Has anybody else noticed this? SNES gave Genesis/Turbo-Grafx a 2 year head start, N64 gave PS1/Saturn 1 1/2 year head start, GC released 1 year after PS2 and 2 after DC, Wii 1 year after 360.

SNES dominated Japan but they could have beneffited alot by releaaing it holiday 1990 in NA. Super Mario World being a launch title could have overshadowed Sonic which didnt come til June 91 which at the same time would have affected Genesis as a whole and possibly given SNES the lead much sooner.

N64 hardware was ready in 95 but the software wasnt, just for the sake of argument lets assume thanks not the case. Saturn stumbled out of the gate and PS1 was still unproven. There first full would see both N64 and PS1 build solid libraries with Mario 64/Mario Kart/Shadow of the Empire/Turok/Killer Instinct vs Crash/Twisted Metal/Tomb Raider/Resident Evil/Tekken but I see N64 selling better initially due to the more established franchises. 1997 would be an interesting year with Final Fantasy 7 vs Ocarina of Time. Overall in NA I imagine N64 selling better initially but PS1 eventually surpassing it, sales about N64 25-30m, PS1 30-35m. PS1 would have won Europe handily since it was the only console heavily marketed there and dominated Japan due to Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest.

If SNES outsold Genesis in NA from the get go and Saturn doing even worae due to a second strong competitor coming earlier, I xould imagine Dreamcast never being made. GC launching holiday 2000 with a few late N64 games like Majoras Mask and Perfect Dark being switched to launch GC games could have greatly helped it sell. Majoras Mask would have given fans the realistic Zelda they wanted and Perfect Dark could have given it alot of the shooter crowd that Xbox got due to Halo. By the time Xbox came out PS2 would have already had games like FFX/MGS2/GTA3/DMC with GC having Zelda/Perfect Dark/Smash Bros/Pikmin/Luigis Mansion. Both those consoles having established userbases and high quality ezclusives could very well made Xbox a failure and decide not to continue the console business. Overall sales could be about PS2 120-140 million, GC 40-50m, and Xbox 10-15m.

With Sega and Microsoft out of the hardware business it would still be just Sony and Nintendo. Had all those previous things happened its likely Nintendo wouldnt have gone the Wii route and istead released a console in 2005 thats right in between Wii and 360 power wise for $300-350. Having a head start and major price advantage would have kept Nintendo in the lead for the the firat part of the generation. Both consolea selling 80-120m.

I know its impossible to tell how things would have gone but I find it interesting thinking about gow Nintendo would do without giving up 1-2 year leads almost every generation.

Nintendo of Japan don't care about their competition. They design and release hardware in a vacuum.

This is actually a good strategy, because they've always been profitable (until 3DS) and their competitors have lost money despite being "ahead" in time and unit sales.

Your mistake is thinking about it as a "console war" when actually it's a profit/loss concern only.

Due to Nintendo milking NES for profit maximization, which was the right thing to do at the time by the way.

Being a relatively small company doesnt help either.

Nintendo does what it wants when it wants, it's Nintendo's world and we all just live in it!

Is this one of those "comedy threads" because the Wii HD released two years late?

No SNES/N64/GC were all 1-2 years late and I think that has a paet in the reason those consoles consistently sold less than there predeccessor. Obviously its not the whole reason or even the biggest reason but I still think it contributed to it.

I agree business is about profit and not who sold more but dont u think if NES/SNES/N64/GC all sold in the 40-60 million range thus selling more software and killing off some of there conpetitors would have made them profit more?

I would kill for a Nintendo and Sony market. SEGA would be cool to have back and replace MS. That way we have our competition but it's easier for those 2 to thrive. Devs would still have to compete as well so innovation would come in the most important areas. Sony would still have to upgrade its online offerings or have to lose customers to Steam.

A few reasons, primarily Nintendo HATES to kill off a system before they have bleed it dry or gotten all potential software released on it. The last SNES game Nintendo published in Japan was in 1999, if they don't have to, Nintendo would not release new hardware for over a decade. See the original Game Boy, it took the combined threats of Neo Geo Pocket, two or three versions of Wonder Swan and a few other would be competitors to force Nintendo to release more modern hardware incrementally until they hit GBA. Heck, if there was no PSP or Vita, we probably wouldn't have seen the DS or 3DS at least until a few years later when cell phone gaming started to become a issue.

Personally, the GC wasn't released late, it arrived the same year as the Xbox if I remember right which was a year after the PS2. While the N64 was struggling in some areas, it was still profitable enough to survive in NA and had decent 3rd party support even in its last year. The Wii was probably a matter of them getting the technology just right and at the right price but the GC was released at the perfect time, Nintendo just chose the wrong software medium like they did with the N64.

The Wii had a longer support life than any other Nintendo system, but was dying hard without good online and HD visuals.