I've seen both consoles at a friends house, got to spend a good amount of time with each, and while the SuperNES is defiitely a powerhouse, the Sega Genesis was the only machine out of the two that actaully made me feel like I was interacting with something 'cool'.
We played Earthworm Jim on both systems and there's no doubt which one looked better. The SNES version. Played Super Mario World also and can't really say I was all that impressed by it. Great grafx, but not really enough going on to make it feel like the best platformer of the gen. Sorta boring after a couple days. Get the mushroom, jump on a goomba, get to the castle, repeat. Cruised around SNES demo cartridge for a bit and there simply wasn't all that much to do, to interact with.
It just feels like a more powerful NES
The Genesis on the other hand, the downgrade in Earthworm Jim grafx notwithstanding, truly felt cool to me. Let me explain that a little bit. Every gamer understands that better graphics won't equate to a better experience, it's the level of interaction you have with the game that matters, and that holds true with the consoles themselves.
Nintendo, again, brought a monster console to the masses, a graphical beast, but did so at the cost of innovation and fun. No one buys a console anymore to just play kid games. Those that think they're having fun are fooling themselves, intentionally, and doing so in an attempt to downplay the advantages that the competitor has.
And this is where the Genesis really shines against the SNES:
"What kinds of games it has, the maturity level, what it offers is a complete package."
The Genesis, right now, can play games the SNES simply can't and will never be able to.
Mortal Kombat on Genesis is awesome, play your game with blood, and fatalities, or rip out your friends heart and eat it... the same game, or something different? Nope, not on SuperNintendo.
Sega CD. We must have spent 45 minutes or so just listening to music CDs, some just a few minutes before we put on another one... everything from Weird Al, to Guns and Roses, and it plays games that are so fun, they blow SNES out of the water, like Dragon's Lair.
It was all amazingly fast, intuitive, and seamlessly accessible right there on the console.
Blast Processing. Say what you want about it, hate on it if it makes you feel better, but the thing is simply awesome and a huge advantage for the Genesis.
Sega does what Nintendon't.
