Was the SNES vs GENESIS battle the most heated one ever?

[Sullla]

The SNES/Genesis console war is the only true one that ever took place, and even then only in America. (SNES crushed the Megadrive in Japan, and it in turn did much better than SNES in Europe.) Furthermore, it only happened at all due to very odd circumstances, mostly notably the SNES coming out a full two years after the Genesis(!) I don't think you'd ever see something like that happen nowadays.

There definitely were a lot of awesome games produced by both sides, and it was a good time to be a gamer. And the 16-bit console war was a LOT more intense than the current one, with aggressive advertising and censorship issues going all the way to the US Congress. (The current "war" is a total farce, as the Wii is a runaway success while PS360 share 90% of the same library. What's at stake there?) But it was definitely a pyrric generation for Nintendo and Sega, as both damaged themselves very badly and cleared the way for Sony to enter the market.

I don't agree that the fans were less intense back then. What takes more courage: screaming profanities anonymously on the Internet, or telling people off in real life? I can't even tell you how many SNES vs. Genesis shouting matches there were in my school 15 years ago... Not to mention, there was no Internet, so you had to get your info from print magazines back then. You should have seen the arguments that a new Gamepro preview would produce!