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Playing Catch-up. . . .


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Note, I'm not trying to hate on Genesis here, merely making an observation, but, anyway. . . .

 

I was watching a video on the SNES and its top games today, and it just occurred to me how often the Genesis was actually playing catch-up to the Super Nintendo, despite releasing two years earlier:

 

SNES launched with a sate of the art 6-button controller in the box, and Sega released its 6-button Genesis pad some time later to make up for missing that capability.

The seminal Super Mario World was bundled with the SNES', establishing the platformer as the flagship genre for the system and Mario as the system mascot, and Sega developed its own Genesis mascot and flaghip platformer to bundle in with the Sega Genesis in direct response.

Mode 7's full background rotation/scaling/sheering was one of SNES' most stunning graphical showpieces and defining USPs, and later on, quite a few developers on Genesis started trying to mimic the effect.

The Super Scope was released for SNES, and Sega released the Menacer in response.

The huge arcade hit Street Fighter II launched on SNES first, and later on Street Fighter II Champion Edition game to Genesis.

The extremely popular Final Fight released on SNES, and Sega's response was the original Streets of Rage.

Donkey Kong Country broke ground on SNES with its rendered visuals, and a few games using the same method released later on Genesis.

Super Mario Kart basically created the kart racing genre, and then a couple of similar games came out on Genesis later.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was basically the greatest action adventure of its time, followed later by the very similar Crusader of Centy on Genesis.

The best Castlevania game up until that point released on SNES, followed later by the Genesis Castlevania game. 

The best Contra game up until that point released on SNES, followed later by the Genesis Castlevania game.

The massive arcade hit Turtles in Time released on SNES in 1992, followed later in the year by Hyperstone Heist.

Star Fox released on SNES using the FX chip for stunning 3D visuals, and some time later, Sega released Virtua Racing using its own enhancement chip.

And so on.

 

 

Note: Now, I know some notable games also released on Genesis first and then came out on SNES later (mostly arcade games I'd say, although probably quite a few of those came out before the SNES actually existed on the market, and many of EA's sports games, yet I feel like that was a bit different), but, actually looking at the list of games that saw versions of both consoles and when each version released respectively, it's the big titles (outside of the sports category, which was admittedly huge and clearly had a big impact in America and Europe), the ones that most people actually talked about in school playgrounds back in the day (especially the massive arcade hits of the time), that actually released on SNES first and later on Genesis, and therefore, it must have been a huge deal and feather in the SNES' cap in the heated competition between the two consoles at that time.

 

And, in any of the ways Genesis got there first, it seem Nintendo just didn't even care to copy or chase them but rather do its own thing (online service, CDs, its own arcade ports, etc), which I think shows how relatively unimportant those things were in the bigger picture, with, I guess, the only thing Nintendo copied Sega on that actually had some notable impact, was the more aggressive and edgy older-gamer marketing. But, outside of that, it just never really felt like Nintendo was doing something on SNES because it saw Sega doing it on Genesis first, either in terms of the hardware or the software; it just seemed to do its own thing and set many of the standards of the time and created some of the most memorable and defining moments in gaming in the '90s as a result.

 

Or, if you think about the pinnacles of each genre in the 16-bit era, you could easily put a SNES game or two at the very top of many categories and notice how the Genesis equivalent was either released later or basically trying to reach that same level of greatness but not quite getting there, which still feels a bit like playing catch-up:

 

Platformers: Super Mario World, Super Mario All-Stars, Donkey Kong Country 1/2/3, Yoshi's Island

Fighters: Street Fighter 2/Turbo/Super/Alpha 2, Mortal Kombat 2, Killer Instinct

Racing: Super Mario Kart, F-Zero, Top Gear 2

Beat 'em up: Turtles in Time, Batman Returns, Knights of the Round, King of Dragons, but I still think this category goes to Genesis for Street of Rage 2 alone

Puzzle: Tetris Attack, Tetris, Dr Mario

Shump: Gradius III, Super R-Type III, Parodius (series), Super Aleste, Axelay, U.N. Squadron, Star Fox

RPG: Earthbound, Secret of Mana, Chrono-Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Final Fantasy VI

Action Adventure: A Link to the Past, Mystical Ninja (series)

Run 'n' Gun/Action platformer: Contra III, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Super Castlevania IV, Super Metroid (probably not quite in this genre), Mega Man X/X2/X3

Sim/Strategy: Sim City, Actraiser (also part Action-Platformer), but this category probably to Genesis

Sports: Punch-Out!!, Super Tennis, International Superstar Soccer, but this category goes to Genesis

 

Obviously, here we could have so many debates back and forth, with people putting games from one system above the other until the end of time, but that's just rough view of how I think of things.

 

I think that's a major difference between the experience on those two consoles, at least as I suddenly noticed it, and it is possibly one of the reasons why the SNES ultimately won the console war: Sega's Genesis released first and was a great little console in its own right, but, interestingly, it seems like the SNES was actually the leader in the '90s console space that everyone else was often following and trying to mimic and play catch-up at the time (so not as impacting as the first time you saw or experienced something similar) or just match the sheer top-of-its-class quality with certain games and genres (not quite as impressive if they came later, either if some of them were arguably actually better), which I think is actually quite significant a revelation to suddenly have.

 

But, maybe that's just my perception of things as a major SNES fan first, and other people could see it all entirely differently.

Edited by Kirk_Johnston
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I'll start by saying I'm a huge SNES fanboy and have only played a handful of Genesis/Megadrive titles.

It's true that Sega did emulate/copy quite a few things from Nintendo to have an equivalent option on their system.

But I haven't got the impression that it was something they constantly did.

 

Imo, Genesis was king in shmups and other fast pace action games, sports and walking beat 'em ups and had a huge library and head start in those.

And of the top of my head, here are titles that came first on the Genesis and not SNES:

Puzzle - Columns

Beat 'em Up - Golden Axe (atleast in the Arcade)

Racing - Outrun

 

And I don't think it's fair to compare 3rd party developers like Konami releasing something on SNES and then something on the Genesis and to validate that as a catch up mechanic.

3rd party studios want to make money and what better way to release something similar on multiple platforms if the franchise is successful.

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I've got both, but always favored Nintendo, yet years have given me fair perspective on it.

 

The thing is, it's not just Nintendo vs Sega in the golden to modern era of gaming, it's Nintendo vs the competitor where often times they did do something innovative first, or brought up a concept half conceived or dismissed on junky forgotten relics to make them finally mainstream.

 

That whole list up there of Nintendo vs Sega could be something else too not Sega and still remain.  Call out Sony if you want, SNES mouse vs Sega and PS1 mouse.  Or the SNES controller being ripped off hard with the pre-dual shock PS1 pad and there are other things.  Various genres that existed or really were flourished on Nintendo or by Nintendo kept them in check over other guys too, or sustainable even when they had problems.

 

The Genesis though was almost in this quasi-dreamcast kind of location though a decade earlier.  They had this powerful hardware, but to stay in budget, and get it out when they really needed to get it out to get a foot in the door, it was gimped and under tapped.  Dreamcast then PS2 and Cube appeared and what seemed wow, wasn't so much and the other guys grew and took over, although far faster in 99-01 vs 91-95 because the gap was quite larger.  Genesis could make up for some of its crappy limits with too low color and poorer audio just because it could crunch some serious numbers on the faster CPU to allow for as Wayler put it, fast paced games, whatever the genre.  And Sega also had (what later would get called) the dudebro types who just roll right into yearly sports filler titles and live that.  Sega also had more of a head start that time, not so much on Dreamcast but they acted like it without the money to force sticking around (like ms did with its xbox losing billions.)  Some of those crappy limits too, largely the visuals, really had little to no excuse when a year even older system the PCE could put out better visuals and it was partially 8bit hardware as well which is even more pathetic.  IT's why in the home land the PCE knocked the Famicom off #1 and buried the mega drive hard.

 

Sega knew they were kind of screwed, not admitting it, and they'd start making those later copies of really quality SNES titles and accessories too.  The list up there in that first post has it, Zelda vs Centy, SS6 vs Menacer, SF2 to then get CE over a year later, 1st party/Square RPGs vs...Phantasy Star?  It eventually in many ways made the genesis feel like sloppy seconds even if it was the first released in this market.

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On 10/11/2022 at 10:56 AM, Wayler said:

I'll start by saying I'm a huge SNES fanboy and have only played a handful of Genesis/Megadrive titles.

It's true that Sega did emulate/copy quite a few things from Nintendo to have an equivalent option on their system.

But I haven't got the impression that it was something they constantly did.

 

Imo, Genesis was king in shmups and other fast pace action games, sports and walking beat 'em ups and had a huge library and head start in those.

And of the top of my head, here are titles that came first on the Genesis and not SNES:

Puzzle - Columns

Beat 'em Up - Golden Axe (atleast in the Arcade)

Racing - Outrun

 

And I don't think it's fair to compare 3rd party developers like Konami releasing something on SNES and then something on the Genesis and to validate that as a catch up mechanic.

3rd party studios want to make money and what better way to release something similar on multiple platforms if the franchise is successful.

I think the main point I was making with the third party examples is that it seemed the major third party developers of the time really saw the SNES as the main machine they wanted to get their games on first and foremost (even accounting for Nintendo's dodgy business practices at the time), with the Genesis getting support later down the line as another source of revenue. And you can see this in so many games from the likes of Capcom, Konami, Square, Enix, and even id, all console developers and publishers that are right up there as the most important and dominant of the entire 16-bit era, where the SNES really did seem to be their primary focus. EA was the stand out on the Genesis side of things, obviously, and a smaller name like Treasure was dominant there.

 

And with first party titles, outside of arcade ports (which Sega was utterly the boss on), it just seemed Nintendo was always setting the standard in pretty much every genre it touched (well, all those first party SNES games still appear on pretty much all Best Games of All Time lists, which is a testament to just how important they were), with Sega following its lead or simply trying its best to match it.

 

It all goes back to my main thought about it seeming like the Genesis was often playing catch-up to the SNES, despite it coming out two years earlier, which is probably one of the reasons why SNES ultimately won the console war.

Edited by Kirk_Johnston
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The SNES got a lot of third party companies making games for them seemingly because the SNES was selling well in Japan, far better than the Mega Drive/Genesis, and naturally a lot of these developers would go where the money was best made, with some doing games on the MD/Genesis as extra income. Naturally you focus your efforts where the money is flowing the best, and in Japan, where a lot of games came from for both systems, the SFC was the first choice on where to put your efforts for the bigger payday.

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7 hours ago, Bloodreign said:

The SNES got a lot of third party companies making games for them seemingly because the SNES was selling well in Japan, far better than the Mega Drive/Genesis, and naturally a lot of these developers would go where the money was best made, with some doing games on the MD/Genesis as extra income. Naturally you focus your efforts where the money is flowing the best, and in Japan, where a lot of games came from for both systems, the SFC was the first choice on where to put your efforts for the bigger payday.

Yeah, that makes sense.

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