Has the Genesis finally beat the Super Nintendo?

I have beeen thinking about this question alot lately.
Back in 1996 when both of these consoles were on there death bed the Super Nintendo just pretty much jabbed a knife into the Genesis' heart and that was it right? No, because what console is still going strong even to this day The Genesis. What console still has games being made for it The Genesis. And finally what console has a website filled with Genesis fans The Genesis. While the Genesis has all this stuff what does the Super Nintendo have nothing!

People don't make games for the Super Nintendo because it is much harder to make (and especially manufacture) games for. There isn't a huge SNES-site like this because its fans are fanboys that love everything Nintendo, so they visit websites dedicated to everything Nintendo, while Mega Drive fans might not be fans of other Sega consoles (I for example don't like Saturn or DC).

Nintendo shot itself again when they killed the Nintendo N-Sider forums.

Sega could have beat them if they didn't kill off the Genesis and let SNES go on and build up to 49 million units.

All Sega needed was a killer app and assurance in gamers that they weren't going to bail on them.

But Sega bailed on the Genesis fans, the Saturn fans, and last the Dreamcast fans.

I think a big part of it is that Snes games are pretty kiddified, wheras Megadrive games are a bit more hardcore, and back in the days Sega did have greater sucsess amongst teens and adults even when they were losing overall market share to Nintendo. As an adult i find 16 bit nintendo games to be in general too cutsey.
Also its a better system to collect for as the games come in these nice tougth plastic boxes, rather than cardboard. so its easier to get complete examples for your collection.

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Originally Posted by h00n

I think a big part of it is that Snes games are pretty kiddified, wheras Megadrive games are a bit more hardcore, and back in the days Sega did have greater sucsess amongst teens and adults even when they were losing overall market share to Nintendo. As an adult i find 16 bit nintendo games to be in general too cutsey.
Also its a better system to collect for as the games come in these nice tougth plastic boxes, rather than cardboard. so its easier to get complete examples for your collection.

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Both platforms had their share of kiddie games and both had their fair share of non-kiddie games. Personally, I don't think that either platform really "won". To have the best possible and most fun collection of 16 bit games, you need both systems!

As for Genesis still getting new games, that's not really true. What the Genesis is getting are more like are cartridge-based ROM translation hacks that are done with the official blessing of the original authors of the games in question. The reason this happens is because most untranslated games for the Genesis were made by smaller (often Chinese) developers who are more than happy to let fans license their games at a fair price and translate them, when most of the untranslated stuff for SNES is from big companies like Square-Enix and Konami who if they would be willing to talk at all, would want WAY more money.

I think that some of it can be attributed to the fact that many sega franchises peaked on Megadrive, whereas for the most part franchsies on snes continued on subsequent consoles. If you want to play the best of Sonic, Shinobi, Toe Jam and Earl, Ecco, Golden Axe games, then you'll be into Megadrive. Sega developed tons of new franchises for Saturn and Dreamcast, and most of the updates to old games since haven't being great. Nintendo has been updating and re-releasing their main games for every console since the snes, so theres not so much need for fans of them to look back to the snes.

Its easy,Super Nintendo fans are playing Wii and DS now, while Sega fans are still playing Megadrive, Saturn and Master System.

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Has the Genesis finally beat the Super Nintendo?

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Yes. Yes it has.

I like to think that Sega's fanbase which was at it's largest in the US by 1993 or 1994 when they had 65% of the gaming market. Was split up in half during that horrible transition from Genesis to Saturn. Pissed off Genesis fans either broke new ground joining the PlayStation brand (like I did personally), while some others remained loyal to Sega and stayed on to take another backstabbing from Sega when they decided to drop support of the Saturn. (If you were a PSX owner, you remember your friend who owned that Saturn and got wind of the news that Sega was pulling the plug yet again, :D no Resident Evil 2 or WWF Warzone for you). I think those new set of P'd off Saturn fans that Sega created at this point had either split and join the Sony PSX brand or even crossed over to enemy terrority Nintendo which was starting to real good by this time (1998ish period). I'd say at this point the very few loyalites remained with Sega, and a new generation of gamers the "Generation Z" kids came of age to video games when the Dreamcast came out. I think there might have been a few Genesis fans returning, but the bigger pie of those old Genesis owners remained satisfied with Sony. Which I like to add Sony was did a good assuring it's PSX base that they were not going to cut tail during the Saturn launch, looking back i'm still impressed at how they launched the PS2, it was the console upgrade that I wish Saturn would have been.

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Originally Posted by xXxTWO FACExXx

I have beeen thinking about this question alot lately.
Back in 1996 when both of these consoles were on there death bed the Super Nintendo just pretty much jabbed a knife into the Genesis' heart and that was it right? No, because what console is still going strong even to this day The Genesis. What console still has games being made for it The Genesis. And finally what console has a website filled with Genesis fans The Genesis. While the Genesis has all this stuff what does the Super Nintendo have nothing!

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It could be argued that SNES games have continued to be much more successful, since so many were ported as whole single games to PSX, GBA and now DS, while Genesis games for the most part only occasionally get rereleased as multi-game retro compilations.

There's no PSIV DS or 3D remakes of Shining Force games or multiple 2D remakes other than the single Shining Force GBA.

All your points about what the Genesis has going for it also applies to the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16. Except that the PCE started earlier yet continued strong into 1996, had a true commercial release in 2001 and has many more dedicated websites. But I wouldn't say that the PCE has "finally" beat both the SNES and Genesis.

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Originally Posted by gamegenie

But Sega bailed on the Genesis fans, the Saturn fans, and last the Dreamcast fans.

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That's because the Genesis was a 2D system in a 3D world

The Saturn was a 2D system in a 3D world, AND more expensive than the competition

And the Dreamcast was an easy to pirate system in a world of 3rd party developers scared of having their games bootlegged (one trip to dcisozone.com will have you fully understand the sum of all fears)









As for Genesis vs. SNES, to this day most people I meet are still SNES fanboys. The only people that prefer the Genesis are the few that had them as kids/teens and are sticking to their guns or people like me that realized what a real arcade machine the Genesis is and that the processor (twice as fast as the SNES processor) made things possible that the SNES just couldn't do. Couple that with the best controllers ever made and the Genesis is just a beast. I don't even like SNES sound anymore, its all but dead to me.

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Originally Posted by Zebbe

People don't make games for the Super Nintendo because it is much harder to make (and especially manufacture) games for.

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SNES has thee largest translation community. I'm not talking simple "change the text" translation, but full blown replacement compression schemes, new VWF text routines(often multiple print routines), window/box size/position, or adding HDMA to the text boxes, etc. These guys really know the hardware. The amount of professional quality translated SNES games is pretty large. SNES community has excellent documentation, tools/debuggers, and knowledgeable people. There just isn't any reason at the moment to create homebrew stuff (besides some small/simple homebrew games that I've seen) when you have such a huge library of Japanese games that didn't come out in the US/EU are now available via some incredible translators.

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Originally Posted by 17daysolderthannes

made things possible that the SNES just didn't do.

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There, corrected.

Translations or not, there's nearly no homebrew at all for the SNES....

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Originally Posted by TmEE

Translations or not, there's nearly no homebrew at all for the SNES....

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Well, there isn't a real need for homebrew when "new" games are being made available for it via translations. Games from recognized and loved companies Like Square, Capcom, Konami, etc.

So why don't the Japanese make any new SFC games then? There aren't any "new" games for them. Developing brand new games and translating old games are two competely different things. Do you think Tulio and Fonzie thought a few years ago: "Uhm, let's not make a new game, it's better to translate the Japanese ones first!" Obviously not. The SFC/SNES lock-out chip is trouble for people who wants to make re-pros of the translated SNES games, imagine doing it commercially on a homebrew game... Even more trouble.

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Originally Posted by tomaitheous

There, corrected.

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I disagree. Gunstar Heroes or Lightening Force would not be possible on the SNES, no matter what Dragon Boy's flawed tech demo says. When he can make all those sprites do that with a sophisticated AI and a scrolling background all the while taking inputs from a human player, THEN we can say the SNES could do that.

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Originally Posted by madcrow

Both platforms had their share of kiddie games and both had their fair share of non-kiddie games.

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Nintendo had that pretty strict code of practice thing , wheras Sega got the heat for adult content , it was sega who had to bring in age ratings on games, as it was them who were getting senetorial attention. Megadrive is knowen for having a darker look and theme to the majority of its library, for games being slightley more violent on the Megadrive. Blood was removed from the snes version of robocop v terminator, even a "kiddy" game like aladdin in the Megadrive version you got a sword. The Snes version you got to jump on heads... yeah there are plenty kid games on the megadrive, but it general its games have a more mature air, and i think this aids its longevity.

If you hold up the librarys side by side, far far far more cuteness on the Snes side. Nintendo were unabashedly chasing the kid market back then and wouldent do anything that might cause concern to the parents who were buying there games. Just look at what they did to wolfenstein..

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Originally Posted by 17daysolderthannes

I disagree. Gunstar Heroes or Lightening Force would not be possible on the SNES, no matter what Dragon Boy's flawed tech demo says. When he can make all those sprites do that with a sophisticated AI and a scrolling background all the while taking inputs from a human player, THEN we can say the SNES could do that.

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Agreed. The Treasure president even said they chose the MD because of the processing power. I don't get how people can claim an 8/16-bit CPU, clocked at half the speed of a 16/32-bit one, can do the exact performance as the 16/32-bit one. If so, why were the MD counterparts faster than their SNES ones (Turtles, Sunset Riders, SoR vs. FF), had smoother gameplay (NHL series), much less slowdown (TFIII vs. Thunder Spirits) etc.? I know, more colours, "better" sound, mode 7, yadda-yadda... But equal processing power? Nope.

to address the Nintendo homebrew questions. Nintendo outlaws all of that. Sure Sega doesn't give a damn about it's old consoles, but Nintendo damn sure does. Nintendo has even went to the extent of going stealth in putting out a force take down of all of their top 1st party roms that were easily accessible on the internet before the Wii came along. With each new update for the Wii, it will block out and brick any modified console, and now they're doing it with the DSi as well.

Sony does the same thing too.


the only thing Nintendo hasn't been able to stamp down is those NES/SNES clones that make their way to the US from China.

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Originally Posted by gamegenie

to address the Nintendo homebrew questions. Nintendo outlaws all of that. Sure Sega doesn't give a damn about it's old consoles, but Nintendo damn sure does. Nintendo has even went to the extent of going stealth in putting out a force take down of all of their top 1st party roms that were easily accessible on the internet before the Wii came along. With each new update for the Wii, it will block out and brick any modified console, and now they're doing it with the DSi as well.

Sony does the same thing too.


the only thing Nintendo hasn't been able to stamp down is those NES/SNES clones that make their way to the US from China.

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I don't think thats the reason at all. Just look at all the sites you can buy nes repros from. Theres original homebrew development for Nes and GBA thats sold. The snes just isn't as appealing to develop for as other systems.

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Originally Posted by 17daysolderthannes

I disagree. Gunstar Heroes or Lightening Force would not be possible on the SNES, no matter what Dragon Boy's flawed tech demo says. When he can make all those sprites do that with a sophisticated AI and a scrolling background all the while taking inputs from a human player, THEN we can say the SNES could do that.

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Almost any game can be ported to another console, it just won't ever be exactly the same. Technically, no 64+ color SNES game can be "possibly" done on Genesis, yet so many received decent Genesis ports.

Fairly intact lower resolution versions of Gunstar Heroes and TFIV could be done on SNES and could include improvements to help compensate for reductions. High quality Genesis games are designed around Genesis hardware, both to benefit from its strengths as well as work around its weaknesses.

Even the Genesis has trouble running Lightening Force.

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Originally Posted by gamegenie

Nintendo shot itself again when they killed the Nintendo N-Sider forums.

Sega could have beat them if they didn't kill off the Genesis and let SNES go on and build up to 49 million units.

All Sega needed was a killer app and assurance in gamers that they weren't going to bail on them.

But Sega bailed on the Genesis fans, the Saturn fans, and last the Dreamcast fans.

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DITTO! I was registered on those forums and they were a great place for old-school gamers/fans to chat about their faves. Too bad everything has to be "improved" to the point that it alienates the older generation of fans!

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Originally Posted by gamegenie

the only thing Nintendo hasn't been able to stamp down is those NES/SNES clones that make their way to the US from China.

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That's because Nintendo can't legally stamp those down, as the NES hardware copyright ran out (or something to that extent, licensing ran out maybe?)

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Originally Posted by gamegenie

to address the Nintendo homebrew questions. Nintendo outlaws all of that. Sure Sega doesn't give a damn about it's old consoles, but Nintendo damn sure does. Nintendo has even went to the extent of going stealth in putting out a force take down of all of their top 1st party roms that were easily accessible on the internet before the Wii came along. With each new update for the Wii, it will block out and brick any modified console, and now they're doing it with the DSi as well.

Sony does the same thing too.


the only thing Nintendo hasn't been able to stamp down is those NES/SNES clones that make their way to the US from China.

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When has Sony done that? I have the latest 5.00 firmware on my PSP and I INSTALLED it with that via custom firmware on a memory stick. Of all the current hardware developers, Sony is the most welcoming of 3rd party development. Name another current gen console that can use ANY USB controller...exactly.

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Originally Posted by Black_Tiger

Almost any game can be ported to another console, it just won't ever be exactly the same. Technically, no 64+ color SNES game can be "possibly" done on Genesis, yet so many received decent Genesis ports.

Fairly intact lower resolution versions of Gunstar Heroes and TFIV could be done on SNES and could include improvements to help compensate for reductions. High quality Genesis games are designed around Genesis hardware, both to benefit from its strengths as well as work around its weaknesses.

Even the Genesis has trouble running Lightening Force.

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You could make a shitty half-assed version of Gunstar Heroes, but that doesn't mean anything. The TMNT arcade game was ported to the NES, does it hold a candle to the arcade version? fuck no. Gunstar Heroes would be much slower and have much less onscreen action (enemies, explosions) than the Genesis version. A good comparison is Doom Troopers for SNES vs. Genesis. The SNES vs. is a snooze fest compared to the almost Sonic fast Genesis gameplay.

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Originally Posted by Baloo

That's because Nintendo can't legally stamp those down, as the NES hardware copyright ran out (or something to that extent, licensing ran out maybe?)

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It was hardware patents. Yes, for some fucked up reason "artists" maintain rights forever but hardworking engineers get the finger after 20 years.

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Originally Posted by 17daysolderthannes

When has Sony done that? I have the latest 5.00 firmware on my PSP and I INSTALLED it with that via custom firmware on a memory stick.

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http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...lomat/smug.gif

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I disagree. Gunstar Heroes or Lightening Force would not be possible on the SNES, no matter what Dragon Boy's flawed tech demo says. When he can make all those sprites do that with a sophisticated AI and a scrolling background all the while taking inputs from a human player, THEN we can say the SNES could do that.

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1) Those games do not have sophisticated AI. 2) Whatever the Genesis can do graphically, the SNES can do and more. I don't understand why people think the snes sPPU is more restricted that the Genesis VDP. Especially when they have no experience or understanding. 3) Both Gunstar Heroes and TF4 have slowdown which the snes can do just fine ;)

And those scrolls in TF4 take up less cpu resource on the SNES than the Genesis as it has a more efficient hscroll system. Not that it's a large cpu resource hogger in either case. It seems a lot of people have trouble understanding the fact that the CPU does not drive the display effects like they would on a PC or such. The over head of the CPU in consoles is very little for these onscreen effects in comparison.

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So why don't the Japanese make any new SFC games then? There aren't any "new" games for them.

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I don't know, why don't you take a public survey in Japan? Maybe Japanese gamers felt fulfilled with the SFC's huge library? Who the hell knows. It's not like the Japanese are developing lots of homebrew games for other systems. An irrelevant observation.

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Developing brand new games and translating old games are two competely different things.

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Jesus. No shit. But a new game to play..is..(tada)..a new game to play! To the average gamer. Imagine that. If the Megadrive had tons of great RPGs that never left Japan and people like CMA brought these out, people would be ecstatic to play such a "new game".

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Do you think Tulio and Fonzie thought a few years ago: "Uhm, let's not make a new game, it's better to translate the Japanese ones first!" Obviously not.

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I don't pretend to think what they thought. And as if Tulio and Fonzie's decisions are the end all to everything. Two people out of hundreds of thousands of coders decide to make a game from scratch rather than do a translation. That's great (seriously), but that has nothing to do with what I stated. Also, you seem have some sort of resentment or grudge against translators from reading your comments about Begger Prince and such. Get over it. And just so you don't miss my point entirely, I'm on the homebrew side and have been since starting console dev in 2000. But that doesn't mean I'm biased or blindly ignorant.

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I don't get how people can claim an 8/16-bit CPU, clocked at half the speed of a 16/32-bit one, can do the exact performance as the 16/32-bit one.

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Your ignorant assumption is that cpu code runs at 100% resource. If that "8/16bit" cpu was clocked at the same rate as that "16/32bit one", (get ready for this...) it would faster. Wow, fathom that. A 3.57mhz 65816 is faster than "half" the speed of the 68k though. But seriously, do you know how much cpu resource a game takes? Do you really think every game out there takes 100% processing power? Sure, it's not exactly on par with the speed rating of the higher clocked 68k in the Genesis, but who says you need 100% cpu resource(relative to the Genesis) to run a game? Why don't you take a look at Rendering Rangers on the SNES(watch some youtube videos). By someone who knows how to code on a 65x/816 platform (Mr. Manfred Trenz himself).

My point was/is simple. SNES scene has tons of translations of professional and highly sought after/requested Japanese games. There are many-many-many more people wanting to play a high quality translation of Terranigma, Ys 5, etc than any homebrew project in that scene. If you can wrap your head around that, well... your loss. I dunno.

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Originally Posted by h00n

Just look at what they did to wolfenstein..

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Good thing Sega's work got the ratings boards in place before an SNES Doom port was developed Rated M is what doom is meant to be... Too bad the GBA port was censored.

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Originally Posted by gamegenie

Nintendo shot itself again when they killed the Nintendo N-Sider forums.

Sega could have beat them if they didn't kill off the Genesis and let SNES go on and build up to 49 million units.

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Huh, what's this: http://nsider.com/forums/index.php?act=idx

And yeah, 3rd Gen of home consoles is when Sega got their foot in the door (and had some good success in EU and Brazil), 4th Gen= Sega Awsomeness, 5th Gen transition = throwing away half the awsomeness, 5th gen = many mistakes, 6th gen = dying breath in hardware... The way the 5th gen was handled (esp SoJ's decisions on how to transition) is what hurt them the most...

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Originally Posted by 17daysolderthannes

I disagree. Gunstar Heroes or Lightening Force would not be possible on the SNES, no matter what Dragon Boy's flawed tech demo says. When he can make all those sprites do that with a sophisticated AI and a scrolling background all the while taking inputs from a human player, THEN we can say the SNES could do that.

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Originally Posted by Black_Tiger

Almost any game can be ported to another console, it just won't ever be exactly the same. Technically, no 64+ color SNES game can be "possibly" done on Genesis, yet so many received decent Genesis ports.

Fairly intact lower resolution versions of Gunstar Heroes and TFIV could be done on SNES and could include improvements to help compensate for reductions. High quality Genesis games are designed around Genesis hardware, both to benefit from its strengths as well as work around its weaknesses.

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You are forgetting two simple words that make so much difference in the SNES... Enhancement Chips! (which were mostly pretty cheap except the Super FX line, and the SA-1 gave a nice general processing boost at low cost and was the most used of the chips, though it came pretty late)
(tomaitheus made some other good points, but this wasn't mentioned)

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Originally Posted by chinitosoccer

Its easy,Super Nintendo fans are playing Wii and DS now, while Sega fans are still playing Megadrive, Saturn and Master System.

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"Feh. Stupid NintenDRONES with their babby consoles." *clicks Submit Reply, squints lovingly at Mega Drive whose power LED is lighting the room*

(what sort of 'victory' is that? ;) )

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

Huh, what's this: http://nsider.com/forums/index.php?act=idx

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that's not the forum. http://forums.nintendo.com/

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Originally Posted by tomaitheous

I don't understand why people think the snes sPPU is more restricted that the Genesis VDP. Especially when they have no experience or understanding.

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People think this because they only believe what they can see in front of them, you saying this technical info, which by and large flies in the face of people's own experience with SNES games may well be correct, but if it's not supported by people's own personal experiences then it's always going to be taken with a degree of scepticism.

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Originally Posted by Elusive

"Feh. Stupid NintenDRONES with their babby consoles." *clicks Submit Reply, squints lovingly at Mega Drive whose power LED is lighting the room*

(what sort of 'victory' is that? ;) )

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Its a hollow one.

Personally i blame sony. In the run up to the Dreamcasts release Uk news were running with the "consumer groups have said that people are not going to buy the dreamcast but instead are waiting for the release of the ps2"

I wonder who took those surveys...
I wonder who paid roiters to register that as a news story...
I betcha it was not a general study but was sony funded, and was probably of people on the sony mailing list.

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Originally Posted by h00n

Its a hollow one.

Personally i blame sony. In the run up to the Dreamcasts release Uk news were running with the "consumer groups have said that people are not going to buy the dreamcast but instead are waiting for the release of the ps2"

I wonder who took those surveys...
I wonder who paid roiters to register that as a news story...
I betcha it was not a general study but was sony funded, and was probably of people on the sony mailing list.

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That's just good marketing. Sony were (and still are) in the console business to make money just like Sega used to be.

Both the Genesis and SNES are great. Neither really "won" and frankly I don't have a problem with that. Two healthy consoles in the 16 bit market meant there was a level of competition that improved the quality of games on both systems. It's nice that people are finding and translating various Genesis games that never made it out of Asia, but I don't really think that means the Genesis won the war. SNES fans do translations too: they just give them away for free rather than selling them ;)

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Originally Posted by Lorfarius

That's just good marketing. Sony were (and still are) in the console business to make money just like Sega used to be.

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Is where sega failed definatley. What happened? Sega adverts were legendary in the early 90's, Especially the stuff with that wierd robot talking head dude thing. And the planet of the pigs sega pirate t.v stuff. There campaighn for the MD was hailed as being pretty masterfull. I remember a documentory on there marketing strategy back in the day.
From then on it was downhill marketing wise. Sony kicked there asses. That david lynch playstation advertising campaighn thing was awesome.
where were the super sweet Saturn adverts? where were the super sweet Dreamcast adverts?
AGGGH Sega! What Were You THinking????

Even the Sega CD marketing was pretty good (and to a lesser exten the 32x). Granted the focus on promoting FMV in the Western markets came back to bite them when the fad blew over. (the reallyshould have seen that comeing given that the Same thing Happened with the Arcade Laserdisc games in the 80's)


I think it was in large part due to Sega of Japan. It almost seems like they were trying to spite the success of the western branches for their success with the Genesis, which had been mediocre in popularity in Japan. Like they said, hey this is a Japanese company, our product should be on top here before anywhere else! (which would be ironic considdering Sega was founded by a couple American buisnessmen)


SoJ's motives asside, there's no dowbting that SoJ's decisions in transition to the 5th console gen (especially in '94-95) are some of the biggest mistakes with the most impact on their failure.
It's like SoJ completly ignored the success the NA and EU (plus Brazil) markets had. (with the MD actually beating the SNES in EU, and maybe a lot closer in the US had it been heavily supported a bit longer)

With Genesis support being discontinued too soon without much of an overlap along with the CD, rushing the Saturn's release in Japan and not telling SoA (resulting in a nonexistant 32x lifespan), declining to SoA's urging to redesign the Saturn, or adopt the Silicon Graphics chipset (later developed into N64), and finally declining to SoA's offer to partner with Sony on the Playstation.

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7061

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

Even the Sega CD marketing was pretty good (and to a lesser exten the 32x). Granted the focus on promoting FMV in the Western markets came back to bite them when the fad blew over. (the reallyshould have seen that comeing given that the Same thing Happened with the Arcade Laserdisc games in the 80's)


I think it was in large part due to Sega of Japan. It almost seems like they were trying to spite the success of the western branches for their success with the Genesis, which had been mediocre in popularity in Japan. Like they said, hey this is a Japanese company, our product should be on top here before anywhere else! (which would be ironic considdering Sega was founded by a couple American buisnessmen)


SoJ's motives asside, there's no dowbting that SoJ's decisions in transition to the 5th console gen (especially in '94-95) are some of the biggest mistakes with the most impact on their failure.
It's like SoJ completly ignored the success the NA and EU (plus Brazil) markets had. (with the MD actually beating the SNES in EU, and maybe a lot closer in the US had it been heavily supported a bit longer)

With Genesis support being discontinued too soon without much of an overlap along with the CD, rushing the Saturn's release in Japan and not telling SoA (resulting in a nonexistant 32x lifespan), declining to SoA's urging to redesign the Saturn, or adopt the Silicon Graphics chipset (later developed into N64), and finally declining to SoA's offer to partner with Sony on the Playstation.

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7061

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You're not far off. In the early-mid 1990s, Sega was din the middle of a massive culture shift. It had been founded by Americans and an American-style "culture" had long held sway in the company, but by the 90s, only a few people at the VERY top of things (basically just figureheads at the mercy of hordes of "salaryman" middle managers) were left at Sega from the early period. As the forces of middle managemnet orthodoxy begin to take over SoJ, it's respect for SoA (and SoE, which at that point was more a subsidiary of SoA than a direct subsidiary of SoJ) went away and the company fell apart...

In terms of numbers the SNES won, but in reality it was the gamers who won with all of the great software that came out of the 16-bit wars. Truth be told, both were great machines. I think that the real difference in them were the fact that the Master System was so obscure in America that the Genesis took people by surprise since most people thought that SEGA was just an arcade game maker. Since most people had an NES the SNES was an upgrade to them, whereas the Genesis seemed to be just that, a genesis from SEGA.

The fact that there are any homebrew games or fan translations on them that can sell for real money today shows how ingrained they are to the gaming world. Since history is written by the winners and SEGA continues to sell millions of compilation discs with their old games on it, they continue writing the history of the Genesis long after production stopped on the console.

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Originally Posted by madcrow

You're not far off. In the early-mid 1990s, Sega was din the middle of a massive culture shift. It had been founded by Americans and an American-style "culture" had long held sway in the company, but by the 90s, only a few people at the VERY top of things (basically just figureheads at the mercy of hordes of "salaryman" middle managers) were left at Sega from the early period. As the forces of middle managemnet orthodoxy begin to take over SoJ, it's respect for SoA (and SoE, which at that point was more a subsidiary of SoA than a direct subsidiary of SoJ) went away and the company fell apart...

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Have you ever seen the Michael Keaton movie "Gung Ho"? It's about a Michigan car plant that is bought out by the Japanese and they try to make it into a Japanese type company. (Really abbreviated synopsis, if you haven't seen it, it's worth renting)

Anyway, it always makes me think of SOJ doing the same thing to SOA, except SOJ succeeds in real life.

I saw most of "Gung Ho" a few years back, a mid-day weekend broadcast on some local station, didn't remember the title though.

Interesting movie. That whole deadline with the minimum number of cars they needed to produce to the american workers exasperation, and theamerican manager trying to hold it together. (with mim lying and saying the number was lower to inspire the US workers, making them think they were coloser instead of giving up, but then falling short of the ture number because of that)

Yeah, definitely resonates with some stuff that went on in Sega. Both some of the stuff early on with the Genesis (the 1 million mark requirement), to the situation with the Dreamcast that regrettably forced Peter Moore to discontinue it.

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Originally Posted by madcrow

As for Genesis still getting new games, that's not really true. What the Genesis is getting are more like are cartridge-based ROM translation hacks that are done with the official blessing of the original authors of the games in question. The reason this happens is because most untranslated games for the Genesis were made by smaller (often Chinese) developers who are more than happy to let fans license their games at a fair price and translate them, when most of the untranslated stuff for SNES is from big companies like Square-Enix and Konami who if they would be willing to talk at all, would want WAY more money.

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I would give them more credit than just being "ROM translation hacks," especially when you consider the amount of recoding work that went into both Beggar Prince and Legend of Wukong that was WAY beyond a mere translation. Furthermore, Pier Solar is a completely new game built from the ground up, so it doesn't fit your description at all.

And as for the whole "it's not new; it's Chinese" argument, I don't subscribe to it. If I haven't seen it, it's new to me, and there are a bunch of games no one outside of China knows anything about AT ALL, let alone having played them in English on their American or PAL consoles. That's new enough for me.