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

[Mittens0407]

1 hour ago, Gentlegamer said:

 

The Genesis couldn't even outsell NES before SNES came out.

Outselling a system that had been out for 8 years by year 3 may be a bit of a tall order.

[Gentlegamer]

13 minutes ago, Mittens0407 said:

Outselling a system that had been out for 8 years by year 3 may be a bit of a tall order.

A badass next-gen system should be able to outsell the tired old system. Genesis couldn't touch NES sales in the years 90 and 91.

[CapitanClassic]

8 hours ago, Gentlegamer said:

A badass next-gen system should be able to outsell the tired old system. Genesis couldn't touch NES sales in the years 90 and 91.

It isn’t just a matter of being bad ass, it is also a matter of manufacturing capacity. I think I read that in 1992 (or 1993) SNES and Genesis sold about 4 million-5 million units each. (Don’t know if this is worldwide sales or NA region)
 

But in 1991, the NES had been out for 5-7 years, and had already sold 15 million - 30 million units (NA sales - Worldwide Sales).

Kind of difficult to manufacture 15 million Genesis/mega drives in 2 years.

[Kirk_Johnston]

4 hours ago, CapitanClassic said:

It isn’t just a matter of being bad ass, it is also a matter of manufacturing capacity. I think I read that in 1992 (or 1993) SNES and Genesis sold about 4 million-5 million units each. (Don’t know if this is worldwide sales or NA region)
 

But in 1991, the NES had been out for 5-7 years, and had already sold 15 million - 30 million units (NA sales - Worldwide Sales).

Kind of difficult to manufacture 15 million Genesis/mega drives in 2 years.

But was it that hard for Sega to manufacture and sell the same number of Genesis units worldwide as the NES sold in a year at those times, or indeed more?

 

So, the question is, which system sold more per year in those years worldwide at that time, around 88-91 presumably (basically before the SNES launched), Genesis or NES?

 

Becasue then we can reasonably say if an old outdated 8-bit system was beating a new cutting-edge 16-bit system in sales or the other way around prior to the SNES launching.

 

That's what people are actually going on about, right?

 

And then the conversation can get back to the SNES outselling the Genesis.

Edited April 5, 2023 by Kirk_Johnston

[johannesmutlu]

On 4/4/2023 at 5:18 AM, DavidD said:

All of those three systems also:

• Had controllers with joypads and multiple buttons.
• Connected to the television using wires.
• Loaded video games via ROM cartridges.
• Had a unique Castlevania game.
• Had Lemmings -- which is interesting as, within a generation of game systems, Lemmings would be fully owned by Sony...

AHahaha well yeah that’s true,now i only wish that atari did come in to the 4th gen party as well by coming up with their own 16bit home console system,they could,ve come up with a home consolized version of their atari lynx while remaining it’s compatibility with lynx games,with the only difference that they should,ve added added a smoothing filter to crank up the low 160x102 resolution to become 256x240 pixels for better viewing on televisions,

they also should,ve added 2 controller ports along with rf,composite and s-video out and they should,ve called it the atari panter,that would,ve be a great idea i think😁

[Tanooki]

That's how I read that too, not that Sega needed to sell like 15M units in a couple years, but that they couldn't sell as many of their own systems in A year that NES could in the same year.  That would be kind of damning that some hardware dating back to 1985 (or 83) depending how you viewed things still had more appeal.  I don't have the figures, and finding them could be simple or a guesstimate since people didn't always disclose stuff either, at least not clearly.