It’s a wonder that the snes did oversold the genesis in sales

[johannesmutlu]

Yes i am a big snes fan and i always will,i got font memory’s of it and i will love it’s exclusive games more then that of the genesis,and i also will like it’s graphics and sound capabilities more then the genesis,BUT,

here are my reasons why am still amezed how and why the snes outnumbered the genesis in sales by 30% 

1,the genesis was released in 1988 while the snes was released 2 years later in 1990,

2,the genesis did had it’s own exclusive arcade games such as altered beast,golden axe,super thunder blade michael jackson’s moonwalker,outrun etc,,, it also did had exclusives such as revenge of shinobi,streets of rage,sonic the hedge hog alex kidd etc,,,

3,while the genesis sound is fm and psg based but it’s artificial sound is more dynamic then the snes’s digital audio wich can by sounding very dry due cutting and stretching audio samples to save on memory space,also the genesis could stream true 8bit pcm audio,while with the psg soundchip it can simulate 1bit pcm audio as an extra bonus albeit sounding crapoy but still,, (yes the snes can produce true 16bit audio at 32khz trough software but at the cost of running a game)

4,the genesis was straightly build with master system compatibility in mind,you only needed a passtrough adaptor for straight compatibility with it, the snes did not had such luxury since nintendo cancled nes compatibility halfway teough development,sure the snes did got it’s supergameboy but did it really added any value to your games and system?? Not to me because to me it made the snes felt more like kinder garden level(why would you wanna play street fighter 2 or killer instinct on supergameboy if you could just play the much better more appealing snes versions of it???)

5,sega had the sega CD but nintendo stupidly cancled their snes CD-rom addom,with big concequences later on,

6,the  sega genesis uses a slightly faster cou along with sram in it’s cpu while the snes not only had a much slower cpu but it also used dram in it’s cpu and most snes games just used sluggish & slow lorom chips in it’s cartrides thus futher limiting it’s speed on snes.

7,while the genesis just looked cool but the snes looked more like an ugly giant againg brick,

8,the genesis did undergo many revisions including revision under other brand names,the snes did hardly undergo any revision,

9,while the genesis only had a low colorpallet and it only could view 64 colors atonce BUT. By using shadowing,more colors could be displayed,also most snes games didn’t look all that much better since they only used 90 colors(yes the snes did had builtin mode 7 and 4 background layers but most games atleast used 2 to 3 background layers,while on the genesis despite it can only view 2 background layers,extra layers could by fakes trough parallax scrolling or trough tile updates,and while the snes does have builtin mode 7, but so can the genesis do it trough software,

10,both game systems do have identical games on it like earth worm jim,mortal kombat 1.2.3,super and normal street fighter 2 etc,,, but the differences between those 2 versions weren’t like night and day no,they still did come close to those original source or arcade versions of it,sure if we would push both systems to it’s ultimate limit with all tricks,

11.games such as aladdin and earth worm jim etc,, on the genesis were considered by many to be better on the genesis then on the snes.

 

etc,,,

 

so that’s why i am amezed that the snes sold eventually better with 20 million units sold more then the genesis,yes nintendo did had it’s own ip’s like mario,zelda,metroid,kirby,donkeykong country,starfox etc,,,

but still i can hardly imagine that according to many articals that the snes just sold better because of it’s own ip’s and mode 7???

sure there was mario kart,f zero and pilot wings wich did make great use of mode 7 but were all those games among others realky a detriment in the 16bit wars?? 

 

sure the snes graphics & sounds might be miles better then that of the genesis if we push both systems to it’s absolute max ,BUT i have to see to believe it,

 alltrough i can imagine that the 32X did caused a damage reputation to the genesis as sega now wanted to convince everyone that the 32X would be the ultimate arcade upgrade for the genesis(no wonder the 32X covered the 16bit logo of the genesis)BUT most 32X games were just minor upgraded genesis games and that addon looked more like a ugly poisoned mushroom wich probably killed the genesis by it’s waaay too long life support,

BUT apart from the genesis should,ve outnumbered the snes ,BUT somehow the genesis started selling slooow in 1988 and it was not untill sonic the hedge hog caused the genesis to sell and spreaded like wildfire across the globe (also since sonic was everything mario was not)

[Kirk_Johnston]

It's not really that shocking:

 

1. It had more immediate and measurable appeal in terms of noticeably better looking visuals (usually clearly more colours, proper transparency, more background layers, the showcase Mode 7 effects, etc) and superior sounding audio to the average gamer (with realistic sounds and some games even uniquely supporting Dolby Surround sound at the time).

 

2. It had a much larger overall games library (more than twice as large), with more than double the number of million+ selling titles, with its top selling game selling more than the Genesis' top selling games too (so its most popular titles were just more popular in general), and many of which still appear on most Top 100 Games of All Time lists vs the Genesis that usually has zero titles on said lists (which speaks volumes).

 

3. It had a vastly superior and, at the time, somewhat revolutionary controller in the box that is the single most important direct connection point between the player and the games, so hugely impactful when people saw what they were getting when they bought the system.

 

4. It had the Nintendo brand vs the Sega brand, and Nintendo was always going to win that battle.

 

5. It came bundled with what many people still consider one of the greatest game of all time, Super Mario World, which was a huge system seller on day one.

 

6. Nintendo continued to push the core experience right up until the end with revolutionary titles like the Donkey Kong Country series and various enhancements chips that allowed for some pretty stunning games at the time like Star Fox, Doom, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Yoshi's island, etc, which were all huge names and didn't release on Genesis, and it didn't require spending $150-$400 extra on bulky hardware add-on to play games like those either (one add-on of which was moderately successful and the other a total flop, fragmenting the audience and tainting the Sega brand among consumers).

 

Other that Sega's brilliant "Genesis does" and "Blast Processing" marketing campaigns, Nintenso made the better product decisions and business moves almost across the board, and certainly from the average gamer's and consumer's perspective.

 

So, maybe it's just me, but I can see why the SNES overall won the console war.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Kirk_Johnston

[DavidD]

It also got the Donkey Kong Country games near the end of its life, which helped push it over the top when competing against... whatever mess of CD/32X stuff the Genesis was surviving on at that point.

 

I thought the two were pretty much neck-and-neck until the Genesis just sort of got dumped at the end while Sega was mismanaging the Genesis/CD/32X/Nomad/Saturn thing/

[Tanooki]

DKC wasn't really end of life, #1 was right in its mid life, November of 1994, each year after (same month) the other two popped up, so by the time DKC3 did show that was quite end of life right with Kirby.

SNES went pretty hard right up through 1995, then dropped off.

 

DKC though did do the obvious one big thing, made a true name for Rare and their work with ACM visuals finding smart ways to down sample complex 3D renders with that ACM technology as it made the SNES 3 years in feel like new again because it outdid other more modern systems output in the 2D front in various ways which said a lot, same visuals that went into the Rare griffey game and killer instinct too, and the non-rare done SM RPG.  SNES was highly capable of a lot without even resorting to magic special tech chips to go ape with, though they really pushed the envelope with some.

[roots.genoa]

I think the fact that the Nintendo 64 was delayed a lot helped the SNES too, like it did for the NES in Europe. The NES had a rough start here, but in the end it sold as much and maybe even more than the SMS, partly thanks to the TMNT bundle. But it was already the early 90s, so if the SNES had not been pushed back until 1992 here, I'm not sure the NES would have been as successful.

 

To me the rivalry between Nintendo and SEGA has always been akin to the fable The Tortoise and the Hare. SEGA often had the head start, but Nintendo always ends up winning in the long run.

[youxia]

On 4/25/2022 at 2:17 AM, johannesmutlu said:

i can hardly imagine that according to many articals that the snes just sold better because of it’s own ip’s

Let's ignore the most glaringly obvious explanations everyone agrees on, and instead produce a list of mostly opinion/emotional/irrelevant arguments to refute it. Tis' the lifeblood of the internet ?

[Kirk_Johnston]

In addition to what I said above, the one other thing I would add that Nintendo did do wrong, imo, was the needless censorship that really did have a negative impact in some meaningful ways (Mortal Kombat anyone), and this aspect still bugs me to this day, as it's forever enshrined in and somewhat taints those particular SNES titles that suffered from it and would have actually been better without it (sometimes significantly so).

 

Outside of that though, I think Nintendo handled pretty much everything else to do with the SNES extremely well. I mean, sure, we could speculate on how truly amazing a SNES with a CPU as fast as the Genesis might have been (and some other technical things like that), but none of the technical things that certain people call out as relative limitations of the console on some hardware level are things that can't be overcome with some great game design and optimized programming, of which there are countless examples of titles in the SNES library of games that are just amazing all round regardless, from the graphics and audio to the controls and gameplay (without any caveats necessary), so I can't hold any particular hardware/technical limitations of the system as true gripes in all fairness. And, I personally think the SNES still has even more to give on that front. . . .

 

So, yeah, I really do think Nintendo did a stellar job with the SNES pretty much across the board--it's just the consistent top-tier level of quality and polish across the whole experience, from the physical hardware and controller to the amazing [and often best-in-class] games--which is why I think it ultimately won the console war, and deservedly so, when all is said and done.

Edited July 30, 2022 by Kirk_Johnston

[CapitanClassic]

On 7/27/2022 at 5:01 PM, Kirk_Johnston said:

2. It had a much larger overall games library (more than twice as large), with more than double the number of million+ selling titles, with its top selling game selling more than the Genesis' top selling games too (so its most popular titles were just more popular in general), and many of which still appear on most Top 100 Games of All Time lists vs the Genesis that usually has zero titles on said lists (which speaks volumes).

 

I suppose if you speak Japanese, then the Super Famicom had more games.

Quote

1757 games were officially released for the Super NES; 717 in North America (plus 4 championship cartridges), 521 in Europe, 1,448 in Japan, 231 on Satellaview, and 13 on Sufami Turbo.

There are 978 Japanese exclusives, 111 US exclusives, and 34 European exclusives.

Sega Genesis

Quote

The system supports a library of 713 games created both by Sega and a wide array of third-party publishers and delivered on ROM cartridges.

You also need to be careful when comparing top selling titles that include pack-in games. 8/10 of the top selling SNES games are pack-in titles.

 

As for Top 100 lists, many times they appear to have a bias towards Nintendo games. Not sure if this is due to the people making the lists being more likely to own a SNES over a Genesis. Many times I still see Genesis games on those lists.

 

Gunstar Heroes - Best run n’ gun from the era. (Seen alongside Contra III (SNES), Contra Hardcore (Gen))

Shining Force II - Best tactical RPG (alongside Warsong (Gen), Ogre Battle (SNES), Fire Emblem (SNES (J))

Streets of Rage 2 - Best Beat ‘em Up (alongside Final Fight (SNES), Golden Axe (Gen)

Castlevania Bloodlines - Almost best Castlevania of era (alongside Rondo of Blood (SNES (J), IV (SNES)

Best remakes of PC Classic - Pirates Gold (Gen), Star Control II (Gen), Sim City (SNES), Star Flight (GEN), Doom (SNES), Civilization (SNES)

 

Then there were genres like Shumups and Sports titles that were better on the whole on the Genesis. It was actually shocking that SNES was able to overcome the 2-year head-start that Sega had with the Genesis/Mega Drive over the Super Famicom/Nintendo. 2-Years is almost half a consoles normal lifetime.

 

Edited July 31, 2022 by CapitanClassic

[NE146]

I don't like talking about markets, sales, consumer trends and demographics etc because I know nothing about them and it would just be regurgitating what others have written about it.  I DO know my personal memory, and spending habits as a gaming consumer back then though.   Basically I got a TG16 at launch, and the around week later, a Sega Genesis. I was totally immersed in the 16-bit era and barely bought new games for the SMS & NES anymore unless it was a huge title like Super Mario Bros. 3. 

 

It's true it was an eternity (2 years) before the SNES hit the U.S., but speaking purely from my perspective as a gamer then, when it came out the graphics and sound coming from the SNES was an undeniable step up from the Genesis & Turbografx. We may mention Mode 7 as a thing but the reality is Mode 7 was HUGE in the gamer community. Smooth scaling and rotation like that on our consoles was never seen before and we all thought it was amazing. F-Zero had such a huge sense of speed, etc. And then the sound in later games like Actraiser was better than anything we got previously. And with Mario, Zelda, and Metroid hitting hard, the Genesis and TG16 libraries felt almost quaint by that point. SNES really took over our attention, while the TG16 petered out. 

 

Anyway as the years went on it became kind of a thing also to compare the Genesis and SNES versions of 3rd party games to see the differences. And we all noticed a jump in quality for Genesis games, e.g. Streets of Rage on down so that was good. I still have tons of favorites on the Genesis (I have one hooked up on my desk right now, while my SNES is in storage). However in the end, back in their heyday while I would still buy Genesis games, I would tend to buy SNES more. And, that's my story.

 

 

[MrMaddog]

Honestly, do people only enjoy video games when they play on the system with the most corporate sales regardless on how the fun games are?

[+wongojack]

My reaction to the thread title is that it was actually surprising to me that Sega ever even had a chance.  From my personal experience, the NES seemed unstoppable. Everyone had one in school, and the hype that went with it like magazines, movies, tv shows, and even breakfast cereal seemed like they left no room for competitors. What Sega managed to do was take the market that Nintendo had dominated and somehow transform the consumer appetite for something slightly different.  They realized that Nintendo's customer was growing up and would want the same type of things just updated for a slightly older age group.  In a way, it is just a simple marketing move - find new customers to expand the overall market.  Well, in this case it was the same customers just older, but the customer average age increased.  Anyway, it was a big risk, but it worked, and they were suddenly on the same playing field.  It is hard to even believe it ever happened.

 

I'm surprised by some things in the discussion.  As an American (who was also the right age for all the Sega marketing), my overall impression is that the Genesis has more games.  I don't mean that I researched it, and in 2022 that I think Sega had more.  In the heyday when both systems were competing against each other, it definitely seemed like Genesis just had more.  More total games and more variety.  All the sports titles were a big deal too.  What's funny is that I read an article once that EA forced Sega to accept their software by reverse engineering the Genesis and creating the games without permission.  If that is true then it was a big accidental win for Sega overall.

 

Looking back now, it seems like the SNES is the easy winner because well . . . Nintendo makes great games and keeps making them (over and over and over), and Sega is out of the race.  Really though, I think if Sega could have somehow not totally botched the Saturn launch and produced an affordable next gen console, they would have been right on track and maybe even still making consoles today.  That is more believable in hindsight than their sudden rise to challenge Nintendo in the late 80's.

[CapitanClassic]

Quote

 

Nintendo makes great games and keeps making them (over and over and over), and Sega is out of the race.  Really though, I think if Sega could have somehow not totally botched the Saturn launch and produced an affordable next gen console, they would have been right on track and maybe even still making consoles today.  That is more believable in hindsight than their sudden rise to challenge Nintendo in the late 80's.

 

With 4 players in the market, I don’t think so. The cost of research and development is too high for their to be 4 video game hardware companies. Sega really couldn’t survive.
 

Nintendo is doing well, because of their strong Handhold market make their hybrid system excellent choice. (Their Wii U was a big flop, and while the Wii was innovative, didn’t most people just own Wii Sports?)

 

Microsoft has always had their PC market to fall back on. They just end up buying all the developers. There first consoles took massive losses, but they made up for it with their online multiplayer with Xbox Live. These days the latest consoles are really just PCs with a digital storefront, and Microsoft keeps buying all the studios.

 

Sony was a dominant force with the PSX original, and PS2. PS3 floundered a little, but a few exclusives and better hardware made some titles stand out as better tban the competition. Their PlayStation Network was once the top digital storefront for consoles.

 

These days, competition from Steam, or mobile storefronts like iPhones App Store probably eat into some of those console game sales as well (it’s all entertainment dollars).

[Tanooki]

Well had Sega been smart and did work it out similarly to Nintendo they'd have stayed more than viable, it would have been a hard nut for Sony and MS, more so MS to crack.  MS or Sony would have been the one to bow out I think, perhaps more so Sony annoyingly, just because they don't have a billion in monopoly funny money lying around to just set on fire and force people to get used to them like MS essentially did bullying their way in.

 

I never felt Sega had more games, that was a marketing lie with the big stack of carts next to a dozen or so SNES games.  Even then as a 13~year old, I knew I was being lied to on TV, same with the bs how the SNES can't do fast games by showing Mario Kart vs Sonic, they wouldn't dare show Road Runner Death Valley Rally which I was familiar with.

 

Sega had an edge because they got out over a year early, close to two, problem is while they could play up a few things, some they were grossly short on when it came to solid detail, good color, clean nice audio that boomed over the old, so they had to get smart.  They went right for the EA throat playing to the growing age group, did the big DOES thing with Madden and Elway out there, etc.  Nintendo sports offerings were crap and that's generous, even after EA put games on there, they were sucky ports they didn't upgrade well.

 

Sega had more than a chance, had they made some higher quality games the first year, and not just some partly dilluted ports of their arcade games, but really tried to push more colors, more cleaner non tinny/muffled audio, set a more (sorry) Nintendo level of quality bar to things earlier, I think they could have had held a slim 1st place, even with their gross stupidity with shoveling out the 32X and moderately so the CD unit(that did fine.)  Saturn was just basically like a slow putin style radioactive poisoning pill, won't get you as fast as cyanide, but saturn to dreamcast you saw the hair go, color flushed away from the skin, things got gaunt, and even when it looked maybe things would be better, it was that high point before the fatal crash of death.

[+Black_Tiger]

The market was smaller early on and the Genesis helped expand it till the SNES showed up.

 

Sega moved on to the next generation while Nintendo continued to milk old hardware the same as they did the previous generation. Sega was competing against themselves and Sony after abandoning the Mega Drive during a larger market than the pre-SNES years.

 

Nintendo gouged both publishers and end users on carts so it was much more viable for them to continue beating the old horse while CD had alteady become the new standard media.

 

Nintendo wasn't winning mass appeal as much as parents and insulated game players who were Nintendoers instead of gamers. The only mags they read if any were Nintendo Power.

 

Nintendo had already locked in Njntendo families with the NES. Telling parents on national television that Sega was selling rape/murder simulators to children kept that base locked in.

 

Aside from the shady and sometimes illegal monopolizing tactics Nintendo used in North America, their holding major Japanese publishers "honor bound" so much for so long kept hit games and major franchises from appearing on Genesis/Mega Drive.

 

Sega was more popular in most countries that Nintendo didn't have power over publishers.

 

Factoring in all of that it's hard to believe that Nintendo only fared as well as they did.

[Hwlngmad]

No, it is really not a wonder when the SNES sold really well in all three main markets (Japan, NA, and Europe) whereas the Genesis/Mega Drive only did well in NA and Europe.  Also, least we forget that Nintendo was coming off of the success of the Famicom/NES and Gameboy and had a lot of momentum despite some parental backlash (at least in NA) by not being backwards compatible.  Granted, they were late to the 16-bit party, but they arrived in style and carved out enough space in the 16-bit field to come out on top above any of the other generational competitors.

[Kirk_Johnston]

3 hours ago, Black_Tiger said:

The market was smaller early on and the Genesis helped expand it till the SNES showed up.

 

Sega moved on to the next generation while Nintendo continued to milk old hardware the same as they did the previous generation. Sega was competing against themselves and Sony after abandoning the Mega Drive during a larger market than the pre-SNES years.

 

Nintendo gouged both publishers and end users on carts so it was much more viable for them to continue beating the old horse while CD had alteady become the new standard media.

 

Nintendo wasn't winning mass appeal as much as parents and insulated game players who were Nintendoers instead of gamers. The only mags they read if any were Nintendo Power.

 

Nintendo had already locked in Njntendo families with the NES. Telling parents on national television that Sega was selling rape/murder simulators to children kept that base locked in.

 

Aside from the shady and sometimes illegal monopolizing tactics Nintendo used in North America, their holding major Japanese publishers "honor bound" so much for so long kept hit games and major franchises from appearing on Genesis/Mega Drive.

 

Sega was more popular in most countries that Nintendo didn't have power over publishers.

 

Factoring in all of that it's hard to believe that Nintendo only fared as well as they did.

NES sold 61.91 million units alone in the 8-bit generation, which is not that far behind both the and Genesis and SNES combined by the end of the 16-bit generation. And the Genesis had only sold a couple of million units worldwide by the time the SNES came out. So I'm not sure you're accurate in saying the market was smaller earlier on and the Genesis helped expand it until the SNES showed up. Certainly, Nintendo's 8-bit console far outsold either of those 16-bit consoles the generation prior. I think it's probably more likely the Genesis helped us move into the next generation of consoles, and then the SNES finished the job on that. And, while we can debate how well Nintendo could have done in this situation or that, around 10-20 million more units sold than the Genesis is faring pretty well. I mean, really, it comfortably won in terms of total sales.

 

Now, in terms of games, well, it has not far off 1000 more games than the Genesis in total (across all territories), it has 40 titles that sold over 1 million units vs the Genesis that has 16 titles that sold over 1 millions units, it's highest selling games sold more than the Genesis highest selling games, and many of it's best games still appear in every Best Games of All Time list to this day, whereas usually no Genesis titles do, which speaks volumes. This may just be a bunch of numbers for the most part, but they still all favour the SNES.

 

Given the Genesis had a two year head start across the world and the SNES still outsold it by multiple millions of units by the end, and its best games are still held up as the pinnacle today, and even the fact the recent SNES Mini sold 5.28 million units and the Genesis Mini didn't even break 1 million, which goes to how many people actually still care about each system in modern times, I think Nintendo did very well with the SNES overall, both in the original days of the console wars and ongoing.

 

Honestly, outside of the needless censorship, I don't think we could have asked much more of Nintendo at that time.

 

Much of the other stuff you are saying is not actually true but rather what you think could or should be true (although some of it is true, like Nintendo being a bit of monopolistic douche back then). I mean, in the UK, one of the most popular gaming magazines by far at the time was Mean Machines, which later became Nintendo Magazine System (the official Nintendo magazine in this country), and Nintendo Power wasn't even on sale here. So, certainly for most of the people in the UK, the Nintendo-related magazine they were reading was kickass, and imo still one of the best video game magazines of all time. Go check some of the issues out and see for yourself: https://archive.org/details/mean-machines-magazine

 

Edited August 1, 2022 by Kirk_Johnston

[+jeremiahjt]

I love watching Nintendo fanboys talking about how great (insert whatever Nintendo product here) is and how much better it is then (insert whatever non-Nintendo product here). It is like clockwork.

[DavidD]

1 hour ago, jeremiahjt said:

I love watching Nintendo fanboys talking about how great (insert whatever Nintendo product here) is and how much better it is then (insert whatever non-Nintendo product here). It is like clockwork.

I feel like you could replace every instance of "Nintendo" with either Atari or Sega and you'd have an equally meaningful point.

[Tanooki]

Black Tiger seems to have a genuinely warped sense of reality, it was humorous fan fiction.  Sounds like saltiness at its best.  I guess the books, the wikipedia(it's getting more fiction these days too), researched archives, they're all incorrect...and the sales figures too.

 

Look I won't dispute the shittier realities of Nintendo's antics with borderline monopolistic like tactics when it came to strong arming publishers for a few of the earlier years, and retail a little beyond that to keep the likes of Tengen etc out of stores and the SMS a bit before that.  But by 1989 when the TG and Genesis hit, their reign of terror outside of their censor nazi like tactics that got them embarrassed and largely 180'd over Mortal Kombat iced that.  But to act like the world middle fingered Nintendo outside the US is comedic, and I don't mean observational humor either.

 

The only hard grip Nintendo didn't have was south america, especially in Brazil and surrounding nations, tectoy was and is god as far as gaming goes they are more Sega than sorry ass Sega has been for 20 years.  Japan was all up in Nintendo's business until NEC made the look like fools with the PCE, it toppled the sales of the FC for a good fair stretch, the come up of the SFC kind of in 90 but really into 91-92 pushed them back, then their asinine bungling of the PC-FX.  The NA market, Nintendo 8bit was clear, 16bit was a fight, the dominance wasn't as long as people glory wish over.  Europe, again Nintendo was largely the long game, the very long game, more than it was with the SNES too, it was more of a slow agonizing creep in the late years they caught up and went over Sega where it could have stayed parity of they hadn't hosed up their legacy into ashes with crappy add-ons and the Saturn meltdown.  Some parts of europe, thanks to Bergsala were like ground zero Nintendo, especially their home market as they went straight to Japan to kiss the ring and get special privileges.

 

The only place Nintendo had it easy was a few years of the 1980s, like half of the key life of the NES, otherwise it has been a well done fight, or taking second even, well up into the Wii with their waggle dementia that sucked in 100+ millions of units sold.  The only other easy, clearly, was never console, as their really key and misunderstood and mocked legacy is handheld.  Gameboy and DS made the handheld market their legacy.

[+jeremiahjt]

On 8/2/2022 at 1:30 AM, DavidD said:

I feel like you could replace every instance of "Nintendo" with either Atari or Sega and you'd have an equally meaningful point.

Not even close. You have Nintendo fanboys that went from NES to SNES to Nintendo 64 to GameCube to Wii to WiiU to Switch and will argue that every single one of those consoles is better than any of their competitors. Some of those people have never even owned a non-Nintendo console.

 

Sega and Atari fans are no where close to that. You should have spent some time on NintendoAge before the exodus.

 

I have been accused of letting nostalgia cloud my judgment for just saying one game on a non-Nintendo console is better than its Nintendo counterpart. One game.

 

That being said I have no idea about Microsoft or Sony fans and what they are like.

[DavidD]

4 hours ago, jeremiahjt said:

Not even close. You have Nintendo fanboys that went from NES to SNES to Nintendo 64 to GameCube to Wii to WiiU to Switch and will argue that every single one of those consoles is better than any of their competitors. Some of those people have never even owned a non-Nintendo console.

 

Sega and Atari fans are no where close to that.

 

....

 

See, I could be slightly wrong, but I have this vague feeling that... some of that same behavior COULD be attributed to some folks in these very forums, with regards to Atari.

 

Again, I could be entirely wrong, but...

[CapitanClassic]

I wouldn’t call myself a fanboy of any of the systems, but I did live through the Sega v Nintendo  console wars and there were fanboys who would quote off all the ad talking points. (Hell, I remember the Atari v Intellivision ad wars too).

 

At the time, I owned both systems, picking them both up used with only a couple games. The advantage of owning both was a larger rental market ($3-$5 for a rental was much better than $50-$70 a game). I could appreciate the strengths of both systems, (with the GEN, just processing speed and better marketing arguably) and didn’t subscribe to advocating for one manufacturing camp over the other. If we had the money, I would like to own them all, but sadly systems like the Neo-Geo were out of reach.

 

I don’t think I ever met a PSX fanboy, as it clearly dominated during that console generation. Sure, the N64 ran smoother (lacked detailed PSX textures) the premium +$20 price tag of cartridges made it less desirable. Similarly, the Saturn looked better, especially for 2D sprites, but the difficulty of developing for it kept most 3rd party developers off the system.

 

I don’t think it was until the PS2 and Xbox that I saw Sony/Microsoft fanboys. And there, the death of HD Video and growth of Blue-Ray made PS2 the clear winner. At the time I worked for a GameStop, so I pretty much picked up every system and good games on the cheap.

[MrBeefy]

?????

 

I don't think the Super GameBoy pushed SNES above Genesis but the idea that was kindergarten is absurd.

 

I think this missed some like the FF Legends and Donkey Kong, but you get the idea.

 

 

[Tanooki]

You know to be fair the expansions both in a way helped at a core level both consoles.  Core only, after that, it only really helped Nintendo in the big picture.  Sega did great with the CD unit, had a good number of solid games and had good support for a stretch too but where the core idea was good and execution wasn't is what screwed them.  The 32X, a fracturing of the market at a bigger cost then wiping out it pretty fast.  Trying to re-use that in a gag worth $100 price tagged one off SVP in the epic Virtua Racing.  Then killing the CD before it should have because Saturn, a system that really fubar'd, and because it was so screwed they threw the equivalent of a boss baby level corporate temper tantrum and middle fingered all their consumers and shit canned anything Genesis and Game Gear related entirely to push too little too late for the Dreamcast.  The only reason the Genesis and GG alone lasted and competed more wasn't Sega and their bs, it was Majesco Sales who got the rights to peddle both as new systems once more (Gen 3, GG with gray ovals different color buttons) and re-packaged quite a few games in cardboard boxes, cheap, a huge run of killer million sellers.

 

Then there was Nintendo, and I'm leaving another sega tidbit in here too, largely they didn't crap the bed except for the Super Scope, which went over as badly as the equally ill conceived equally overbearing (size and swing of it) Menacer... Why have a nice light comfy gun when you have bazooka or some b-movie sci-fi machine gun?  Yay?  Then here's where it deviates really.  SNES Mouse, sure it went with a genius art app Mario Paint but the total number of games that outright used it, and some that stealth used it was a lot, and very well done, some games just outright played better entirely with it including some very nice PC ports like Civilization and Lemmings 2.  And where the SVP was a costly joke at $100, you could buy DSP1-4, FX1+2, SA1, etc chipped games for a MSRP of $50, though some greedy stores did shoot for $60 which is lame, but happened.  Each of those may not have been as console level addon beefy as the SVP was like the stripped down little island of 32X it kind of was, but wow the specialized chips pulled off quite a lot.  Some just allowed for a bit more math to get away with more even out of the gate with Pilotwings, more advanced stuff such as effectively doubling the main CPU and quicker(SA1) was another, and yet another allowed for complicated math and more memory that allows stuff from Starfox1+2 to DOOM to the crazy motions layers and rotating sprites of Yoshis Island too.  And then, yes, what was just brought up, adding the entire Gameboy global library to your SNES in a respectably large window with perks, sometimes, many perks.  Super Gameboy with the borders, various levels of added color (lazy 4 shades to like 10-16 or so in a few colorized by section), preset colors for some games, digital audio including speech, even havnig a hidden SNES game inside in the case of Space Invaders.

 

So yeah, both did more with the hardware, but one largely won at it and the other bungled and then shot themselves not only in the foot, but the other foot, then knee capped on both of those as well.  Sega had no real way to win with all the repeated poor life choices they executed in a short order of time in around a 5 year spread in the 90s.  Gamers may not have realized it yet, but by about the time Donkey Kong Country came out (1994) they had already committed suicide, just a slow one.

[MrBeefy]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

You know to be fair the expansions both in a way helped at a core level both consoles.  Core only, after that, it only really helped Nintendo in the big picture.  Sega did great with the CD unit, had a good number of solid games and had good support for a stretch too but where the core idea was good and execution wasn't is what screwed them.  The 32X, a fracturing of the market at a bigger cost then wiping out it pretty fast.  Trying to re-use that in a gag worth $100 price tagged one off SVP in the epic Virtua Racing.  Then killing the CD before it should have because Saturn, a system that really fubar'd, and because it was so screwed they threw the equivalent of a boss baby level corporate temper tantrum and middle fingered all their consumers and shit canned anything Genesis and Game Gear related entirely to push too little too late for the Dreamcast.  The only reason the Genesis and GG alone lasted and competed more wasn't Sega and their bs, it was Majesco Sales who got the rights to peddle both as new systems once more (Gen 3, GG with gray ovals different color buttons) and re-packaged quite a few games in cardboard boxes, cheap, a huge run of killer million sellers.

 

Then there was Nintendo, and I'm leaving another sega tidbit in here too, largely they didn't crap the bed except for the Super Scope, which went over as badly as the equally ill conceived equally overbearing (size and swing of it) Menacer... Why have a nice light comfy gun when you have bazooka or some b-movie sci-fi machine gun?  Yay?  Then here's where it deviates really.  SNES Mouse, sure it went with a genius art app Mario Paint but the total number of games that outright used it, and some that stealth used it was a lot, and very well done, some games just outright played better entirely with it including some very nice PC ports like Civilization and Lemmings 2.  And where the SVP was a costly joke at $100, you could buy DSP1-4, FX1+2, SA1, etc chipped games for a MSRP of $50, though some greedy stores did shoot for $60 which is lame, but happened.  Each of those may not have been as console level addon beefy as the SVP was like the stripped down little island of 32X it kind of was, but wow the specialized chips pulled off quite a lot.  Some just allowed for a bit more math to get away with more even out of the gate with Pilotwings, more advanced stuff such as effectively doubling the main CPU and quicker(SA1) was another, and yet another allowed for complicated math and more memory that allows stuff from Starfox1+2 to DOOM to the crazy motions layers and rotating sprites of Yoshis Island too.  And then, yes, what was just brought up, adding the entire Gameboy global library to your SNES in a respectably large window with perks, sometimes, many perks.  Super Gameboy with the borders, various levels of added color (lazy 4 shades to like 10-16 or so in a few colorized by section), preset colors for some games, digital audio including speech, even havnig a hidden SNES game inside in the case of Space Invaders.

 

So yeah, both did more with the hardware, but one largely won at it and the other bungled and then shot themselves not only in the foot, but the other foot, then knee capped on both of those as well.  Sega had no real way to win with all the repeated poor life choices they executed in a short order of time in around a 5 year spread in the 90s.  Gamers may not have realized it yet, but by about the time Donkey Kong Country came out (1994) they had already committed suicide, just a slow one.

Bu-bu-bu...but NHL 94!