Hardware First, Software First, Services First: How The Big 3 Sell Their Brands, As I See It

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Shadow1980 said:

HylianSwordsman said:

And how long have we been hearing the higher ups at Nintendo, especially Iwata, say that "software sells hardware"? SNES won its gen not because it was the superior hardware, but because it had Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country, A Link to the Past, and Super Metroid, amongst others.

Well, technically the SNES was the better overall system in terms of hardware as well. While its processor wasn't as fast, in every other metric the SNES outclassed the Genesis. It had more RAM, arguably better sound, could display more sprites, could display more colors on-screen, and had a vastly larger color pallet.

Also, the SNES won primarily because of Japan. The Mega Drive flopped there, coming in third place behind the PC Engine (or TurboGrafx-16, as we know it in the West). In the U.S., the SNES did eventually secure a relatively narrow win, but the limited data we have suggests the Genesis was the top system in 1993 and 1994, and only fell behind after 1995 due to the SNES having better legs. In Europe, the Mega Drive supposedly outsold the SNES by a comfortable margin.

I mostly agree with what you are saying, but I would say the SNES beat the Genesis "in spite of" superior hardware rather than "because of" superior hardware. 

In Japan, Nintendo had a huge software advantage over Sega, which is why they won Japan in spite of having more expensive hardware.  In the US, the Genesis had EA sports, which meant the SNES only had a minor software advantage over the Genesis.  The Genesis had a price advantage (being the weaker console), and so it and the SNES sold fairly close to one another because one had a slight software advantage and the other had a slight price advantage.  By the end of generation 4 both consoles became cheap enough that price became less of a factor, and it was at this point the SNES had better legs due to their software advantage.  So SNES won over the long haul, because Nintendo stayed competitive through software and eventually could make their console cheap enough, but the more expensive hardware put them at a disadvantage for much of generation 4.