Ah... now I remember. I was kind of mad about that one too. Nintendo was big on no violence in games. But they really did believe in it and I think their heart was in the right place. This was during a time when there was no ESRB. At least they have learned from their mistakes. It's not like they are Jack Thompson who doesn't seem to get it.

Maybe that's why Sega did the smear campaign.

When Genesis launched.

Yeah, that's why I think SNES vs Genesis what the most heated generation. I remember a Sega commercial showing the Genesis and the SNES on a race track. The Genesis blows it away saying that its "Blast Processor" was much faster than the SNES's processor. Reminds me of something more recent....

The Genesis/SNES era was unquestionably the most heated generation of consoles. We haven't seen anything like it since then and before that point, there was little real competition between the companies, Atari dominated then Nintendo took over after the crash.

I had the same experience as John Lucas. The sole difference is that I saw that hate coming, but I didn't expect to see it back everywhere in 2005 when I got back.
In my time of SNES and Megadrive (Genesis) in Europe, there was no such hatred between gamers... except in the press. The videogame press was a nest of fanboys full (I mean at least one every page) of attacks against the "others". It started in the computers games press, and continued in the console games press. I remember stopping my subscription to some general gaming press, because I couldn't stand it anymore: the thing was littered with fanboys attacks every page.
That's when I started to despise games "journalists", and it got even worse when it went to the Internet, as they were even saying outright lies then. Lots of reviews were obviously paid too.
Hell, I'm a fanboy too, but just a RPG (very specific ones at that) fanboy, which is why I did have an usual suite of consoles (SNES, PS1, GBA, DS, GC) and that's why I have a Wii and I'll get a PS3 with BC (I didn't have a PS2, would not have time to play all these games anyway, even if I take only RPG).

And when I got back in 2005, it was worse than when I quit, having infected even the gamers. Sad, really ... I think the most shocking was the reactions I see everywhere to the Wii, and the ones that I still see nowadays. It never ceases to amaze me at how much hatred people keep inside them.

Colecovision
Atari 2600
NES
Genesis
N64
PS2
X-Box

Most of my PS3,360 and Wii playtime is at my friends place, would love to buy a Wii if it is not out of stock all the time. 360 - Well I prefer to play FPS games "The Way They Are Meant To Be Palyed", PS3 - Too Few Games (i dont mind he cost but there have to be a few killer aps to justify the purchase)

PC Vs. Console the only fights i got into, one reason why I never bought a PS1 (the 320 x 240 resolution sucked compared to the 1024 x 768 of my PC). At least the N64 with its memory pack could push the limits to 640x480.

So yeah N64 Vs PS1 was another fight. N64 had some of the best first party games about 25 games that were pure gold.

As far as advertising I'd have to say SNES vs Genesis but that is probably based on my age as well: My family had a Coleco system and a NES, but I was probably around 7-10 years old and I didn't take notice of console fanboyism.

The first time I noticed an actual rift between players was PS2/GC/XBox largely due to the internet and gaming forums. I never understood and to this day don't understand the point of fanboyism and hoping that one console will fail in the face of another. In my opinion, competition is good for the gaming market.

As far as my own fanboyism/bias I don't behold myself to a certain company indefinitely. I definitely favor one console over another in a given generation and hope that that console gets as many good games as possible, but it is not based on brand, it is based on what the company is doing in relation to my interest. For example, I swore off Microsoft because the XBox just didn't deliver for me, and I was pissed off when I bought it and then like a year later they announced the XBox 360. I think I own 5 XBox games in total. But now the XBox 360 is the only current gen console that I own and I am quite happy to have it stay that way until either Sony gets their act together or until the next generation rolls around in ~2010 (which is the earliest date I would even consider buying into the next generation of any console).