IGN ranks the Atari 7800 over the Sega Master System! Do you agree?

[Zoyous]

3 hours ago, jeremiahjt said:

Yes, all dozen or so Master System controllers I have are all damaged in the EXACT same way.

 

The Master System directional pad being difficult to use is well known. Hitting a diagonal when trying to move in a cardinal direction, or having trouble hitting the diagonal and only the diagonal, have been talked about for a long, long, time. It is not something new, or something I just made up.

Okay. There's a bunch of shit that's been talked about for a long, long time on the internet just because people keep repeating it without first hand experience. Not saying it's the greatest d-pad but somehow I haven't had as much trouble with it as you though.

[Giles N]

Sega Master D-Pad isn’t that great (6,5/10… I can be bribed to say 7/10 on certain games)

 

The 7800 EuroPad is much, much better (8,5/10)

    [The American 7800 Handheld original joystick is for my taste a lousy 3,5/10 or 4/10.]

 

The Nintendo pad is the best one.

(9,0/10 or 9,5/10 - can’t make up my mind)

 

—

 

The SMS was my first retro system to collect for (2015 or 2016) and one of the first things I did, was to get a proper 3rd party d-pad of some quality-build.

 

I want to play the games for what they provide (graphics, sound, framerate, gameplay as coded, lenght of game) not pretending I have to ‘experience it with the full 1988 physical local-store limited selection of hardware controllers’

Edited June 15 by Giles N

[phoenixdownita]

50 minutes ago, Giles N said:

Sega Master D-Pad isn’t that great (6,5/10… I can be bribed to say 7/10 on certain games)

 

The 7800 EuroPad is much, much better (8,5/10)

    [The American 7800 Handheld original joystick is for my taste a lousy 3,5/10 or 4/10.]

 

The Nintendo pad is the best one.

(9,0/10 or 9,5/10 - can’t make up my mind)

 

—

 

The SMS was my first retro system to collect for (2015 or 2016) and one of the first things I did, was to get a proper 3rd party d-pad of some quality-build.

 

I want to play the games for what they provide (graphics, sound, framerate, gameplay as coded, lenght of game) not pretending I have to ‘experience it with the full 1988 physical local-store limited selection of hardware controllers’

I assume your ratings are relative to the 3 you mentioned , I would give a 9 to the Saturn JP pad ( or 2nd gen US, 1st gen was not good), the NES pad is more precise than sms/7800euro but not comfortable (square corners, the other 2 as well) … the NES dogbone a little better (much rounder). 
The sms/7800euro rank lower then the nes, but even the nes is maybe a 7.

Edited June 15 by phoenixdownita

[Giles N]

14 minutes ago, phoenixdownita said:

I assume your ratings are relative to the 3 you mentioned ,

Nothing beyond 8-bit was on my mind really.

I threw in the NES (‘dogbone’, - lols - hadn’t heard that one before) mostly because 3rd party controllers for both SMS and 7800 seems to immitate the NES the closest as to designs. (Of course some variation out there, but at least the ones I found fastest for an affordable price)

 

Strictly, as to thread; the 7800 EuroPad wins over the SMS d-pad.

Edited June 15 by Giles N

[phoenixdownita]

16 hours ago, Giles N said:

Nothing beyond 8-bit was on my mind really.

I threw in the NES (‘dogbone’, - lols - hadn’t heard that one before) mostly because 3rd party controllers for both SMS and 7800 seems to immitate the NES the closest as to designs. (Of course some variation out there, but at least the ones I found fastest for an affordable price)

 

Strictly, as to thread; the 7800 EuroPad wins over the SMS d-pad.

[KrunchyTC]

That controller looks really comfortable!

[phoenixdownita]

1 hour ago, KrunchyTC said:

That controller looks really comfortable!

It is what it is.

What works for me is the rounded corners at the bottom sides, when I hold the old style of pad those corners wedge into my palms, depending on specifics of each design it ends up hurting.

The PCEngine kept that squarish pattern too but Megadrive, SNES, NGCD, etc… moved away from the “brick” style and all of them have much better curved shapes, as for the dpad itself that’s another story.

I liked the 3 and 6 buttons Sega Megadrive dpad and even better with the Saturn JP (the US 1st gen dpad is pretty bad), I was OK with the SNES dpad but I like more the six face buttons to the four that survive to this day, the ngcd clickety pad is very good. I also dig the original ps1 pad, while the asymmetry of the n64 not so much.

 

 

Edited June 17 by phoenixdownita

[+GoldenWheels]

So far as PC-E, The pack in for the Shuttle is one of my favs....those added 'wings' to the square really make for a comfortable controller.

[KrunchyTC]

5 hours ago, phoenixdownita said:

It is what it is.

What works for me is the rounded corners at the bottom sides, when I hold the old style of pad those corners wedge into my palms, depending on specifics of each design it ends up hurting.

The PCEngine kept that squarish pattern too but Megadrive, SNES, NGCD, etc… moved away from the “brick” style and all of them have much better curved shapes, as for the dpad itself that’s another story.

I liked the 3 and 6 buttons Sega Megadrive dpad and even better with the Saturn JP (the US 1st gen dpad is pretty bad), I was OK with the SNES dpad but I like more the six face buttons to the four that survive to this day, the ngcd clickety pad is very good. I also dig the original ps1 pad, while the asymmetry of the n64 not so much.

 

 

My #1 is the analogue Saturn controller. Nothing beats it!

[Geoff Oltmans]

Boy this is a tough one. I'd rate the SMS better than the 7800, BUT I would definitely rate the Lynx better than the Game Gear (despite the SMS and GG common pedigree).

 

[KrunchyTC]

On 6/14/2024 at 8:32 PM, phoenixdownita said:

Not sure “only 1” but extremely few want to touch them, the fact in Europe they had the europads instead is telling.

 

These things:

https://atari.com/products/cx78-gamepad

(the mini joystick comes out like smspads 1st gen)

If given the chance, I'd love to test myself by playing my favorite NES games with the pro line controller 😝

[+GoldLeader]

On 6/17/2024 at 12:01 PM, GoldenWheels said:

So far as PC-E, The pack in for the Shuttle is one of my favs....those added 'wings' to the square really make for a comfortable controller.

 

Oh,  I even have a Shuttle, but it didn't come with the controller!  D'OH!

[Crazy Climber]

Yes, the Atari 7800 was better than the virtual boy

[4300]

I don't see how even the biggest Atari fanboy could put the 7800 ahead of the SMS. The SMS had the better hardware, the better games selection... newer, more advanced games while the bulk of the 7800 catalog was ports of aging arcade games, the SMS sold circles around the Atari and was still being sold in parts of the world decades after it's release, better peripherals....

 

Is IGN trolling?

[Bakasama]

4 hours ago, 4300 said:

Is IGN trolling?

Given what French IGN pulled with Stellar Blade, maybe.

[+jeremiahjt]

13 hours ago, 4300 said:

The SMS had the better hardware

 

13 hours ago, 4300 said:

newer, more advanced games

I assume your two favorite systems are the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5. I mean if the most important thing is having the best hardware and newest games, then those two systems have to be your favorite of all-time, right?

[John Stamos Mullet]

On 6/15/2024 at 4:33 PM, Zoyous said:

Okay. There's a bunch of shit that's been talked about for a long, long time on the internet just because people keep repeating it without first hand experience. Not saying it's the greatest d-pad but somehow I haven't had as much trouble with it as you though.

This is my experience as well. I was the random Sega weirdo in a sea of NES fans growing up, and the SMS pad was never a problem for me. 

[John Stamos Mullet]

13 hours ago, 4300 said:

I don't see how even the biggest Atari fanboy could put the 7800 ahead of the SMS. The SMS had the better hardware, the better games selection... newer, more advanced games while the bulk of the 7800 catalog was ports of aging arcade games, the SMS sold circles around the Atari and was still being sold in parts of the world decades after it's release, better peripherals....

 

Is IGN trolling?

The SMS had marginally better hardware. Tons of flickering, laggy, stuttering games, and more shovelware. 
 

most of the regions the SMS sold better are 3rd world countries where they had no competition. 

[phoenixdownita]

2 hours ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

The SMS had marginally better hardware. Tons of flickering, laggy, stuttering games, and more shovelware. 
 

most of the regions the SMS sold better are 3rd world countries where they had no competition. 

Not so fast if we can believe

https://segaretro.org/History_of_the_Sega_Master_System
 

“By the early 1990s, the Master System (especially the Master System II model) had become the most popular gaming platform in Europe, eclipsing the NES as well as home computers. The Master System's cumulative sales in Western Europe had increased from 700,000 units in 1989 to 6.95 million units in 1993 (including 1.5 million in the UK). In comparison, the NES had sold 5.98 million units in Europe by 1993”

The 7800 world wide total sales are approx 1M, which was the comparison here. UK is not “3rd world country without competition”.

 

Yes the NES won the 8bit console wars at world scale, but the sms did more for Sega especially in Europe than the 7800 did for Atari anywhere, can we agree on that?

 

The same source above says

”Within its first four months of sale, the Sega Master System sold 125,000 consoles to North American consumers[7]. While the figure was bleak compared to Nintendo's, rival Atari 7800 had managed only 100,000 in its first six months of sale.”

again if we can believe it.

[+jgkspsx]

3 hours ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

ignorant nonsense

🙄

[+jgkspsx]

17 hours ago, 4300 said:

Is IGN trolling?

They may have been back in 2009 when this was published.

[roots.genoa]

5 hours ago, jeremiahjt said:

 

I assume your two favorite systems are the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5. I mean if the most important thing is having the best hardware and newest games, then those two systems have to be your favorite of all-time, right?

My favorite system is the 3DS, and I prefer the Switch to both Xbox Series X and PS5 but still, even though I admit I'm not that familiar with the 7800, I don't see how a mildly objective ranking could put the 7800 above the SMS. If the main criteria is the impact on the industry, SMS' impact was clearly bigger, even though it was small compared to a lot of other systems of course. Just look at the sales, dammit.

[John Stamos Mullet]

6 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

🙄

I own both an SMS and a 7800 and have had both since 1987/88.

 

You might not like what I said but it’s accurate. There are some spectacular games on the SMS. But there’s also a ton of shovelware. It’s technically more powerful than the 7800, for sure. 
 

The SMS sold nearly 1.5x to 2x as many consoles in Brazil and Argentina than it did in ALL of Western Europe, and nearly 5x as many as it sold in the US. Most of it was clone/knock offs. The NES had nearly no market there. 
 

but that said - I enjoy and play my 7800 way more than the SMS, even today. 

Edited Monday at 12:30 PM by John Stamos Mullet

[+jeremiahjt]

If the main criteria is impact on the industry, the 7800 ProSystem was the first system to bring us backwards compatibility, right? Backwards compatibility is something the game industry still deals with today. Is there anything the Master System brought us as that is as big of a deal as backwards compatibility?

 

As far the directional pad, you people saying it has never caused you a problem must be very precise in your movements. I will not even bother with the extra weapons in the Wonder Boy games because they get used accidentally long before I need them.

[phoenixdownita]

1 hour ago, jeremiahjt said:

If the main criteria is impact on the industry, the 7800 ProSystem was the first system to bring us backwards compatibility, right? Backwards compatibility is something the game industry still deals with today. Is there anything the Master System brought us as that is as big of a deal as backwards compatibility?

 

As far the directional pad, you people saying it has never caused you a problem must be very precise in your movements. I will not even bother with the extra weapons in the Wonder Boy games because they get used accidentally long before I need them.

Yes back compat with the sg-1000 (sg-1000 II and Mark 3) obviously in JP where those things even shipped (however with a darker color palette).

And as you know the Megadrive kept back compat with sms (but not sg-1000, quite literally the tms9918 gfx modes were not there) via passive adapter, so Sega seemed to care about that aspect.

Edited Monday at 02:48 PM by phoenixdownita