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

[sieanr]

MikeB said:
@ sieanr

You try to be funny?

The Snes was built to be cheap.

The Amiga in 1985 was the first PC to display photographs in up to 4096 colors simultaneously (while PCs and Macs usually only offered 2 colors), the sound chip offered great quality stereo audio even today capable of playing back near CD quality MP3s (while the PC could only beep internally and the Mac was silent), it had a pre-emptive multitasking operating system (while mac and PC were single tasking for a decade to come), does that sound cheap to you like a Snes?

Anyhow a lowend homecomputer model based on these specs was released in 1987, the Amiga 500:

Amiga 500 game examples:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zDQUQwrBTM4
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zCqLqj3QOEQ
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bEJpvUVPCtw
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1E4QwETXZ5o

The Snes is 1990's hardware, released in Europe and Australia in 1992. IMO nothing really topped its launch title Super Mario World, there didn't seem to be any real learning curve for developers and not much more hardware potential to tap into. IMO the Snes was lacking severely in game gerne varierty.

The Snes was a lowly specced game console, hence cheap.

Didn't you claim that you've never owned a console before the PS3? If so, your claim that nothing beat SMW is suspect, just like you claim GOW2 is the best game visualy of last gen.

Furthermore, you've clearly never played Yoshis Island or DKC, which wiped the floor with SMW graphically. Oh, and the SNES sound chip could also produce near CD quality sound, its just that space was a concern on carts.

My comparison was speaking of how similar the design approach of the two consoles is, and last time I checked price doesn't dictate design approach. Both used powerful audio and visual coprocessors to take the strain off the CPU. This was different than the MD which had the CPU make up for the deficiencies of the sound and video processors. Certianly, you can agree that the custom PPU and Sound chip in this SNES is just like how the Amiga was designed. And surely you can agree that this is a far more valid comparison than a quirky processor being compared to the amiga.

Maybe some of your disdain for the SNES comes from the fact that it helped kill what was left of Amiga in the early 90s..

BTW, you may want to avoid bringing up the 500 - it wasn't the most powerful home computer of its era.

 

 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.

I know about the Neo-Geo.

The thing is, it was originally arcade hardware. When SNK came around to making the AES (console verrsion) they only sold it to hotels. There was some demand from a very vocal, hardcore group of individuals and SNK decided to offer it to the public. The system was never really marketed to the mainstream and was never intended to capture a large market - it was just a profitable side project in SNKs eyes.

Strictly speaking, it can be counted. However, I think the Jaguar is a far better argument for power =/= winner, the Neo-Geo is just such an odd example.