Philips CD-i

The Motorola 68000 series (also known as 680x0, m68000, m68k, or 68k) is a family of 32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and were the primary competitors of Intel's x86 microprocessors. They were best known as the processors used in the early Apple Macintosh, the Sharp X68000, the Commodore Amiga, the Sinclair QL, the Atari ST and Falcon, the Atari Jaguar, the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive) and Sega CD, the Philips CD-i, the Capcom System I (Arcade), the AT&T UNIX PC, the Tandy Model 16/16B/6000, the Sun Microsystems Sun-1, Sun-2 and Sun-3, the NeXT Computer, NeXTcube, NeXTstation, and NeXTcube Turbo, early Silicon Graphics IRIS workstations, the Aesthedes, computers from MASSCOMP, the Texas Instruments TI-89/TI-92 calculators, the Palm Pilot (all models running Palm OS 4.x or earlier), the Control Data Corporation CDCNET Device Interface, the VTech Precomputer Unlimited and the Space Shuttle. Although no modern desktop computers are based on processors in the 680x0 series, derivative processors are still widely used in embedded systems.

Motorola ceased development of the 680x0 series architecture in 1994, replacing it with the PowerPC RISC architecture, which was developed in conjunction with IBM and Apple Computer as part of the AIM alliance.

In the history of video games, the fourth generation of video game consoles, more commonly referred to as the 16-bit era, began on October 30, 1987, with the Japanese release of NEC Home Electronics' PC Engine (known as the TurboGrafx-16 in North America). Though NEC released the first console of this era, sales were mostly dominated by the rivalry between Sega and Nintendo across most markets: the Mega Drive (known as the Genesis in North America) and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (known as the Super Famicom in Japan). Cartridge-based handheld game consoles became prominent during this time, such as the Game Boy, Lynx, Game Gear, and TurboExpress.

Nintendo was able to capitalize on its success in the third generation, and managed to win the largest worldwide market share in the fourth generation as well. However, particularly in the lucrative North American market, there was a fierce console war in the early 1990s, which eventually saw Sega taking a market share lead over Nintendo in North America by 1993. Sega's success in this era stemmed largely from its launch of its popular Sonic the Hedgehog franchise to compete with Nintendo's Super Mario series, as well as a very stylized marketing campaign aimed at American teenagers. Several other companies released consoles in this generation, but none of them were widely successful. Nevertheless, there were other companies that started to take notice of the maturing video game industry and begin making plans to release consoles of their own in the future. As with prior generations, game media still continued to be distributed primarily on ROM cartridges, though the first optical disc systems, such as the Philips CD-i, were released to limited success. There was additionally competition with games on home computers such as the Amiga, Atari ST, Apple IIGS, and IBM PC compatibles, especially in markets like Europe. As games became more complex, concerns over violence in games like Mortal Kombat and Night Trap led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board.