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The 128-bit era (or sometimes the Handheld era or Nostalgia era) is the sixth generation of video game consoles and the current video game era, which features the Nintendo GameCube, Sony PlayStation 2, and Microsoft Xbox. The Sega Dreamcast was the first console of the era and turned out to be Sega's final video game console, discontinued in late 2001.
Nintendo continues to dominate the Handheld console market by releasing new versions of the Game Boy, the highly upgraded Game Boy Advance in 2001 and Game Boy Advance SP in 2003. In addition, they have also released the Nintendo DS in November 2004.
This era has also seen many handheld consoles from other manufacturers. These are Sony's first handheld game console, the PSP, launched in late 2004 in Japan; Bandai's Wonderswan Color launched in Japan in 1999; the Gizmondo from Tiger Telematics, to be launched by the end of 2004; and the PalmOS-based Zodiac from Tapwave, released in 2004. However, as these are arriving at the end of the current generation, it is unlikely that major changes in the market will be clear before the next generation begins in late 2005 to early 2006.
The 128-bit era features topics of debate, such as video game criticisms, and the video game controversy has been believed to be reaching its peak, and various debates between "old school" and "new school" gaming, and debates about voice acting, and the terms "Golden Age" and "Silver Age." This is also an era that is filled with nostalgia, such as when NES and SNES ROM images became easier to find (see Emulation), and many gamers think that SNES games are still most amusing, calling the 16-bit era the "golden age of video gaming." It also a time when several video games or video game series that were once confined to Japan come to North America, notably Fire Emblem and Nintendo Wars. The enhanced remake idea, which was devised by the Mario franchise (with Super Mario All-Stars) during the 16-bit era and "anthology collections", were popularized during this era.
Notes on era naming
Bit ratings for consoles largely fell by the wayside after the 32-bit era. The number of "bits" cited in console names referred to the CPU word size, but there was little to be gained from increasing the word size much beyond 32 bits; performance depended on other factors, such as processor speed, graphics processor speed, bandwidth and memory size. The current era is rarely referred to as the "128 bit era" which was encouraged by some video game marketing departments. The Dreamcast, known as the first of the "128-bit" consoles, has a 64-bit GPU, CPU, and data bus although the geometry sub-processor GPU can perform internal math on 128-bit words. One of the PlayStation 2's many processors is known as the "128-bit Emotion Engine" but has a 64-bit core; the Graphics Synthesizer has a 2560-bit DRAM bus. And the most graphically powerful console of this generation, the Microsoft Xbox, has "only" a 32-bit CPU and 256-bit GPU, just like most home computers. So the use of many components that process data in 32, 64, 128, and 256-bit words makes the importance of "bitness" irrelavent in the modern console gaming market. The 128-bit era is sometimes known as the "Handheld Era" and the "Nostalgia Era."
Consoles of the 128-bit era
- Nintendo Famicom (1983-2003: Japan)
- Nintendo Super Famicom (1991-2003: Japan)
- Sony PlayStation (1994-present: Japan; 1995-present: U.S.; 1996-present: Europe)
- Nintendo Game Boy Color (handheld) (1998-2003: Europe)
- Bandai WonderSwan Color (handheld) (1999-2003: U.S.)
- Sega Dreamcast (1998-present: Japan; 1999-2001: U.S., Europe)
- Sony PlayStation 2 (1999-present: Japan; 2000-present: U.S., Europe)
- Nintendo GameCube (2001-present: Japan, U.S.; 2002-present: Europe)
- Nintendo Game Boy Advance (handheld) (2001-present: Japan, U.S., Europe)
- Microsoft Xbox (2001-present: U.S.; 2002-present: Japan, Europe)
- Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP (handheld) (2003-present: Japan, U.S., Europe)
- N-Gage (handheld mobile) (2003-present: U.S., Europe)
- Tapwave Zodiac (2004-present)
- Nintendo DS (To be released; December 2004: Japan; November 2004: U.S.; early 2005 Europe)
- PlayStation Portable (To be released; expected late 2004: Japan; 2005: U.S., Europe)
- Tiger Telematics Gizmondo (To be released; expected October 29th 2004 UK, rest of world 2005)
Video game franchises established during the 128-bit era
See also
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