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Sullla said:

I've been kicking around this notion recently, and was curious whether the rest of you think the comparison has any merit. It struck me this past week that the American sales charts are in some ways reminiscent of the famous 4th Gen competition between the Sega Genesis and the Nintendo SNES. Today, the XBox 360 and Wii occupy somewhat similar positions. Think about this:

* The Genesis released well in advance of the SNES in America and built up a sizable user base advantage. Over the course of the generation, the SNES then slowly gained ground on the Genesis and eventually passed it at the tail end of the systems' lives. We may see a very similar track record for the 360/Wii this time around.

* The Genesis (Megadrive) was crushed in the Japanese market by the SNES. The 360 has essentially no chance to avoid a similar fate.

* The Genesis was enormously more popular than the SNES when it came to sports games. (The Madden series started on the Genesis, and didn't even exist on Nintendo consoles until years later.) The 360 clearly has emerged as the dominant sports console in the American market in the current generation; EA doesn't even make Wii versions for some of its major sports franchises (e.g. NHL 08).

* The Genesis was deliberately marketed to an audience of teenage males (remember the "SEGA Scream?"), while the SNES was seen as more of a family console. The parallels should be obvious.

*SEGA produced two add-ons for the Genesis in the form of the SEGA CD and 32-X, costly hardware additions that were less than successful. The 360 has three different SKUs on the market, and the hardware failure rate has been less than successful.

Now just as every generation is the same in some ways, they are all different as well. Gigantic differences this time around include the presence of the PS3 (nothing quite similar in the early 90s), the fact that the 360 is more powerful than the Wii instead of the other way around, the greater financial resources of Microsoft compared to SEGA, and so on - etc. etc. But it seems to me that there ARE some parallels here, with two genuinely different user bases between 360/Wii that are interested in purchasing different types of games. Since the 4th generation is often considered by many people to be one of the best eras of gaming, I don't see parallels as a bad thing.

Crazy thought, or not?


I think it's an okay comparison, but not too good.  One big reason is that your very first comparison is very different from the present situation:  The Wii didn't slowly catch up, it raced ahead like its pants were on fire!  (...MONEY fire!  I am aware this makes no sense)

A more apt comparison to the Genesis/SNES would be IMO the 360 and PS3.  Tell me what you think, please.  Keep in mind that the Wii is not going to be either of these; maybe it can be the Game Boy, quietly taking over the world while the other two much more powerful systems duke it out.  Hey, that's not a bad comparison either!  Anyway:    

*The SNES is the successor to a massively popular console that continued to sell very well even well after the next consoles were coming out, the NES fighting against its next-generation competitor (Genesis) quite effectively.   This perfectly describes the events of the past two years, with SNES>PS3, NES>PS2, 360>Genesis.

*The Genesis is a powerful followup to its moderately successful predecessor, gaining quite a foothold especially among teenage gamers -- but it's not as powerful as its later-released competitor.  The 360 is a lot closer to the PS3 than the Genesis was to the SNES, but the comparison is still pretty good.  

*Anyone else remember SegaNet?  I may be misremembering the name, but (at least in the U.S.A.) there existed a service, delivered over the cable TV network, that allowed one to play dozens of Genesis games "online" for a monthly fee.  I only own a couple of Genesis games, because I played all the rest on this service!  This isn't exactly XBLA, but Sega, just like Microsoft, was pioneering online gaming even then. 

*The Genesis, having had quite a head start to build up momentum, was able to push back against the might of the SNES, controlling Europe outright and waging a grisly war of attrition in America that the SNES only won by outliving its competitor.  Japan, however, was no contest; SNES won it easily and Genesis barely got off the ground.  Reverse America and Europe and I think we have a decent prediction of where the 360/PS3 will end up.  I think PS3 will win Europe more than SNES won the USA, but whatever.  The 360 is continuing to tank in Japan, though probably not as badly as the first Xbox did, while the PS3 is IMO gaining steam.  (Again, comparisons to the Wii are not part of this analogy.)

* * * 

I think the comparison really only begins to break down once you get to the Genesis trying to compensate for its less-powerful hardware with increasingly deperate add-ons.  (I love the Sega CD -- ahead of its time, really -- but the 32X was a bastard child that should never have been spawned.)  I strongly doubt that the 360 will make the same mistakes, HD-DVD player jokes aside.  And no comments about the 20/60/80/?? GB PS3s please -- the 360 has its Elite and more damningly the useless Core.  GB values are merely a function of dropping HDD prices.  



Tag (courtesy of fkusumot): "Please feel free -- nay, I encourage you -- to offer rebuttal."
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