Your genesis history

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Originally Posted by MN12BIRD

I'm pretty sure the SNES out sold the Genesis in North America by a long shot. I'm also quite certain the Genesis sold BETTER in Europe overall. Worldwide the SNES outsold the Genesis by apx 20 million units (30 Million MD to 50 Million SNES)

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The SNES didn't start overtaking the Genesis in North America, until late 1994 when the Genny was already on it's way to being replaced by the Saturn. It was titles like StarFox, Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct that kept the SNES chugging along.

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The NES sold over 60 million units worldwide hence I think the SNES did better AND it was better timing IMHO. The SMS sold 13 million worldwide.

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The NES sold about 61 million units worldwide, the SNES about 49 million, the N64 about 30 Million and the GC around 18 million.

Nintendo's console sales have been shrinking ever since the days of Genesis vs. SNES.

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All I'm saying and I think I'm correct in saying this is that Nintendo in NA in the early 90s was a MUCH bigger name.

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Sega was more popular from 1991 to early 1994. Everyone I knew had a Genesis first.

I dunno man the numbers I found say that SNES sales caught up to Genesis sales in mid 1992.

Either way I find it hard to imagine that Sega was a bigger name in NA from 1991 to 1994... really hard.

Here's some numbers from 1994. I don't know where he got these numbers, but it sounds about right. The turning point was the release of Super Metroid and you can see the numbers starting to jump up for the SNES from there.


http://sonicblast.org/topic/1075/1/

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January 1994:

Code:
1 GEN Mortal Kombat ($55) Acclaim 94,144
2 GEN Eternal Champions ($60) Sega 63,494
3 GEN John Madden NFL 94 ($54) EA 63,118
4 GEN Sonic Spinball ($44) Sega 59,714
5 GEN Aladdin ($48) Sega 58,324
6 GEN Street Fighter II: Special Champion Ed ($62)Capcom 49,269
7 GEN Joe Montana NFL Football 94 ($55)Sega 49,143
8 SNES Mortal Kombat ($57) Acclaim 43,697
9 GEN NHL 94 ($60) EA 39,734 / NEW
10 SNES Aladdin ($60) Capcom 38,914
11 SNES Super Mario All-Stars ($55) Nintendo 29,872
12 SNES Super Mario Kart ($47) Nintendo 26,888
13 SNES John Madden NFL 94 ($56) EA 25,191
14 GEN Lethal Enforcers ($62) Konami 24,258 / NEW
15 SNES Street Fighter II Turbo($66) Capcom 23,862
16 GEN Tecmo Super NBA Basketball ($60)Tecmo 22,187
17 NES Tetris 2 ($38) Nintendo 22,065
18 SNES Mega Man X ($64) Capcom 20,739 / NEW
19 SNES TMNT: Tournament Fighters ($58) Konami 20,679
20 SNES Secret of Mana ($66) Square 20,579
21 GEN Jurassic Park ($47) Sega 20,449
22 SNES Tecmo Super Bowl ($61) Tecmo 19,687
23 SNES NHL Stanley Cup ($48) Nintendo 19,550
24 GEN X-Men ($49) Sega 19,205
25 GEN WWF Royal Rumble ($55) Acclaim 17,611

Sega Genesis ($109)261,463
Super NES ($119) 163,907
NES ($49) 32,769
Atari Jaguar ($249) 1,904
3DO Multiplayer ($699):D 634
SNK Neo*Geo ($409) 4


Feburary 1994:
February 1994:
U.S. Figures only
Code:
1 GEN Sonic The Hedgehog 3 ($58) Sega 295,411 / NEW
2 GEN Mortal Kombat ($56) Acclaim 70,255
3 GEN Aladdin ($50) Capcom 44,425
4 GEN Eternal Champions ($60) Sega 39,310
5 GEN Sonic Spinball ($44) Sega 38,304
6 GEN John Madden NFL 94 ($56) EA 36,301
7 SNES Mortal Kombat ($60) Acclaim 31,107
8 GEN NHL 94 ($60) EA 30,987 / 70,721
9 GEN Joe Montana NFL Football 94 ($55) Sega 30,861
10 GEN Street Fighter II: Special Champion Ed ($63) Capcom 29,184
11 SNES Aladdin ($59) Capcom 29,056
12 SNES Mega Man X ($64) Capcom 25,927 / 46,666
13 SNES Super Mario All-Stars ($55) Nintendo 23,205
14 SNES Super Mario Kart ($48) Nintendo 22,121
15 NES Tetris 2 ($39) Nintendo 20,265
16 GEN Tecmo Super NBA Basketball ($60) Tecmo 19,048
17 GEN X-Men ($50) Sega 18,742
18 SNES NHL Stanley Cup ($49) Nintendo 17,061
19 GEN Jurassic Park ($49) Sega 17,049
20 SNES Street Fighter II Turbo ($67) Capcom 16,441
21 SNES Mario Paint ($57) Nintendo 15,939
22 GEN FIFA Soccer ($58) EA 15,834
23 GEN PGA Tour II ($57) EA 15,489
24 SNES Secret of Mana ($69) Square 15,011
25 GEN Winter Olympics ($60) Eidos 14,648

MARCH 1994:
(March is a five week month)
U.S. Figures Only
Code:
1 GEN NBA JAM ($55) Acclaim 698,423!/ NEW
2 SNES NBA JAM ($62) Acclaim 402,744!/ NEW
3 GEN Sonic The Hedgehog 3 ($57) Sega 140,983 / 436,394
4 GEN Mortal Kombat ($55) Acclaim 56,080
5 GEN Aladdin ($50) Sega 44,577
6 SNES Ken Griffey Jr. Presents MLB ($47) Nintendo 43,422 / NEW
7 GEN NHL 94 ($54) EA 34,634 / 105,355
8 GEN NBA Showdown 94 ($57) EA 34,412 / NEW
9 GEN World Series Baseball ($56) Sega 33,238 / NEW
10 GEN Sonic Spinball Sega 30,474
11 GEN Eternal Champions ($59) Sega 28,189
12 GEN Ms. Pac-man ($21) Midway 27,299
13 SNES Aladdin ($59) Capcom 25,352
14 SNES Mortal Kombat ($60) Acclaim 24,444
15 GEN FIFA Soccer ($58) EA 23,619
16 SNES Super Mario All-Stars ($56) Nintendo 22,553
17 SNES Super Mario Kart ($49) Nintendo 22,088
18 GEN Street Fighter II: Special Champion Ed ($63) Capcom 21,132
19 GEN X-Men ($49) Sega 19,118
20 GEN John Madden NFL 94 ($55) EA 18,985
21 SNES Mega Man X ($64) Capcom 18,192 / 64,858
22 GEN Joe Montana NFL Football 94 ($54) Sega 17,655
23 NES Tetris 2 ($39) Nintendo 16,976
24 SNES Mario Paint ($57) Nintendo 16,888
25 GEN Jurassic Park ($48) Sega 15,377

Sega Genesis ($112) 277,140
Super NES ($115) 171,800
NES ($54) 41,929
Atari Jaguar ($250) 3,117
3DO Multiplayer ($492) 1,994
GEN w/ Sonic 2 ($120) 177,725
SNES w/ SMW ($123) 132,901
SNES w/ SMK ($120) 2,092 / NEW



APRIL 1994:
U.S. Figures Only

Code:
1 GEN NBA JAM ($55) Acclaim 144,614 / 843,037
2 GEN World Series Baseball ($55) Sega 97,645 / 130,883
3 SNES NBA JAM ($63) Acclaim 75,544 / 478,288
4 SNES Ken Griffey Jr. Presents MLB ($48) Nintendo 71,681 / 115,103
5 SNES Super Metroid ($58) Nintendo 55,596 / NEW
6 GEN NBA Showdown 94 ($56) EA 53,546 / 87,958
7 GEN Sonic The Hedgehog 3 ($58) Sega 50,821 / 487,215
8 GEN Mortal Kombat ($55) Acclaim 26,881
9 GEN FIFA Soccer ($57) EA 22,089
10 GEN NBA Action ($55) Sega 22,062 / 31,960
11 GEN Star Trek: The Next Generation ($57) Hasbro 20,783 / 28,004
12 GEN Aladdin ($50) Sega 20,665
13 GEN NHL(PA) 94 ($55) EA 16,968 / 122,323
14 SNES MLB(PA) Baseball ($56) EA 15,621 / 21,202
15 SNES Aladdin ($60) Capcom 15,302
16 SNES Mortal Kombat ($60) Acclaim 14,199
17 GEN Ms. Pac-man ($21) Midway 13,996
18 GEN Eternal Champions ($60) Sega 13,896
19 SNES Super Mario All-Stars ($56) Nintendo 12,582
20 GEN Street Fighter II: Special Champion Ed ($61) Capcom 12,347
21 SNES Super Mario Kart ($49) Nintendo 12,091
22 SNES Star Trek: The Next Generation ($73) Hasbro 10,947 / NEW
23 GEN Sonic Spinball ($44) Sega 10,685
24 GEN X-Men ($49) Sega 10,058
25 NES Dr. Mario ($20) Nintendo 9,823

Sega Genesis ($122) 129,930
Super NES ($116) 114,843
NES ($51) 22,523
Atari Jaguar ($250) 2,246
3DO Multiplayer ($486) 1,150
GEN w/ Sonic 2 67,636
SNES w/ SMW 65,711
SNES w/ SMK 24,075
NEW SNES w/ Zelda 3,370
NEW SNES w/ MP 521
NEW SNES w/ SF 1,667


MAY 1994:
U.S. Figures Only

Code:
1 GEN NBA JAM ($55) Acclaim 111,217 / 954,254
2 SNES Super Metroid ($58) Nintendo 80,630 / 136,226
3 SNES NBA JAM ($64) Acclaim 66,523 / 544,811
4 GEN World Series Baseball ($55) Sega 65,788 / 196,671
5 SNES Ken Griffey Jr. Presents MLB ($46) Nintendo 54,421 / 169,524
6 GEN Sonic The Hedgehog 3 ($58) Sega 29,913 / 517,128
7 GEN NBA Showdown 94 ($57) EA 25,031 / 112,989
8 GEN Mortal Kombat ($54) Acclaim 22,209
9 GEN Aladdin ($50) Sega 17,154
10 GEN NHL(PA) 94 ($55) EA 15,555 / 137,878
11 GEN FIFA International Soccer ($56) EA 15,474
12 GEN NBA Action ($55) Sega 14,811 / 46,771
13 GEN Caesar's Palace ($57) Viacom 14,583 / 20,595
14 SCD Mortal Kombat CD ($50) Acclaim 14,130 / NEW
15 GEN Ms. Pac-man ($21) Midway 13,449
16 GEN Star Trek: The Next Generation ($56) Hasbro 12,312 / 40,316
17 SNES Mortal Kombat ($61) Acclaim 11,417
18 GEN Street Fighter II: Special Champion Ed ($52) Capcom 11,299
19 SNES Aladdin ($57) Capcom 11,107
20 SNES Super Mario Kart ($47) Nintendo 10,709
21 SNES MLB(PA) Baseball ($54) EA 10,171 / 31,373
22 GEN R.B.I. Baseball '94 ($59) Midway 10,076 / 11,894
23 GEN Tomcat Alley ($58) Sega 9,755 / 28,822
24 GEN Eternal Champions ($54) Sega 9,194
25 SNES Super Mario All-Stars ($55) Nintendo 8,918


Super NES ($114) 116,044
Sega Genesis ($122) 112,888
NES ($49) 17,424
3DO Multiplayer ($488) 2,892
Atari Jaguar ($250) 1,988
SNES w/ SMK 58,167 $115
GEN w/ Sonic 2 57,020 $120
SNES w/ SMW 26,061 $126
SNES w/ ZIII 15,768 $105
SNES w/ SF 2,511 $123
SNES w/ MP 748 $135


JUNE 1994:
(Five Weeks)
U.S. Figures Only
Code:
1 GEN NBA JAM ($56) Acclaim 96,336 / 1,050,590
2 GEN World Series Baseball ($56) Sega 64,518 / 261,189
3 SNES Super Metroid ($58) Nintendo 63,816 / 200,042
4 SNES NBA JAM ($63) Acclaim 62,387 / 607,198
5 SNES Ken Griffey Jr. Presents MLB ($47) Nintendo 52,348 / 221,872
6 GEN FIFA International Soccer ($56) EA 41,058
7 GEN NBA Showdown 94 ($56) EA 28,647 / 141,636
8 GEN Sonic The Hedgehog 3 ($59) Sega 24,068 / 541,196
9 GEN Aladdin ($51) Sega 23,144
10 GEN Mortal Kombat ($52) Acclaim 22,886
11 GEN NHL(PA) 94 ($39) EA 21,196 / 159,074
12 SNES FIFA International Soccer ($59) EA 18,658 / NEW
13 GEN Ms. Pac-man ($21) Midway 17,480
14 SNES Aladdin ($54) Capcom 15,712
15 GEN Caesar's Palace ($57) Viacom 14,434 / 35,029
16 SCD Mortal Kombat CD ($49) Acclaim 13,160 / 27,290
17 SNES Super Mario Kart ($49) Nintendo 12,891
18 GEN Virtua Racing ($90!!!) Sega 12,683 / 14,942
19 GEN Eternal Champions ($52) Sega 12,538
20 GEN Street Fighter II: Special Champion Ed ($52) Capcom 12,355
21 SNES Mortal Kombat ($56) Acclaim 12,231
22 SNES Mega Man X ($45) Capcom 12,022 / 92,322
23 SNES MLB(PA) Baseball ($55) EA 11,987 / 43,360
24 GEN NBA Action ($57) Sega 11,852 / 58,623
25 SNES Super Mario All-Stars ($56) Nintendo 11,517

Sega Genesis ($124) 156,781 / 12.02m?
Super NES ($112) 132,323 / 9.81m?
NES ($52) 22,396 / 28.86m?
3DO Multiplayer ($486) 3,708 / 0.02m?
Atari Jaguar ($250) 2,804 / 0.03m?

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I was there. I don't find it hard to imagine. Maybe you lived in some sort of a Sega void. People still drink Moxie in some places. Some times certain things are more popular in one spot then another. It was pretty even here.I think it is safe to say that Nintendo always was the bigger name. They had a lot of Money and reputation. However Sega really did all they could against such a monster.I have read somewhere that they sold about 20 million Snes in the United States and 14 million Genesis's. I would hardly call that owning the market. I found this interesting., It seems to support both of our points of view.

http://www.islandnet.com/~KPOLSSON/segavid/

I lived in Tucson, same as Iron Lizard. I don't remember Genesis having a strong a following as the SNES. That could be because of the age difference. Up to '91 the Genesis was pretty common/popular though and into 92 - iirc. What I do remember was people were impressed by SNES a year into its release. Lots of people I knew wanted one. But not every one could afford to drop $200 on another system.

I do remember all the hype about the SegaCD though. More so than the SNES. Two of us had a TG16+CD unit, so we were expecting great stuff (mostly RPG/platform with anime style cinemas). But that died off with the flood of crappy/grainy FMV games. The good CD games were too few and far between. I never ended up buying one (I had the money). My experience was reduced to playing it at my friends house on occasion. There was that time I rode solo 10 miles non stop on my bike at 8 o'clock at night to get Final Fight CD on release day for my friends system :D

I got a SNES a few days before the official launch (Montgomery Wards fuckup). I never traded in my system (as if they would take a genesis without its plastic casing - hehe). I didn't buy much SNES games, usually my brother did. I usually bought Genesis and Duo games. The last game I bought *new* for the Genesis was Gunstar Heroes. The Genesis officially died for me Jan 1, 1994. That would have been the same for the SNES, except a few more games came out (Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, etc). My brother had bought Donkey Kong Country and I had beaten, but I thought it was lame. I only beat it 'cause I was bored. A lot of my money was spent on imports for my Duo from '93-95 and the odd (used) Genesis game I hadn't bother to pickup when it was new.

I had remeember my friends flipping out when I got the Cd. The Snes was hugly popular. All I know was that at Gridley Middle School it was about a 50 50 chance of having one or the other.

If you guys read the magazines back in the day, you'd know that the Genesis and SNES were pretty much even most of the time with one or the other gaining a slight lead here and there. Granted, I am old enough now to have been able to read back in that time. I didn't just go by what was happening at my school. Screw that... that really isn't a solid indication of anything.

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Originally Posted by Mamba Tabac

That would be correct. Nintendo consoles don't sell as well over here (well, untill the Wii) due to it being fairly obvious that Nintendo don't care about Europe.

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Incorrect. The European market was very split between Big N and Sega. Like I said, the SNES was far more popular here in Germany; partially because Nintendo seemed to care more about Europe than Sega. Nintendo were the ones who began translating RPGs and Action-RPGs into various European languages; that was a BIG deal regarding that the audience for games back then was much younger than today, with most players only beginning to learn English in school.

Also, the manuals Sega delivered were a mess; obviously translated in Zimbabwe, containing 8 languages (4 on each page!) and black and white; no match for the often nice SNES manuals.

Here is proof:

http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/6...nualzv8.th.jpg

It MAY BE that the MD overall outsold the SNES in Europe; but I wouldn´t be so sure, with Sega´s numbers having the reputation of being not too accurate.
But it is definately wrong that Nintendo-consoles were not popular until the Wii came; NES, SNES and all GameBoys were very successful in Europe too.

The NES was the most successful console worldwide until the PlayStation outsold it. And hey, about the USA being Genesis-dominated, this is at least what we Sega-users were always told in magazines, maybe to keep us trusting that the MD will soon be as successful here too. 1991 - 1994 were the strongest MD-years.

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Originally Posted by 108 Stars

Incorrect. The European market was very split between Big N and Sega. Like I said, the SNES was far more popular here in Germany; partially because Nintendo seemed to care more about Europe than Sega. Nintendo were the ones who began translating RPGs and Action-RPGs into various European languages; that was a BIG deal regarding that the audience for games back then was much younger than today, with most players only beginning to learn English in school.

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I was under the impression that most RPGs for Nintendo systems were simply not released in Europe.

Most European game companies seemed to prefer Sega, so I had always assumed Sega dominated there. Also, Genesis and Master System have far more Europe-exclusive games than NES and SNES. And Sega opened up an official European division before Nintendo did.

Indeed, most RPGs were not released here at all; no Final Fantasy, no Chrono Trigger....but Nintendo did release 1 or 2 RPGish games a year, and all they did release were translated and came packed with player´s guides.
RPGs/Action RPGs released here in Germany were: Lufia 2, Secret of Mana, Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia/Time, Terranigma, Secret of Evermore, Zelda III and Might and Magic 3; all of them translated. Breath of Fire 2 was released here in English, but it was not published by Nintendo. Nintendo had taken on the policy to translate every RPG into the major languages...if the game could not be translated for some reason, it was not released.
Sega´s first translated game was Landstalker, followed by Crusader of Centy, Story of Thor and Light Crusader; that´s half the number of games, and at least 2 of them (the Crusaders) were widely regarded as pretty average and too short.
Today you can regard it as positive that Sega released the Phantasy Star games, Sword of Vermillon or the Shining-games in Europe. But back then those games suffered from English texts as well as from slightly worse ratings than most of their SNES competitors. Rather dry pieces of RPG like PS II and IV or Vermillon, even being in a foreign language, were not exactly good to compete with the much more beautyful and easy to get into SNES-selection. The wide attention was given to Nintendo. Secret of Mana alone was probably more popular than all 4 of Sega´s translated competitors together.

The thing with Nintendo and Sega European divisions is true; Sega entered the European market earlier with the Master System and was quite successful here (although this was not even close to the success of the NES in Japan and the USA). But like the SNES later the NES did make up for the lost time; franchises like Mega Man, Super Mario Bros or Zelda were extremely popular by ~1990 when I started getting more into modern games, while Alex Kidd, Golden Axe or Shinobi were not very well known. Sonic gained quite much attention, but soon after the SNES was released and everybody played Street Fighter II. It may very well be that the NES success was a side-effect of the GameBoy, which was the greatest hype of all.

Also, Nintendo did start to open European departments around that time; basically in all countries save the UK, where Nintendo had offices and handled things themselves, Nintendo was able to gain big popularity.

Another point: Club Nintendo. It was a club you could join for free to get a Nintendo magazine 4 times a year; much like Nintendo Power, but it remained free for many years and was later free to pick up in all shops. They released special issues containing Comics about specific system sellers for free too; those comics were even produced for each country with a club specifically, with some japanese artist sitting here and having to draw whatever the people of for example the Club in Germany wanted. Sega never had a free publication.

Last, there was TV. Cartoons like Captain N, the Super Mario Brothers Super Show and Zelda were aired here on Saturday morning, promoting Nintendo further. The first Sega related Cartoon was Sonic, coming 1995.

Nintendo was everywhere; playing Nintendo became synonym for playing video games, and even today older people not into video games refer to handheld systems as GameBoys.

Well, and the bigger number of European exclusive releases....well, that may come from Nintendo´s licensing policies. After all, the difference of sold units between Nintendo and Sega was not that big in Europe, so I guess it just paid off more to develop for SMS and MD with a bit more liberal contracts than for NES and SNES.

So, it may be that Sega had the upper hand in Europe overall; but this must have been much thanks to the earlier releases and countries were Nintendo themselves were not existant. It is in no way a clear thing that Europe prefered Sega, you will see a different views on it in different European countries.

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Originally Posted by Joe Redifer

If you guys read the magazines back in the day, you'd know that the Genesis and SNES were pretty much even most of the time with one or the other gaining a slight lead here and there. Granted, I am old enough now to have been able to read back in that time. I didn't just go by what was happening at my school. Screw that... that really isn't a solid indication of anything.

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This is true. I had a subscription to Egm back then. I just have trouble quoting a magazine that i read 15 years ago :). I know they had parity for awhile. I remember it well.

i bought mine for the ghostbusters game
but i had a mastersystem but bought the megadrive game i was young 12 years and thought that it would work on a mastersystem
at home it didn t work and bought the mastersystem version for 140 guldens
like 70 euro s and it really sucks cause i saw the commercial for the megadrive version
so i sold my mastersystem with all the games and bought the megadrive for 500 guldens damn with only sonic included and ghostbusters
at 5 years later my megadrive was broken and bought the version 2 and till today i still have it it s bin modded by tmee to the next level still my thanks for that and i m many more games richer

Man, the Master System-Ghostbusters is much better than the Mega Drive game. It is the best port of a great classic!

no it isnt

Of course it is. While the MD game is an average platformer the SMS version is an enhanced version of David Crane´s Ghostbusters, which was a huge hit and became a cult classic.