SNES vs Sega Genesis

[Cierwyn]

I'd probably have to go with the SNES. Overall, that particular console war was more about content. While the Genesis and other Sega consoles had some good games in multiple genres, they just didn't speak to people as much as the SNES's wider range of games. Not only that, the SNES and most of it's games were more available, and cheaper too, which makes a big difference whether you were a kid buying games or parents buying games. What really did it for me was the RPGs. The SNES had a vast array of RPGs, almost all of them amazing, while Sega only ever launched one set of RPGs that really spoke to me. (The Lunar series) Surprise surprise, the Lunar series jumped the ship on Sega way before Sega got out of doing consoles.

The problem with Sega was always the idea that Sega had some very innovated technology, and often it released this technology before anyone else (and before it was ready, even). They would release a system that was ahead of it's time, but for a price that was way ahead of it's time. Then their competitors would release a cheaper system that corrected Sega's mistakes, since they were able to see how the market treated the new consoles. The SNES and Genesis (Plus attachments) is a great example of this. SNES largely won out due to popularity, cost, and range of games. I might also speculate that Sega's rather.... limited game pool often game from the system's tendency to make design more difficult. Sometimes being the most advanced doesn't work in your favor, when it makes you choose between making an okay game because of the extra work to get it on an advanced system, as opposed to a great game by using that extra time and effort on actual content. That's only speculation though, based on both the time period and what Sega has done since.

[Leodegrance]

Neither is better than the other...

I owned both systems and played both equally.They both had great games and both had sucky games.

[Cierwyn]

Emulation is your friend, sirrah. I remember when emulating the SNES became the "cool" thing to do, and people were playing their translated RPG imports even more than their PS1/2/N64/GC~etc.

[Socialhealer]

^ ugh who could play n64 with that controller, ps1/ps2 controller all the way, which was just a step up from snes controller, another L and R, and in the end 2 analogs. dafuq was nintendo thinking with that n64 controller they had it right @ SNES.

[PHOENIXZERO]

SNES due to all the great RPGs and first party titles. The Genesis's better/faster CPU allowed certain multi-platform games to just be better on the Genesis though, such as Aladdin that could benefit from it. But I was all about the (mostly) Square RPGs at the time. Still have a bunch of my old SNES carts too, I check them every few years to see if the batteries are still alive.

More people played SNES, but I was always a Sega kid growing up. I loved Sonic and some of the sports games were amazing.

At least around that time more people played the Genesis/Mega Drive around the world, the SNES only surpassed very late in its life and IIRC after Sega's blunders and abandoning it for the Saturn.

Nintendo was going to keep on using cartridges where squaresoft wanted to use cdroms and sony gave squaresoft a lot of benefits for becoming sony exclusive.
on a fun related note the playstation was originally being developed as a cd-rom extension to the snes (like the sega megadrive or w/e it was). so sony wanted to steal one of nintendos best developers as well after that fell through

It's a bit more to it than that, Sony didn't exactly steal Square, Square like a bunch of other third parties were VERY fed up with Nintendo and the company's practices, the whole sticking with carts for the N64 thing was basically a tipping point. Sony offered developers a sweet deal of money (at least to Square), lower licensing fees and of course a much, much, much cheaper format that allowed for faster, cheaper reproduction and Nintendo/Yamauchi basically gave "fuck you" to developers/publishers that "jumped ship". The Square/Nintendo issues go back at least 1992 when Seiken Densetsu 2/Secret of Mana was in production for the Sony/Nintendo CD add-on, which was scrapped without warning which resulted in content having to be cut and then the game was cut further when Nintendo denied Square's requests to use their larger ROM chips. Nintendo also dumped their stake in Square at some point prior to Square's leaving, but I can't remember exactly when that was.

Still wish we could get a properly restored SoM...

[Socialhealer]

It's a bit more to it than that, Sony didn't exactly steal Square, Square like a bunch of other third parties were VERY fed up with Nintendo and the company's practices, the whole sticking with carts for the N64 thing was basically a tipping point. Sony offered developers a sweet deal of money (at least to Square), lower licensing fees and of course a much, much, much cheaper format that allowed for faster, cheaper reproduction and Nintendo/Yamauchi basically gave "fuck you" to developers/publishers that "jumped ship". The Square/Nintendo issues go back at least 1992 when Seiken Densetsu 2/Secret of Mana was in production for the Sony/Nintendo CD add-on, which was scrapped without warning which resulted in content having to be cut and then the game was cut further when Nintendo denied Square's requests to use their larger ROM chips. Nintendo also dumped their stake in SE at some point prior to Square's leaving, but I can't remember exactly when that was.

very interesting read didn't really know about all that. but nintendo certainly shot themselves in the foot there, because when the playstation came out imo sega/nintendo was a pile of shit in comparison with the n64 and saturn.

[Twotonsteak]

I received an SNES as a Christmas gift the first year it was out. (Prior to the SNES I had an NES, and an Atari before that.) I remember unwrapping it with great joy...then throwing my body over it protectively as my cat knocked the tree on it. I also remember reading all the guides for Super Mario World (which game with the system), and promptly crushing the game in two days. That SNES lasted until I got a Playstation in the late 90's. The Playstation only lasted a couple of years and I haven't had a home console since.

As you can imagine I'm a bit bias to the SNES. However I could also argue that more people liked Nintendo over Sega. And I could point to Sega's exit from the home-console war in 2001 as evidence.

[Lazy Gecko]

The 16-bit generation easily had the best and most interesting system wars. The SNES and Genesis were very different from each-other both in hardware and software libraries and it was much more a case of different strokes for different folks, so it's far from as clear cut who is the "winner" here than in other generations.

Each system was more about having distinct strengths and weaknesses rather than just being flat out more powerful. SNES was the RPG machine and Genesis was the action/arcade machine. They were both about equal in platformers. The problem though is that many of the best Genesis titles didn't recieve much mainstream attention. Most people didn't get to play much outside Sonic and EA Sports games. I think it's a shame so many people missed out on wonderful games like Alien Soldier.

[Larath]

^ ugh who could play n64 with that controller, ps1/ps2 controller all the way, which was just a step up from snes controller, another L and R, and in the end 2 analogs. dafuq was nintendo thinking with that n64 controller they had it right @ SNES.

the N64 controller was amazing tbh.


but for Sega genesis vs SNES, I'll go with SNES.
I was never into Sonic and I didn't own either console but my cousin had a SNES which I used to play on so much and I just absolutely love the console, and the games are all great.

[Thrage]

In my opinion SNES wins for one major reason, and that's Audio.

Kinda' seemed like nobody knew what the hell to do with the Genesis's audio except SEGA themselves. Most Genesis games' soundtracks were gaudy, abrasive and just plain nasty sounding compared to even the exact same title on SNES.

That might sound strange to some, but audio is the defining factor in how much I like a video game most of the time. I can play the worst game in the world for countless hours if the soundtrack is good enough.

[Ferocity]

Why do we need "vs"? Both consoles had their gems

final fantasy, mario, zelda.....sega has like sonic? which is nothing against any of those 3 1on1.

SNES hands down sega has nothing on it therefore the reason sega was bought out.

Yeah, SNES has Square and Enix games, Genesis has Phantasy Star and Shining series. Phantasy Star (specifically, Phantasy Star II) and Shining series were somewhat more hard than SNES RPGs, thus they weren't really that popular.

Also about Phantasy Star II - this game was notorious for having very complicated dungeons, and dungeons are really lacking in Final Fantasy V-X/Chrono Trigger.

[Mothhive]

Definately the SNES. Games looked, sounded and played better, and it has an awesome library of games too. Genesis has Sonic and that's about it. Oh wait, I forgot about blast processing! >_>

[RyanEX]

SNES, more quality games, and at the time Sega turned me off with all their aggressive adverts downplaying the SNES. Who here remembers the old ad with Sega being one of those bullet cars (the ones with the parachutes) showing games at a break neck pace with Nintendo being some smoking old pickup with Mario Kart.

[Shinzai]

Well... I loved the Genesis for all the SEGA arcade classics and some amazing platformers, from Golden Axe to Sonic. And I loved the SNES for all the games that were designed to be played at home, platformers and RPGs in particular. Also the SNES had the superior share of Capcom games and the best versions of fighters.

[Nurvus]

Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Shining Force II, Phantasy Star IV.
Those, just make Nintendo seem... irrelevant to me.

[Lazy Gecko]

Kinda' seemed like nobody knew what the hell to do with the Genesis's audio except SEGA themselves. Most Genesis games' soundtracks were gaudy, abrasive and just plain nasty sounding compared to even the exact same title on SNES.

Most people couldn't really get anything noteworthy out of either system. I find the common mediocre SNES music to have a lot of its own flaws as well, generally sounds with very short transients and limited set of instruments due to memory limitations, and an obnoxious filter/interpolation making a lot of things sound very muddy and lack brilliance. To hear each system in their prime, you need to look towards European composers who really had their shit together when it came to technical mastery of sound chips.

Genesis has Sonic and that's about it. Oh wait, I forgot about blast processing! >_>

See, this is what I was talking about earlier. It's much easier to dismiss the system when you've barely even scratched the surface of what it has to offer.

at the time Sega turned me off with all their aggressive adverts downplaying the SNES. Who here remembers the old ad with Sega being one of those bullet cars (the ones with the parachutes) showing games at a break neck pace with Nintendo being some smoking old pickup with Mario Kart.

Advertisment like that is pretty cringe-worthy, yeah, but in the mid-90's Nintendo countered with their own hilarious "Play it loud!" marketing campaign, so it certainly showed Nintendo weren't above it either. What you need to know is that when the Genesis debuted, Nintendo more or less had a monopoly on the console market so Sega pretty much had to be very aggressive with their marketing to get a foot into the market.

[Northern Goblin]

The Phantasy Star series in my opinion is criminally underrated and had some absolutely brilliant games, both II and IV are up there as some of the most fun RPG's I've played.

The problem with the Megadrive is outside of the Sonic series (Though S3&K is still the best platformer ever in my opinion) wasn't marketed greatly. Yet games like King's Bounty, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Shinobi, Road Rash 2 (Well, all Road Rash tbh) Micro Machines Turbo Tournament (probably the best racing game that wasn't RnR Racing) are some of the best to come from the 16 bit era.

The Megadrive loaned itself better to Platform/Racing/Action games whereas the SNES excelled at Story telling/RPG/Giant world style gameplay.

The 16 bit generation is still my favourite era of gaming though.

[Orby]

I hoped from Nintendo to Sega every generation.

I started off with a NES, then went to a Sega Genesis (Mega Drive to those in the UK like me), then went to a N64. I kind of staying with Nintendo after the N64 though, they won me over by that point.

I am a huge Nintendo guy at heart but I'd be lying if I didn't say the Sega Genesis didn't have a part in my gaming growing up. <3

The 16 bit generation is still my favourite era of gaming though.

/salute

[slime]

OMFG, SNES was the end all of video gaming. Nothing against sega - loved the genesis too, but the SNES and it's titles were just friggin' awesome.

@ fengore - i love the shining force game. I can't even try to count the number of times i replayed that one.

I was so crazed about my SNES I made a trip down to chinatown in manhatten to go into this tall building there and in a very professional office environment I bought a disk drive that would copy snes games onto 3.5 floppies. You kids have no clue how many incredible titles there were for SNES that were japan-only. I was playing the dragonball fighting games back then and they were like nothing else ( i was big into fighting games back then )


BTW, to all posting on this thread - thank god for emulators! amirite?

[Arch0s]

SNES....no contest