thedogbarks vs toomanywires: SNES vs Mega Drive
This is the first in a series entitled 'thedogbarks vs toomanywires' in which I debate videogame related issues with toomanywires (whose blog can be found here). We will be tinkering with the format from time to time. We hope you enjoy these articles and feel free to chip in with your own comments.
thedogbarks - SNES
Back in the 90s it seemed to matter which was better, the SNES or the Mega Drive. Almost twenty years later we realize that, yes, it still does matter. Because like all arguments, this debate stems from the fact that you know that your opinion must be the correct one and you have no idea why any reasonable person would think otherwise. With that in mind, I invite you to read on and learn why I am right and everyone who dares to disagree with me is wrong.
Hardware
I will admit to partial ignorance when it comes to the technicality of which hardware was better than the other but it essentially boils down to this; the Mega Drive was fast but bland and the SNES was slower but more colorful. It depended on which of these two aspects was more important to you as to which console was better, but if you chose the Mega Drive you were wrong. For a few simple comparisons, the Mega Drive had a color palette of 512 colors of which it could display 62 onscreen at any one time. The SNES had 32,768 and could display 256 onscreen at once. Impressive? Of course. Meaningless numbers? That too is true. But putting aside gameplay preferences, if you ever wondered why the Streets of Rage looked like murky back alleys compared to the sparkling slums of Final Fight, it was due to the difference in the hardware capability. Yoshi’s island could never have been done on the Mega Drive and still stands up as a stunning graphical and artistic achievement.
Whilst they look primitive now, at the time the SFX chip and Mode 7, which were responsible for the birth of the Starfox and F-Zero franchises, were revolutionary and gave gamers a new perspective on games as well as some of the first in-game motion sickness experiences. Sonic was fast, sure, but there was no perspective or depth. Being hurled to the ground in Pilotwings was far more dizziness inducing. The comparison in sound quality also leans heavily in favor of the SNES. Unless you liked the grating and tinny beeps that were rung from the Mega Drive, its audio inferiority was obvious. If you were really into that kind of thing though you probably also believe that your alarm clock is an auditory treat.
The final nail in the coffin of the Mega Drive was the controller. You can argue all you want about the release of the six button controller but it didn’t come until five years after the launch of the system in 1993 to coincide with the release of Street Fighter 2. So if you wanted to be able to play the non-gimped version you had to shell out a pretty penny to get the same level of fidelity as the SNES offered. The six button controller wasn’t terrible, but the shoulder buttons that the SNES introduced are present in the PS3 and 360 controllers of the current generation. The SNES controller is the template for how we interact with videogames.
Software
Whilst the Mega Drive had a strong line up of games over its ten year lifespan, it pales in comparison to the SNES. At the time Nintendo had a chokehold on most of the major third parties which meant that the best games usually came to the SNES exclusively. Of course with the launch of the Playstation those embittered developers rightly abandoned Nintendo due to the arrogance and disdain that Nintendo had shown towards them. But at the time of the SNES it meant that the glory days kept on rolling. RPGs were particularly abundant and if you wanted to play Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore, Illusion of Gaia, Breath of Fire and so on, you needed a SNES. Of course the first party games were stunning as well and the likes of Super Mario World, Yoshi’s Island 2, Super Metroid, Super Mario Kart, the Donkey Kong Country series, Starfox, Earthbound, Mario RPG and of course a Link to the Past simply blew away anything the Megadrive had to offer.
But lists are boring so I apologize and will get back to slamming the opposition. Let’s all be honest here; Sonic isn’t very good. Sure the first and second one weren’t that bad but from then on in it got pretty ugly. Even the ‘good’ Sonic games depend on the appeal of speed over precision, and well, you know, good level design. Instead Sonic relied on being cool, trendy and having attitude as well as bombarding coked up preteens (the drink not the drug) with the idea that speed = fun. Perhaps the idea was that if you threw a game fast enough at the consumers they wouldn’t realize that it wasn’t that good to begin with. I guess it worked.
Legacy
The sad fact is that the Mega Drive hasn’t aged well at all. Once you get old enough to see past the hype you notice that compared to the SNES it looks pretty ugly. So many of the SNES games listed above really have a timeless quality, both in terms of the game play experiences they delivered and the graphical style with which they were portrayed that playing them even today doesn’t feel awkward or tedious. Which I guess is why Nintendo feels that they can keep on milking the general public by rereleasing the games on every platform they have supported since the SNES. And we keep on eating them up. I for one have Super Mario World on the SNES, Gameboy Advance and on the Wii Virtual Console, and yet it still plays as beautifully now as the day it was released.
Back in the 90s we were dazzled by the slick marketing of Sega, who managed not only to make owning a Megadrive cool, but also made owning a SNES embarrassing. After the dust settled and we became old enough to hit puberty, have sex, drink, balance out our hormones and grow up, things became a little clearer. The SNES was better.
toomanywires - Mega Drive
“Super Nintendo, SEGA Genesis.
When I was dead broke, man I couldn’t picture this.”
When The Notorious BIG famously rapped those words, he spoke of the quality of two of the best loved video game consoles of all time. We should all aspire to own a Mega Drive (Genesis) and a Super Nintendo (Super Famicom), just like Biggie. What he forgot to say though, was that you should play your Mega Drive just that little bit more. Here is why;
Hardware
1988. The year that the 16bit Mega Drive, known as the Genesis in the US, was released. That is a full 2 years before Nintendo released the Super Famicom, to be know as the SNES in the West. The MD was the groundbreaker.
While Nintendo was still providing its customer base with 8 bit titles, SEGA was delivering heavy hitting, technologically superior titles like Golden Axe, Altered Beast, Super Thunder Blade and Revenge of Shinobi. SEGA was bringing an arcade experience into the home, whilst Nintendo owners were confined to the limitations of the NES. Yet, when Nintendo finally released their 16 bit machine in 1990, it provided no technological leap from the benchmark SEGA had set two years previous. This speaks volumes about what SEGA were able to achieve.
Unlike Nintendo, SEGA were not content to rest on their laurels, constantly reshaping consumer expectations of their 16 bit machine. In 1991, the Mega CD add-on was released in Japan, to follow elsewhere in subsequent years, and known as the SEGA CD in America. It featuring a faster CPU, more memory and better graphics and most importantly CD games had a cpacity of 5120 megabits, compared to the 8-16 megabits of a cartridge. A further add-on, the 32X, would follow a couple of years later. Although they were by and large commercial failures, they do further demonstrate SEGA’s willingness to embrace new technolgies, adding further value to their existing system. SEGA were constantly pushing things forward, and it made you feel good to be a SEGA fan.
Software
When it comes to games, there a handful of greats and a significant number of gems on the Mega Drive. Sure, the MD can’t boast some of the stone cold classics that featured on the SNES (Final Fantasy IV-IV, Chrono Trigger), but for any serious gamer there is a wealth of excellent games on the MD.
When talking about the Mega Drive you have to start with the iconic Sonic The Hedgehog. Whilst he has undoubtedly taken a turn for the worse over the last few years, he remains a cultural icon of the 90s, and was at that time every bit Mario’s equal. Why play as a plodding, childish overweight plumber, when you could take control of a blue hedgehog with attitude, whizzing through greenery at break neck speeds? To this day, I cannot comprehend the appeal of Mario as opposed to Sonic.
Sales wise, Sonic 2 would be the high water mark. An outstanding game, it was released in America and Europe on November 24th 1992, a Tuesday, dubbed as “Sonic 2’s day”. Even their marketing puns were pure gold.
At first, SEGA couldn’t get big name third party developers, as at the time Nintendo had them locked into exclusive contracts. To combat this, Sega took a new approach; licensing celebrities such as Joe Montana, Evander Holyfield and Michael Jackson to headline games with a wide appeal. Once again SEGA were ahead of their time, spearheading a trend that has continued to this day. This is a further instance of SEGA thinking outside of the box.
Sonic The Hedgehog titles, the Streets of Rage series, Shining Force games, the Phantasy Star series, Road Rash, Golden Axe, Desert Strike, Shinobi, Earthworm Jim, Mortal Kombat 2, Gunstar Heroes. Good times.
Legacy
Selling 29million units worldwide, the Mega Drive was a mixed success. A virtual non event in Japan, it achieved early success in America, initially outselling the SNES thanks to Sonic’s magic. In Europe and Brazil it dominated the competition, maintaining an impressive market share throughout its shelf life. However, its was discontinued prematurely to make way for the Sega Saturn, allowing Nintendo to cement its dominant position and having disastrous ramifications on SEGA’s future as a console maker.
However, when discussing 90’s popular culture, particularly in Europe, you have to reference the Mega Drive. It’s high speed arcade conversions were the ideal bedfellow of the prevalent dance culture, and its edgy marketing campaigns took on a life of their own.
“Does what Nintendon’t”
“Welcome to the next level”
“To be this good takes AGES, to be this good takes SEGA”
It was cool to have a Mega Drive. According to the informative MD article on Wikipedia, a Sony focus group at the time found that teenage boys would not admit to owning a Super NES rather than a Genesis. Clearly, it had all the street cred in the world, and I still enjoy telling people that I was a SEGA child. It has retained something of the counter culture even to this day, and owners past and present will never shy from letting people know about their preference.
Multiple repackaged collections of Mega Drive games speak volumes about the continued popularity of SEGA’s most successful console. From the PS3 to the Xbox 360, and yes even Nintendo’s Wii, it’s not difficult to access and play a MD classic.
Ultimately, this clash of gaming titans at their peak lead to an all out console war, with the cosumers being the true winners. With each company pushing the other, gamers were treated to quality games and the chance to pick an identity, SEGA or Nintendo. This competitive spirit continues to this day. You are afterall reading a post entitled Mega Drive vs SNES.
So, what was the Mega Drive? It was playground bragging rights. It was christmas and birthdays. It was your TV screen seemingly struggling to keep up with Sonic speeding from left to right, Axel patrolling the Streets of Rage, Alex Kid coming to terms with an unfortunate case of hand gigantism, it was knocking someone off their bike with a crowbar in Road Rash and hunting down a mad dictator in Desert Strike. It was an experience, and remains one to this day.
Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, especially a SNES owner.
Long live SEGA.
taken from - http://toomanywires.blog126.fc2.com/
thedogbarks - SNES
Back in the 90s it seemed to matter which was better, the SNES or the Mega Drive. Almost twenty years later we realize that, yes, it still does matter. Because like all arguments, this debate stems from the fact that you know that your opinion must be the correct one and you have no idea why any reasonable person would think otherwise. With that in mind, I invite you to read on and learn why I am right and everyone who dares to disagree with me is wrong.
Hardware
I will admit to partial ignorance when it comes to the technicality of which hardware was better than the other but it essentially boils down to this; the Mega Drive was fast but bland and the SNES was slower but more colorful. It depended on which of these two aspects was more important to you as to which console was better, but if you chose the Mega Drive you were wrong. For a few simple comparisons, the Mega Drive had a color palette of 512 colors of which it could display 62 onscreen at any one time. The SNES had 32,768 and could display 256 onscreen at once. Impressive? Of course. Meaningless numbers? That too is true. But putting aside gameplay preferences, if you ever wondered why the Streets of Rage looked like murky back alleys compared to the sparkling slums of Final Fight, it was due to the difference in the hardware capability. Yoshi’s island could never have been done on the Mega Drive and still stands up as a stunning graphical and artistic achievement.
Whilst they look primitive now, at the time the SFX chip and Mode 7, which were responsible for the birth of the Starfox and F-Zero franchises, were revolutionary and gave gamers a new perspective on games as well as some of the first in-game motion sickness experiences. Sonic was fast, sure, but there was no perspective or depth. Being hurled to the ground in Pilotwings was far more dizziness inducing. The comparison in sound quality also leans heavily in favor of the SNES. Unless you liked the grating and tinny beeps that were rung from the Mega Drive, its audio inferiority was obvious. If you were really into that kind of thing though you probably also believe that your alarm clock is an auditory treat.
The final nail in the coffin of the Mega Drive was the controller. You can argue all you want about the release of the six button controller but it didn’t come until five years after the launch of the system in 1993 to coincide with the release of Street Fighter 2. So if you wanted to be able to play the non-gimped version you had to shell out a pretty penny to get the same level of fidelity as the SNES offered. The six button controller wasn’t terrible, but the shoulder buttons that the SNES introduced are present in the PS3 and 360 controllers of the current generation. The SNES controller is the template for how we interact with videogames.
Software
Whilst the Mega Drive had a strong line up of games over its ten year lifespan, it pales in comparison to the SNES. At the time Nintendo had a chokehold on most of the major third parties which meant that the best games usually came to the SNES exclusively. Of course with the launch of the Playstation those embittered developers rightly abandoned Nintendo due to the arrogance and disdain that Nintendo had shown towards them. But at the time of the SNES it meant that the glory days kept on rolling. RPGs were particularly abundant and if you wanted to play Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore, Illusion of Gaia, Breath of Fire and so on, you needed a SNES. Of course the first party games were stunning as well and the likes of Super Mario World, Yoshi’s Island 2, Super Metroid, Super Mario Kart, the Donkey Kong Country series, Starfox, Earthbound, Mario RPG and of course a Link to the Past simply blew away anything the Megadrive had to offer.
But lists are boring so I apologize and will get back to slamming the opposition. Let’s all be honest here; Sonic isn’t very good. Sure the first and second one weren’t that bad but from then on in it got pretty ugly. Even the ‘good’ Sonic games depend on the appeal of speed over precision, and well, you know, good level design. Instead Sonic relied on being cool, trendy and having attitude as well as bombarding coked up preteens (the drink not the drug) with the idea that speed = fun. Perhaps the idea was that if you threw a game fast enough at the consumers they wouldn’t realize that it wasn’t that good to begin with. I guess it worked.
Legacy
The sad fact is that the Mega Drive hasn’t aged well at all. Once you get old enough to see past the hype you notice that compared to the SNES it looks pretty ugly. So many of the SNES games listed above really have a timeless quality, both in terms of the game play experiences they delivered and the graphical style with which they were portrayed that playing them even today doesn’t feel awkward or tedious. Which I guess is why Nintendo feels that they can keep on milking the general public by rereleasing the games on every platform they have supported since the SNES. And we keep on eating them up. I for one have Super Mario World on the SNES, Gameboy Advance and on the Wii Virtual Console, and yet it still plays as beautifully now as the day it was released.
Back in the 90s we were dazzled by the slick marketing of Sega, who managed not only to make owning a Megadrive cool, but also made owning a SNES embarrassing. After the dust settled and we became old enough to hit puberty, have sex, drink, balance out our hormones and grow up, things became a little clearer. The SNES was better.
toomanywires - Mega Drive
“Super Nintendo, SEGA Genesis.
When I was dead broke, man I couldn’t picture this.”
When The Notorious BIG famously rapped those words, he spoke of the quality of two of the best loved video game consoles of all time. We should all aspire to own a Mega Drive (Genesis) and a Super Nintendo (Super Famicom), just like Biggie. What he forgot to say though, was that you should play your Mega Drive just that little bit more. Here is why;
Hardware
1988. The year that the 16bit Mega Drive, known as the Genesis in the US, was released. That is a full 2 years before Nintendo released the Super Famicom, to be know as the SNES in the West. The MD was the groundbreaker.
While Nintendo was still providing its customer base with 8 bit titles, SEGA was delivering heavy hitting, technologically superior titles like Golden Axe, Altered Beast, Super Thunder Blade and Revenge of Shinobi. SEGA was bringing an arcade experience into the home, whilst Nintendo owners were confined to the limitations of the NES. Yet, when Nintendo finally released their 16 bit machine in 1990, it provided no technological leap from the benchmark SEGA had set two years previous. This speaks volumes about what SEGA were able to achieve.
Unlike Nintendo, SEGA were not content to rest on their laurels, constantly reshaping consumer expectations of their 16 bit machine. In 1991, the Mega CD add-on was released in Japan, to follow elsewhere in subsequent years, and known as the SEGA CD in America. It featuring a faster CPU, more memory and better graphics and most importantly CD games had a cpacity of 5120 megabits, compared to the 8-16 megabits of a cartridge. A further add-on, the 32X, would follow a couple of years later. Although they were by and large commercial failures, they do further demonstrate SEGA’s willingness to embrace new technolgies, adding further value to their existing system. SEGA were constantly pushing things forward, and it made you feel good to be a SEGA fan.
Software
When it comes to games, there a handful of greats and a significant number of gems on the Mega Drive. Sure, the MD can’t boast some of the stone cold classics that featured on the SNES (Final Fantasy IV-IV, Chrono Trigger), but for any serious gamer there is a wealth of excellent games on the MD.
When talking about the Mega Drive you have to start with the iconic Sonic The Hedgehog. Whilst he has undoubtedly taken a turn for the worse over the last few years, he remains a cultural icon of the 90s, and was at that time every bit Mario’s equal. Why play as a plodding, childish overweight plumber, when you could take control of a blue hedgehog with attitude, whizzing through greenery at break neck speeds? To this day, I cannot comprehend the appeal of Mario as opposed to Sonic.
Sales wise, Sonic 2 would be the high water mark. An outstanding game, it was released in America and Europe on November 24th 1992, a Tuesday, dubbed as “Sonic 2’s day”. Even their marketing puns were pure gold.
At first, SEGA couldn’t get big name third party developers, as at the time Nintendo had them locked into exclusive contracts. To combat this, Sega took a new approach; licensing celebrities such as Joe Montana, Evander Holyfield and Michael Jackson to headline games with a wide appeal. Once again SEGA were ahead of their time, spearheading a trend that has continued to this day. This is a further instance of SEGA thinking outside of the box.
Sonic The Hedgehog titles, the Streets of Rage series, Shining Force games, the Phantasy Star series, Road Rash, Golden Axe, Desert Strike, Shinobi, Earthworm Jim, Mortal Kombat 2, Gunstar Heroes. Good times.
Legacy
Selling 29million units worldwide, the Mega Drive was a mixed success. A virtual non event in Japan, it achieved early success in America, initially outselling the SNES thanks to Sonic’s magic. In Europe and Brazil it dominated the competition, maintaining an impressive market share throughout its shelf life. However, its was discontinued prematurely to make way for the Sega Saturn, allowing Nintendo to cement its dominant position and having disastrous ramifications on SEGA’s future as a console maker.
However, when discussing 90’s popular culture, particularly in Europe, you have to reference the Mega Drive. It’s high speed arcade conversions were the ideal bedfellow of the prevalent dance culture, and its edgy marketing campaigns took on a life of their own.
“Does what Nintendon’t”
“Welcome to the next level”
“To be this good takes AGES, to be this good takes SEGA”
It was cool to have a Mega Drive. According to the informative MD article on Wikipedia, a Sony focus group at the time found that teenage boys would not admit to owning a Super NES rather than a Genesis. Clearly, it had all the street cred in the world, and I still enjoy telling people that I was a SEGA child. It has retained something of the counter culture even to this day, and owners past and present will never shy from letting people know about their preference.
Multiple repackaged collections of Mega Drive games speak volumes about the continued popularity of SEGA’s most successful console. From the PS3 to the Xbox 360, and yes even Nintendo’s Wii, it’s not difficult to access and play a MD classic.
Ultimately, this clash of gaming titans at their peak lead to an all out console war, with the cosumers being the true winners. With each company pushing the other, gamers were treated to quality games and the chance to pick an identity, SEGA or Nintendo. This competitive spirit continues to this day. You are afterall reading a post entitled Mega Drive vs SNES.
So, what was the Mega Drive? It was playground bragging rights. It was christmas and birthdays. It was your TV screen seemingly struggling to keep up with Sonic speeding from left to right, Axel patrolling the Streets of Rage, Alex Kid coming to terms with an unfortunate case of hand gigantism, it was knocking someone off their bike with a crowbar in Road Rash and hunting down a mad dictator in Desert Strike. It was an experience, and remains one to this day.
Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, especially a SNES owner.
Long live SEGA.
taken from - http://toomanywires.blog126.fc2.com/
