Was the 16 bit era too short?

The early 90’s had probably seen the best era of 16 bit gameplay with many games such as Illusion of Gaia, Super Mario Worid, Sonic the Hedgehog, Mega Man X, Super Metroid, Secret of Mana Streets of Rage and many others.  Towards the beginning of the decade many people were blown away by how much the gameplay and graphics had improved in comparison to the 8 bit era of gaming which was mainly during the 80’s.  While 8 bit gaming continued to live during the first half of the 90’s  for the NES and throughout the whole decade because of the Game Boy the 16 bit era had started to decline around the mid 90’s.  The reason why 16 bit gaming had started decline was due to the rise of 3D gaming provided by consoles such as PlayStation, Nintendo 64 and the Sega Saturn.  3D Gaming seemed so cool when it first because popular during the 90’s.  However, looking back at the basic 3D graphics of games from the 90’s makes us wonder  was this really better than 16 bit gaming in terms of visuals?

The graphics and sprites of many 16 bit games liked more refined and appealing but they were restricted to 2D gameplay which was something that many people were getting sick of by the mid 90’s.  Looking back, at things now it would have been cool if the 16 bit era lasted longer or just went directly into the 32 or 64 era of gaming.  While there were so many cool games for the Sony PlayStation including Gran Turismo, Tekken 2, Tomb Raider and Metal Gear Solid it felt like the console was ahead of its time.  In fact, some might argue that consoles like the Sony PlayStation was the reason why the 16 bit era was shorten while others might contend that it was starting to become obsolete.