Why did the SNES die so fast after the N64 was released?

[VG_Maniac]

If you think about how long other systems such as the NES, PS1, and PS2 lasted after their successors came out...it makes me wonder why the SNES died so fast after the N64 was released (at least it did here in North America). I mean, both the NES and PS1 lasted around 10 years from the day of their release until they completely disappeared from store shelves (and currently PS2 games and systems are still being sold in stores as we approach the 10 year anniversary for it). However, the SNES lasted about 6 years from the day of it's release...and was all but dead as soon as the N64 hit the market, despite it being such a popular system, (and Nintendo's best system ever made in my opinion). The NES lasted about 3 or 4 years after the SNES was released (and 5 or 6 years after the Genesis was released), and I expected the SNES to do the same...but only a couple of good games came out for it after the release of the N64, like Donkey Kong Country 3 and Harvest moon. After that, it was dead. I know the SNES lasted longer in Japan, but why did it die so quickly here in the US, and didn't have the lasting power that the NES, PS1, and the PS2 had?

[Sonicwolf]

Perhaps the Super Nintendo Entertainment System died soon after the Nintendo 64 was released because the Nintendo 64 was released much later than the other systems of the 3D generation. The Saturn and the PlayStation came out in 1994/1995 and many SNES owners would have already changed to one of the new systems by the time the N64 came out in 1996/1997. Once the N64 came out, the remaining Nintendo hold-outs soon after got the 64 and the SNES dissappeared.

[A Black Falcon]

In Japan, it didn't. The SNES was supported by Nintendo all the way until 2000 there, with many titles available either by the 1995 to 2000 supported Satellaview addon or by Nintendo Power cartridges, rewritable carts for the SNES and GB that could be bought in some stores and have games written to them there.

The titles released that did not get released in the US are mostly smaller titles such as a bunch of puzzle games, but we missed some major ones as well, such as the Fire Emblem titles, all the adventure games (graphic adventure style, I mean), and more.

In comparison, in the US Nintendo's last SNES title was Kirby's Dream Land 3, released in late 1997 here, and they had released very few games before that that year. The release list through 1996 was pretty strong, but 1997... much less so. Why?

I don't know the actual reason, but my guess is that part of why is because the N64 was much more successful in the US than it was in Japan. In Japan the SNES had sold huge numbers and dominated the industry, but while the SNES was the bare winner in the US, it hadn't crushed the Genesis or anything and by 1996 it was starting to fade thanks to the Playstation and hype for the N64. The N64 ended up selling 21 million systems in the US compared to 5.5 million in Japan, while the SNES had sold ~17 million in Japan and ~24 million in the US, I believe (I didn't check the numbers so I could be off for these SNES numbers, but the point is that both SNES numbers were high, which is true). So Nintendo had much better reasons to want to keep the SNES going in Japan, N64 wasn't doing so well there... but here, there was less incentive to do that because the N64 was doing so much better. At least, that's my guess.

Also, of course, the 5th generation particularly was a time when people thought that 3d was better than 2d, so the older, not-3d SNES probably was hurt some by that... and of course, this anti-2d sentiment was much stronger in the West than it was in Japan.

Also, companies like to support their own home region above other parts of the world, so it'd make sense for Nintendo to care more about their home region of Japan over other places, and to support it more there. The opposite is also true, look at Microsoft and Atari systems for good examples of that.


Here are how some Japanese systems lasted in the US and Japan, for some comparisons...

NES --1983-1994 in Japan, 1985-1994 in the US. New game production halted in both regions at the end of 1994.

TurboGrafx/PC Engine -- 1987-1994 in Japan, 1989-1993 US... for HuCards. For CDs, it was 1988-1999 in Japan (though there was just one 1999 release and no 1998 ones), 1989-1994 US (with only 3 releases max in 1994 -- and two of those may perhaps have been late 1993 releases, I'm not certain).

SNES -- 1990-2000 Japan, 1991-1998 US. Only one release in 1998 in the US.

Genesis -- 1988-1996 Japan, 1989-1998 US. Only one 1998 release in the US.
Sega CD - 1991-1996 Japan, 1992-1995 US
32X - 1994-1996 US, 1994-1995 Japan, 1994-1996 Europe

Game Gear -- 1990-1996 Japan, 1991-1997 US.

Master System -- 1985-1989 Japan, 1986-1991 US, 1987-1995 Europe

Dreamcast -- 1998-2007 Japan (discontinued worldwide and production halted in Jan. 2001, final Japanese first party release May 2002 (sort of); only third party shmups and visual novels kept it 'alive'.), 1999-2002 US (last release in Feb. or Mar. 2002), 1999-2002 Europe (last release in May or June 2002)

Playstation -- 1994-2004 Japan, 1994-2004 US (unless one of those was 2005? I forget, but it might be.)

PS2 -- still supported in all regions

etc.


As for American systems, there are fewer of them of course, and most just weren't released in Japan... I know of a few, but I don't know of any successful ones.

Atari 2600/2800 -- unsure as to first 2600 version release (by Epoch or some other company). 2800 model released in 1983. Wasn't too successful.

Atari Jaguar -- released there, I think, 1994-1995 or so. Didn't last long at all and had only a handful of releases.

Microsoft Xbox -- supported from 2002-2005 in Japan (it had an early 2002 release there). In the US the system released in 2001 and even though Microsoft stopped developing for it in 2005, third party support continued until 2008 (one release that year, three or four in '07).


I know I've mostly left out Europe, and I'm sorry, but finding the numbers and dates and all that for Europe is harder than for the US or Japan, that's for sure...

[j_factor]

Perhaps they noticed that the SNES didn't surpass its competition (in America) until the NES was finally phasing out, and decided that continued support of their previous system was a detriment. N64 and Gamecube were both (practically) dead as a doornail when their successors were released here, too.

Or maybe it's just because the market just wasn't there. With the shift to 3D, CD-ROM media (except for N64, but the vast majority of developers became focused on CD-ROM platforms), and perhaps shifting priorities, there was a general trend of dumping old systems faster. A prolonged lifespan like the 2600 or Commodore 64 had just didn't seem possible. Also, whatever market was there in that late period, wasn't going to SNES -- Majesco's Genesis 3 was outselling it, despite the fact that fewer new Genesis games were coming out.

[badinsults]

Simply put: costs. Once the Playstation came out in 1995, developers realized they could make games on the Playstation for cheaper than the SNES, due to the fact that cds were cheaper than carts. Near the end of the life cycle of the snes, many companies that thrived during the 16-bit era (ie Sunsoft, Micropose, Titus), were on life support, and could not profit when 16-bit sales were falling. It wasn't like at the end of the PS1's life where titles could still be produced at low costs as shovelware. Even low end SNES games would likely have had to be priced at $40 or higher to make a profit.

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

It was the fast pace of technology development during that period, AND the switch to the CD median. The SNES was released in 1991. The PS1 was released in 1995. The SNES became outdated at a lot faster pace than other systems.

Wikipedia has a paragraph that sums it up best:

"The increasing complexity of games (in content, graphics, and sound) pushed cartridges to their storage limits and this fact began to turn off third party developers. Also, CDs were appealing to publishers due to the fact that they could be produced at a significantly lower cost and offered more flexibility (it was easy to change production to meet demand). In turn, they were able to pass the lower costs onto consumers."

[chrisbid]

seeing how nintendo had the 16bit market cornered for two whole years (sega dropped most genesis support in early 95), they milked the snes about as much as they could.

in reality, the n64 was too late to the party

[Doonzmore]

I never really thought the Snes died out too soon. There were a few great releases between 96-98:

Mario RPG
Kirby Dream Land 3
Kirby Super Star
Donkey Kong Country 3
Ardy Lightfoot
Prehistoric Man
Harvest Moon
Cold Shadow
Street Fighter Alpha 2

And don't forget Majesco rereleased a ton of older games in the late 90's so even in 2000 it wasn't uncommon to find a healthy selection of Snes games on the shelves of retail outlets like Toys R Us and Meijer.

It was known in 95 that the N64 would launch in late 96, yet there were roughly 44 games released in 96 and around 11 in 97. If you think it died off immediately after the N64 launched then consider the same situation for the N64. Around 10 games released in 2001, 4 of which came out after the Gamecube launched and 1 game in 2002. Those were some slow months for Nintendo fans...

[Leo_A]

If you thought it was basically dead before the N64's launch, you just weren't paying attention to the system, just like far too many others.

Several great classics were released after the Nintendo 64 launch, including Donkey Kong Country 3, Kirby Super Star (Actually was the same week as the N64 launch, but close enough), Kirby's Dream Land 3, etc.

The redesigned Super Nintendo didn't even launch until late 1997, with production lasting into 1999.

The launch was followed with numerous rereleases of third party games that had been licensed by Majesco and reissues of 1st party classics in Nintendo's Player's Choice line, with these rereleases continuing through 1998 and into 1999 by both companies.

Frogger, the last Super Nintendo game and the only new game in Majesco's wave of Super Nintendo releases, wasn't released until 1998.

Throughout 2000, you could find brand new Super Nintendo consoles and these rereleases (And Frogger) at most any retailer that carried videogames. And it was only years afterwards before the last of these rereleases finally dried up, I could still find Majesco reissues at places like local Wal-Mart's as recently as 3-4 years ago.

It had one of the healthiest lifespans of any Nintendo system after it's successor was released. The Nintendo 64 and GameCube didn't even last long enough to see their successor's hit the marketplace, both having left production long before their replacements were released. They both also just saw a small handful of game releases the year preceding the launch of their replacements (With even less after their replacements were released, just 1 domestic N64 game was released after the GCN's launch I believe and not much more for the GameCube after the Wii's release).

The Super Nintendo on the other hand had a healthy three years after the Nintendo 64 was released before manufacturing started to be wound down to discontinue the platform, with old stock remaining widely available for another year or two afterwards as retailers discontinued and clearanced out their inventory for the platform.

[Raedon]

Perhaps the Super Nintendo Entertainment System died soon after the Nintendo 64 was released because the Nintendo 64 was released much later than the other systems of the 3D generation.

This. Even after the N64 came out there was a year where the only games one the system worth playing were Mario 64 and Wave Race 64. I was in college in NY at the time and we were still playing Mario Kart on the SNES because those who bought an N64 couldn't afford a PS1 and there were no games to play at all really until the end of Summer 1997 when Goldeneye came out.

[JSoup]

I've always felt that it was due to "the next big thing" being released. It makes sense that when something bigger, better and new is released that everyone would dump the old thing and jump for the new thing.

[dbiersdorf]

It had one of the healthiest lifespans of any Nintendo system after it's successor was released. The Nintendo 64 and GameCube didn't even last long enough to see their successor's hit the marketplace, both having left production long before their replacements were released. They both also just saw a small handful of game releases the year preceding the launch of their replacements (With even less after their replacements were released, just 1 domestic N64 game was released after the GCN's launch I believe and not much more for the GameCube after the Wii's release).

But that's common with systems that are not the market leader. It's not fair to compare Nintendo's support for the NES/SNES to the N64/GCN because the N64 and GCN had no reason to continue to support as the sales of hardware had all but stopped. I think what the OP is trying to get at is that when you compare the SNES (in America) to the other generation market leaders - NES, PS and PS2 - the extended support was much more bare bones, especially in terms of quality software (both from Nintendo and third parties). I've never really looked at the SNES post N64 releases so I can't comment either way, but from what I remember the dramatic shift to 3D gaming due to the Saturn/PlayStation/Nintendo 64 certainly did cut the SNES off of some potentially great years.

[j_factor]

But that's common with systems that are not the market leader. It's not fair to compare Nintendo's support for the NES/SNES to the N64/GCN because the N64 and GCN had no reason to continue to support as the sales of hardware had all but stopped. I think what the OP is trying to get at is that when you compare the SNES (in America) to the other generation market leaders - NES, PS and PS2 - the extended support was much more bare bones, especially in terms of quality software (both from Nintendo and third parties). I've never really looked at the SNES post N64 releases so I can't comment either way, but from what I remember the dramatic shift to 3D gaming due to the Saturn/PlayStation/Nintendo 64 certainly did cut the SNES off of some potentially great years.

But NES, PSX, and PS2 were all market leaders for basically their entire lifespans. SNES was only market leader (in the US) for like two years.

[OldSchoolGamer]

Well when you have to pay Nintendo license fees for cartridges you are likely going to support Nintendo's latest as opposed to their older console...............

[Leo_A]

I don't really see what being market leader has to do with it. It certainly helps a system remain viable for a longer length of time, but I don't really see the connection on why comparing it to later Nintendo consoles that weren't huge sales successes is incorrect.

The fact is, it was supported longer than the following two Nintendo hardware generations, which were both basically dead and buried many months before their replacements arrived. And support for the SuperNes lasted several years past the release of the Nintendo 64, with an entire console redesign among other things taking place the year after the N64's launch to help the SuperNes remain a viable budget platform.

It didn't really die a fast death, and the quick abandonment of new game development can easily be explained by the 3d transition that was taking place at the time, Nintendo's presumed encouragement for developers to move on to their new platform (As we all know, the Nintendo 64 struggled for it's entire life for a healthy selection of new releases) , and the lack of a major second platform in the marketplace to port your projects to, which certainly reduced the viability of the SuperNes to third party developers (The Sega Genesis was largely dead at the time before Majesco revived the system as a budget platform in 1997).

[VG_Maniac]

I never really thought the Snes died out too soon. There were a few great releases between 96-98:

Mario RPG
Kirby Dream Land 3
Kirby Super Star
Donkey Kong Country 3
Ardy Lightfoot
Prehistoric Man
Harvest Moon



I'm talking about after the N64 came out. The only games on that list that were released on the SNES after the N64 came out was Kirby's Dream Land 3, Donkey Kong Country 3, and Harvest Moon.


If you thought it was basically dead before the N64's launch, you just weren't paying attention to the system, just like far too many others.

Several great classics were released after the Nintendo 64 launch, including Donkey Kong Country 3, Kirby Super Star (Actually was the same week as the N64 launch, but close enough), Kirby's Dream Land 3, etc.

I didn't say it died before the N64, I said it died shortly afterwards.

[Haoie]

PS2 is still going strong. 10 years.

But then again, PS2 was far more successful than N64!

[Gameguy]

Does anyone remember the Virtual Boy? The N64 came out just over a year after the Virtual Boy launched, they probably didn't want to support the SNES because they had a lot going on around the same time and failed with the Virtual Boy. Maybe they just wanted to focus on the N64 and Gameboy just to keep from losing anymore money at that time.

[Leo_A]

I didn't say it died before the N64, I said it died shortly afterwards.

You also stated the following:



However, the SNES lasted about 6 years from the day of it's release...and was all but dead as soon as the N64 hit the market, despite it being such a popular system

Which is what I was disagreeing with.

Nintendo did an entire budget redesign of the console after the Nintendo 64 was released and produced it for several years. Some new games were released after the N64's launch, with the last not arriving until 1998. Nintendo rereleased many past Player's Choice releases and placed some new games into the program in the late 1990s to complement the redesigned SuperNes. And Majesco rereleased a wide variety of 3rd party classics for the console during the same time period.

These rerelease programs and production of the redesigned Super Nintendo lasted well into 1999 (Three years after the release of the Nintendo 64), and remained widely available for quite sometime after 1999. I'd say you could still walk into many retail locations in 2000 and buy a SuperNes for $50 new, and you could easily find Majesco rereleases in bargain bins in 2001.

While there certainly wasn't much new game development going on (4 games by my count for North America from the N64's launch through 1998), the platform was hardly dead. It had a healthy second life that lasted several years past 1996 as a budget system to complement the Nintendo 64, with the rerelease programs aimed at existing SuperNes owners that couldn't afford to upgrade and potential new owners looking for a more affordable alternative to a 32/64 bit console. And all of this was without the platform drying up at retail like the Sega Genesis did before Majesco's revival of the platform.

[j_factor]

You also stated the following:



Which is what I was disagreeing with.

Nintendo did an entire budget redesign of the console after the Nintendo 64 was released and produced it for several years. Some new games were released after the N64's launch, with the last not arriving until 1998. Nintendo rereleased many past Player's Choice releases and placed some new games into the program in the late 1990s to complement the redesigned SuperNes. And Majesco rereleased a wide variety of 3rd party classics for the console during the same time period.

These rerelease programs and production of the redesigned Super Nintendo lasted well into 1999 (Three years after the release of the Nintendo 64), and remained widely available for quite sometime after 1999. I'd say you could still walk into many retail locations in 2000 and buy a SuperNes for $50 new, and you could easily find Majesco rereleases in bargain bins in 2001.

While there certainly wasn't much new game development going on (4 games by my count for North America from the N64's launch through 1998), the platform was hardly dead. It had a healthy second life that lasted several years past 1996 as a budget system to complement the Nintendo 64, with the rerelease programs aimed at existing SuperNes owners that couldn't afford to upgrade and potential new owners looking for a more affordable alternative to a 32/64 bit console. And all of this was without the platform drying up at retail like the Sega Genesis did before Majesco's revival of the platform.

You obviously have a unique definition of "dead". It may have been in stores until 2000, but as a software platform, it was dead. You could buy Game.coms until 2002 but that doesn't mean it actually "lived" that long -- at least to most people. You can argue retail availability all you want, but that's clearly not what the OP was talking about.

[Aussie2B]

I think it just ran the expected course of events. The NES, PS1, and PS2 are exceptions. They dominated the industry during their respective eras, so with the massive install base and wide assortment of experienced developers, it was only natural for them to continue longer than usual. The SNES, however, was fairly neck and neck with the Genesis in the US, so it had a typical lifespan. But since the Super Famicom crushed the Mega Drive in Japan, it lasted considerably longer over there.

In my house at least, the SNES was still going strong for awhile. I got the N64 at launch and was crazy about it, but I was also huge on games like Super Mario RPG, Kirby Super Star, Harvest Moon, and Donkey Kong Country 3. With games like those, the SNES was guaranteed to see equal playing time. I also took advantage of the rereleases to get earlier stuff I had missed out on like Castlevania IV. It honestly wasn't a bad time to be a SNES owner, even if all the hype was going to the N64.

[Leo_A]

You obviously have a unique definition of "dead".

You're right

To me, a console can't be considered defunct when new systems are being manufactured by the original company and officially licensed games are being manufactured and released.

But I guess that's just me...

[Ed Oscuro]

I think the dead / not dead argument misses the point.

Look, I remember the reviews of new SNES games from one of Nintendo Power's 1997 issues. No, the system wasn't totally "dead," but it wasn't as active as it had been.

Let's just say that it got as much support as was deemed appropriate for the expected payoff. As Leo rightfully points out, it was getting new games well after the N64's launch. Obviously it wasn't selling games as rapidly as the current-gen consoles were, but it was still very popular and people were buying for it.

Some companies, especially in some markets, are quick to try to kill off sales of their older models when new ones are released, for various reasons. I can't think of this happening with console systems in general, though, because the idea is to sell affordable hardware where the profit margins are low or non-existent, and there is a "one size fits all" configuration, as opposed to computer processors or digital cameras where there are gradations between feature sets, old stock to exhaust before a new model is sold, and potential high profit margins on the actual hardware.

[Doonzmore]

Sorry for being a Dikembe Didumbfuck. I misquoted you and cherry picked a few of the games on your list. Upon further research, there are a few others on your list (like Cold Shadow) which came out after the N64 launch. You bring up excellent points about Majesco and developers bringing out quality material despite knowledge of the N64 on the horizon.

Don't know what a "Dikembe Didumbfuck" is but thanks for the apology.

[Kiddo]

To add to the list of console lifespans;

NeoGeo - 1990-2004; one thing to note about this is that it's concept was similar to the Dreamcast; the ability to have a similar "arcade" and "home" hardware. Since NAOMI ports are a few of the things keeping the Dreamcast alive now, I'd say this criteria, as strange as it may be, is a factor in console lifespan that may be more important than the console's market share.

PC-FX - 1994-1998. Even though this system didn't sell that well commerically, it had close to the "average" console lifespan. I do not really know the significance of this.

Playdia - 1994-1996. Not really sure if it was worth me typing this part.

Sega Pico - (????) in Japan/1993 in USA- (2004+?) in Japan/1996 USA. I'm still looking this stuff up, but Sega's edutainment system apparently had a very long life in the Japanese region, as opposed to elsewhere. (The current 2004 estimate comes from the copyright info on my "Futari wa Pretty Cure" storybook.)

[Tokimemofan]

The problem is that everyone was bruised at the end of the 16-bit era, Both major companies were throwing money into hole in the ground. Sega was imploding, while Nintendo had manage to botch their CD add on. At least Sega got it's major addons to market and didn't manage to create 2 competitors in the process, not that doing that is any less stupid. Both of their 32bit era systems were timed badly and had a number of bad design problems that caused publishers to move to the PlayStation in the early part of an already compressed transition period. The change from carts to CDs made many budget geriatric period titles from making enough money. That said, it wasn't nearly as mad as other systems.

[Leo_A]

Some statistics to back up my earlier claims (Thanks to a wonderful PDF Nintendo released a while back with overall sales totals for its platforms and annual sales breakdowns per platform from 1998 onwards).

Those stats show Super Famicom console sales lasting into at least the 2004 fiscal year when approximately 10,000 systems were sold. May go on further, but since the figures are rounded to the nearest 10,000, it's impossible to detirmine when the number shown is a 0 (Although some years after that point show as zero's, perhaps indicating a low amount of sales took place, while others just have a slash through them, but I don't know if that is the significance or not and won't pretend that I know if there is a distinction between the two).

As recently as the 2001 fiscal year, Nintendo sold 70,000 Super Nintendo's in North America. The year before, 230,000 systems were sold in North America. And in 1999, they sold 1.4 million Super Nintendo's outside of Japan (No independent North American figures for that year). In 1998, that number was 1.85 million outside of Japan (Which accounted for another 190k and 50k in console sales for those two years). And if 2000 onwards is an indication, the vast majority of those sales in 98 and 99 were for North America.

For software, 13.7 million SuperNes games were sold outside of Japan in 1998. In 1999, that amount was 5.2 million. In 2000, nearly 1.2 million games were sold just in North America (When independent North American totals become available, with elsewhere accounting another 130,000 games) and 90,000 in 2001 for the North American market (And 10,000 more for other regions outside of North America and Japan). The 0's and -'s start showing up afterwards.

Japan bought 770,000 SuperNes games in 1998, 790,000 games in 1999, 190,000 in 2000, 50,000 in 2001, 20,000 in 2002, and 10,000 in 2003.

I don't believe the console died soon after the N64's release. It enjoyed a healthy second life as a budget platform well into the 2000's in my opinion and I think the statistics back up that claim. I don't have 1996 and 1997 statistics, but from 1998 onwards, nearly 4 million consoles were sold. Count in what I'm sure were very significant numbers of systems sold in 1996 and 1997, and I bet you're looking at something not far away from 20% of the total sales of Super Nintendo hardware having taken place while the Nintendo 64 was on the market.

Nintendo didn't give it the Xbox treatment.

[SparTonberry]

From what I understand (and possibly the same PDF released earlier), the N64 really bombed in Japan (supposedly they didn't even sell 5 million consoles in Japan, compared to over 20 million consoles in "the Americas").
Perhaps that's why they invented the Nintendo Power flash carts in Japan, to keep the system alive by allowing players to take their cart to the store and buy ROMs, keeping the production costs to the publisher down.

So, perhaps NoA just didn't feel as much of a need to keep the SNES alive since Super Mario 64 was better than sliced bread. :P

[Leo_A]

They sold 3.5 million consoles in Japan from fiscal year 1998 through 2002 (So March 1997 onwards). So somewhere below 5 million N64's sold in Japan is likely correct.

Japan has always been a pretty small marketplace that belies its importance and influence for so many years on this industry. So I think even if it had been a huge success, the number would still seem small to us.

The SuperNes did really well for NOA in later years I suspect. In 2000 when independent North American figures became available, 90% of SuperNes system sales outside of Japan came from North America. So I suspect the vast majority of console sales in 98 and 99 came from North America.

And at that time, 1 Super Nintendo was being sold for every 5 Nintendo 64's sold outside of Japan. Not bad for a console that some in this thread view as having already been dead when the Nintendo 64 arrived.

[n20vette]

shoot snes dead its still alive at my house its my all time favorite system

[Rickstilwell1]

Yeah store availablity is quite a bit different than new releases. I got all of my brand new Super Nintendo games in 1997 and 1998 when Target still had them on their shelves for $20 and $30 depending on which game it was. During those years I ended up getting all these games as presents or purchases from gift money:

Donkey Kong Country (June '98)
Donkey Kong Country 2 (December '97)
Donkey Kong Country 3 (May '98)
Kirby's Avalanche (June '96)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (July '97)
Super Mario All-Stars (July '97)
Super Mario Kart (July '97)
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (April '98)

Before that time period I had only gotten used SNES games my uncle was done with because my grandparents thought new Super Nintendo games were too expensive. The only two brand new NES games I ever got were Kirby's Adventure and Dr. Mario in December of 1993. Brand new Genesis games I wanted - pretty much just the Sonic games; were cheaper so they bought those for me instead of the SNES games on my list during the June 1993-December 1996 time period. December '97 it was my aunt that bought me DKC2 while my grandma got me a Game Boy Pocket with Mario Land 1 & 2 + Link's Awakening. I didn't get my own Nintendo 64 until December 1998, and it was that Atomic Purple controller bundle. When you're late to every system's party like I was when I was a kid, you can easily remember how long things were on store shelves. Had these things stayed on shelves longer I probably would have gotten the last two Kirby games brand new instead of cart only back in the day, as well as many others.

[Kevincal]

because the n64 was released so late it seems like snes died suddenly but it didnt. nintendo was stupid to release n64 so late. ps and saturn already were out in japan in 1994! so japanese developers were already scaling back snes developement starting in 1994 so by 1996 not much was left to be released and 16 bit was pretty much dead by 1997.

but ya, if the n64 was cd and released before christmas 1995 i bet sega would have never died after DC and sony may have never made a ps2 and maybe xbox never released or not as successful anyway, I actually wish this is how things turned out (i dont care for over commercialization of ps2 and never liked anything xbox), darn you nintendo and your shitty handling of n64. n64 was great system but nintendo so stupid to release it so late. super nintendo had a great run from 1991 to 1996 i dont see that it died too soon. 5 years is the perfect time for a system to last.