You know? I always found console wars to be quite funny.
PC "Master Race" embarrass themselves from time to time, too.
Today we can see Sony and Microsoft fanboys sniping at each other,
taking pot shots every time the company they don't feel "attached to"
gives them the chance to do so, just like clockwork, or even trying
to undervalue the system of their "rivals" to make "theirs" better,
using whatever silly argument as weapons of choice, while
making any forum or online platform their battlefield.
This is something that has been happening for a looong time,
and as time passes, the more embarrassing and juvenile gets to me,
even more when you find that the average age of "gamers" is, well...
35 Years. No, really.
Sounds crazy to me. I'm not even 30 at this point in time.
But anyway, all this really got going back in the fourth generation,
the so called "16-Bit Generation", and as unnecessary as it was back
then as it is today (Unless you're making money out of it, I guess),
at the very, very least there was a kinda sorta point to it... Somewhat.
The two most popular home consoles back then where really different.
Hardware was very different, controllers were very different, the types of games
that stud out on each platform were very different, and both platform creators
offered very different first party games.
While the discussion on the "War level" I find useless, at least things
varied a lot from one to the other, so discussions where at least, logical.
Also, back then the average ages were far lower, that kinda counts too.
But anyway, let's talk about one of the two contestants of that "first war".
This is the introduction for the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis.
And I feel sorry for the "console wars" to be one of the most "memorable" things of that time and for using it as the introduction, as I find other matters during this generation much more interesting, but I also got to rant about it for a minute, so whatever. Anyway...
While probably most North American folks know this system as the Sega Genesis, it's original name in Japan was the Sega Mega Drive, a name that would also be used on the European launch, so I personally know it by that name. But the name is not nearly as important as what this system meant for the company, so let's get to that.
If you read the Master System's introduction, you'll probably know a bit of this first part already, but it bears repeating.
When talking about Sega, we're talking about an important part of the Arcade landscape; being one of the top five companies dedicated to develop both hardware and software for cabinets back in the early 80's (and still quite relevant decades later even when they focused on consoles).
But not everything was great and bright for long, because, as a cause of the disinterest the North American consumers started to feel towards video games around 1982 (Yeah, it's related to the 83's Crash), arcades were hit pretty hard too, after all, that disinterest may had originated on the the home console market, but it really spread in all directions.
Sega lost a lot of money and started to hurt quite bad, so, the president of Sega Enterprises back then, Hayao Nakayama opted to back away from the arcade stuff and entered the home console market focusing in Japan, as the best way to survive.
The advantage Sega had is that, well, being one of the top arcade-related companies, they had quite a bit of knowledge and experience with both creating hardware and developing software, something that would turn to be their trump card in the future.
Their first attempt would be the SG-1000, which, actually, launched the same day as Nintendo's Famicom, but was kind of a disappointment for the company, with low sales and not very eye-catching games to allure consumers, but at least served to pave the way to the next attempt, the Master System (Originally named Mark III), which would get much better results, doing great in Europe and South America, but not so great on North America and Japan.
Without gaining much space in their home territory, even more "problems" appeared, as by 1987, NEC, a renown Computer company, with it's new and shiny PC-Engine, entered the scene in Japan, and with positive views on it. The system, which was a half-step between the 8 and 16 Bits, could produce visuals much more advanced than what the already existing 8-Bit systems did, and obviously would get most of the attention.
It was at that time when the company believed that, to make a real impact on the market, they needed a system with a 16-Bit processor, something that would put them above Nintendo's Famicom, and even NEC's new PC-Engine. This is when their knowledge about arcade hardware come into play, as they adapted the already existing and successful arcade board Sega System 16 into the hardware of this new console.
The system itself was supervised by Masami Ishikawa, leader of the R&D division of Sega at the time, and Hideki Sato, who would form part of many Sega machines' creation, and even be the producer of several games, his bigger efforts being during the Dreamcast era; he even became president for a short while.
This machine would also use a Motorola 68000 CPU, and a ZiLOG Z80 as a secondary CPU for the sound (which sometimes is pointed as the blame for the sound capacities of the system), in fear that the main CPU would get overloaded. The system would have been named Mark V, following the trend Sega had with their home consoles, but the management team that the name was weak and they would need something more interesting, something stronger.
I'd hate myself if I didn't mention this: Sound-wise, the Mega Drive / Genesis is well known for being a bit divisive, as it sadly has quite a few examples of horrible sounding games, and non-accurate emulation making things even worse. Reality is that, while the console couldn't match the Super Nintendo in sound prowess, it was certainly not without merit, and under the hands of a sound designer and a composer that knew what they were doing, amazing soundtracks could come out of the console and make you rock your head until you lost conscience, making yourself ask why some games would sound so bad, or poorly.
...The question often times was incompetent porting, or not caring enough about it. For some reason they were more common on this system, even though every system had those.
But going back to the story, after viewing more than 300 name proposals (Not even kidding you there!) "Mega Drive" was decided, while in North America it would get a name changed to Genesis, supposedly because of trademarks dispute.
Launching in Japan on 29th October, 1988, with decent success, but not as much as it could have sold, as the Famicom back then was still immensely popular, and Super Mario Bros 3 got released a few weeks before the Mega Drive, and not only that, the PC-Engine was already on the market eating space. Mega Drive would end up selling around 400.000 units during it's first year.
In Europe it appeared on 1990, two years later, something that was advantageous as, just like the NES on N.A., by then the Mega Drive had enough library to crash into the market and impress consumers with 16-Bit games like Ghouls & Ghosts, The Revenge of Shinobi and Golden Axe, right when the interest on the NES and Master System was going down. The console would end up being the leader in this region, during the entire generation.
 |
| Back then Sega was all over bland, gridded backgrounds. Like, FULL on bland, gridded backgrounds. Personally, I can't look at it without remembering school homework... |
This machine would also use a Motorola 68000 CPU, and a ZiLOG Z80 as a secondary CPU for the sound (which sometimes is pointed as the blame for the sound capacities of the system), in fear that the main CPU would get overloaded. The system would have been named Mark V, following the trend Sega had with their home consoles, but the management team that the name was weak and they would need something more interesting, something stronger.
I'd hate myself if I didn't mention this: Sound-wise, the Mega Drive / Genesis is well known for being a bit divisive, as it sadly has quite a few examples of horrible sounding games, and non-accurate emulation making things even worse. Reality is that, while the console couldn't match the Super Nintendo in sound prowess, it was certainly not without merit, and under the hands of a sound designer and a composer that knew what they were doing, amazing soundtracks could come out of the console and make you rock your head until you lost conscience, making yourself ask why some games would sound so bad, or poorly.
...The question often times was incompetent porting, or not caring enough about it. For some reason they were more common on this system, even though every system had those.
Man, if this sounds wrong, I'll never want to be right!
But going back to the story, after viewing more than 300 name proposals (Not even kidding you there!) "Mega Drive" was decided, while in North America it would get a name changed to Genesis, supposedly because of trademarks dispute.
Launching in Japan on 29th October, 1988, with decent success, but not as much as it could have sold, as the Famicom back then was still immensely popular, and Super Mario Bros 3 got released a few weeks before the Mega Drive, and not only that, the PC-Engine was already on the market eating space. Mega Drive would end up selling around 400.000 units during it's first year.
In Europe it appeared on 1990, two years later, something that was advantageous as, just like the NES on N.A., by then the Mega Drive had enough library to crash into the market and impress consumers with 16-Bit games like Ghouls & Ghosts, The Revenge of Shinobi and Golden Axe, right when the interest on the NES and Master System was going down. The console would end up being the leader in this region, during the entire generation.
... But I'm forgetting something, do I?
Well, in North America, the first idea was to make a deal with Atari to launch together the system. Atari rejected, saying it would be too expensive, and that they preferred to market their own system, the Atari ST, a computer. Just like with the NES, I think Atari committed another mistake here, but whatever. In any case, Sega decided to launch it alone, and to battle against the current leader at that time, Nintendo and it's NES... and they had plan.
The idea was to show how superior the newly named Sega Genesis was compared to the NES, with some very loud marketing, and making as many licensed games with famous American celebrities as they could to get notoriety; and that's why we have games like:
The idea was to show how superior the newly named Sega Genesis was compared to the NES, with some very loud marketing, and making as many licensed games with famous American celebrities as they could to get notoriety; and that's why we have games like:
- Pat Riley Basketball
- Arnold Palmer Tournament Golf
- James "Buster" Douglass Knockout Boxing
- Joe Montana Football
- Tommy Lasorda Baseball
And, of of course... - Michael Jackson's Moon Walker
This would later become a big marketing war between Sega and Nintendo, with Sega always trying to point "how 16-Bit their system was, and how lowly and inferior the 8-Bit the NES was". The pursued goal was to make Sega and its system as famous as they could, as fast as they could, before Nintendo would come with their own 16-Bit system. Later, Sonic the Hedgehog would appear for the first time in 1991, giving a huge kick to the sales of the system, and raised a lot of attention around it.
It's -not- a secret to everybody that Sega of America (and also reused in Sega of Europe) used some, for the time, really aggressive marketing tactics in North America and Europe to gain attention, improve their sales, and most important of all, to humiliate their direct competition, Nintendo, with things like the infamous "Genesis does what Nintendon't", which we got even on song form, which I find quite catchy, and super cheesy. Nintendo would be pointed as "for babies" and Sega would always show pride on how much Arcade stuff they got, going so far as to coin their visuals "Arcade Graphics".
Sega of America would even invent things like "Blast Processing", a marketing term used to point at one thing the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive was better than the Super Nintendo, processing power.
But of course, Casa de Mario would take their own weapons too. Once the Super Nintendo released on the U.S., Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Europe would get more "intense" marketing, trying to appeal to older audiences in a similar way that Sega did. Gaming had to be edgy and cool, hip and in-the-know, you got that?
Not only that, just like Sega got relations with sport-game makers, Nintendo used their connections with companies that already worked with them hand had built relations during the prior generation to secure exclusive bombs that would put their system on the map. For example, one of those exclusive games was Street Fighter II, which would be "Only for Super Nintendo" for over a year, something that added a lot of value to their system.
Mario and Sonic would become flags for each system, and people would argue constantly about who was better. As far as sales go, there wasn't a clear victor during the generation, as both consoles would one-up the other, constantly changing who was the leader, and, of course making each companies' successes be announced as loud as they could. In Sega of America's case, they would try as hard as they could to maintain their space in the market, by cutting the price, adding bundles, doing more licensed game deals, you know, the typical stuff.
Anyway, after several years of fighting for leadership, sales-wise Nintendo would end up in first place on North America, but not very easily as they managed this by the end of the generation, with Sega on second spot and NEC's TurboGrafx-16 on a far third one (although the system was quite successful in Japan, thankfully!).
I've looked around for a bit, and I found this revised document from 2014 where it states that Super Nintendo sold 20 million units against Genesis' 18.5 million units on the U.S. giving the crown of that kingdom to Nintendo's Brain of the Beast (it was named like this in certain places, like here in Spain!). Somewhere I read about SNES selling 23 million, so I really don't know which is the true number, but it's really not that important. Before this appeared, others documents point to the opposite, curiously enough.
Overall, Nintendo conquered on North America and Japan, while Sega would be king on Europe and South America, which is pretty much the same thing that happened during the NES / Master System era. As far as how many units each sold, seems like Sega managed to sold around 35 million systems, and Nintendo around 50 million systems, thus ending the generation and this silly, silly war (and starting the N64 vs PS1 vs Sega Saturn one. *sigh*).
...At the very least, on a company level, because even today, decades later, you can find people arguing and fighting over this stupid matter.
And that lets us to talk about actually interesting stuff!
If you want to know what I think about this "epic war", where everybody felt the need to side with one and defend it like your very own life depends on it, I'll say to you the same I thought back then, when I was like, around 7 years old:
As a kid, I had a NES, and I loved it (although I still have nightmares about Bart VS. The World, ugh), and then I got a Mega Drive, as I was completely absorbed by Sonic The Hedgehog, after seeing my cousins playing it in their home. I also loved it, trying many different games and enjoying it as much as I did the NES before it.
But I never understood (neither I do now) that mentality. To me the SNES and the SMD were two systems that attracted me like a fly to honey, obviously spending much more on one, the system I had, but I always was interested in what type of games the other had, even if growing up I did not have much chance to play SNES.
And now, as an adult (or a close approximation to one), the more silly I found the entire thing, because I knew more about each system. You see, to me, the Super Nintendo and the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis are not rival systems as much as two pieces that can combine, and each one cover the weaknesses of the other.
To me, more than hardware, more than sales and popularity, a console is made by its games, and I find that, what the SMD lacks, the SNES can provide, and what the SNES lacks, the SMD can provide.
When you take a bit to see at what made each important and interesting, when you start looking at what games are worth to take a look, you'll find out that each system ends with a very different list of games, with different genres topping each list, but most important of all, each list would contain almost completely different sets of games.
That's what I see when I look at these two systems. Two almost completely different libraries of "decent to great" games that combine quite well and make each system worth to own and love, something that really hasn't been repeated at the same level since then.
Sega's system would end with a much more arcade-y library, with a much bigger ratio of fast-paced games, Shoot'em Ups, Sports, Platformers, and such; while Nintendo's system would evolve further into the home-console experiences, with more adventure games, RPGs, and more deep and larger platformers. Obviously both systems had variety in them, but even compared on same genres, each system would offer different titles completely.
And that's the beauty of it for me. In contrast, I look at PS4 and XBO right now (or at least at the time of writing this) and I only see two black boxes with libraries that rely heavily on third party multi platform games, thus having for the most part very similar libraries, beyond the few exclusive games each system has... And then you look a bit further and you can see PC being pretty much the same, but more (except exclusives, although some made their way there too).
Of course, the world of gaming back then and right now are very different, and third party publishers can't (and don't want) to make games for a single system unless they get something from it because of the costs, but that really doesn't change that those two newer systems don't have nearly as much personality through their libraries as the older two based in their libraries when I look at them.
Not to mention, the console wars as we know them was a creation, for the most part, by the American divisions of those companies, so, I find all that even more silly.
But I digress...
Going back to the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis, its controller wasn't nearly as innovative as the Super Nintendo's, but was a sound improvement over what we had before.
Instead of the two buttons of the NES and Master System, it added one more, and on top of it put a very neat D-Pad, that people still swear by it (and I can understand why, can be pretty comfortable). The small handles made easier and a bit more comfy to hold the controller, and, in comparison to the Master System, it had the pause button on it, instead of having it on the console, thank god!
All that said, while those three buttons were enough for early games, they proved to be not enough; as the generation advanced, more and more games used the Super Nintendo's higher quantity of inputs, and making the Mega Drive / Genesis versions of those games more convoluted or annoying, like Contra: Hard Corps, Lost Vikings or even Sega's own Streets of Rage III. It was pointed as one of the weaknesses of the system, sadly.
Thankfully, Sega ended producing a 6 Button controller, which was a great improvement, and was probably the best way to play any SMD/SG game, but specially fighting games back then, thanks to all 6 buttons being on the front and the D-Pad; although for other types of games the missing triggers was quite disappointing if you ask me.
The 16-Bit system also dipped its toes into the CD-based Add-on lake, (a lake that NEC would try first, beating Sega to the punch, just like with the PC-Engine launch) with the creation of the Sega CD.
The Sega CD made its appearance in 1991, and it was an add-on that connected with the Mega Drive through a slot the base system had in one of its sides. Once combined, you could play CD-based games on it, with the advantages that the format brought, namely, increased storage size, and CD quality music.
The Seca CD itself was more than just a CD reader, though! It added a second, more powerful processor, more memory, and even scaling and rotating effects, like those the Super Nintendo was capable of (or Sega's Arcade machines). It also provided Battery Back up to save games, with a slot for a cartridge with extra storage too.
Sadly, it wasn't too popular in Japan, because of a mix of the price (CD stuff was EXPENSIVE back in the early 90s), and too few games initially, as Sega took too long to make available the Development Kits to other developers.
On Europe and North America, it did substantially better, but there was another problem: FMV games. You see, western developers, in their infinite wisdom, started to make games based on filmed material, compressed to hell and back, which looked poor even for the time. But even more than that, those games played even worse than they looked, where, for the most part, boring, and a waste of money. FMV games became infamous to the point they hurt the add-on image and interest in the Sega CD started to go down rapidly, and finally making people hate the Sega CD.
And you know what? I understand it. Look at this list, from FMV World.
...Maybe 10% of those games were kinda entertaining; add a few more if you want "funny bad" stuff. I personally love to see *real* bad movies (not things like Sharknado). Sheer incompetence in movies, when it is completely real, can be, oh, so fun.
But I digress. Now, that's a lot of awful software released quite fast. So I get the complains, even more when I was a kid with a Sega CD (a second hand one, didn't even come with a box, no way I got something so expensive growing up) and the two games I was gifted were FMV games. I know the pain of being the only thing you had in it to play.
That said, the Sega CD had a good bunch of *actual* games released, that made the library of the Mega Drive a bit more interesting and worth looking; also got some improved versions of games already released, which was pretty nice too. Not only there were good games, but the CD quality music wasn't wasted, either.
So yeah, in my eyes the Sega CD wasn't the success it could have been, but it was far from a failure, as it brought enough good things to the table when you look at everything.
The same can't be said about the 32X, though...
Conceived as another add-on for the Sega Mega Drive to serve as a "stop-gap" between the current and next generation as a response to the appearance of the Atari Jaguar. Honestly, I think they didn't need to worry, seeing the "life" that the Atari Jaguar got (and yet another mistake on Atari's part...).
Originally planned as a new version of the SMD/SG, it would be an upgrade in several aspects, like palette, or capacity to do 3D polygonal graphics; but it ended being something that was inserted where console's cartridge slot.
I was launched at a high price, and very little software to support it, not only that, but Sega couldn't meet the expected shipping units so that hurt too. Then the rumours about damaging your base console appeared, which made everything worse. Third parties not wanting to put time and money developing games for it made hard for consumers to be excited about it, too. All this while the Sega Saturn, the next Sega console, was about to release, too.
The thing ended with a paltry amount of 40 (taking count of all the regional exclusives) games developed for it, with some good things, but overall being simply not worth the time of most people; and Sega accepted that they promised way too much with it and the price of it started to fall hard.
Unlike with the Sega CD, I've never had much contact with the 32X (never knew it existed as a kid), so I don't have much input for it.
Anyway, let's change subject for something a bit more positive.
If you read the Super Nintendo introduction, you'll probably saw the Satellaview, that radio modem that let Nintendo stream services and games. Sega had something similar, named in Japan "The Mega Net". You got a peripheral, and a special cartridge, and you were able to play up to 17 different games. It was quite expensive, and because in that country the SMD was in the third spot behind the Super Famicom and the PC-Engine, never got too big as a service.
On North America, there was something similar, named "The Sega Channel", that you could access through TV Cable that let your console access content, like demos, read about cheat codes, and play exclusive games only accessible on that service.
It was, obviously, a paid service, with around 15 bucks each month, plus 25 for the necessary equipment. Some games put there were Sonic & Knuckles and Space Harrier II, but also unique titles like Alien Soldier (one of the best games of the system, in my humble opinion) or Mega Man: The Wily Wars (A very neat package with extra content, even if I kind of prefer the controls of the NES).
I'll end this here...
What it matters is that the system still holds many good games that can be fun today. It, overall, holds a much more fast-paced and light library compared to the Super Nintendo, which, as I said before, was a great contrast, making both worth owning. Not only that, but with consoles becoming more and more centred around longer and heavier games, what this system offers is a fresh breath of air.
It is still a quite fondly remembered system, as you may expect, which is also great, combined with the loads of hidden or obscure games out there to discover!
It's -not- a secret to everybody that Sega of America (and also reused in Sega of Europe) used some, for the time, really aggressive marketing tactics in North America and Europe to gain attention, improve their sales, and most important of all, to humiliate their direct competition, Nintendo, with things like the infamous "Genesis does what Nintendon't", which we got even on song form, which I find quite catchy, and super cheesy. Nintendo would be pointed as "for babies" and Sega would always show pride on how much Arcade stuff they got, going so far as to coin their visuals "Arcade Graphics".
Sega of America would even invent things like "Blast Processing", a marketing term used to point at one thing the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive was better than the Super Nintendo, processing power.
 |
| Yeah, they went to this extent to attention and popularity. As of today, it kind of has the opposite effect... |
I have to admit, playing on such screen could be cool.
Not only that, just like Sega got relations with sport-game makers, Nintendo used their connections with companies that already worked with them hand had built relations during the prior generation to secure exclusive bombs that would put their system on the map. For example, one of those exclusive games was Street Fighter II, which would be "Only for Super Nintendo" for over a year, something that added a lot of value to their system.
Mario and Sonic would become flags for each system, and people would argue constantly about who was better. As far as sales go, there wasn't a clear victor during the generation, as both consoles would one-up the other, constantly changing who was the leader, and, of course making each companies' successes be announced as loud as they could. In Sega of America's case, they would try as hard as they could to maintain their space in the market, by cutting the price, adding bundles, doing more licensed game deals, you know, the typical stuff.
Anyway, after several years of fighting for leadership, sales-wise Nintendo would end up in first place on North America, but not very easily as they managed this by the end of the generation, with Sega on second spot and NEC's TurboGrafx-16 on a far third one (although the system was quite successful in Japan, thankfully!).
I've looked around for a bit, and I found this revised document from 2014 where it states that Super Nintendo sold 20 million units against Genesis' 18.5 million units on the U.S. giving the crown of that kingdom to Nintendo's Brain of the Beast (it was named like this in certain places, like here in Spain!). Somewhere I read about SNES selling 23 million, so I really don't know which is the true number, but it's really not that important. Before this appeared, others documents point to the opposite, curiously enough.
Overall, Nintendo conquered on North America and Japan, while Sega would be king on Europe and South America, which is pretty much the same thing that happened during the NES / Master System era. As far as how many units each sold, seems like Sega managed to sold around 35 million systems, and Nintendo around 50 million systems, thus ending the generation and this silly, silly war (and starting the N64 vs PS1 vs Sega Saturn one. *sigh*).
...At the very least, on a company level, because even today, decades later, you can find people arguing and fighting over this stupid matter.
And that lets us to talk about actually interesting stuff!
 |
| Oh man, is that Quack-Shot and Toe Jam & Earl what I'm seeing there? And Contra Hard Corps too?! Nice! ...Also, a bunch of sport stuff I can't pretend to care. Blah. |
"Why can't I like both?"
As a kid, I had a NES, and I loved it (although I still have nightmares about Bart VS. The World, ugh), and then I got a Mega Drive, as I was completely absorbed by Sonic The Hedgehog, after seeing my cousins playing it in their home. I also loved it, trying many different games and enjoying it as much as I did the NES before it.
But I never understood (neither I do now) that mentality. To me the SNES and the SMD were two systems that attracted me like a fly to honey, obviously spending much more on one, the system I had, but I always was interested in what type of games the other had, even if growing up I did not have much chance to play SNES.
And now, as an adult (or a close approximation to one), the more silly I found the entire thing, because I knew more about each system. You see, to me, the Super Nintendo and the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis are not rival systems as much as two pieces that can combine, and each one cover the weaknesses of the other.
To me, more than hardware, more than sales and popularity, a console is made by its games, and I find that, what the SMD lacks, the SNES can provide, and what the SNES lacks, the SMD can provide.
When you take a bit to see at what made each important and interesting, when you start looking at what games are worth to take a look, you'll find out that each system ends with a very different list of games, with different genres topping each list, but most important of all, each list would contain almost completely different sets of games.
That's what I see when I look at these two systems. Two almost completely different libraries of "decent to great" games that combine quite well and make each system worth to own and love, something that really hasn't been repeated at the same level since then.
 |
Genesis' upper hand at fast and frantic Shoot'em Ups is a big contrast with Super Nintendo's superiority at adventurous and long RPGS.
Also, Gaiares guy, I'll always love you.
|
And that's the beauty of it for me. In contrast, I look at PS4 and XBO right now (or at least at the time of writing this) and I only see two black boxes with libraries that rely heavily on third party multi platform games, thus having for the most part very similar libraries, beyond the few exclusive games each system has... And then you look a bit further and you can see PC being pretty much the same, but more (except exclusives, although some made their way there too).
Of course, the world of gaming back then and right now are very different, and third party publishers can't (and don't want) to make games for a single system unless they get something from it because of the costs, but that really doesn't change that those two newer systems don't have nearly as much personality through their libraries as the older two based in their libraries when I look at them.
Not to mention, the console wars as we know them was a creation, for the most part, by the American divisions of those companies, so, I find all that even more silly.
But I digress...
Going back to the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis, its controller wasn't nearly as innovative as the Super Nintendo's, but was a sound improvement over what we had before.
 |
| There were a lot of models for the 16-Bit machine, but the 3 Buttons ones felt more and more outdated as time went on, and more games were released... 6 Buttons ones where great and we always fought in home for playing with the one we had. |
Instead of the two buttons of the NES and Master System, it added one more, and on top of it put a very neat D-Pad, that people still swear by it (and I can understand why, can be pretty comfortable). The small handles made easier and a bit more comfy to hold the controller, and, in comparison to the Master System, it had the pause button on it, instead of having it on the console, thank god!
All that said, while those three buttons were enough for early games, they proved to be not enough; as the generation advanced, more and more games used the Super Nintendo's higher quantity of inputs, and making the Mega Drive / Genesis versions of those games more convoluted or annoying, like Contra: Hard Corps, Lost Vikings or even Sega's own Streets of Rage III. It was pointed as one of the weaknesses of the system, sadly.
Thankfully, Sega ended producing a 6 Button controller, which was a great improvement, and was probably the best way to play any SMD/SG game, but specially fighting games back then, thanks to all 6 buttons being on the front and the D-Pad; although for other types of games the missing triggers was quite disappointing if you ask me.
The 16-Bit system also dipped its toes into the CD-based Add-on lake, (a lake that NEC would try first, beating Sega to the punch, just like with the PC-Engine launch) with the creation of the Sega CD.
 |
| Just a few, but there were more! My personal pick from those would be, probably, Popful Mail. |
The Seca CD itself was more than just a CD reader, though! It added a second, more powerful processor, more memory, and even scaling and rotating effects, like those the Super Nintendo was capable of (or Sega's Arcade machines). It also provided Battery Back up to save games, with a slot for a cartridge with extra storage too.
Sadly, it wasn't too popular in Japan, because of a mix of the price (CD stuff was EXPENSIVE back in the early 90s), and too few games initially, as Sega took too long to make available the Development Kits to other developers.
On Europe and North America, it did substantially better, but there was another problem: FMV games. You see, western developers, in their infinite wisdom, started to make games based on filmed material, compressed to hell and back, which looked poor even for the time. But even more than that, those games played even worse than they looked, where, for the most part, boring, and a waste of money. FMV games became infamous to the point they hurt the add-on image and interest in the Sega CD started to go down rapidly, and finally making people hate the Sega CD.
And you know what? I understand it. Look at this list, from FMV World.
...Maybe 10% of those games were kinda entertaining; add a few more if you want "funny bad" stuff. I personally love to see *real* bad movies (not things like Sharknado). Sheer incompetence in movies, when it is completely real, can be, oh, so fun.
But I digress. Now, that's a lot of awful software released quite fast. So I get the complains, even more when I was a kid with a Sega CD (a second hand one, didn't even come with a box, no way I got something so expensive growing up) and the two games I was gifted were FMV games. I know the pain of being the only thing you had in it to play.
That said, the Sega CD had a good bunch of *actual* games released, that made the library of the Mega Drive a bit more interesting and worth looking; also got some improved versions of games already released, which was pretty nice too. Not only there were good games, but the CD quality music wasn't wasted, either.
I wouldn't be the same without "One Night at Neo Kobe". That sax is too good for this world.
So yeah, in my eyes the Sega CD wasn't the success it could have been, but it was far from a failure, as it brought enough good things to the table when you look at everything.
The same can't be said about the 32X, though...
Conceived as another add-on for the Sega Mega Drive to serve as a "stop-gap" between the current and next generation as a response to the appearance of the Atari Jaguar. Honestly, I think they didn't need to worry, seeing the "life" that the Atari Jaguar got (and yet another mistake on Atari's part...).
Originally planned as a new version of the SMD/SG, it would be an upgrade in several aspects, like palette, or capacity to do 3D polygonal graphics; but it ended being something that was inserted where console's cartridge slot.
I was launched at a high price, and very little software to support it, not only that, but Sega couldn't meet the expected shipping units so that hurt too. Then the rumours about damaging your base console appeared, which made everything worse. Third parties not wanting to put time and money developing games for it made hard for consumers to be excited about it, too. All this while the Sega Saturn, the next Sega console, was about to release, too.
The thing ended with a paltry amount of 40 (taking count of all the regional exclusives) games developed for it, with some good things, but overall being simply not worth the time of most people; and Sega accepted that they promised way too much with it and the price of it started to fall hard.
Unlike with the Sega CD, I've never had much contact with the 32X (never knew it existed as a kid), so I don't have much input for it.
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| Jeez, do you think it could rival the Xbox One in size? |
If you read the Super Nintendo introduction, you'll probably saw the Satellaview, that radio modem that let Nintendo stream services and games. Sega had something similar, named in Japan "The Mega Net". You got a peripheral, and a special cartridge, and you were able to play up to 17 different games. It was quite expensive, and because in that country the SMD was in the third spot behind the Super Famicom and the PC-Engine, never got too big as a service.
On North America, there was something similar, named "The Sega Channel", that you could access through TV Cable that let your console access content, like demos, read about cheat codes, and play exclusive games only accessible on that service.
It was, obviously, a paid service, with around 15 bucks each month, plus 25 for the necessary equipment. Some games put there were Sonic & Knuckles and Space Harrier II, but also unique titles like Alien Soldier (one of the best games of the system, in my humble opinion) or Mega Man: The Wily Wars (A very neat package with extra content, even if I kind of prefer the controls of the NES).
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| That thing is quite buffed, if it can hold a CRT with one hand! |
I'll end this here...
What it matters is that the system still holds many good games that can be fun today. It, overall, holds a much more fast-paced and light library compared to the Super Nintendo, which, as I said before, was a great contrast, making both worth owning. Not only that, but with consoles becoming more and more centred around longer and heavier games, what this system offers is a fresh breath of air.
It is still a quite fondly remembered system, as you may expect, which is also great, combined with the loads of hidden or obscure games out there to discover!
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