The Other Consoles of the 90s

Last time I talked about the console war between Sega and Nintendo in the 1990s and how that shaped gaming going into the new millennium. This time I am going to focus my attention on the other gaming companies that tried to make headway in the 1990s but could never quite make it to the forefront of gaming. 

 The Booming Industry

Just like Sega, many companies had seen the resurging gaming industry in America (after Nintendo took over) as an opportunity to become the next big thing in gaming. While Sega became a legitimate contender to Nintendo’s dominance, many other companies tried and failed to enter or re-enter the market. The first of these companies I will talk about is Atari.

The Jaguar

Atari had gone through a lot of changes since the video game crash of 1983 and after two unsuccessful consoles (the 5200 and the 7800) Atari decided that the 90s was the time to make one last move in the video game industry. Atari came out with the Jaguar in 1993 to try and overtake the Genesis and the SNES.

The Jaguar was marketed as the first 64 bit system and was supposed to easily outperform both the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo. But Atari didn’t have a lot of third-party support for the system and many of the first-party games were absolutely terrible. The controllers were also a mess, being both too big and using a numeric keypad system (does that ever work outside of phones?).

Atari was set to have a lot more third party support but it was contingent upon good holiday sales and that didn’t happen. The system faltered in the software department and not many people decided to leave their Nintendo or Sega systems to go back to Atari (the fact that the 2600 was the last successful console from Atari didn’t help the image). So the Jaguar died out and Atari stepped out of the console race.

Nintendo Creates Two Different Monsters

Nintendo was feeling the pressure from Sega to create a CD-based add-on for the SNES because of the Sega CD. Even though the Sega CD didn’t do very well, Nintendo still decided to devote some resources to making a CD add-on. Nintendo tapped Sony to create the add-on but decided to change the arrangement and go with Phillips.

Sony didn’t take too kindly to being very publicly embarrassed by Nintendo, so the company went to work on its on console which became the PlayStation. But the PlayStation was a success so that’s not what we’re talking about. After the deal to create the add-on fell through, Phillips decided to take what it had and create a CD-based console of its own, eventually dubbed the CD-I.

Phillips had the rights to use some of Nintendo’s properties because it had gotten further into the actual process of making the add-on than Sony, so the CD-I had the only three Zelda games and a Mario game that were not on a Nintendo console or made by Nintendo.

Ouch...just...ouch

The CD-I had a hard time keeping up with the competition due to the horrid list of games available for it, the barely-functional control and the price point of $700. With all of these issues holding it back, the system never fully got into the game and Phillips was done as a gaming company before it began.

The 3DO Interactive Multiplayer

Another gaming console that tried to take advantage of CDs in the early 1990s, the 3DO failed due in large part to the price point and lack of third-party support. The console was conceived by EA founder Trip Hawkins who wanted to focus on making software for the system. However, the system didn’t sell well enough to warrant third-party support and the lack of games and the price point of $700 doomed the system to failure.

The actual console itself wasn’t bad but the way that it was managed (forgetting the razor and blade business model) destroyed the chances of the technology shining through. To sell the hardware, the price had to be around $700 and to create third-party support there needed to be a large group of people that owned and were invested in the console. Since the asking price was so high, people didn’t buy it. Without solid sales, no third-party developers wanted to waste their time developing for a new kind of console. It was a losing battle that ended with the 3DO Company (the company formed to create the console) dropping out of the hardware race and eventually filing for Chapter 11 in 2003.

Concluding Thoughts

The 1990s were a funny time for gaming because the home console landscape was still being fleshed out after the crash of 1983. While Sega and Nintendo entered the 90s as the two prime competitors, the 90s ended with Sony and Nintendo vying for the one and two spot. Microsoft would enter the race in 2001 and create the home console landscape that we all deal with today.

The failure of the consoles from the Jaguar to the 3DO were a combination of many things but price point and poor games seem to be the biggest issues that plagued gaming companies. Even Sega had similar issues with its add-ons to the Genesis that ended up irreparably scarring Sega’s image as a hardware manufacturer.

The leap to CDs seemed to be the way of the future but, just like any new technology, it needed to be tested before it became great and consoles like the CD-I and the Sega CD paid the price for technology that wasn’t there, The 3DO was unique in that the technology was there but the management of the hardware and software lead to the biggest issue with the system.

Check back next week for a look at the rise of 3D gaming (no not with 3D glasses) and how some game franchises transitioned very well (Mario) and some stumbled and fell (Sonic).

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