The Super Nintendo is the only console to be the most powerful of its generation and the best-selling of its generation. Every other generation the most powerful either prices itself out of the market or is too hard to develop for, or both.


For those arguing the Genesis was more powerful than the Super Nintendo, find me a multiplatform game with some screenshots or links to descriptions/comparisons of both. Because I remember Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam being waaaaaay better on the Super Nintendo. And as stated earlier, Genesis had nothing on Donkey Kong Country.

For those arguing PS2>GC, Resident Evil 4 is the game that shows each system's strengths and weaknesses. When ported from GC to PS2, the game went from 2 discs to 1 disc, highlighting the PS2's larger media format. However, this was at the cost of making the game look like total ass, because the PS2 was not as powerful as the GC.

COINCIDENCES!

I REFUSE TO BELIEVE ANYTHING ANYONE ELSE SAYS SINCE THEY ARE WRONG AND I AM ALWAYS RIGHT!

My reply to your other post is, essentially the main body of the post you just replied to.

I can agree that the PS2 was a casual console as well, I guess. However, it was "casual" for a different reason -- some 70% of PS2 owners in a study, at one point, told NPD that they purchased the console primarily as a DVD player. Casual due to movie-playing ability, and casual gaming are really two different things. The Wii is the first casual gaming console, in my opinion. The PS2 was merely a living room appliance to a large portion of its owners -- I don't really think that qualifies.

You can see that the PS2's success didn't really spur amazing profits for Sony, too (from their annual profit margins) -- again probably due to the fact that one of its major reasons for success was apparently due to its utilily as a DVD player. Again, I think the Wii's success will spur greater profits/unit for Nintendo, because people bought it for casual gaming (which Nintendo makes licensing fees from), instead of DVD playing. And again, I don't think that the Wii and PS3/360 are really in the same ballpark, for the same reason.

Its my opinion. You don't need to agree with it, or argue me down. I'm always right anyway. ;)

The end result is that the Wii has never, and will never "defeat" the PS3 or X360. Its only a sideline competition. The PS3 and X360 are the only direct competitors in the current console lineup. The Wii is peerless, and thus, pretty much guaranteed success no matter how the other consoles fare.

I actually expect the Wii's sales to peter out long before the PS2's did, in its relative lifetime, however.  It can't even play DVDs, and the casual gamer market is still, IMO, much smaller than the DVD-watcher market was back then.  I think we'll probably see the PS3 slowly catch up to (I doubt it will ever actually catch it... but it might be close) the Wii over the next few years.  Call me a nonbeliever, if you like. =)

Of course they're in different ballparks. One makes money and the others don't.

But they're definitely competing. They competed for my cashmoneys, and Nintendo won.

Snes didn't "kill" the genesis. It was locked in a tough battle until the end of 1995 and it barely won because Sega stopped making Genesis systems and moved on to the Saturn.

Nintendo lost big market share to Sega in that genereation.

Well most of my other post was  about you saying that the cpu of the ps2 was better than that of the gamcube, but you kind of did reply with your other post.

@The competition thing.        Hm I never thought of it like that, but you could say that for any other console after it started to outsell it's competition considerabely. For example you could say that for the ps1 when it outsold the N64 by nearly 4 times, or the ps2. Of course they can't compete with it now, but when every console had a chance they were all considered competing.

You make a good point that DVD played a very big role in making the PlayStation2 a success. However I don't think that will set Nintendo back at all. You see the people buying Wii are doing so with the new viral marketing scheme of casual gaming. I think that Nintendo will release a new model and continue to target the base that nobody else is.

For example Hospitals are installing Wii's for their aging patients, bringing in Brain Age and other games to help the elderly. I could easily see it being incorporated into the Army , Police forces and other careers. A new America's Army on the Wii including boot camp. Police simulators already use Wiimote like controllers (RCMP Canada) theirs no reason why the Wii couldn't become a very efficient EduWare console.

Unlike PS3/360 Nintendo could maintain the hardware for at least 10-20 years. As soon as the next generation starts up Nintendo could open the development up to homebrew or just make the liscense availible for pretty much anyone. The console could then keep selling as Eduware for use in multiple applications.

Lastly PS2 was most definatly a casual console. Many of the successful games like the Buzz series , GuitarHero, SingStar etc....etc.... You are right that DVD helped it off its feet but I think the feature only helped build a casual user base for Nintendo to steal. I think likely almost everyone who bought a PS2 at one time or another tried picking up a game, likely a casual game. I am pretty sure the PS2 expanded the industry big time.

Fact is those people who bought PS2 as a DVD player are probubly the people buying Wii's. Then theirs the fact that Nintendo is bound to reveal a new model of the Wii sooner or later, every time Nintendo sees success they do end up releasing another model. I see a new model with a larger internal hard drive and DVD playback being released in place of a price drop.

In the end PS2 was casual and brought in tons of non-gamers, those gamers are buying Wii's. Will PS3 find success as a BluRay player, that is possible but the Wii will give it a run for its money!

Power is irrelevant if it's not useable. The Saturn's power was not nearly as useable as the PS1 because the Saturn had two processors: one 2D and one 3D. This negated whatever technical advantage the Saturn might have had over the PS because it was so difficult to actually use that power to create a better looking game than a PS1 counterpart.

Specs don't matter one bit. The proof is in the pudding. SNES games had better graphics than Genesis games. PS1 games had better graphics than Saturn games. PS2 games had better graphics than DC games. In some ways, the PS1 was in fact more powerful than the N64. I know a lot of people who bought a PS1 because of FFVII for its presentation which was unachievable on the N64 because of cartridges.

The only way the ps1 was more powerful than the n64 was the ability to put FMVs on the disk, and some N64 games had FMVs too(not as much as the ps1). Also I don't think he said the least powerful console wins, but the most powerful console never won. I do agree though power had nothing to do with their sucess.

no playstation: no MGS and no FF7. This has got to be the 100th thread on this EXACT topic.