The early '90s had seen an explosion in the computer games industry, largely due to the success of both Commodore’s Amiga and Sega’s Mega Drive, but this week in 1994 saw an industry going through ‘the change’.

The Mega Drive was no longer a hot ticket - Nintendo’s SNES had been launched the year before and offered a marginally better performance - and Sega were facing up to their first drop in profits for 12 years. Commodore, meanwhile, were tying themselves into financial knots as they made their way towards the insolvency courts, a destination they would reach within months.

Conclusive evidence that the party was well and truly over however, came this week with the release of Sonic 3. Its predecessor had set records (remember Sonic 2sday?) and great things were expected of the £59.99 cartridge. On the day of release though, retailers desperate for gaming business had reduced the price by as much as £15 in a frantic attempt at repeating 2’s success. Which didn’t happen.

1994 was a bloody hard year for the games industry as the mooted next generation machines - CDi, CD32, Jaguar, 3DO - all failed to pick up the baton of their predecessors, and Sega, with its MegaCD and 32X, tried in vain to keep the Mega Drive current.

Nintendo’s SNES was not a big enough deal over Mega Drive to attract enough new or existing buyers, so, following the death of Amiga, it was to the PC that gamers increasingly turned and console gaming became somewhat passe. For at least a year, anyway…