Don’t games matter more?
The War to End All Wars
On November 27, 1998 Sega launched the Dreamcast in Japan, firing the first shot in what would become the first console war of the 21st century, the console war to end all console wars. This aggressive move was deflected by Sony, the market leader at that time, on March 2, 1999. On that day, Sony held a press conference revealing the seemingly multi-generation leaping technology in the “Next Generation PlayStation” with “Emotion Synthesis.” More than anything, the conference was a morale-shattering psychological attack on Sega and its supporters that gave Sony the time it needed to develop its own combat force. The Dreamcast received a second-wind a full year later with its launch in the United States on September 9, 1999. Sony finally began its counteroffensive on March 3, 2000 with the release of the PlayStation 2 in Japan. On October 26 the PS2 was released in the US. The blitzkrieg assault of closely timed system launches and the promise of exclusive games such as Metal Gear Solid 2, Gran Turismo 3, and Final Fantasy X was more than Sega could handle. Despite having launched the first strike and more than a year of Sony quiescence, Sega’s console division was decimated by the PS2. On January 31, 2001 Sega had no option but to concede, withdrawing from the console war.
All was not calm for Sony. Despite a resounding victory over Sega, there were two other factions confident that they would be able to steal Sony’s wealth: Nintendo and Microsoft. Nintendo, once the crown jewel of the console world in the past, had fallen behind during the 90’s with its underpowered Nintendo 64. Despite being the only 90’s-era console to feature bilinear filtering, the Nintendo 64 was seen as being underpowered and developer hostile which lead to a lack of 3rd party software support. Nonetheless, having survived on a handful of quality games, Nintendo officially began its next-generation console development program in early 1998 codenamed Dolphin. They vowed not make the same mistakes of N64.
Microsoft was eager to enter the console war as well. Just as Sony had come out from nowhere to become the unanimous winner of the 32-bit console market, Microsoft had also fought its way to become the unanimous winner of the Internet Browser war. The console market, with its lucrative profits. was merely the next pasture to conquer. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s experience was with marketing and operating systems, not gaming hardware. Nonetheless, Microsoft’s DirectX already won most of the PC gaming development community over, and the hardware dynamism of the PC gave Microsoft a long list of graphics allies it could turn to, including Gigapixel, ATI, and NVIDIA.
Following, and outdoing Sony’s closely timed console release, Nintendo launched its GameCube in Japan on September 18, 2001 and in the US two months later. November 15, 2001 was the launch of the Xbox in the US.
The first console war of the 21st century had escalated to a new level.
Nice intro, but what’s this article about?
In this series of “console clash” articles, we will be putting the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox in a three-way, John Woo-esque face off. To start, we’ll be placing the hardware design of each console under the crosshairs of FiringSquad’s sniper scope. We’re not going to open up the console, or talk about every little chip or motherboard layout decision. We’re not even going to look at any games today. Our plan for today is to talk a bit about the audio and I/O hardware of the systems, and then focus on examining the approach that each console brings to 3D graphics, the influences that seem to have shaped their respective programming paradigms, and what this ultimately means for in-game graphics. The PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox all bring different approaches to 3D graphics to the table, with their own strengths and weaknesses. This article is to provide a history and setting for the second part of the Console Clash 2001 articles where each system will have a chance to show off its exclusive titles. It’s theoretical today, and hands-on next time.
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