I've been kicking around this notion recently, and was curious whether the rest of you think the comparison has any merit. It struck me this past week that the American sales charts are in some ways reminiscent of the famous 4th Gen competition between the Sega Genesis and the Nintendo SNES. Today, the XBox 360 and Wii occupy somewhat similar positions. Think about this:

* The Genesis released well in advance of the SNES in America and built up a sizable user base advantage. Over the course of the generation, the SNES then slowly gained ground on the Genesis and eventually passed it at the tail end of the systems' lives. We may see a very similar track record for the 360/Wii this time around.

* The Genesis (Megadrive) was crushed in the Japanese market by the SNES. The 360 has essentially no chance to avoid a similar fate.

* The Genesis was enormously more popular than the SNES when it came to sports games. (The Madden series started on the Genesis, and didn't even exist on Nintendo consoles until years later.) The 360 clearly has emerged as the dominant sports console in the American market in the current generation; EA doesn't even make Wii versions for some of its major sports franchises (e.g. NHL 08).

* The Genesis was deliberately marketed to an audience of teenage males (remember the "SEGA Scream?"), while the SNES was seen as more of a family console. The parallels should be obvious.

*SEGA produced two add-ons for the Genesis in the form of the SEGA CD and 32-X, costly hardware additions that were less than successful. The 360 has three different SKUs on the market, and the hardware failure rate has been less than successful.

Now just as every generation is the same in some ways, they are all different as well. Gigantic differences this time around include the presence of the PS3 (nothing quite similar in the early 90s), the fact that the 360 is more powerful than the Wii instead of the other way around, the greater financial resources of Microsoft compared to SEGA, and so on - etc. etc. But it seems to me that there ARE some parallels here, with two genuinely different user bases between 360/Wii that are interested in purchasing different types of games. Since the 4th generation is often considered by many people to be one of the best eras of gaming, I don't see parallels as a bad thing.

Crazy thought, or not?

Well, one area where I don't think a parallel can be made is the overall quality of games for the two generations (thus far, at least) - in my opinion generation 7 hasn't even come close to touching the greatness of generation 4.

It's more like if NES had competition from a console like Genesis, based on the power of the systems, how "revolutionary" the games are, and the difference in the audiences targeted. PS3 is like SNES, in that Sony got trapped into following 360 towards a more niche audience like SNES followed Genesis, except that SNES was able to beat Genesis in the end. I expect the end results of Wii vs. 360 will be like PS1 vs. N64, though, with years of reletively close competition giving way to a huge Wii win over the last few years of the cycle.

So basically... I don't like your analogy.

BTW, I've played John Madden Football 1990 for SNES. According to Wikipedia, only Madden '92 skipped the SNES.

Edit: It's hilariously awful, btw. Once you have about 30 yards of open space behind you, and you can score a touchdown every play. Take the ball and run straight backwards, and eventually the entire defense runs together into one spot... on top of each other... moving as a unit...! Then you basically just have one player to dodge to score.

I don't think this is a precedented situation.

 As always I agree completly with Erik's post.

But on my Snes I played International Superstar Soccer by Konami  

Does this mean the Wii will sell 49 million units, and the X360 will sell 35m units?

 The Genesis OWNED the SNES on sports games. I had always bought my sports games; Madden, NHL, NBA Live(after it became Live of course:p) and the greatest college football game of all time, Bill Walsh's College Football on the Genesis. Most other types of games I picked up for the SNES though :) 

As for the original post, I think the power difference between the systems is a really big difference this time around. I remember everybody used to compare the multi-plat games for the Genesis/SNES at the time and it usually went in favor of the SNES overall.(graphics/sound/etc.) This time around the 360 clearly dominates the Wii in regards to graphics/sound/online/etc. even though it was released earlier. Though the Wii does have a lot of innovation on its side. (note: I'm not bashing either system as I have both a Wii and a 360 :) ) 

(BTW Is the PS3 like the TG16 in your analogy? :p ) 

The Neo Geo was a console produced under the belief that people wanted high quality (Arcade Quality) graphics in their home and were willing to pay (practically) and price to get them.

Ah, ye old Neo Geo.

Similar price too, since the NG launched in the US for $699 USD.

@happy Squierel

If you think the NEO-GEO is similar to the ps3, you have issues mate

Let me give you a clue

one them never sold over a million