The Fifth Generation of video game consoles, Nintendo 64

Now we're up to the 5th generation of consoles which lasted from 1993-2002. This era was the beginning of in-home gaming consoles utilizing compact disc technology for video games. Before this, all games were produced using cartridges, which were both expensive to produce and limited in their storage capacity compared to the emerging CD technology.

Notable systems of the era were Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation, and Nintendo 64.

The Playstation was by far the market success story, with the Saturn and the Nintendo 64 losing market share to the new competition Sony.

The Nintendo 64 was far less successful than the Playstation, mainly because it still relied on cartridge technology, limiting its capacity to store information, in an age where game producers' developing needs were climbing astronomically.

It only saw 368 games released on it, in comparison to Playstation's 1100, as developers who used to support the older Nintendo systems cut down, and sometimes completely cut off production for the N64.

Though this drawback hit them in the beginning, the N64 is still held in high regards as the 10th best video game system ever made (IGN) and Time Magazine named awarded it the 1996 Machine of the Year Award.