How popular is the Genesis these days?

[Melf]

Space Harrier, Last Battle, Tommy Lasorda, Thunder Blade, Altered Beast, etc. All launch titles and all completely forgettable. Just because you misunderstood my point does NOT mean that what I said was misleading.

You did a poor job of making your point, then. Your original post was:

In the late 80's and early 90's the graphics improvement over the NES was everything. Back then that was essentially the number one selling point; how close the graphics were to "arcade quality". So many of the games were terrible or had about 60 minutes of play value attached (ahem, Altered Beast), but looked so cool, and the fact that one could finish the game in about 20 minutes with about zero reason to play through again didn't matter.

You make no mention of launch titles at all. In fact, given the context of your post, one could infer that your comment includes other titles released shortly after launch (which you neglect to mention) like Forgotten Worlds, Golden Axe, or Phantasy Star II.

Taken for what it is, this post still doesn't do a good job of making an argument. The Genesis was being marketed as "bringing the arcade experience home," so why wouldn't the games be arcadey? The last part is strictly subjective, and I'm assuming that you played NES games at the time, many of which were hardly much longer or filled with hours and hours of replay value. I don't see why this would be a problem, then. That was the nature of many games at the time, since they were designed to mimic the arcade experience.

I'm not "making things up". No US launch title would make it onto a top top 100 list of Genesis games. They just aren't very good.

Again, subjective. I don't know what you would consider to be strictly a "launch" title, but how many people would consider the SNES port of Gradius III or China Warrior to be top 100 games? It all depends on opinion.

@ the comparison not being valid! It's a "simple" comparison. What did the Genesis come packed with at launch? What did the SNES come packed with at launch? If I play your game, then I can point to the likes of Zelda and Yoshi's Island eventually being packed-in with the SNES. Both games having FAR more depth and replay value than Sonic the 1-dimensional Hedgehog. Again, another game which doesn't offer much beyond about 60 minutes of running through every level as quickly as possible, seeing as there's absolutely no reason to NOT rush through the entire game.

You just degraded your argument to "Nintendo rules! Sega sucks!" levels here. This has nothing to do with the argument. But since you fail to see any value in Altered Beast, let me give you some perspective. Altered Beast was never meant to be a "top 100" game. It was meant to show off the console's capabilities. That's why it was chosen as the pack-in title. Only 5 levels and beaten in 20 minutes! Yes, and it was damn close to the coin-op and FREE. It was meant to move hardware, and it did it's job quite capably.

In contrast, Super Mario World was triple A software. Why do you think Nintendo chose to pack in its most valuable title at launch? It needed to move hardware quickly, and it did. Sonic's inclusion was meant to do the same, and it did. Sega outsold Nintendo for the next 3 holiday seasons.

Say what you want about the games themselves, but they did their jobs. Altered Beast wasn't chosen as the pack-in by way of a game of Janken-Po, you know.

The popularity of the SNES holds quite strong while that of the Genesis dwindles.

Prices on the secondary market remain high for games of a company that never left the hardware business and still sells consoles, while those for games made by a company that left the hardware business more than a decade ago haven't really climbed? SHOCKED.

If I were to use your argument, I could say that the Genesis is more popular than the SNES because the SNES doesn't have a comprehensive website devoted to it. I don't, however, because that wouldn't be a valid argument.

FYI, many of the games you listed wouldn't hold my attention for more than 60 minutes. Not in 1989, and most certainly not today. Shinobi is an arcade title, and as such, takes about 30 minutes to romp through. Populous never struck me as a stand-out console title. Plays well on PC, but for the Genesis and SNES, not so much. Mystic Defender is nearly identical to Shinobi in terms of being an arcade game. Your first time through may have taken 45-60 minutes, with no real reason to revisit it.

I get the impression that you didn't really give these games a chance. The Revenge of Shinobi (not "Shinobi" - totally different game) is a long game that has multiple endings. Unless you speed run it, I highly doubt you finished it in 30 minutes. Yeah, Super Thunderblade sucked, as did a few others. They weren't all bad, though. Personally, I had lots of fun with Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle (being a fan from the Master System), and games like Golden Axe (much better than the arcade) and Forgotten Worlds gave me hours of fun. Again, it's all subjective.

Mystic Defender is identical to Shinobi because it's an arcade game?

You can call it bullshit if you want, but my opinion (which is based on a LOT of experience with the console) is just that, my opinion. You don't have to agree. I bought my 1st Genesis within a week of launch and my SNES on launch day. I've played both a LOT over the years as well as the TG-16 and even my fair share of the Neo-Geo. Ignorrant I am not.

I don't think you're ignorant. I think you have a preference that shapes your argument, and that's fine. I also think you worded that argument poorly, which is why you got called out.