Definitely. It's the only one that could have turned out differently. Every other one was an obvious outcome.
I was a Genesis Fan back in the day, but i bought a SNES at the end of the generation and never regretted it, I even payed like $10 back in 98 for Super Metroid and NEVER EVER regretted it (one of the best games ever). However there were great games on both systems, but still to this day if I was to choose one it would be my first system, my genesis, so much 2D Sonic FTW.
Kickin' Those Games Old School. - 201 Beaten Games And Counting
| Impulsivity said: Actually there was this great study. They found that teenagers at the time would not under any circumstances admit they owned a Super Nintendo and not a Genesis. Genesis really did a good job at making it the machine the cool kids had (to the kidish Nintendo system image). Playstation did the same thing if you remember the Crash Bandicoot talking trash in the Nintendo parking lot. It's not hard to be the adult company vs Nintendo when it makes developers censor games like Mortal Kombat for violence (which Genesis did not do). After years of Nintendo when Cid and the rest kept saying s**t in FFVII I was amazed beyond belief. I didn't know people in games were allowed to say anything worse then damn after 10 years in Nintendo World. That said when genesis vs SNES was picking up I was 8 so obviously I went SNES though I had friends with genesis. There just weren't many good Genesis games in the end, almost all the immortal 16 bit games were on SNES especially near the end. Despite that, Genesis was undoubtedly cooler (especially in the US) and I bet if the Saturn hadn't been so bad they could have passed up Nintendo the following generation like Sony did on the teenage and up market. Ever since the PS1 took the adult market pretty securely from Nintendo I think there has been kind of a truce between the two companies. Nintendo dominates the child market (and family market by proxy) along with casual gamer markets (the kind of gamers who make carnival games a 2 million seller) while Sony takes the decided majority of teen and up gamers (the Genesis sweet spot). They really don't talk too much trash because they're not really competing. They overlap a bit but Sony's real enemy is Microsoft and Nintendos....I don't think anyone really bothers fighting with Nintendo since Nintendo is so strong in its segment fighting with them for that kid/family demo is pointless. Besides, a lot of Nintendo players are introduced to video games via Nintendo systems then move to Sony as they got older and God of War starts to look better then Mario (some not all, some will want to play Mario till the day they die). I bet you anything at the end of the day Sony is thankful to Nintendo in a lot of ways, the market wouldn't be as big as it is without Sony, but it wouldn't have been to the point where the PS1 could sell 100 million consoles if not for 15 years of Nintendo. I would bet anything that 90% of Sony gamers have owned one or more Nintendo consoles over the years (I think I've owned 8 counting handhelds). |
Nintendo has always been geared toward "everybody" and in that sense, appeared as the "family friendly" system. That said, Nintendo didn't have a "kiddie" image back during the 16-bit days so much as an "out of touch" one. After the MKI debacle, and the birth of the ESRB, Nintendo lifted it's censory hold and SNES MKII vastly outsold the Genesis version. Nintendo had a fairly strong image with adult and teenage gamers and I was proud, as a teenager, to be on the Nintendo side at the time. At that time, having a flagship fighting game was seen as important as having a flagship platformer. And Nintendo's fighter, Killer Instinct, was vastly darker and more violent than Virtua Fighter.
The kiddie image started with Pokemon and the N64 era. Prior to this, developers didn't really see Nintendo as "kiddie." After all, Acclaim had confidnce in Iguana's hellishly violent and gory Turok game on the N64--and that game (practically a launch title in the States) became a very big success. The kiddie image grew out of hand with Pokemon and Pikachu, the childish way the Game Boy and GB Color were marketed, and let's not forget that dreadful Pikachu-themed N64.
During the SNES days, I never really heard anything about Nintendo being "the kiddie company." Sure, Sega was seen as cooler and for teenagers, but part of that came from them marketing Sonic as a kind of badass when compared to Mario. The kiddie stuff really hit with the N64 and the Game Boy when Pokemon began their reign. Had the N64 been a powerful disk-based system, it would have held onto many of the more mature franchises from it's past that went to Sony. Unfortunately, the N64 was a trainwreck of a console and developers abandoned it. Nintendo and Rare were left holding the reigns to the majority of N64 development, and Pokemon became a cash cow. But when gamers were diving headlong into amazing games like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, Secret of Mana, and superior versions of Mortal Kombat II, MK3, and MK3 Ultimate. Killer Instinct and Donkey Kong Country were big hits.
One other thing that helped Sega cultivate a cooler image was their "renegade ways" with some games on the Genesis and Sega-CD--most notably, Night Trap.
At the time, I was firmly on Nintendo's side, but damn if I didn't still love the Genesis. Only one of my friends, though, had a Genesis. The rest of us all had the Super Nintendo.
| badgenome said: Possibly. Does anybody know if Nintendo really threatened to withhold stock from retailers who carried Sega stuff? If Sega was telling the truth about that, that's srs biznis. |
Yes, Nintendo really did make a lot of threats, although this was primarily in regards to the NES. Nintendo of the late 80s and early 90s was really a lovely company.
It was the last great swan song of true gaming.
I cry to think about it.
Sony changed the industry. Its wrong to blame them totally but they took something innocent and turned it into a commercial juggernaut.
Still cant live in the past so live and let live.
It was the best console war of all time because it was a battle between two GENUINE hardware and software making LEGENDS
Two of the most talented games makers of all time going head to head, how will anything ever rival this war ever again when all that matters now is how deep your pockets are..... eg *cough* sony
And yes, we can't live in the past, but we can look back on it proudly and fondly and know that this was a time when true ICONS were where they deserved to be
Resident_Hazard said:
I'm serious, man. Once the giant corporations gained ground in gaming, it's like the point of gaming got lost in the shuffle to make the most money. Before, it was about which companies liked working together, and who liked which hardware and that kind of thing. After Sony and then MS entered the fray, it was about who could throw around the most money and buy up the most studios, not who could make the best exclusives and come up with the most creative games. I always felt that the industry was better off when it was video game companies making hardware and competing. Nintendo, Sega, Atari, Neo-Geo, NEC/Hudson all made names for themselves as video game companies with occasional forays in computers or other forms of entertainment (like TV, card games, etc). Not that I don't recognize that Sega and Atari took a lot of steps to hurt themselves, but still, I can't help but think that major corporations have now priced the industry out of the range of actual video game companies except for Nintendo who, for too long, had been reliant on their core fanbase to keep them afloat.
|
Amen.
Those were awesome days, and if you were going to talk shit on a console it was to the other fanboy's face instead of on the internet.
But think the most important thing is what you just mentioned, when it went to companies who do video games on the side something good was lost. I'm glad at least one is left standing.
3rd Party Wall of Shame
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/forums/index.php?topic=30478.msg581036#msg581036
Yeah I would agree. It certainly was the closest. It was also pretty much one on one. Atari, Panasonic, and Philips didn't really make an impact on the main two. The biggest rift I remember was over blood content and Fatalaties in Mortal Kombat.
"Let justice be done though the heavens fall." - Jim Garrison
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I still have my battle Scares !!!
Glad the Genesis won that Gen. 
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| Commando said: Yeah I would agree. It certainly was the closest. It was also pretty much one on one. Atari, Panasonic, and Philips didn't really make an impact on the main two. The biggest rift I remember was over blood content and Fatalaties in Mortal Kombat. |
Yeah, MK on the SNES had no blood and the MD/GEN version was a no holds barred bloodfest
Good times though , and despite me slightly favouring the Megadrive/Genesis is still owned both and had the upmost respect for nintendo and i always have and always will
Nintendo/Sega....... LEGENDS never die, Their place in gaming history and legacy is set in stone........
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