Fifth generation of video game hardware

The Fifth generation of video game hardware (1993-2005) expanded the home console market. With early CD technology, many companies made their own consoles such as Panasonic's 3DO Interactive Multiplayer in North America, Commodore's Amiga CD32 in Europe and NEC's PC-FX. Unfortunately these consoles failed due the lack of third party developers. Learning from mistakes of previous games and using the technology they worked on from the canceled SNES CD add on, Sony released the PlayStation. SEGA's SEGA Saturn was planned to be released in late 1995, but SEGA moved the Saturn's release date to early 1995 to get it released before the PlayStation. Many developers were upset by SEGA's decision, since they didn't have the time to develop games. The SEGA Saturn had poor marketing in North America, but did well in Japan. One year later, Nintendo released their Nintendo 64, which used cartridges, even though CDs were available at the time. The PlayStation and Nintendo 64 were the main competition up to 2000. This time in video game history also introduced the "hardcore" audience into gaming. Many notable events happened in this Generation; Sony entered the console market and 3 dimensional games became a reality.

Sales

Part of a series on:
History of video games
General Golden age of arcade video games Early history of video games Early mainframe games Console wars Video game industry Video game industry crash of 1983
Home & Handheld Generations First generation (1972–1980) Second generation (1976–1992) Third generation (1983–2003) Fourth generation (1987–2003) Fifth generation (1993–2005) Sixth generation (1998–2013) Seventh generation (2005–2018) Eighth generation (2012–) Ninth generation (2020–)
Lists Early history of video games First video game List of video games in development List of years in video games Timeline of arcade video game history
Genres History of Eastern role-playing video games History of Western role-playing video games History of MMORPGs History of online video games

Worldwide

See also: List of best-selling game consoles

Console	Units sold
PlayStation	102.49 million shipped (74.34 million PlayStation, 28.15 million PSone) (as of March 31, 2005)
Nintendo 64	32.93 million (as of March 31, 2005)
SEGA Saturn	17 million (as of 1998)
3DO	2 million (as of May 4, 2007)
PC-FX	290,000 (as of 1997)
Jaguar	250,000 (as of May 15, 2007)
Amiga CD32	100,000
FM Towns Marty	45,000 (as of December 31, 1993)
Apple Bandai Pippin	42,000 (as of May 4, 2007)

Japan

Year	Sales
	FM Towns Marty	3DO	Jaguar	SEGA Saturn	PlayStation	PC-FX	Nintendo 64
1993	45,000
1994		365,800	2,000	840,000	300,000	70,000
1995		615,800 (+250,000)		2,500,000 (+1,660,000)	2,000,000 (+1,700,000)
1996		750,000 (+134,200)		4,810,000 (+2,310,000)	4,200,000 (+2,200,000)	270,000	2,030,000
1997				5,620,000 (+810,000)	8,600,000 (+4,400,000)	290,000 (+20,000)	3,140,000 (+1,110,000)
1998				5,770,000 (+150,000)	14,710,000 (+6,110,000)		4,350,000 (+1,210,000)
1999							5,290,000 (+940,000)
2000							5,490,000 (+200,000)
2001					15,255,000		5,540,000 (+50,000)