Third To Fourth (1983-1987)
Thanks to the success of the third generation, companies were confident that new consoles would sell, so they invested in the hardware. The fourth generation started in 1987 with the TurboGrafx-16, but most people would argue that it started in 1990 with Nintendo's Super NES, Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis and, to a lesser extent, the Neo Geo. These games were faster, brighter and bigger than any that had come before. Detailed environments and characters reached the peak of two-dimensional fidelity as developers mastered the 2D plane. Games were advancing quicker, and even the controllers needed more than two buttons to keep up with what was now possible on screen; we saw the introduction of shoulder buttons. From the speed of Sonic to the vast world of Zelda, this is arguably the first generation that is still playable today.