Most of the people on this site will remember the days where the two main players in the game industry were
Sega and
Nintendo, sure you had Atari still flogging the dead horse that was the
7800, Lynx and
Jaguar, or even the
3DO (what the fuck was the deal with that), but if you were anyone between the 80’s and 90’s you either had a Sega or Nintendo; and most people were firmly stuck on one of the divides as supporters.
These reviews only refer to the American and European releases as the Japanese mod everything to shit and bring out the weirdest add-ons that aren’t available in any other country on earth. I have tried to be as objective as possible when writing this based on the information at hand, but of course I lay on a certain side of the divide as usually anyone does, which one do you lie on?
Master System vs. Nintendo Entertainment System
The NES being released in 1985 was the first of the two to brave day light after the
video game crash of 1983/1984 and indeed no matter how much you may dislike Nintendo if it wasn’t for them we could not have the video game market we have today for consoles. The Master System was subsequently released in 1986 trying to follow off the newly regenerated market that Nintendo had found, but the success enjoyed was dependent on the country as Nintendo had dominated the market in some countries. In the US it was a tough market which Sega never managed to get hold of, but in Europe the uptake of the SMS was better actually managing to outsell the NES.
The NES and SMS being the first generation of many consoles to come only had eight bit architecture; the basic NES package being released for $199 came with the famous Super Mario Brothers and two controllers, and the basic SMS package being $200 with two controllers. While the SMS was more technically advanced than the NES Nintendo’s deals with the software companies to provide exclusive content is what made it a never ending uphill battle for the SMS; both had light guns and other peripherals brought out, but the real thing that made the winner of the two were the games.
The NES had the Super Mario series, Duck Hunt, Zelda, Metroid, Donkey Kong, the list goes on, the SMS had… California Games….and uh… Alex Kidd. Ok there was Phantasy Star too but that was just a cheap imitation of Zelda and Final Fantasy, and the SMS also took crappy ports of the Genesis when the Genesis was released; any douche that thinks Sonic on the SMS is as good as the Genesis is just that, a douche.
Out of the two though I would have to say that the NES is the winner due to the fact that they constantly dominated the market with their exclusive games for years, and it took the release of the Genesis to even dent that, and provide the SMS with some decent game ideas that it was seriously lacking up until then. Granted in Europe they did a lot better but the NES always had a better library of games than the SMS ever had, and when you played the original Genesis ports of the SMS games you felt cheated by the crappy version made for the SMS.
Sega Genesis/Megadrive vs. Super NES
For many this is where the crux of the Sega vs. Nintendo battle lies and many have clear standpoints on which they believe is the best and why, trust me this is something you could get physically assaulted on if you push it too far.
Anyway the Genesis was released between ’89-’90 depending on your location and in the US it didn’t instantly impact the gaming world due to the stranglehold the NES had on the market. With a strong advertising campaign aiming the console at more adult gamers in their late teens/twenties, they amassed a strong user base and were able to outplay the NES’s graphics and sound capabilities easily, and with the launch of Sonic they started the biggest console war of gaming history. In Europe they had an easier ride due to the SMS being more popular in Europe, and the later launch date meant they already had a plethora of titles for the user to choose from.
The Genesis was released for $200 with the most notable game available at release being Altered Beast (Power Up!), but went on to have memorable franchises like Golden Axe, Sonic, Earthworm Jim, Micro Machines, FIFA, NHL, Madden etc. The couple of years it had ahead of the SNES was definitely needed as it would not have had nearly the same amount of success if they had both been released at the same time.
The SNES was released in ‘91/’92 for $199 and had a few major advantages over the Genesis’ capabilities. Firstly the SNES had mode 7 rendering capabilities which are why you can have the 360 degree rotation capability you can see in games like Pilotwings and Mario Kart. Secondly the system allowed for sub-architecture CPU’s to give extra power to the main CPU. One example of these extra CPU’s is the Super FX chip that enabled 3d rendering in games like Starfox/Starwing. With the add-ons like these the SNES was technically a more versatile format than the Genesis and the lifespan of the console proved that. Even late into 1994 after the Saturn had been debuted at E3, Nintendo released Donkey Kong Country for the SNES and it was a smash hit, showing that the SNES could still outdo the early 32 bit systems with graphics and quality and is one of the most nostalgic systems of the console wars of the ‘90’s.
The SNES gaming library worked on its previous franchises and produced all time greats such as Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart, StarFox/Starwing, Pilotwings, Legend of Zelda: A Link to The Past and more. The less exclusivity meant that a lot of the games available for the SNES were available for the Genesis, however the genius of the mode 7 capabilities meant that some games just weren’t convertible, an example of this is the Super Star Wars series which used Mode 7 at points in the game. The one game that did use Mode 7 that was converted was Street Racer, the inability to recreate Mario Kart style graphics on the Genesis was drastic as all the Genesis could come up with was a ‘drive into the screen’ format, which died on it’s arse.
All in all the Genesis won out in Europe, and the SNES won out in the US, but for longevity the SNES won much more. Sega attempted to make the Genesis as adaptable as possible to combat the sub-architecture capability of the SNES by releasing the
Sega CD and the
32X. Sega CD games were mostly inflated cursor games with more FMV or simply just Genesis games with slight extras added here and there. The 32x games were nothing more than an attempt to out do the SNES which it failed drastically in from the crappy ports of PC style games like Doom to arcade classics like Primal Rage.
So for the first half of this classic gaming war it mostly looks like Nintendo won with their innovation to introduce ideas like mode 7 and sub architecture of hardware, and the marketing premise to make games exclusive to their console at first. The location of where you lived made a drastic effect on which was the dominant console but at the end of it all Nintendo managed to produce two of the most influential and groundbreaking systems of their time.
Sega on the other hand had a great success with the Genesis after failing to capture the market with the Master System, but relied far too much on the success of the Genesis in trying to compete with the Super NES when they probably should have looked at developing a next generation console instead of investing in the likes of the Sega CD and 32x.
Next Time!: The Saturn starts the downfall of Sega, The N64 triumphs in the last era of cartridge games, and The Dreamcast fails when it should have shone as a peak of achievement in gaming hardware.