Super NES or Sega Genesis?

[Tron 2.0]

This is truly the most accurate response, the overall majority would side with the SNES, especially since they did at the time too seeing as how Nintendo beat Sega in the 16-bit wars. Anyone who thinks otherwise is blinded by fanboy-ism or was simply a non-SNES owner.

With a comment like that who's being the fanboy !? The sega and snes had there exclusive,but that doesn't mean one was better then the other.Both 'had there strength and weakness what matter was the software after all.

[Manga4life]

With a comment like that who's being the fanboy !? The sega and snes had there exclusive,but that doesn't mean one was better then the other.Both 'had there strength and weakness what matter was the software after all.

I wasn't talking about games, I was talking about cold hard facts and actual sales numbers. More people owned an SNES console than they did a Genesis and therefore would say the SNES was the better system, so obviously someone that didn't own a SNES but owned a Genesis would go that rout. It does appear that the overall conensus and the general gaming media favors the SNES, however.

[o.pwuaioc]

I wasn't talking about games, I was talking about cold hard facts and actual sales numbers. More people owned an SNES console than they did a Genesis and therefore would say the SNES was the better system, so obviously someone that didn't own a SNES but owned a Genesis would go that rout.

That's not quite how it works...

[123►Genei-Jin]

I wasn't talking about games, I was talking about cold hard facts and actual sales numbers. More people owned an SNES console than they did a Genesis and therefore would say the SNES was the better system, so obviously someone that didn't own a SNES but owned a Genesis would go that rout. It does appear that the overall conensus and the general gaming media favors the SNES, however.

no, the only reason the SNES outsold the Genesis is because SEGA discontinued the Genesis 2 years before the SNES was discontinued, the 16-bit wars between those 2 consoles was pretty even before that.

Also, I owned an SNES back then and still prefer the Genesis. I hate J-RPGs (love western RPGs BTW), so that genre does nothing for me. I simply have more fun playing Genesis exclusives than I do with SNES exclusives in general.
Both consoles are great and very different from each other, enjoy them for what they are and if you can't enjoy both I feel sorry for you.

[VG_Maniac]

I've never been that much of a fan of the games on the Genesis aside from the Sonic the Hedgehog games and a couple of others. The SNES has some of my favorite games of all time on it like Super Mario World, Super Metroid, Zelda: A Link to the Past, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy III, Secret of Mana, Super Castlevania IV, Mega Man X trilogy, Donkey Kong Country trilogy, Yoshi's Island, Turtles in Time, etc. To me, the Genesis library just can't compete with the SNES.

[Tanooki]

Nice to see this all civil and not a whiny fight like a duo of these posts over at NA in the last month.

Here's a spin on it though. If you're rating hardware SuperNES hands down, it came out second, had better parts to work with. The SNES had some incredible capabilities despite having a slower main processor which made up for a lot due to DMA capabilities of the hardware and the chip clock cycles allow more per each moment than the base speedier Genesis. SNES was that first system that allowed for over a VGA level of colors on screen as each layer(of which there's 4) could do 256 colors and from a full run of 32K of them, and could do transparencies, Mode7 scaling and rotation, plus a video mode did high res graphics(Secret of Mana menus), and high color pictures(see Indiana Jones using movie stills.) The sound on it was epic, all using sampled audio and could playback up to 33khz(nearly CD quality) and could run twice the audio channels of the Genesis.

That said if you were to throw software into the mix, that is where you can get fights as it comes down to preference. In my home I had the NES in 1985 for the Christmas test launch era and around 1990 my brother went and got a Genesis fed up with it(had a 2nd of his own.) I just didn't like it, couldn't get into it, and the ad campaigns wanted me to punch the tv with the lies they used to sell the thing. I got the SNES when it popped up and I could tell he didn't appreciate me not letting him use it from the complaining. He did love that system though, in time I did end up using it and liking it, but it did again come down to software preferences. I eventually got a Genesis 3(ugh) and a Nomad and had a blast with stuff but usually it was Sega arcade conversions like that fun Virtua Racing, some unique to system games like Vectorman or Streets of Rage, or multi-system franchises like Ghouls n Ghosts(preferred the SNES one though.) SNES though it gave me a nice run of sequelitis from all the stuff brought up yet again from the NES -- Mario, Zelda, Castlevania, Super Ghouls n Ghosts, FInal Fantasy 2(still my favorite), TMNT4, Gradius III(amazing conversion on arcade difficulty), and more. The more being great unique titles like Aleste(Space Megaforce), Actraiser(which blew my mind with the unique genre and ear candy music, my first purchase along with Gradius 3), the better Street Fighter II conversion, Starfox, the ahead of its time looking Donkey Kong Country, Mega Man X, Pilotwings, F-Zero and more.

These days with a little kid, job, and lack of time plus a bad run of it nearly a decade ago having to sell off a majority of my stuff, I no longer have other makers consoles other than a Master System from Sega. One thing I can say, it has allowed me to discover some bitchin SNES gems I missed out on like Wild Guns, Swat Kats, Super Valis IV, Sunset Riders, Pocky & Rocky, EVO, Lufia II, Final Fight 2 and 3(had 1), and the list goes on. IN the end the control, game play, familiar faces, and the insane audio/visual capabilities just took me to the next level while the Genesis felt lost somewhere in no mans land between my NES and the SNES.

[o.pwuaioc]

Nice to see this all civil and not a whiny fight like a duo of these posts over at NA in the last month.

NA and S-16 are two places that, while there are a lot of cool people and interesting discussions, have just way too much fanboyery to enjoy too often.

[j_factor]

SNES was that first system that allowed for over a VGA level of colors on screen as each layer(of which there's 4) could do 256 colors and from a full run of 32K of them, and could do transparencies, Mode7 scaling and rotation, plus a video mode did high res graphics(Secret of Mana menus), and high color pictures(see Indiana Jones using movie stills.) The sound on it was epic, all using sampled audio and could playback up to 33khz(nearly CD quality) and could run twice the audio channels of the Genesis.

This is inaccurate in multiple ways:

- VGA is 18-bit color (262k colors), whereas SNES is only 15-bit (32k colors) - still way better than Genesis, of course
- SNES cannot do 4 layers of 256 colors each. The SNES has different modes that allow for different combinations of colors/layers. Mode 0, the only mode with four background layers, only allows 4 colors per layer. Consequently, it saw little use.
- Mode 7 is one of the aforementioned modes, it's not a separate effect. In Mode 7 there is only a single layer.
- Genesis has 10 audio channels, to the SNES's 8. Although, counting channels says little.

I don't understand why people feel the need to exaggerate.

[Tron 2.0]

I wasn't talking about games, I was talking about cold hard facts and actual sales numbers. More people owned an SNES console than they did a Genesis and therefore would say the SNES was the better system, so obviously someone that didn't own a SNES but owned a Genesis would go that rout. It does appear that the overall conensus and the general gaming media favors the SNES, however.

You got proof for the figures or it didn't happen.If any thing it was a close race between the two in the u.s at least.Not to mention sales were not every thing beside depending where you live at the time.Some i knew then just had a genesis or the snes or flipped flop with the two consoles.Since you mentions sales of a console that doesn't all ways means it's better.Heck before i had a snes&genesis i owned a turbografx 16 first,sure it was the underdog in the u.s but i highly enjoyed for what it offer.

[Atarileaf]

I wasn't talking about games, I was talking about cold hard facts and actual sales numbers. More people owned an SNES console than they did a Genesis and therefore would say the SNES was the better system, so obviously someone that didn't own a SNES but owned a Genesis would go that rout. It does appear that the overall conensus and the general gaming media favors the SNES, however.

The problem with "better" is that's a subjective term when it comes to something like this. I would say that many bought the SNES because of brand recognition - they owned an NES so a SNES was a natural progression as games with characters they were familiar with appeared on the new console.

The Genesis was the successor of the Master System - a System that didn't sell well in North America and didn't have the same brand recognition. Despite that, it seems that both systems sold very well and both are excellent systems to own. Take a SNES and a Genesis and add a Turbografx-16 and you've got a fantastic lineup of 16 bit gaming goodness.

[zachhargis]

Though I love the genesis, I consider the SNES to be the best consol of all time, so I have to go with the SNES. I love RPGs and platformers, so the SNES is my system of choice. But don't get me wrong, the Genesis rocks.

[chrisbid]

I wasn't talking about games, I was talking about cold hard facts and actual sales numbers. More people owned an SNES console than they did a Genesis and therefore would say the SNES was the better system, so obviously someone that didn't own a SNES but owned a Genesis would go that rout. It does appear that the overall conensus and the general gaming media favors the SNES, however.

you must be referring to the years 1991, 1992, and 1993 when sega had a higher market share than nintendo

[j_factor]

you must be referring to the years 1991, 1992, and 1993 when sega had a higher market share than nintendo

Yes, here, Genesis sold better. Worldwide, though, SNES sold more in total, due to its dominance in Japan (while Mega Drive was #3, behind PC Engine).

[tom]

Sales figures are never accurate, as stated in the book Game Over, Nintendo always over exaggerated their sales figures (as did Sega btw).
this was already disproven with the C64 worldwide sales figures, it was always assumed to be 17 mill, which of course, was a huge lie, now to be proven more in the region of 12 million (Still a bit high in my opinion, but there you go)

Also, for many companies sales are 'shipped to retailers/shops etc', not actually sales to customers, no matter how long the hardware sits on the shop shelf or doesn't even sell. Way back it was common practice with the record instustry.

As for SNES or Magadrive, I like both, but the Megadrive had the extra 'cool factor', whilst the SNES 'had the same game again', referring to SMW is just like SMB3. But overall, the Megadrive had the better games in a long run,
not just 8 bit rehashes (With Megadrive it was the other way 'round, 16 bit games were ported to 8 bit)



I just don't understand Greg Fischbach saying 'people don't know how to write for 16 bit yet', Activision's been supporting Amiga and ST for years, but I believe he was more referring to the Nintendo people.

[Rob2600]

Toward the bottom of that page: "Sonic was not a great game..."

Looking back, I'd say Super Mario World is a well thought-out, finely-crafted classic, whereas Sonic the Hedgehog is a standard platformer that was backed by a huge Sega marketing campaign.

[Tanooki]

Wow is that guy ever a fat liar in that book. I remember hearing something of that before but never did see it in print. Trust me people at Nintendo before the stuff hits the market knows how to code whatever they like with the hardware. Miyamoto incompetent on the hardware that'll be a cold day in hell. I do believe though in the era of the companies Nintendo was the most forward about their numbers as they'd quote 'sold' while Sony has always and Sega mostly too said 'shipped to stores' and used them as prop numbers of 'moved product' which was playing with words.

[tom]

A book with input from NCL, Yamauchi, Miyamoto, NOA, Yokoi, Lincoln, Main, Arakawa, Tilden and many more from the Nintendo stable.

You better be careful who you're calling a liar, Lincoln will chew you up and spit you out in court, he's very good at that.