Were the 3DO and the Jaguar part of it's own "half/sub-generation"?

[Anonymous No.10808032]

I was looking up the history of the 5th generation consoles, and both the 3DO and Jaguar made me wonder if they really deserve to be called 5th gen.
Both of them:
>Were released on the US at the middle of the release dates of the 4th gen and 5th gen consoles. (Note that the 3DO was released before the Saturn in Japan, but the Jaguar was released after Sega's console, so this point may only work if you're us-centric)
>Were more powerful than the 4th gen consoles but weaker than the 5th gen consoles.
>Were practically discontinued and/or were barely able to compete with the 5th gen consoles.

I could also add the Amiga CD32 and the Genesis 32X to the list, but the CD32 was not released on either Japan or the USA, and the 32X is not a standalone console, but an accessory.
What do you think? Are these 5th gen or "4,5th" gen?

[Anonymous No.10808046]

That generation had a lot of false starts but they were clearly TRYING to launch the next gen. It's just that the SNES and Genesis were punching above their weight class and some systems like the 3DO were insanely expensive at first. It was also blurry as shit because technology advanced at a lightning pace in the 90s so a difference of a single year meant a big difference in capability.

[Anonymous No.10808059]

If you do that then you have to start applying to other gens and it just gets messy.
Is the PC-Engine 3.5 gen?
Is the Dreamcast 5.5 gen?

[Anonymous No.10808076]

>>10808032
3DO is just a shitty CD player
>bu- but it's muh hekin console
no its a chinese scam

>captcha ARGH
3DO is so shit it even makes captcha be sentient and turn into a fucking pirate

[Anonymous No.10808084]

This console debuted in 91 and got discontinued in 98, so it compited with 4th gen consoles and 5th gen consoles(6th gen if you count the dreamcast)

[Anonymous No.10808089]

>>10808084
Forgot pics.

[Anonymous No.10808091]

>>10808032
Yeah, the 3DO came out in 1993, between the SEGA CD and the 32X. It's barely fifth gen but people consider it that way because it's 32-bit and some of its games got ported to Saturn and PS1. It shares a lot of games with SEGA CD and 32X too though, like Starblade.

[Anonymous No.10808094]

>>10808059
Both the PC-Engine and Dreamcast didn't have any competition on their first year (and second for the DC), but the 3DO and Jaguar had each other as competition for almost 3 semesters in North America.
Point is, one console wouldn't make it part of a "half-gen", but two could.

[Anonymous No.10808096]

Console generations is a historiography concept rather than a history one. The whole system falls apart if you start to analyze it closely.

[Anonymous No.10808097]

>>10808059
>Is the PC-Engine 3.5 gen?
>Is the Dreamcast 5.5 gen?
Honestly? Yeah

[Anonymous No.10808098]

>>10808089
That is the Philips CD-i, you are correct it is fourth gen. Some would argue it's technically not a game console though, more of a multimedia device like LaserActive something or other

[Anonymous No.10808102]

>>10808059
The general consensus is Dreamcast is sixth gen, but to me it will always be fifth gen

[Anonymous No.10808107]

>>10808102
If you think about it, Dremcast dies pretty much as soon as it gains actual competition. There was very little competition between Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 to put them in the same generation.

[Anonymous No.10808138]

>>10808046
>so a difference of a single year meant a big difference in capability
This reminds me of something I've always wondered. Considering the speed of innovation, why doesn't the N64 have more graphical prowess? If you look at the PS1 in 94 and the Dreamcast in 98, there's a massive generational leap in 3D rendering. The N64 is in 96 but is much, much closer to the PS1 than the Dreamcast. Why is that?

[Anonymous No.10808142]

>>10808032
There was no such thing as specific numbered "gaming generations" back in the 80s and 90s. Casual people only thought "Oh cool. Let's check out Sega or Nintendos latest console."

Specific numbered generations are something that only happened later when the internet was created and people started categorizing consoles for Wikipedia articles.

[Anonymous No.10808147]

>>10808138
3D acceleration was progressing at max speed in the late 90s. One year meant a whole generation on PCs. Nintendo 64 was the very first console to have a "modern" GPU, so when the second console with relatively fresh technology arrived, it was leaps ahead of predecessors.

[Anonymous No.10808154]

>>10808096
Underrated and correct post but don’t expect anyone here to appreciate an academic concept.

[Anonymous No.10808171]

>>10808154
this board's alright as long as you avoid sixth gen threads

[Anonymous No.10808175]

>>10808096
I like the ideas of Console Generations as it can give an idea of which consoles were "rivaling" with each at a determined epoch, the consoles mentioned on the OP show one of the problems with this classification system, that is, consoles of "questionable generational placement" (As with the consoles mentioned by OP and the Nintendo Switch, for example), for lack of a better term.
I don't think that makes the whole system fall apart as you say, but it shows how imperfect this system really is.

[Anonymous No.10808187]

>>10808175
did you know there are negative console generations too before 1st gen even existed?
like monopoly, D&D, domestic violence, mahjong, rock paper scissors, welfare check.

see, i can categorise entertainment at home too that easily

[Anonymous No.10808248]

3DO and jaguar were both directly competing against snes/genesis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKRTP_RRVd8

[Anonymous No.10808434]

>>10808175
Yeah, the 3DO was basically like SEGA CD's rival. It even had Night Trap and Sewer Shark. Yet most people compare it to Saturn and PS1

[Anonymous No.10808614]

>>10808084
>>10808089
Don't forget that this was supposed to be Nintendo's replacement for the SNES-CD, also know as the Nintendo Play-Station

[Anonymous No.10808640]

>>10808142
The Colecovision was universally called third gen or "third wave" back in the day.

[Anonymous No.10808652]

Vaporware consoles

[Anonymous No.10808657]

>>10808640
>The Colecovision was universally called third gen or "third wave" back in the day.
And yet gaming websites and wikis list it as "second generation". Which makes numbering meaningless.

[Anonymous No.10808671]

>>10808640
What about the Atari 5200? It was released after the Colecovision, also, don't forget that less than a year after the release of these consoles, the SG-1000 and the Famicom were released in Japan.

[Anonymous No.10808739]

>>10808671
Atari 5200 was an Atari 800 computer converted into a console. It didn't really fit to any console generations. When it came out in 1979 it was the most powerful 8-bit system that money could buy by a huge margin.

[Anonymous No.10808751]

>>10808657
Those websites are wrong. Mostly because Wikipedia is wrong and everyone uses it as the authority.

[Anonymous No.10808753]

>>10808671
The Colecovision, Atari 5200, and Vectrex are all in truth 3rd Gen along with the SG-1000 and Famicom. It's just that Americans have a very hard time accepting this because there's a heavy NES bias where they seem adamant about the NES not being grouped with prior systems. It's resulted in a lot of revisionist history. Shit, Wikipediia isn't even consistent with itself. It has the Colecovision as 2nd Gen and the SG-1000 as 3rd Gen when they're effectively the exact same machine.

[Anonymous No.10808759]

>>10808753
Vectrex and 5200 are more powerful than the NES. I do think NES' map banked games put it in a category above Vectrex and 5200 though. Pre-MMC NES was second gen console tier.

[Anonymous No.10808763]

>>10808759
You'll get no argument from me. The NES was offset by a few years in the west, which I guess is why people tend to think of it as not in the same generation as the Colecovision and 5200 but that's an incredibly western biased position.

[Anonymous No.10808769]

>>10808753
>the Colecovision as 2nd Gen and the SG-1000 as 3rd Gen when they're effectively the exact same machine.
Really? Never heard about this, do they have the exact same hardware, or are the pieces similar enough?

[Anonymous No.10808779]

>>10808769
Don't quote me but I think they're the exact same hardware except the ColecoVision has more RAM. As far as I know they weren't intentionally like that. It's just they use very common parts for the day and I guess happened to assemble the same basic system independently of each other.

[Anonymous No.10808792]

>>10808769
>do they have the exact same hardware
Yes they used the exact same Z80 and off-the-shelf Texas Instrument GPU. These consoles are made entirely from off the shelf electronics. The colecovision had more BIOS ROM though, I think that's how it had more complex games.

[Anonymous No.10808834]

>>10808138
Don't forget that the N64 offered high precision (for the time) stable 3D, don't underestimate the extra sillicon budget needed for that. Also it's main CPU was clocked 3x higher.
So while the overall polygon budget was not much higher than a ps1 game, it could do it without warping/jittering/etc. Games like Mario64 are near impossible on the PS1 as a result.
Another factor is that Sony sold the PS1 for a loss at launch and even then it costed 299.
The N64 was sold without loss and launched at 199.

>>10808434
The 3DO could do 3D not possible on the sega cd (or even 32x)

[Anonymous No.10808921]

>>10808657
Remember when the DC was "not retro" here because of the mental illness that is "generations"

[Anonymous No.10808930]

>>10808089
That's a multimedia device, anon. It was just slightly better at handling games than DVD players would be, so you'd get rudimentary games that would use its multimedia capabilities. It definitely isn't a games console unless you want to count regular DVD players among those ranks too.
The reason why it seemed surprisingly long-lived for what it is is because it was just a useful multimedia device that you could keep on indefinitely. Seen them being used for business lobby TVs, Japan had them as a Karaoke option (almost 200 karaoke titles, eclipses the # of "game" titles). Games were just a part there to entertain the children and give another reason to buy the system. Kinda like the inverse reasoning of buying a PS2 for its DVD support. It ultimately failed as people had no real idea what it was and there just was no market for the interactivity in multimedia that it brought. So people tried to use it entirely as a PC or entirely as a Games machine. Later on PCs got into the Multimedia craze too so that advantage was lost. It's a very misunderstood piece of hardware, even back in the day and Philips tried to market it to every type of market which wasn't very smart. They should've focused on the 1 thing it was special in, the CD-I format. Games and PC-like software should've been treated as extras entirely as that was what they were and could only be on it. That would've probably helped its modern reputation, but ironically probably killed it quicker. The media standard itself already suffered from a late release anyway as CD-ROM had plenty of time to fix its issues. It wasn't really salvagable as anything but a stuck-in-the-middle piece of kit in any segment it competed in. Ambitious, but far too late.

[Anonymous No.10809962]

>>10808930
Some DVD players do count as consoles. The Nuon, for example. Really anything with a computer inside that can play interactive media and outputs to a television meets the definition. When you get to basic ass DVD players though that can play something like a port of Dragon's Lair with the remote, it doesn't meet the definition of a "platform" which kicks it out of the game console classification since a game console fundamentally needs to be a platform of some sort. I'd say CD-I definitely counts as a platform.

[Anonymous No.10809975]

>>10809962
>The Nuon, for example
Unrelated, but how many units did that thing sell? I was looking up it's numbers but i couldn't find it anywhere, although i found a, believe or not, Nuon Fanbase website.

[Anonymous No.10810054]

>>10809962
I disagree, for something to really be a games console, I expect the software to be mostly games. For the CD-I that's not even 50%. If you play loose and fast with the definition of what a games console is, you might as well call a PC a games console as there's numerous similar form factors for those as well. Not like that is the main problem, but it does lead to the issue of it being judged by the wrong metrics. You don't judge a fish by its ability to move on land, despite a few being somewhat humorously capable of that. Even if the fish desperately tries to claim so like the Nuon did.

[Anonymous No.10810072]

>>10809975
Probably almost nothing. It was barely advertised and the handful of players with Nuon integration looked like ordinary DVD players from manufacturers like Toshiba so many that did sell likely were to people that didn't even know it could play games. Especially since most units, if not all of them, didn't come with a controller. So you had to go out of your way to buy one separately.

[Anonymous No.10810176]

>>10809962
Many chinkshit DVD players had some sort of game system. Most were famiclones, but I have a few other, SFC,MD, PS1.