, SNK repackaged the NeoGeo as the NeoGeo AES home console. Unfortunately the AES was prohibitively expensive and incompatible with MVS cartridges. This resulted in a small library of games that were difficult to find and expensive to buy.
The fourth generation graphics chips allowed these consoles to reproduce the art styles that were becoming popular in arcades and on home computers. These games often featured lavish background scenery, huge characters, broader color pallettes, and increased emphasis on dithering and texture. Games written specifically for the NES, like Megaman, Shatterhand, and Super Mario Bros 3 were able to work cleverly within its limitations. Ports of the increasingly detailed arcade and home computer games came up with various solutions. For example when Capcom released Strider in the arcade they created an entirely separate Strider game for the NES that only incorporated themes and characters from the arcade.
While NEC did well in its native Japan, Sega did well in areas where the Master System was still popular, and SNK was able to establish large profit margins in their arcade level prices, none of these companies was initially able to really eat into Nintendo’s market share.
In 1990 Nintendo finally brought their Super Famicom to market and brought it to the US as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) a year later. Its release marginalized the Turbografx and the NeoGeo, but came late enough for Sega to sell several million consoles in North America and gain a strong foothold. The same year the SNES was released Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog which spiked Genesis sales, similar to Space Invaders on the Atari. Also, by 1992 the first fully licensed NFL Football game was released: NFL Sports Talk Football ’93, which was available only on the Genesis. This impact on Genesis sales, and the overall interest of realistic sports games, would start the trend of licensed sports games being viewed as necessary for the success of a console in the US.
One trait that remains peculiar to the fourth generation is the huge number of exclusive games. Both Sega and Nintendo were very successful and their consoles developed massive libraries of games. Both consoles had to be programmed in assembly to get the most out of them. A game optimized for the Genesis could take advantage of its faster CPU and sound chip. A game optimized for the SNES could take advantage of its far superior graphics and its flexible, clean sound chip. Some game series, like Castlevania, saw separate system exclusive releases rather than an attempt to port one game to disparate platforms.
When compact disc (CD) technology became available midway through the fourth generation, each company attempted to integrate it into their existing consoles in different ways. NEC and Sega released cd add-ons to their consoles in the form of the PC Engine and Sega CD, but both were only moderately successful. NEC also released the Turboduo which could accept Hucards and compact discs. SNK released a third version of the NeoGeo, the NeoGeo CD that was far less expensive, but it reached the market after Nintendo and Sega had already sold tens of millions of consoles each. Nintendo partnered with Sony to work on a CD addon for the SNES, but the deal fell apart when they realized how much control Sony wanted. Sony would use their work with Nintendo as the basis for their Playstation game console.
