if the 90’s were defined by classic retro videogames with pixel and “old” graphics, then why was music and images so high quality?? for example, in 1995 radiohead released “the bends”, a cool album!! but it doesn’t sound like it was made in 1995, because in 1995 videogames were pixelated and had blurry graphics, shouldn’t it have been that way too?? if technology was that way in 1995?? why does that album sound so high quality and modern if it was made around the same time old retro games were made?? thank you!?
The late 80s saw the first introduction of the DAW and MIDI’s abundance in the studio. before we reached the normalization curve of the technology, the slop it would lead to, and the shift towards to the era of graduate hip hop producers flooding the industry, the creatives had mastered both as a way to simplify to expand on their sound and production style.
Video games were constrained by the limitations of processing power and costs prohibiting access to 3D and Vector math. As the RISC derivatives like MIPS and PowerPC took over and fab costs dropped, so did the restrictions of basic linear math graphics. PCM audio was one of the first spaces to be given full hardware access as the costs for DSPs dropped and unified pipelines appeared in operating systems and hardware.
Storage space was also a limitation, this is pre 95, but the classic “Sega” at the beginning of Sonic the hedgehog took up 1/8th of the total storage space of the cartridge