This class started with a discussion about the 5th generation of consoles (the Saturn, Playstation, a nd N64). This was the first entry into the console market by Sony, and they dominated this era with about 70% of console sales.
We then looked at PC gaming at the same time, and one very important game - Half-Life by Valve Software. This was a very important game for many reasons (technology, gameplay, story, mods, etc) and pushed PC gaming, and gaming in general, forward. We then looked at games that would follow (Counter-Strike, HL2).
After this, we examined the Dreamcast, the Playstation 2, the Gamecube and the original XBOX. The Playstation 2 would again dominate this round, but the XBOX made some important changes - it established MS as a serious player, and helped push game consoles online with XBOX Live.