A end to these "silly" 8 and 16 bit wars

[Tanooki]

Well if you're going to limit it to the color portable war of the early 90s the GG had more variety than the Lynx which really did lack all around in general, but they were both crap compared to the Turbo Express by a long shot. Rampant battery consumption aside because of the tech in any of them, that portable TG16 smoked the hell out of the other two in capability and if you had the home system you really were set.

 

 

That said, back to that Sega ad. That ad and it's the truth, infuriated me every time I saw it as a teen. That one in print, and their very rigged and stacked manipulative and lying garbage they spewed over the TV in the afternoons too. I recall more recent online stories with old Sega management these days regretting running that type of campaign so at least that's something but too late either way.

 

Outside of so few rare of cases countable on a hands worth of fingers I wouldn't touch one of their systems until deeper into the 90s and second hand no less. It was partly sure rooted in the fact I went to bat for Nintendo consoles back then, but also even in that time frame lying and deceitful ads making up crap and twisting words to sell product to make up for their own crappy problems and short coming would make me swear off buying multiple products going into stuff outside of gaming like food products and so on. If you're that immature to run an ad like that and stick with it, and then talk less up about the good of your item versus just being a patent dick about the competition to me it meant you had the inferior product and you were compensating for something (like the old joke of the insecure dude buying a sports car to cover up having a micro sized willy.)

 

The first Sega product (and last) I would ever buy and pay them money for was the Sega Dreamcast. They started acting right a couple years earlier and put up some really good showing and product with the device so I bought it about 3 weeks after it came out and put probably a good 1000 hours on mine over a few years or so time with no regrets.

[keepdreamin]

Sega, Nintendo? Please. The Neo Geo "won" the war. It outlasted the 16/32 bit generations.

[zzip]

Yes. Besides, Lynx was better than GG anyway.

Indisputable. No mobile gaming device beats a Lynx, not even the Switch!

 

Next time, try a fair fight

Edited May 4, 2017 by zzip

[Eltigro]

Oh, we're talking handhelds?

 

TurboExpress Rules!

[godslabrat]

Well if you're going to limit it to the color portable war of the early 90s the GG had more variety than the Lynx which really did lack all around in general, but they were both crap compared to the Turbo Express by a long shot. Rampant battery consumption aside because of the tech in any of them, that portable TG16 smoked the hell out of the other two in capability and if you had the home system you really were set.

 

 

That said, back to that Sega ad. That ad and it's the truth, infuriated me every time I saw it as a teen. That one in print, and their very rigged and stacked manipulative and lying garbage they spewed over the TV in the afternoons too. I recall more recent online stories with old Sega management these days regretting running that type of campaign so at least that's something but too late either way.

 

Outside of so few rare of cases countable on a hands worth of fingers I wouldn't touch one of their systems until deeper into the 90s and second hand no less. It was partly sure rooted in the fact I went to bat for Nintendo consoles back then, but also even in that time frame lying and deceitful ads making up crap and twisting words to sell product to make up for their own crappy problems and short coming would make me swear off buying multiple products going into stuff outside of gaming like food products and so on. If you're that immature to run an ad like that and stick with it, and then talk less up about the good of your item versus just being a patent dick about the competition to me it meant you had the inferior product and you were compensating for something (like the old joke of the insecure dude buying a sports car to cover up having a micro sized willy.)

 

The first Sega product (and last) I would ever buy and pay them money for was the Sega Dreamcast. They started acting right a couple years earlier and put up some really good showing and product with the device so I bought it about 3 weeks after it came out and put probably a good 1000 hours on mine over a few years or so time with no regrets.

 

Yeah, Sega's marketing worked in the short term, but ultimately I think it was one of the many factors that pushed the company out of hardware (albeit not one of the bigger factors). Sega's market grew up, but their marketing didn't grow with it. When the Dreamcast was released, Sega's clientele was going off to college, starting their careers, buying their first homes, and Sega was still wearing the "attitude". And even though I had a Genesis and loved it, I always talked myself out of buying another Sega system after that.

[Flojomojo]

I didn't care much about advertising in those days, but I liked the dadaist Saturn commercials at the time.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRX932_YuwE

[+GoldenWheels]

I dunno, I thought bit wars were generally good fun--I don't mind the adversarial marketing or any of it. However, I think that had a LOT to do with it being almost all kids and young teenagers doing the actual arguing. It was schoolyard fun.

 

But when grown "adults" do it just seems kind of sad.

[Tanooki]

Very sad and that's how those ads came off even to me in the early 90s. They just got me mad they were so immature and loaded with half truths and lies like they had something to cover up. The funny thing to me was I wondered did Nintendo allow it or just quietly decided not to sue them for it? I know you typically can walk a red line on that and hope you don't get busted, or you get permission from the other party (like the childish Pepsi making fun of Coke ad spots), and if that fails you make a mock up and don't name (the Brand X/Leading Brands stuff.) I always wondered why Nintendo didn't school them for their garbage unless they were so high and mighty feeling off the NES they felt it would be like swatting at flies and ignored it. As much as Sega talked crap, the NES still made the Genesis look weak for a year or so as Sega lacked Sonic for awhile while the NES had the stuff Sega liked to whine about the SNES over early on (lack of games.)

[7800fan]

Sega, Nintendo? Please. The Neo Geo "won" the war. It outlasted the 16/32 bit generations.

 

Also remains to date the only system that hasn't sold once below original MSRP. I did get a couple free AES carts from a golf and arcade shop oh about 20 years ago, no idea where they are or what titles, probably shitty games.

[Bill Loguidice]

 

Also remains to date the only system that hasn't sold once below original MSRP. I did get a couple free AES carts from a golf and arcade shop oh about 20 years ago, no idea where they are or what titles, probably shitty games.

 

That's not exactly true. I got my AES quite a number of years ago and don't recall even paying half the MSRP. Prices have indeed shot up again, but let's not exaggerate about the system maintaining its value from day 1 to the present.

 

I think the REALLY amazing thing about the AES is the incredibly high cost of homebrews cartridges (including the recent the "flash" cart). There's definitely an unusual collector's market for that system.

[+save2600]

I paid $225 for my first Neo*Geo console w/ one controller and Magician Lord in the early 90's from a cool dude in a loose mood, that ran a used gaming store out of the Belvidere Mall in Waukegan, IL. And that was about the going price for them then: $200-$250 with a game of your choice usually. Neo*Geo was never that popular among most/casual gamers due to the prices of the games. Was always a niche thing - if you were even aware of the machine at all.

 

I had bought several carts over the next couple of years and were priced between $40-$80 for used (rare when they were much higher) typically. So yeah... there definitely *was* a time when Neo*Geo stuff wasn't as crazy stupid.

 

There was also a video store nearby that rented out Neo*Geo games. Was great... but after a while, realized I wanted to own everything I ever rented and ended up obtaining quite a collection at the time.

[Tanooki]

Yeah the AES and MVS you can get the stuff (talking games here primarily) for a lot less than they retailed for, yet some go for nauseatingly higher prices than they did too. It's a big spread, but all things considered most of the stuff would be around or less from what I've watched the last year.

 

The high price of that flash cart for MVS/AES really isn't all that high in perspective. Sure you can wrangle a couple of the lowest tier fighters and puzzlers for like $20-30, but quite a few of the titles fall into the $50-150 range so it really adds up fast so when you look at it that way it's cheap. $450USD isn't cheap, especially all at once, but plotted out it's a savings. It's a shame if you're one who changes out games a lot you have to sit through like 2+min or erase/writing before a game fires up, but a return visit is as fast as an origina.

[Cynicaster]

For a brief stint in the early 90s I participated in the console wars on Team Genesis. Not so much at school or whatever; it was mostly on BBS message boards (handle: Shinobi… naturally). Whenever I think back to behaving that way, I just cringe and get all fidgety.

 

 

 

For most of us, as adults, we can probably afford multiple systems, so platform wars should be mostly meaningless to us.

Exactly, which points directly to the impetus behind the bickering (not that it needs to be pointed out, because it’s so obvious). The soldiers of the console wars struggled to face a reality where their toy might be perceived to fall short of others’ toys. So the only solution available to the insecure console owner was to argue over whose stuff was MOAR BETTAR—which, let’s face it, was probably just as much to convince themselves as anybody else.

Edited May 5, 2017 by Cynicaster

[Professor Gull]

The bigger the "console war" is, the more reason you have to own multiple consoles.

 

In the NES era, the 7800 and SMS never had a real start in the US, so any rivalry was basically just a victory lap for Nintendo. Yeah, you could grab one of the other systems to round out your collection, but you didn't miss THAT MUCH if you only had an NES.

 

In the SNES/Genesis era, both systems offered excellent games, catering to different genres, and publishers went out of their way to make the most of each system. The fans fought tooth and nail, but if you didn't have both systems, you missed out on A LOT.

 

In the PS1/N64 era, again, you had two systems with vastly different libraries. Not only that, they had different media technologies, which gave each system unique advantages. The fan fighting hit an all-time high, but again, choosing only one of the two systems meant you missed key games from the generation.

 

Then the PS2/Cube/Xbox era hits, and developers start to release a lot of multi-platform titles. The hardware differences between the systems starts to fade, it becomes more about exclusives. Fan fighting dies down a bit, and you can have a great collection in this era by owning only two of the three systems.

 

By the time the PS3 and 360 launch, the console war becomes more of a habit than a real source of tension. By the end of both system's lifespans, you could have had nearly identical experiences regardless of what you picked. And the Wii became an accessory to whatever your "real" system was.

 

Then we hit the current gen, and have two systems that are identical by all but the most pedantic measures. And the "console war" has gotten so quiet as to be meaningless.

 

So yeah, that's why it looks so stupid in hindsight. The times when customers were screeching loudest about which one was "right" were the times we should have been saying "all of the above".

Let me fix a few missing items here.

 

In the PS1/N64/SATURN era, again, you had three systems with vastly different libraries. Not only that, they had different media technologies, which gave each system unique advantages. The fan fighting hit an all-time high, but again, choosing only one of the three systems meant you missed key games from the generation.

Then the PS2/Cube/Xbox/DREAMCAST era hits, and developers start to release a lot of multi-platform titles. The hardware differences between the systems starts to fade, it becomes more about exclusives. Fan fighting dies down a bit, and you can have a great collection in this era by owning only two of the four systems.

Edited May 5, 2017 by Professor Gull

[atarilovesyou]

The NES with its outdated technology from 1983 was mindboggling?

 

...this coming from the guy who spent $100 bucks on VCS Golf in 1985. THAT'S mind-boggling, but hey...you're not too hard to please, obviously.

[high voltage]

 

...this coming from the guy who spent $100 bucks on VCS Golf in 1985. THAT'S mind-boggling, but hey...you're not too hard to please, obviously.

No bananas?

[Tanooki]

I think the NES with its outdated tech was mindboggling because it was an open ended book that allowed for immense amount of customization and expansion from just a cheap chip thrown on a cart. Sure it was out the same time as the Coleco basically was going by Famicom dating, and that's fine and all, but when you look at the meager FC lineup pre-NES era (10/18/1985 - 1994) and then throw out there USA alone the 6 MMC chips with the likes of SMB3, Castlevania, 3, Kirby's Adventure, the Mega Man titles, and so on who would have ever guessed any of that would happen as a US gamer in 1985-86? No one.

[Austin]

You guys aren't reading the right gaming sites then. There's quite a loud console war between the two.

 

Yeah. Go to the comments section of any mainstream modern gaming site, and the "war" is still ongoing and as stupid as ever, probably even more so. I shake my head at the nonsense I read when I go to get my fix of modern gaming news.

[Tanooki]

Is it any surprise? The media of today isn't the media of the 80s and 90s. We replaced old school magazine writers with the kids of the console wars era of the 90s. The problem is they NEVER grew up, and instead now the entire way to even get any attention now in the press is to act like a paid child and stir the post doing the most reprehensible one (or two of sided) of three makers crapping all over some target and making lame stupid cruel jokes and halftruths if not all out lies mixed with asinine clickbait to keep the money coming in. Sure you can still find some select few sites bother with some fairly decent journalism and more mature writeups and reviews as they try to maintain some standards across platforms (like polygon) or alone like NintendoLife and PushSquare who try and keep things fun, light hearted and on the level more or less. I am so over and fed up with it I don't read most game media sites anymore because it's childish crap and untrustworthy.

[high voltage]

I have both Mega Drive and SNES, but Mega Drive has the better games.

And of course, Sega did this, bow in awe, Nintendo, bow before the KING of consoles:

Edited May 8, 2017 by high voltage

[empsolo]

Claims Sega has the better games but shows off Sonic 3D Blast instead.... man what a riot.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Tanooki]

Claims Sega has better hardware, yet they're out of business with home hardware. Claims they have better games, yet most their franchises are straight up dead or just continually released in 16bit software bundles by ATGames. That's not really something to be proud of.

 

I could point out your hardware there Nintendo did too, and earlier in Japan. Disk drive, keyboard, basic programming, nothing really new to see here other than the dedicated monitor (though the Sharp NES TV and SNES version too do have that covered.)

[elmer]

I could point out your hardware there Nintendo did too, and earlier in Japan. Disk drive, keyboard, basic programming, nothing really new to see here other than the dedicated monitor (though the Sharp NES TV and SNES version too do have that covered.)

Don't forget the Sharp X1 Twin, too.

[Flojomojo]

[NE146]

I remember it seemed like LONG time before the SNES came out after the TG16/Genny. Being in college at that time I could luckily afford all systems. First got a TG16 & Genesis in my junior (3rd) year.. then I went the entire junior and senior year at school with both systems still.. there was not an SNES to be found. Two years in college is a long time especially when you're a young guy immersed in it.

 

The SNES didn't seem to come out until everyone had already graduated.. I know because it was kind of sad for me since I didn't have many buds around to share playing SNES games with like I did with the TG16/Genny

 

So yeah regarding this thread, the only "Console War" I knew was the 5200 vs. the Colecovision. And that was the last one I wanted to participate in. I always wished I had both systems! So, once the 8 or 16 bit systems came out, it was all or nothing and I made all of them one big happy family