Hindsight: Which Console was REALLY more powerful? Super Nes or Genesis

[fallen]

Definitely SNES imo. Basically they were "equal" imo, but the SNES had two great advantages, 256 colors onscreen vs only 64 for the Genesis. This allowed 2D art to really shine on the SNES and still look great today.

I can instantly tell the difference between a Genesis and SNES game just by the muted, somber, color pallet on the Genesis version. An example, Streetfighter on both platforms:

Here is what it would look like on Genny, a dark tone on everything



Here is the arcade version which is similar to the SNES, bright and colorful



Second thing was the SNES's superior sound chip. This really shined too.

Funny because I lived through that era, and prior to release the magazines (wasn't really internet then) talked up SNES "amazing" "Mode 7" scaling and rotation as it's big advantages over the Genesis. In practice though, it ended up not mattering much compared to the colors and sounds issues.

In that vein though I see SNES as a typical poor hardware effort from Nintendo that's seen as good. While I think the SNES is better hardware than the Genesis, I think given how much later it released, it should have been better, closer to an affordable Neo-Geo in power, instead of almost on par with Genesis.

Also the SNES shined towards the end of it's life, notably with a technical showpieces like Donky Kong Country, which was sometimes compared graphically to early Playstation 1 releases! Granted, Nintendo had a habit of including add on helper chips directly in cartridges, and may have done so for DKC I dont recall. Still.