Next-gen console war: The verdict by mcvuk.com

[LordTheNightKnight]

sieanr said:

MikeB said:
@ naznatips

In fact, there is only once in history that the strongest console one the generation and that's the SNES.

The Snes wasn't very powerful, it was about on par with the Sega MegaDrive and much weaker specced than the Neo Geo. So your "rule" still seems to apply.

No seriously, IMO the Snes won because of:

1) Strong popular franchises -> Mario, Zelda, Star Fox, Metroid, and Donkey Kong.
2) Brand recognition and reputation -> The NES was the best sold game console at the time.
3) Cheap.

Now if I compare this to the Playstation 3 situation, there's only a lot of work to do for point 3. But we also know, people are willing to pay for better specs (higher specced 60GB PS3 vs 20 GB PS3 sales), so Sony can aim to educate people on the advantages of better specifications before the PS3 makes it to mass market pricing.

IMO you underestimate the SNES

You see, the SNES is just like the Amiga. The SNES had a, more or less, off the shelf CPU, but just like the Amiga it had custom sound and graphics chips. The PPU in the SNES could do advanced features like mode 7, as well as sprite scaling and rotation the MD could never equal until the Sega CD. Furthermore, the sound chip was very advanced, being able to do stero and simulate surround sound in some cases, as well as having higher sound quality than its competitiors.

It took developers with the Amiga time to fully grasp what the system was capable of, and the same can be said of the SNES. Furthermore, the SNES could have add on chips in the carts which considerable advanced what was capable in the games, ie Starfox, Mario Cart, Yoshis Island, ect. This is similar to how the Amiga had hardware upgrades. The Genesis could do something similar, but add-on chips were used in only a handful of games and were never in any very popular games.

Like the Amiga, the SNES suffered from inferior ports early on. Many early SNES games had slowdown and were quick and dirty ports of MD games. With time, SNES developers came to terms with the hardware and like their Amiga counterparts pulled off things people thought wasn't possible on the hardware - Donkey Kong Country. Also like the Amiga the SNES had a slower processor than its competeitors clock wise (vs the MD), however the SNES CPU could do more calculations per second and was thus actualy faster than its competitor.

The MD had a PPU that was the development of the PPU in the Master System, which was a development of a Texas Instruments PPU used in a console/PC hybrid they made far earlier. While the CPU of the MD was fast, it was tasked with doing most of the actual work in the system. The SNES was just like the Amiga in the sense that the PPU and sound chip took considerable strain off the CPU, freeing it up to do other things.

MikeB, for a system so similar to the Amiga you sure seem quick to dismiss it. This is odd given how interested you are in the similarities of the PS3 to the amiga - even though an comparison is forced as the two systems are only similar in the sense that they are a type of computer and make math calculations really really fast. IMO the SNES is far more like the Amiga is every way imaginable, and thus shouldn't be dismissed.

IMO people bought the SNES becuase of the similarities to the Amiga, thus justifying any compariosons people make between the SNES even when they barely make sense; especially if those comparisons are by a company in press material.

 I'll give the SNES is more powerful than the Mega Drive (although that system was not slouch with 2D graphics), but you forgot about the Neo-Geo.