When you think of a console war there are two generations that stick out with the closest races. That would be the SNES vs the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive and the Xbox 360 vs the PlayStation 3.

This thread is discussing the SNES vs the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive console war. Which platform did you own or prefer? What were you favorite games? 

Also welcome to the new "Retro" section on the VGChartz forums! 

Probably the most iconic "console war" of all time, with both sides going at it with everything they had, and the results in hot contention til late in the game.

In terms of mindshare and sales numbers, this was certainly a heavyweight bout. But in terms of games, I think SNES handles Genesis quite easily. That’s no knock on Genesis, which was a great system. SNES was just that good.

To be fair, Genesis maintains a huge lead when it comes to action titles — shmups, run-and-gun games, beat-‘em-ups, etc. But that’s not enough to match the greatness of the SNES library.

Had a SNES in my childhood. A friend of mine had a brazilian Mega Drive.

To be honest, I love some Genesis games like Sonic 3, Quackshot and Streets of Rage III. But I prefer the SNES. It had my favorite Nintendo library. Plus, games like Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, and Breath of Fire II made me an RPG fan.

SNES was my first console, which my parents bought for me and my brother for Christmas of 1994. To this day, I still think it's the greatest system ever thanks to the sheer quantity of incredible games it has; Mario World, Yoshi's Island, the Donkey Kong Country Trilogy, A Link of the Past, Starfox, F-Zero, Demon's Crest, Super Mario RPG, Kirby's Dreamland 3, Super Mario Kart, the list goes on and on.

I got a Megadrive much later, in 2008, once I had the money to buy my own hardware. While no match for the SNES, I still consider it a great console in its own right thanks to the likes of Gunstar Heroes and Thunderforce IV.

A Super Nintendo and later also a Megadrive - but both I only got in the 2000's after they long stopped selling. In the early 90's I switched from console gaming with NES/Sega Master System (My parents were divorced, I had the NES at my dad's and the Master System at my mom's) to PC gaming, and only came back to console with the GameCube because I didn't have anything anymore at my mom's, and shortly thereafter I bought some second-hand Super Nintendo and Megadrive to fill that gap in my console lineup.

I owned both then, and I own both now. They each have such distinct character and styles, that you can't go wrong owning both. If I had to break them down by genre, it would be the following:

RPGs - SNES

Shooters - Genesis

Platformers - SNES

Fighters - SNES

Beat 'em ups - Genesis

Sports - Genesis

Shmups - Genesis