The Late Lives of the SNES and the Genesis

[SoulBlazer]

Here's something I've wondered for a while, and I toss it out for debate:

Did Sega make a mistake by giving up on the Genesis too early, or did Nintendo make a mistake by supporting the SNES too long?

Where as Sega seems to have dropped support for the Genesis in 1995 and 1996, moving over to the Sega CD and the Saturn, Nintendo found ways to continue to milk it's 16 bit line until the N64 was ready to be released.

Even wtih the PlayStation and other systems on the market, the Super Nintendo had some great games come out toward the end of it's life, in 1995 and 1996. Games like Chrono Trigger, Yoshi's Island, Super Mario RPG, and other games. Games that made me forgo a PSX or any other new system when there was still plenty of great stuff coming out for my SNES.

I always though that Sega made a mistake by dropping support for the Genesis too early, when the system was viable still, and Nintendo made the right move in not releasing any 'enhancements' and forgoing the 32 bit idea to go straight into 64 (not considering the pros and cons of the N64 for this debate, just a 64 bit system).

The life span of systems has gotten shorter over the years. Even though the SNES got only 7 years (in North America), less time then the NES, it was still supported the same length of time as the Genesis, and maybe longer. And there's strong evidence that systems can see some great games produced in their last year or two of life, when developers know how to squeeze every little bit out of a system.

So which company made the right move and why?

[ManekiNeko]

Here's something I've wondered for a while, and I toss it out for debate:

Did Sega make a mistake by giving up on the Genesis too early, or did Nintendo make a mistake by supporting the SNES too long?

A little from column A, a little from column B. Sega had left Genesis owners out in the cold not only with the Saturn, but the 32X and Sega CD as well. Genesis owners wanted games for their Genesis systems, not for cheap enhancements they had to purchase seperately.
Nintendo should be commended for supporting the Super NES so faithfully, but they did go overboard with it. They should have released the N64 at least six months earlier. Their hesitation gave the Playstation a chance to firmly root itself as the leader of the next generation of game systems.

JR

[Atari7800]

i was always impressed with what nintendo and a few developers were able to do with the FX chip and all of its various upgrades. i was shocked to see DOOM on the snes, rough as it was. STAR TREK pretty much sucked, but STUNT RACE FX and YOSHIS ISLAND were darn cool at the time.

STUNT RACE FX had the potential to be really good... the game features basic polygon models and very bad character animation, but the courses are well-designed and the frame rate is quite fast, especially for full-screen. too bad the music is HORRIBLE (really) and the character select screen is amoung the worst I've ever seen... seriously. the game's core is great.

I would have loved to see COMANCHE (the pc game) on the SNES... i saw videos and i understand it was close to release but the game just looked too ugly. same with FX FIGHTER which was eventually released on pc.

the genesis only had ONE game that contained a special processor like the FX chip, and that was VIRTUA RACING. it looks bad today, but it was cool when it came out (except for the $90 price tag!) i guess it cost too much to make.

i too think it is a combination of nintendo holding on too long with the snes and sega giving up on the Genesis (and ever releasing the sega CD and 32x) that lead both companies to let sony slip in through the back door and take over the castle.

[vincewy]

This discussion is tied to earlier thread about Genesis systems getting almost no resale value. even though Nintendo didn't win the early 16-bit war, they committed to a system for 7 years and kept the value of the system much higher than Genesis for that reason, RPGs take longer to finish. I missed the old days of SNES RPGs taking months to complete (Breath of Fires 1/2, FF3, Chrono Trigger, nuf said).

In Japan, Super Famicom was so successful that, if I remember right, last game came out as late as 1999.

[Mayhem]

2000 actually, one of the Fire Emblem series I believe and a few others.

I have a couple of SFC games from 98 and one from 99 in my collection at home. It's quite bizarre seeing stuff that late still being put out on the 16 bit machine. But only in Japan of course ;)

[Jorpho]

Wrecking Crew '98 (released through Nintendo's vending machine service) even had a pretty good rendition of the castle from Super Mario 64 in it.
________
Digital Vaporizer (http://digitalvaporizers.info)

[Mayhem]

That happens to be one of the 1998 games I was mentioning I have ;)

[swlovinist]

I would have to disagree with life span and point out that the playstation is going on almost nine!(do you believe that!). As for Nintendo and Sega, both these companies don't seem to have not been doing as well as the golden 16 bit wars.(I know that Sega is a software only company now)

In the 90's, I feel that Sega was trying to reinvent the wheel every 2 years, when threy should have been not forgetting who got them in the number one spot, the Genesis. With the utlimate failure of the SCD, Saturn(US), and the 32X, Sega dumped alot of money in development of these systems, and got zilch in return. Sega should have made a CD based system that was backward compatable with the genesis. Sega has everyone rooting for them, but when they made a new system they forgot all the people that bought previous systems and games. Boo Sega. I loved the Genesis, The SCD was not powerful enough, and the Saturn(excellent for imports), was not what the US wanted. Crappy sports titles and early polygon 3D crappy camera games. No thanks. One question, why did we not recieve a fourth of all the awsome import games(man that baffles me!)

As for Nintendo, they has almost the opposite approach of Sega. Nintendo usually will support a system, as long as they can, even if the system is on its last leg. As for the N64, Nintendo milked that puppy for a year and a half before the Cube came out. THe problem with Nintendo is that they have gotten stuck in their ways, targeting children and families for their video game systems. I love their quality of thier games, but they are loosing out on all the adults out there that want to play a more Matrue Nintendo.
As for the battle of the 16 bit wars, I feel that Nintendo won the 16 war by not giving up on their system and giving a powerful punch late in its live with many high end RPGs and platform titles. IT is too bad that their transition to 3D was a painful one, and one that made them burn many bridges with their core 3rd party support that drove the sales of their other systems. Bottom line, Nintedo won the battle, but they are going to not be a contender if they do not change their core approach to who they are making games for!

[Jorpho]

Did Nintendo really ever target children with its marketing? I think it just happened to work out that way, what with the poor third-party support for the N64 and the very nature of Pokemon.

[RoboticParanoia]

Did Nintendo really ever target children with its marketing? I think it just happened to work out that way, what with the poor third-party support for the N64 and the very nature of Pokemon.

I don't believe it has, but the nature of some of their games might make think them as "kiddy" games.

Or maybe it was some plot by Sony (via some payed "students") to say that Nintendo is kiddy so that Sony gets more popular by offering more "M" rated games.