A History of Video Games: The Big Three and the Second Console War

Sega and Nintendo pushed each other to further innovate in video games. Going from all cartridge based systems to looking at putting games onto discs. This is how Sony entered the video game landscape. Sony had plans to develop a CD based add on for the SNES called the “Nintendo PlayStation”, but Nintendo and Sony couldn’t come to terms they both agreed to on the business end and instead Nintendo partnered with Phillips to develop games for what would become the Philips CD-i. Sega had their own counterpart to the Genesis named the Sega CD, which did in fact do much better than the CD-i, but neither console was prepared to deal with the outcome of the Nintendo betrayal, the Sony PlayStation.

There was a new player in the game and gaming would become much more competitive with the PlayStation, the Nintendo 64 and the Sega Saturn all coming around the same time. But only two of these consoles would go onto be remembered fondly with the Sega Saturn having the roughest launch of any console up to the point, a marketing strategy that seemed confusing at best and a failure to license and create games that would make players want the disc-based system that was meant to be the successor of one of the greatest consoles ever manufactured. Sega couldn’t compete with the PlayStation’s and the N64’s library of games and failed to gather much support from the community other than the few faithful that could get their hands on a console.

As the newest generation of consoles were getting ready to launch, Microsoft wanted to enter the arena with its own invention. With their familiarity with home computers and gaming from the PC side, four engineers from Microsoft, Seamus Blackley, Kevin Bachus, Otto Berkes, and Ted Hase began designing a console that would lead the new console generation. They originally called their console the “Direct X Box” named after the program team they were a part of, but later shortened the name to just “Xbox”. They were entering the landscape with Sony’s PlayStation 2, Sega’s Dreamcast, and Nintendo’s GameCube. To set itself apart from the others, Xbox launched its own online service that would lead the first online console generation into the future, Xbox Live. Xbox was not the first to do online service for their console, but they were arguably the best at the time. It created a landscape for gamers to connect all over the world and create a “Buddy List” of friends to play with. With games like Halo 2 and Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Xbox Live thrived in the online space. It was quick, easy and by far the most stable online service at that time which pushed PlayStation to create its own in the next generation, the PlayStation Network.

This is not to say that PlayStation was lagging behind Xbox at this time. At 158.7 million consoles sold currently, the PlayStation 2 is the highest selling console of all time. With its big jump in power from the PS1 to the PS2, Sony had released an incredible system with some of the greatest games of all time being console exclusives. Final Fantasy 10, Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, and the list goes on of incredible games on this console. This generation pushed the limits of storytelling to new heights and made Sony the leader in this space. This would continue in the next generation and beyond with games like Uncharted, God of War, The Last of Us, and more.

The creation of the Xbox also marked the end of an era for one of the biggest console manufacturers, Sega. With Saturn’s failure to launch and the Dreamcast being an incredible system, but also failing in its own way to find space in the market between three juggernauts, Sega quietly said goodbye to the console market. After 15 years, Sega stepped back and decided that its days in the console wars were over, deciding instead to pivot and instead use their existing games and create art for the other consoles. It was the end of an era for Sega, but the start of something new for Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, who was about to shock the gaming world with their next great innovation in gaming.