OBJETIVO ESPECÍFICO N° 4

At this point Sony questioned the future of the SNES and realized the system was beginning to show its age. Although Nintendo had not announced any new systems, it was apparent that the SNES was old technology. Sony decided to go ahead with a stand- alone console but one that would not be compatible with the SNES. The new 32-bit system was to be called the PlayStation.

In April 1994, Sony officially announced that the PlayStation would be released in Japan by year’s end and in North America and Europe in the following September. The delay outside of Japan was to give developers in the foreign countries enough time to create extraordinary games. Sony also demonstrated the capabilities of the PlayStation. The custom chips within the PlayStation featured an R3000A 32-Bit RISC CPU that was supported by three high-performance subsystems. This let the PlayStation create sophisti- cated 3-D geometric graphics that would rival workstations costing tens of thousands of dollars. The system could also play full-motion video. And while the PlayStation was completely CD-driven, gamers could plug in, for the first time ever, external memory cards that would allow them to save game data.

Sega had 170,000 Saturns available for sale in Japan on November 22, 1994.1Among the games that were available for the Saturn at its launch was Virtua Fighter, the world’s first 3-D-based fighting game. Sony’s Japanese launch of the PlayStation followed 11 days later. Sony only had 100,000 units available at the onset so sales of the PlayStation were limited to one per customer. By year’s end all of the original Saturns sold out while a few PlayStations remained on store shelves. Critics felt that the PlayStation was the superior machine but it did not yet have any popular titles like Virtua Fighter.

The American releases of the two consoles followed in 1995. Both were shown at the CES in January and release dates were announced. Saturday, September 2, was set for the Saturn and in a publicity move, Sega called it Saturnday. Sony announced that the American PlayStation would arrive 20 days later on September 22. The $299 price for the PlayStation was announced several months later at the very first Electronic Entertainment Exhibition (E3), which was held in May. Sega did not believe that Sony could deliver a console at the caliber that Sony claimed for that price. And Sega had its own bombshell of an announcement at E3. It was there that Sega told the E3 crowd that the Saturn’s promised September 2 launch date had simply been a decoy to throw Sony off. To everyone’s surprise 30,000 Saturns were released that very day in four retail chains: Toys ‘R’ Us, Electronics Boutique, Babbage’s, and Software Etc. Each system carried a $399 retail price and was packed with Virtua Fighter.

Unfortunately, this plan backfired on Sega. Third party companies were caught by surprise so the only games available at launch were those released by Sega. Retailers who

were not included in the launch, like Wal-Mart, were upset with Sega for not including them. Executives at KB Toys were so upset that they refused to carry the Saturn or its successor, the Dreamcast, in their stores. Shelf space that would have been used for the Saturn was instead allocated to the PlayStation.

Sony released the American PlayStation on September 9. By that time, nearly 100,000 consoles had already been sold through pre-orders, a new record for any console. By the end of 1995, Sega dropped the price of the Saturn to $299. But by then the PlayStation had a leading edge which it refused to relinquish.

Nintendo 64

Adding to Sega’s woes was Nintendo’s 1996 release of a 64-bit console, simply called the Nintendo 64 (N64). The system was launched in Japan on June 23 and was followed in North America in September 1997.

Going against the trend, Nintendo opted to continue using cartridges rather than CDs. The company received flack for this because not only were cartridges more expensive to produce (and therefore to sell), but the lead time to manufacture them was much longer than with optical media. And while left unstated, critics knew Nintendo wanted to retain its stringent control of everything associated with the N64 from licensing to manufacturing. Nintendo stood by its decision, claiming access time was quicker with a cartridge. In an effort to please its customers, Nintendo announced that it would release a magnetic disc drive, called the 64DD, in 1997. In addition to using the 64DD to save games, games would be sold in the disc format beginning with an N64 version of The Legend of Zelda. Nintendo also planned to release a memory expansion pack which would add an additional four megabytes of main memory to the console.

When the first 300,000 N64s were launched in Japan along with three games, 80 percent of them already had been pre-sold, breaking the pre-order record set by Sony. Few retailers received systems that they could sell to people who had not pre- ordered it. All of the launch consoles sold out on the first day and Nintendo shipped an additional 200,000 systems three days later which also sold out in one day. June ended with the release of another 200,000 units and Nintendo released one million more during the summer. The company then concentrated on its American launch. The biggest surprise occurred a month before the September date when Nintendo announced that the American system would retail for $200. This last-minute announce- ment had been designed to prevent Sony and Sega from planning competitive price cuts.

The N64 sold 500,000 pre-orders in North America despite the fact that only two titles were available (Pilot Wings and Super Mario 64). This was the same amount that Sony had sold in three months and which Sega had sold in an entire year. Because the console sold well, Nintendo decided to double the amount of available consoles, taking the additional supply from units allocated for Japan and Europe. Despite this success, critics still won- dered if the cartridge-based system could really compete against CD-based systems in the long run. Nintendo was certain it could as long as their cartridge-based games were high quality. Super Mario 64 apparently was. The Video Software Dealers Association reported that Super Mario 64 generated $52,000 in rental fees during its first week of release. On the average, one copy of Super Mario 64 was being rented every minute for an entire week straight!