All-time Favorite Sega system?

[roundwars]

No, I disagree on this, both chips sound too different to each other, in fact most sound chips have such a distinct sound that I think there's always going to be some level of preference anyway.

They aren't THAT different from each other, especially compared to SNES and MD. I suppose there might be some differences in how "clean" the sound of the PSG is (that is, the characteristics of the actual tone that's produced by the hardware) but I don't know much about that.

I can also totally understand how some people might have hated the sound of the NES triangle bass (the problem is it's a step triangle and not a real triangle, so it's got some funky metallic harmonics in it).

But overall, I'd say NES sound is clearly a cut above SMS, whereas SNES vs MD is more a matter of personal preference.

Perhaps I just need some examples of what a good SNES game sounds like. My personal favorites (by music) are F-Zero, Mario Kart, Star Fox, Axelay, and the Final Fight games, but I don't know too many games and haven't played much SNES in years.

The single greatest tune on SNES is "Into the Thick of It" from Secret of Mana.

[Guntz]

I think a lot of DKC3 and MMX1's music is pretty damn epic, but then again I've had a minority opinion on many things. I think I'll go listen to these games' music tracks while you guys troll my taste in mewsaak.

[kool kitty89]

this and the sega marketing team really screwed the pooch on the saturn by rushing it to the market to beat the PS1 instead of waiting to let developers finish their games.

No, it wasn't rushed by then, at least not in terms of bugs or such, it was a bit rushed when SoJ released it in November 22nd 1994, though of course development would have been halted a good bit before that and production started. (the biggest bugs I know of are the broken transparency and audio DSP bugs)

Now, the march US release date was only really an issue due to a bunch of potential Saturn titles going to 32x instead and Sega not notifying key developers and retailers. (hopefully western Saturn development could have started around the time 32x development did, but that would depend on SoJ getting the documentation out sooner -omitting the 32x could have facilitated that)
Though Sony could still have undercut the price. (Sega could have mitigated that by meeting Sony's price by the PSX's western launch date, or at least dropping to $350)

In regards to the earlier Saturn hate, I was just reacting to the Master Sytem bashing

I wasn't really trying to bash either, just tempered comments on my point of view and some facts tied to that. (both Saturn and SMS)

Saturn is a decent console with a large library of good (if a bit overated and overpriced) games.

Overrated by fans, underrated by most "gamers" and so-called critics (though IGN seems to still hold their Sega bias to some extent), same for the DC it seems. (unlike several cases with popular mainstream systems like the PS2, NES, SNES, PSX and such which have a lot of generally overrated games)

In Europe the Master System started off cheaper, and people did care about Soccer games (this was in reply to your mentioning that the UK was Sega biased), buying the console which offers the games you want at a cheaper price does not make us biased, we wanted Soccer games, we wanted Outrun, we wanted Afterburner (), we wanted Space Harrier, we wanted Hang On, we wanted Shinobi, we wanted Wonder Boy (in opposite fashion to the US nobody over here knew Adventure Island was Wonder Boy)

Well, Europe (especially the UK) BECAME Sega biased because of the SMS, the SMS wasn't popular because of any bias as there was none prior to its introduction.
It indeed seems Sega did a FAR better job with marketing in UK/Europe than the US. (Japan wasn't bad either it seems, but Nintendo had a 2 year head start and much more developer interest -the SG-1000 was quite weak compared to the Famicom, not much more than a foothold in the industry, the Mk.III was the first real competition)

At the end of the day what I'm saying is that I think that all said and done the Master System was simply the better console for the UK market anyway, for the reasons you mentioned

Had NEC rushed it as much as Sega did the Mk.III, the PCE could have been out in the west by 1988. That would have been even more suitable other than initial cost. (of course, NEC waited quite a while to bring it to the US -losing the 1 year lead they had in Japan, and never even brought it to Europe)
Of course any platform is marketing dependent and on top of that software dependent: and going to Europe at the time presented much more open 3rd party development than the US let alone Japan. (both Sega and Hudson/NES were largely stuck with first party releases early on: European computer game developers offered a good resource for that)

• NES released too late and looking outdated in comparison to 16-bit computers and Master System)

and the ones I mentioned,

Ones you mentioned?

Anyway it only sometimes looked outdated compared to the SMS, some games looked rather similar (it depended on the case and art design). Both had similar flickering problems, though the SMS's were often more apparent due to more sprite-heavy games being pushed. (or games being less cut-down)

[*]Cheaper price, and budget software available (this was very important at the time, people here had less disposable income and the razor blades model was hated, getting negative press constantly in newspapers, saying "they trick you into buying the console cheap and then rip you off with the software") the cheapest Master System games were £10 brand new (card games) whilst the cheapest NES games were closer to £30, in this way you could consider the card slot as possibly a notable feature (and even when the MS II arrived missing the card slot feature the popular card games like Ghost House were all re-released here on cartridges for the same £10 budget price)

Well regardless of the razor-blade model, ROM carts were expensive, though Nintendo did seem more restrictive... except from the ads and lists I've seen most common SMS games were similarly priced as well.
Plus, with strong competition that model can benefit consumers as software in a specific market tends to be a certain price range regardless and will only drop so much, but hardware can be slashed much more of profit off the base unit isn't necessary.
Tape/Disk games on computers is a bit of a different case, especially as it was often treated as a separate market, even though they were pretty intertwined in Europe.

But in that case the 7800 should have seemed even more attractive, unless Sega marketed the budget angle so aggressively that even that it was competitive with the 7800's low prices. (the 2600 Jr would obviously still be the cheapest budget option for consoles)

[*]Brand name, Sega name was associated with hardcore arcade games in smokey, dirty arcades, Nintendo's was always associated with handhelds and uncool (kiddie) childrens products.

Is it true that Nintendo's arcade games were less popular in Europe?
In the US Donkey Kong, DK Jr, and Mario Bros. were huge hits, and the arcade market crashed in the early 80s paralleling the consoles (separate and starting slightly earlier in 1983) and wasn't really recovered until around the time consoles did I think. (neither crashed in Europe)
Nintendo also had VS Super Mario Brothers to tie in with the North American launch (appearing at or just after the time SMB was released in spring 1986)

No, it had more games, yes, but not better games, the Master System had high tier quality games representing all genre's, there was no lack of quality, just the NES' numbers of good games.

Much weaker marketing (price point and advertising -let alone the unattractive packaging/box art) and many fewer good games, especially early on. (1986 and 1987 being the critical years of establishment and Nintendo had a wealth of 3rd party Japanese developers supporting them as well as 1st party releases, but importantly they had a killer pack in with the 1986 launch on top of all that)
I think it was mainly marketing though, they had some good games by '86 (at least in Japan -so depending on how long it took to transition), but the pricing was wrong, the advertising was wrong, and the packaging was wrong. (they finally addressed the latter later on, but it's really a shame they didn't just use the JP box art or at least use that as a basis for the western releases: the bland cartridgess lacking any art or end labels were rather unfortunate too)
Hell, early North American Sega TV ads even got the name wrong "the Sega system" ... they couldn't even be bothered to say Master System.
At least Tonka wasn't that bad. (and they had an up-hill battle to fight too)

A lot of the early games didn't look particularly better than NES games either. (some worse than contemporaries some better)

In this area I think you also need to take into account that this was before the days of emulation and access to huge amounts of games. Most of us would've only heard like 10 odd NES games and 10 odd Master System games, if you end up playing a lot of Master System games with good soundtracks and NES games with bad then you're going to gravitate towards the Master System having better sound capabilities anyway. Its not like we had heard a mass of Sunsoft and Capcom NES soundtracks at that stage.

The NES can do pretty much everything the SMS can do and more... only limitation is the 3 square wave channels on the SMS vs 2 pulse wave on the NES, so there are certain compositions that can't translate perfectly, but generally it's superior. It's a bit like comparing the C64 to the SMS: except the NES has soem trade-offs/advantages over the SID as well (no filtering and no sawtooth wave and the triangle and pulse wave channels are fixed, but pulse wave can simulate saw -better in some respects- and traingle is not usually used for more than one channel, plus I think noise is more useful -not sure- and there's the DPCM channel)

You could have good and bad on both, but the NES's sound can simply do more. This has come up in the 8-bit sound chips thread already though.
Now the AY/YM2149 of the ST/CPC/Spectrum 128k can do everything the poorer SN PSG in the SMS can do and more: 3 square voices plus noise, but broader frequency range and hardware envelope control. (the envelope control can help allow for non-square waveforms too)

I'm not entirely sure about the marketing side at this stage dude, the Mega Drive now that was marketed waaaay better than the Nintendo consoles, I just looked through some old UK magazines for first year MS/NES adverts and the first thing which is noticeable is that Nintendo have 2 page spreads in the magazines and Sega has 1 page adverts.

Advertizing is only part of marketing: marketing would also include pricing, pack-in games, box art/packaging, distribution, agreements with retailers, etc.
So even if TV/print ads were no better (which I highly doubt given how terrible early SMS ads were)

In regards to release dates, remember that Nintendo only gained a later release than the Master System in two European countries, Britain, and Italy (2-3 months head start) everywhere else in Europe the NES was released an entire year earlier than the Master System.

So the NES got released in most Europe the same time as it was in the US? (the rather unsuccessful test market in 1985 was limited to NY city and finally expanded to Los Angeles in Feb 1986 and gradually expanded to the top 12 markets and officially released nationwide in September -the SMS was released in Europe September of '87, The SMS was released in the US prior to the NES was nationwide, but I'm not sure if the SMS had a limited initial release or not -I'm pretty sure the 7800 launched nationwide before the NES though)
Regardless, it wasn't until the 1987 holiday Season that the NES really hit big in the US, it had been growing since the previous year for sure.

So the head start isn't really the factor, but the marketing (advertising, distribution, price point, asthetics, etc) most definitely factored in. The 7800 seems to have been rather well advertised given the circumstances, but they had very limited funding to work with (and focused more on print ads than TV): the XEGS probably didn't help that though. (confusing the market and dividing resources) The bigger shame for that is that Atari (Inc or Corp) hadn't managed to establish their very capable 8-bit line in the strong European Market. (the ST certainly hit big, granted by the time Atari Corp was established -1984- it was getting late to break into the EU 8-bit market, especially with older hardware, albeit superior to the spectrum and with trade-offs with the C64)

Not true. The NES has greater pitch range and pitch precision and it has multiple available duty cycles for the pulse wave channels. Additionally, the SMS white noise channel has very limited frequency control unless you sacrifice the frequency control from one of the square wave channels. One item in the SMS's favor though is the fact that the NES triangle wave channel has no volume levels available aside from 0% and 100%.

I also vaguely recall hearing that one of them had linear-based volume and one had log-based volume. Not sure which is better or why.

This is crossing over with the 8-bit sound chip thread a bit, but the NES's pulse wave channels have 4-bit linear DACs like POKEY while the SN76489 of the SMS and the AY/YM2149 (CPC/Speccy/ST/MSX, etc) use stepped -logarithmic- volume control, but still only 4-bit in range (16 volume levels).
The way human hearing works logarithmically stepped volume allows for each "step" to sound sound 2x louder (I think), while linear steps sound very subtle in comparison. It also makes for a much broader volume range than linear control.
The trouble comes with using the channels as direct DACs for PCM plaback: PCM is normally linear and even using a properly converted logarithmic format you get very grainy sounding samples: using all 3 channels can address that and ideally allow for higher resolution than 4-bit or even 8-bit PCM. (based on some discussions on Atariage with sample playback on the ST)
But that really doesn't come into play for normal PSG music and sound, though the linear vs stepped volume does have some tradeoffs it probably wouldn't be that noticeable most of the time. (I'd think linear DACs would allow for smoother fade-outs, the stepped volume allowing a wider range of volume for cases where it's needed)

You gotta remember that not all games sounded great on NES. And the good Master System games sounded great too: Wonderboy, Sonic, Ninja Gaiden, Sagaia, Streets of Rage, Alex Kidd, Aleste/Power Strike, Golvellius, Psychic World, Phantasy Star, Fantasy Zone, Land of Illusion, Lucky Dime Caper... - they all sounded great!

I think it's just in the review that if you take the average it becomes pretty obvious that the NES has the overall much better sound capabilities.

Quite true, better capabilities doesn't mean better results by default, and there are a few cases where the NES wouldn't be able to do exactly what you wanted (namely if you wanted 3 concurrent square voices -triangle not being suitable and DPCM not either -the SID would actually allow that as any channel can use any of its available waveforms iirc, but that's for the sound chip thread )

The NES has more potential though, and for a 1985/86 system (especially considering the 1983 Famicom -and the SG-1000 which was a bit weak even then) it really should have had more out of the box, or at very least not eliminated the FM add-on in the west. (again, the minimal thing would be doubling the PSG, preferably at a different clock speed to give a different frequency range as with several Sega arcade boards)
Though it's a bit unfortunate they even went with the SN76489 in the first place and not the better off the shelf option: the AY-3-8910 which they'd already used in the arcade in 1983 (before using the SN76489), particularly given the emergence of the MSX several months earlier. (could have helped facilitate a fully or near fully compatible computer upgrade instead of the SC-3000 -though memory map and bios would also matter as well as physical hardware -joystick ports, expansion ports, cart port ect, though software compatibility is more important)

No, I disagree on this, both chips sound too different to each other, in fact most sound chips have such a distinct sound that I think there's always going to be some level of preference anyway.

I was a NES owner, and as I said I never realised it technically had a better sound chip than the Master System, and many people I knew hated the NES sound chip the most, a lot of people said the NES sounded like it had a broken sound chip, buzzing with fuzzy distortion.

Some say the same about the C64, but the fact is that, for the most part, the NES (and especially C64) could directly mimic the SMS's sound and do much more: NES can't do 3 square channels, granted, though often a triangle channel (or DPCM if it's a fixed beat/tone) could be substituted or even be preferable.
C64 can, and (rarely) did use 3 unfiltered square wave channels, but also so much more. For an example see: (in-game not the title demo)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfesRpaNlsw


I actually used that same example for a long-time SID hater. ...Finally something that doesn't sound like a box of angry bees.

Pure square waves on the NES are far more common though, and there is a greater range than on the SMS. (in many cases SMS music sounds strained, I assume that's the reason)

I can also totally understand how some people might have hated the sound of the NES triangle bass (the problem is it's a step triangle and not a real triangle, so it's got some funky metallic harmonics in it).

I think it's the pulse wave sound more than the triangle, that's the buzzer-like sound characteristic to most NES games. (rather similar to sawtooth in some respects and also a bit like some C64 stuff)
The fact that most SID haters have a similar complaint drives this in part. (plus the fact that the muted tone of a triangle wave -which isn't all THAT common anyway- is harder to see as grating compared to a pulse or saw wave to me -I rather like pulse and saw stuff as well as harmonizing square or approximations of pulse/saw on POKEY or YM2149)
Actually that kind of sound is also probably part of what turns some people off to FM synth too. (there are a lot of FM instruments whigh are reminiscent to that as well, especially in Adlib stuff -though some if more reminiscent of filtered analog synth too, and of course pure sine waves occassionally used in FM are fairly often used on the C64 -filtered triangle)

I think a lot of DKC3 and MMX1's music is pretty damn epic, but then again I've had a minority opinion on many things. I think I'll go listen to these games' music tracks while you guys troll my taste in mewsaak.

Oh yeah, for the most part I think a lot of people find the ambient/moody and orchestral SNES stuff more "epic" than the MD's stuff, of course I'm considering more of the best examples (not generic GEMS/EA or common SNES stuff). But things like Star Fox (maybe Vortex), Yoshi's Island, probably several RPGs (I'm not that familiar with a lot of them), definitely Earthbound, Super Mario RPG, probably FFII and III, then there's the DKC games (any of them really (life in the mines always gets to me). A lot of stuff on the Amiga too, though all too often with limited instrument set. (take Altered beast for example: a lot of good "epic" sounding tracks but all used the same instrument set composte almost entirely of pan pipes) Zelda LTP of course too, and probably Super Castlevania IV and maybe some of Capcom's Disney games. (goof troop and magical quest come to mind)

But I'm thinking of epic in the sense of huge cinematic type stuff. If you meant epic in the sense of really powerful energetic music, the Mega Man X games would certainly apply, though in those cases I've heard remixes on the MD that sound better.
There are some very heavy sort of ambient/orchestral stuff on the MD, but it's a bit less common. (some of the RPGs and adventure games have that, even a couple Sonic tunes -Crusader of Centy really comes to mind; Castlevania Bloodlines, though the percussion in that is pretty weak -really could have used some good samples, and even FM percussion probably could have been better)


Both were used poorly and both were used well. Technically the SNES could manage almost everything the MD could, but there are limitations: the 32 kHz peak isn't a really big one, but the limited cart space for samples is some times (though most samples of FM instruments would be of relatively simple waveforms and thus very small, even smaller for simpler ones and PSG sounds), the sample RAM is limited but reloading offers some flexibility: if most instruments were very simple samples that wouldn't be an issue, but on the MD percussion stuff on some carts would easily go past the SNES's limit (tiido's sound engine for sure, but that's a good bit over most I think -with 512 kB of samples).
And other issues like the forced interpolation and the limits of the SPC format. (technically the SNES should be able to do much much more with the set-up it has) The better games seem to have taken interpolation into account and some even use it to totally shift instruments. (turn it off and they sound totally different -unlike some others which sound similar or better without it)

[Devon]

If it's 8-bit you're into. you can't do better then the Sega Master System. A longtime leader in 8-bit graphics and gameplay, the redesigned Sega Master System II makes the best 8-bit system around even better! The current library of more than 100 hits is still growing! And with titles like Shadow Dancer The Secret of Shinobi, Strider, SpiderMan, and Golden AXE Warrior due out this year, there's no end in sight!

[bobbledick]

No, it wasn't rushed by then, at least not in terms of bugs or such, it was a bit rushed when SoJ released it in November 22nd 1994, though of course development would have been halted a good bit before that and production started. (the biggest bugs I know of are the broken transparency and audio DSP bugs)

Now, the march US release date was only really an issue due to a bunch of potential Saturn titles going to 32x instead and Sega not notifying key developers and retailers. (hopefully western Saturn development could have started around the time 32x development did, but that would depend on SoJ getting the documentation out sooner -omitting the 32x could have facilitated that)
Though Sony could still have undercut the price. (Sega could have mitigated that by meeting Sony's price by the PSX's western launch date, or at least dropping to $350)

It's not so much bugs that were the concern, but the launch titles for both consoles (in the US at least). Since the system came out so early in the US, developers didn't have their games finished on time and had to delay their releases.

You are correct though. If sega would have never released the 32x and would have just stuck around until they released the saturn, they would have probably been in a much better place market-wise.

[cj iwakura]

Saturn, no doubt. Best startup, best RPGs, best of everything. I love my Saturn.

Follow-up would be the Dreamcast.

[kool kitty89]

If it's 8-bit you're into. you can't do better then the Sega Master System. A longtime leader in 8-bit graphics and gameplay, the redesigned Sega Master System II makes the best 8-bit system around even better!

Huh? The SMS II was a general downgrade: removed the card slot (also used for 3D glasses) and AV port (except in France where it was RGB only), as well as adding a funky manual cartridge cover.

It does fetch a higher price in North America though due to the more limited supply.

It's not so much bugs that were the concern, but the launch titles for both consoles (in the US at least). Since the system came out so early in the US, developers didn't have their games finished on time and had to delay their releases.

It's more than just that though, it's the fact they said they were going to release it later and then switched it, not just surprising Sony and consumers (as intended) but frustrating developers and retailers. (had they been notified, they may have been a bit frustrated and maybe even tried to rush some games, but almost certainly not as angered as being caught off guard)

You are correct though. If sega would have never released the 32x and would have just stuck around until they released the saturn, they would have probably been in a much better place market-wise.

Yes, though that's assuming they wouldn't just put those resources towards the Sega CD or Genesis instead, or maybe even more SVP games. (possibly a lock-on cart)
Other than SVP at least, SoJ's 3D games should at least have made it to the Saturn, maybe STI's as well. (STI would be dependent on the Saturn development documents being released sooner though -same for western 3rd parties)
Even for SoJ developed games alone that's: Shadow Squadron, Virtua Racing Deluxe, Virtua Fighter (Saturn had it, but it was rushed and might have been better without the 32x dividing resources -granted the 32x version was later too) and Metal Head (I think that was SoJ), then the 2D games: Afterburner II, Space Harrier, and Knuckles Chaotix. (assuming those didn't get moved to Sega CD instead -for the former 2 they should have been on the CD years earlier among many others -Sega really squandered that, SoA to a lesser extent though they didn't do it for any of Sega's scaling arcade titles -and afterburner II didn't even use the added hardware on top of being a rather mediocre game in general)

[Thenewguy]

A lot of the early games didn't look particularly better than NES games either. (some worse than contemporaries some better)

I don't think so, I just had a look at releases year by year and I'd say Master System games consistently looked better, the only NES games which look similar to Master System games were late releases like SMB3 and Kirby's Adventure.

Both had similar flickering problems, though the SMS's were often more apparent due to more sprite-heavy games being pushed.

I've played masses of games on both system (pretty much all the Master System games made) flickering is much more common with NES.

from the ads and lists I've seen most common SMS games were similarly priced as well.

The Master system card games were priced similarly to the NES cartridges in the US? that seems pretty unlikely.

But in that case the 7800 should have seemed even more attractive, unless Sega marketed the budget angle so aggressively that even that it was competitive with the 7800's low prices. (the 2600 Jr would obviously still be the cheapest budget option for consoles)

The Master System wasn't competing directly with the Micros though, it was an easy to use console with a lot of Japanese products, and arcade like platform games with great graphics.

The European micro market was way too crowded for Atari to have a chance with such an unremarkable product, even the C64 had a lot of trouble in most of Europe competing with the Spectrum, Amstrad and MSX, not to mention all the other machines which had varying amounts of minor popularity such as the Oric, BBC Micro, and the Dragon.

The European micro market was oversaturated, by the time the US machines were released tons of micros had been coming and going on an almost monthly basis, the only reason Commodore managed to become a big player in Europe was simply because they had the absolute best product for the time at a reasonable price, and they persevered.

There was only enough room for one late to the party, expensive US product, and that place was always going to be filled by the C64.

Is it true that Nintendo's arcade games were less popular in Europe?

Nintendo hadn't released a hit arcade game in at least 4 years when the NES came to the UK. By that time all they had been doing in the UK market for years was Game and Watches.

1986 and 1987 being the critical years of establishment and Nintendo had a wealth of 3rd party Japanese developers supporting them as well as 1st party releases

Well, this is true for any new console really, and from what I've seen the Master System's first year in the US had pretty plentiful releases of good games -

Cartridge Games

Safari Hunt vs Duck Hunt
Ninja vs Commando
Ashura (Rambo in US) vs Commando
Alex Kidd in Miracle World Vs Super Mario Bros
Space Harrier Vs ?
Fantasy Zone Vs I guess Gradius (though Gradius came out a little afterwards)
Action Fighter vs Spy Hunter (which wasn't even released at this stage in the US yet)

Budget Games

Ghost House Vs Kid Icarus (nice little non linear card game vs overated shit)
Astro Warrior Vs 1942

Obviously the NES had many more games available by this point, including most importantly Metroid, and Ghosts N Goblins, but many of the older ones were starting to look old hat by this stage so I wouldn't see them as being huge system selles (Ice Climbers, Excitebike, Balloon Fight, Mappy, Popeye, Donkey Kong etc) also, as far as i'm concerned a lot of those examples I listed earlier are Master System wins, coupled with the fact that the system is starting out, and the graphics of said games are also superior, I would say that's a pretty good first year in the US.

I've been reading the Sam Pettus article, and he states poor software as being a notable reason for the Master System's failure, I don't agree with this at all, I think this assumption is based on the same old "lets compare a Master System game released in 1986 with the best NES game I can think of" idea as well as the fact that many people are simply more familiar and used to the faults of older NES games. When I first played Ninja and Ghost House I immediately wrote them off, after coming back to them I found that they are very fun games, then when I checked their release years to see what similar products were out on NES at the time I realised they were very competitive products for their time.

Another thing I just noticed that's maybe worth mentioning, I always thought one of the reasons why the MS had a fighting chance here is because Mastertronic decided to release everything as fast as possible whilst Nintendo were carefull not to oversaturate the market and limited their releases, however after looking through Mobygames it looks like a similar occurence was happening in the US anyway, the Master System games seem to be getting US releases very soon after Japanese releases, whilst the NES games are often a year late, much more than that where RPG's are concerned, with newer Master System RPG's always being released years prior to older NES RPGs (Dragon Quest/Miracle Warriors Phantasy Star/Final Fantasy)

Looking at the dates it clearly shows that even in the US, which had fewer Master System releases than Europe, the Master System was the better machine for JRPGs, all the Master System releases were in date whilst all the NES releases are typically 2 years out of date.

So the NES got released in most Europe the same time as it was in the US? (the rather unsuccessful test market in 1985 was limited to NY city and finally expanded to Los Angeles in Feb 1986 and gradually expanded to the top 12 markets and officially released nationwide in September - the SMS was released in Europe September of '87, The SMS was released in the US prior to the NES was nationwide, but I'm not sure if the SMS had a limited initial release or not -I'm pretty sure the 7800 launched nationwide before the NES though)
Regardless, it wasn't until the 1987 holiday Season that the NES really hit big in the US, it had been growing since the previous year for sure.

The info on the net says the NES was released in most of mainland Europe during the end of 1986, however everything you said about the US problems could well have happened in mainland Europe too (ie end of 1986 may have been a test release and availability may have been sparse for a long time)

Either way it should also be noted that the Master System had a horrendous start in Europe anyway, with Sega mucking up their orders to many of the companies handling their systems, putting the British (Mastertronic) and French ones into financial crisis and pushing the German one to drop their interest in selling the system.

it was getting late to break into the EU 8-bit market, especially with older hardware, albeit superior to the spectrum

Yes and for literally 5-6 times the cost, with ridiculously slow tape access times (from what I've heard) and a £400 disk drive price.

For an example see: (in-game not the title demo)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfesRpaNlsw

Yeah, I'm familiar with Slap Fight, I didn't notice how Master System esque the music was before, but it would still not fool me at all, there's still a sythesizer style twang to the sound, the Master System rings more clearly like a bell. Thinking about it though I do think the Spectrum/Amstrad could pretty much sound exactly like the Master System, to the stage where I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

maybe some of Capcom's Disney games. (goof troop and magical quest come to mind)

As far as i'm concerned Capcom couldn't program the SNES for shit. Their games and music were usually as well designed and composed as ever, but the programing quality left a lot to be desired, the Mega Man X games have very hummable mellodies, but the quality sucks anus and is muffled and murky sounding, many of their games also have prominent farty bass, their games often slow down on SNES for absolutely no reason (say walking through and empty field) and are often missing features such as 2 player modes and such (Final Fight, UN Squadron)

In my opinion the best SNES music is more often from European companies (Plok, Super Turrican, Troddlers, Puggsley's Scavenger Hunt, Donkey Kong Country 2) though Squaresoft always did a very good job too, as well as Nintendo of course.

[kool kitty89]

I don't think so, I just had a look at releases year by year and I'd say Master System games consistently looked better, the only NES games which look similar to Master System games were late releases like SMB3 and Kirby's Adventure.

No, I mean soem of the early, very simple looking SMS stuff was far less dramatic a difference than comparing many later games. (I'm talking 1985/86 Mk.III/SMS games, not all, but several looked much like NES or worse in one of 2 cases)

One that specifically comes to mind is Pro Wrestling compared to the similarly named (but unrelated) early NES title. (note, I'm not talking about the budget game: Championship Pro Wrestling which is actually an SG-1000 game -I think it was only released in card form on the SMS -it was also one of the few SG-1000 arcade games Sega had)
Anyway:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khr_RHhRg9U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HiUUJqJvqg

The Master system card games were priced similarly to the NES cartridges in the US? that seems pretty unlikely.

No, but there aren't too many good card games, and they seem to have been marketed even more poorly than the rest of the stuff. (actually I've only seen commercials from the Tonka era actually advertising the budget card games specifically -some earlier print ads I think though)
There are a fair amount of decent games, but the box art was even more ridiculously unappealing, and crap games were a lot more common. (or even if not crap, very outdated -again they seem to have been SG-1000 games in several cases -including F-16, possibly the worst game on the console)

The Master System wasn't competing directly with the Micros though, it was an easy to use console with a lot of Japanese products, and arcade like platform games with great graphics.

I think the arcade was generally a bigger factor in Europe at the time: again there's been a crash of the arcade industry about the same time as the console market fell through. (they weren't gone, but they dropped significantly from the early 80s peak from what I understand -somewhat of a rebound in the late 80s/early 90s and then a steep decline in the mid 90s onwards, I think)

The European micro market was way too crowded for Atari to have a chance with such an unremarkable product, even the C64 had a lot of trouble in most of Europe competing with the Spectrum, Amstrad and MSX, not to mention all the other machines which had varying amounts of minor popularity such as the Oric, BBC Micro, and the Dragon.

Atari Inc potentially could have pushed in before even Commodore (like '81 or '82 given the '79 release in the US), and I think they did release it fairly early (at least in the UK -given print ads I've seen for the 400 and 800), but didn't push it especially hard by comparison.
I thought the CPC was a small fish compared to C64 and Speccy, and MSX even less than that with a relatively late arrival. (CPC was somewhat newer too with the 1984 release)
Atari's prices tended to generally be fairly competitive with Commodores too (at least comparing the cheapest packages and including rebates), though that probably cost them to some extent given CBM's strategic advantage.
Atari also had a huge emphasis on cart based games over tape, or even disk. (disk being much preferred over tape in the US, not pushing tape more in Europe could have contributed as well -I think the carts were relatively competitively priced by the mid 80s too, but still wouldn't compare with cassettes)

The European micro market was oversaturated, by the time the US machines were released tons of micros had been coming and going on an almost monthly basis, the only reason Commodore managed to become a big player in Europe was simply because they had the absolute best product for the time at a reasonable price, and they persevered.

When did the C64 come over? I'd assumed it was well before the CPC was released and certainly before the MSX. By 1982 the Spectrum and BBC Micro were out and maybe the VIC 20; not sure about the Apple II (which was too expensive to really compete anyway) or Atari 8-bits. (which really seem likely given the UK 400 and 800 print ads I've seen and the fact that those models were discontinued in 1982)
The 16-bit market certianly left a much wider space though. (atari potentially could have established with a good head start though, especially with technical capabilities far ahead of anything up to the C64 and games to boot -big in the US market)

There was only enough room for one late to the party, expensive US product, and that place was always going to be filled by the C64.

So the C64 was really released during or after 1983? (ahead of MSX and CPC at least) That would certainly seem later than the Atari 8-bits. (Atari might not have pushed very hard though)
I'm thinking of this in particular:
http://www.dennisyang.com/wp/wp-cont...tari_jul83.jpg
(which definitely seems like 1982 unless the PAL version of the 400 and 800 lasted longer)
The price doesn't seem particularly bad either.

I've been reading the Sam Pettus article, and he states poor software as being a notable reason for the Master System's failure, I don't agree with this at all

I agree, it's much more advertising/marketing and then the fact that Nintendo was the opposite, with exceptional marketing skill. (Sega seemed to get on the ball more in Europe, or perhaps more Nintendo dropped the ball there by comparison -like lack of soccer games)

The info on the net says the NES was released in most of mainland Europe during the end of 1986, however everything you said about the US problems could well have happened in mainland Europe too (ie end of 1986 may have been a test release and availability may have been sparse for a long time)

Not sure if the SMS ever had a test release: the NES is the only one of these to do that for sure (or 7800 if you count 1984), but by mid 1986 the market was looking up in general, so I could see Sega and Atari Corp jumping in. (Atari Corp had already sold out of old 2600s the previous fall)
They could have made a gradual expanding release opposed to a nationwide launch though, or starting with top national markets before spreading everywhere.

Yes and for literally 5-6 times the cost, with ridiculously slow tape access times (from what I've heard) and a £400 disk drive price.

Again, it seems likely that Atari might have done it sooner, though if not, they certainly shoud have. And, again, carts were a major format on the A8-bits (especially after stockpiles were left in the mid 80s -which Atari Corp sold fairly cheaply iirc -probably much less so under Atari Inc in '83 or earlier)

Yeah, I'm familiar with Slap Fight, I didn't notice how Master System esque the music was before, but it would still not fool me at all, there's still a sythesizer style twang to the sound, the Master System rings more clearly like a bell. Thinking about it though I do think the Spectrum/Amstrad could pretty much sound exactly like the Master System, to the stage where I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

No twang other than the sfx, just square waves.
And CPC, Speccy, MSX, and Atari ST all use the exact same sound chip (or the Yamaha version) and all are similar, but superior to the SMS's SN76489 as has been expressed in the 8-bit music thread. (they can pretty much copy anything the SMS does and do a lot the SMS cant: wider pitch/frequency range, hardware envelope control, pitch manipulation of noise without sacrificing a channel too I think)

As far as i'm concerned Capcom couldn't program the SNES for shit. Their games and music were usually as well designed and composed as ever, but the programing quality left a lot to be desired, the Mega Man X games have very hummable mellodies, but the quality sucks anus and is muffled and murky sounding, many of their games also have prominent farty bass, their games often slow down on SNES for absolutely no reason (say walking through and empty field) and are often missing features such as 2 player modes and such (Final Fight, UN Squadron)

How about the disney titles specifically...
And I don't notice any muffling compared to the interpolation/filtering the SNES applies to EVERYTHING. (unless some programmers broke from the SPC format and programmed the sound hardware directly)

In my opinion the best SNES music is more often from European companies (Plok, Super Turrican, Troddlers, Puggsley's Scavenger Hunt, Donkey Kong Country 2) though Squaresoft always did a very good job too, as well as Nintendo of course.

Nintendo stuff for sure too IMO... not just DKC2 either, DKC1 had several notable tracks.
North American 3rd parties tended to most often be the most generic sounding. (as with the Genesis, though there were exceptions, of course)

[Thenewguy]

Atari Inc potentially could have pushed in before even Commodore (like '81 or '82 given the '79 release in the US)

I don't know dude, I think Commodore pushed the C64 too early in the UK anyway, it got utterly raped by the Spectrum for the 1st few years until the price of the hardware dropped and they started focussing on the tape deck instead of the disc drive, it wasn't just the more advanced hardware driving up the price, the higher cost of bringing in a product from overseas ramped the price of those US machines up even more.

I thought the CPC was a small fish compared to C64 and Speccy, and MSX even less than that with a relatively late arrival.

No. remember that there were huge differences between every European country, the Amstrad was the biggest and most popular home micro in France, France went from being dominated by the Oric computers in the early 80s to the Amstrad during the mid to late 80s. MSX was popular in Spain and the Netherlands.

CPC was somewhat newer too with the 1984 release

When did the C64 come over? I'd assumed it was well before the CPC was released and certainly before the MSX.

Yes the Amstrad came out a little later, but In my opinion the CPC was helped a hell of a lot by its similarities to the Spectrum, which was the most popular computer in Britain with the most popular software, I think it only really got a lot of software support early on simply because developers could convert and release their Spectrum games to Amstrad with little to no effort, making the game library grow extremely fast. The Amstrad even got some ports of the Spectrum's killer aps that the C64 didn't, such as Knight Lore and Alien 8.

So basically, I think though it was late the Amstrad basically leached off of the Spectrum until it had gained a foothold, and then started to get its own proper software. it also had some other features which were liked, such as the fact that it was an "all in one" system (they came with tape decks built in and monitors as standard) the guy who made it, Alan Sugar (cockroach) was basically famous for doing this, and had built his business up by simply selling all in one hi fi's or something like that.

I'm not sure about whether the Atari 8-bits were similar enough to C64 to leach off that system (I seem to remember some close ports of really old games between the two) but this would have been less preferable anyway as the C64 didn't have masses of popular original software here until the mid to late 80s, before then the biggest games arrived on Spectrum, and were then ported to C64 a few months later, the notable exceptions being Impossible Mission, and Beach Head

Atari also had a huge emphasis on cart based games over tape, or even disk. (disk being much preferred over tape in the US, not pushing tape more in Europe could have contributed as well -I think the carts were relatively competitively priced by the mid 80s too, but still wouldn't compare with cassettes)

Cart based C64 games never really took off that well in the UK, they only started to gain a small amount of popularity towards the end of the system's lifespan, they were just too expensive for what they were.

Its a shame the C64 didn't stay popular in the US for longer as I could really see the system there becoming more of a cartridge based machine to compete with the NES. Really, if you program the C64 carefully and use high res overlays and such the C64 can look quite comparable to the NES, was there any other plus points for using cartridges instead of tape/disc other than load times? (ie could you do more with the game)

So the C64 was really released during or after 1983? (ahead of MSX and CPC at least) That would certainly seem later than the Atari 8-bits. (Atari might not have pushed very hard though)
I'm thinking of this in particular:
http://www.dennisyang.com/wp/wp-cont...tari_jul83.jpg
(which definitely seems like 1982 unless the PAL version of the 400 and 800 lasted longer)
The price doesn't seem particularly bad either.

I just checked up on it, I've found one source saying the Atari 8-bit was released late 1980 in the UK for £649, which surprises me, but at that price no wonder I didn't think it existed until years later.

According to Wikipedia the C64 was released in 1983 at £399

No twang other than the sfx, just square waves.

All I'm going to say is that Slap Fight music wouldn't fool a Master System/C64 owner for a second, the synthetic electric guitar sound may not be as prominent, but its still there.

How about the disney titles specifically...
And I don't notice any muffling compared to the interpolation/filtering the SNES applies to EVERYTHING. (unless some programmers broke from the SPC format and programmed the sound hardware directly)

Some of the mid levels in Super Turrican just sound clearer and classier than those Capcom games, same goes for a lot of other European games, they sound more polished, you'd have to play some of those games yourself to tell if there's any actual technical reason why they sound better because I wouldn't know where to start unfortunately.

I agree, it's much more advertising/marketing and then the fact that Nintendo was the opposite, with exceptional marketing skill. (Sega seemed to get on the ball more in Europe, or perhaps more Nintendo dropped the ball there by comparison -like lack of soccer games)

I just had a minor check of subsequent years out of curiosity, and the NES seems to have had a much better 1987 in the US than the Master System, MS just really has Outrun, Wonder Boy, Miracle Warriors (first JRPG released in the US?), and Zillion as stand-outs, with a good few decent games, I think Sega may have mainly put effort into sports games that year as they released all those "Great" sports games (which, whilst mostly decent for their time I guess, weren't particularly notable) the NES on the other hand had a lot of its classics arrive like Zelda, Mega Man, Castlevania, Rad Racer and Punch Out, as well as just generally huge numbers of decent releases.

1988 was a really great Master System year though, with certainly some of the most advanced software for that year arriving on Master System Phantasy Star, Ys, Golvellius, Aleste, R-Type (PC-Engine didn't arrive in the US until 1989), Shinobi, as well as large numbers of good games.

[WarmSignal]

I kind of expected the Genesis to win, obviously. But 9 for the Dreamcast? How is the Saturn beating the Dreamcast!? Nobody cared about the Saturn until well after it was written into the history of obscure commercial failures. At least I remember there being hype for the Dreamcast, and people actually owning one.

[jerry coeurl]

If I hadn't voted Genesis, I would have picked Saturn instead. I love My DC, but it doesn't get a lot of play compared to those two.

[WarmSignal]

If I hadn't voted Genesis, I would have picked Saturn instead. I love My DC, but it doesn't get a lot of play compared to those two.

Maybe I could say the same, if the bank could afford a Saturn game off of eBay, or I could actually find one in the wild.

[kool kitty89]

I don't know dude, I think Commodore pushed the C64 too early in the UK anyway, it got utterly raped by the Spectrum for the 1st few years until the price of the hardware dropped and they started focussing on the tape deck instead of the disc drive, it wasn't just the more advanced hardware driving up the price, the higher cost of bringing in a product from overseas ramped the price of those US machines up even more.

Hmm, Commodore was notorious for being cheap in the US, especially with the price war against TI in '82/83, but I'm not sure how that translated to Europe, and I know UK/EU prices were considerably higher for electronics in general. (probably a big part of why something as limited as the Speccy could proliferate as it did)
Plus disks were the preferred medium, not carts either, unlike the Atari machines. (I recall carts being preferred to disks on 8-bit micros in Europe by a good margin, but tapes still being top preference, of course, due to the very low cost of the media and tape drives -though Atari required proprietary tape drives using the SIO port iirc)

Was the VIC-20 at all popular in Europe? That was certainly a cheaper machine (less than 1/2 the price as released in 1981 than the C64 the following year in the US), but it was only 5 kB unexpanded. (not so bad for cart based games, but for tapes or disks the lack of RAM would probably have made it less attractive than the contemporary BBC Micro -or likely the Speccy if they waited a year from the US release)
But it would seem that such an affordable machine could have been more popular for a time, unless Commodore simply didn't push it. (apparently it was more of a diversionary marketing tactic used in the interim before the C64 could be released the following year)

No. remember that there were huge differences between every European country, the Amstrad was the biggest and most popular home micro in France, France went from being dominated by the Oric computers in the early 80s to the Amstrad during the mid to late 80s. MSX was popular in Spain and the Netherlands.

Ah OK, I seem to remember reading that now, but I think some UK-centric discussions kind of skewed that.

Yes the Amstrad came out a little later, but In my opinion the CPC was helped a hell of a lot by its similarities to the Spectrum, which was the most popular computer in Britain with the most popular software, I think it only really got a lot of software support early on simply because developers could convert and release their Spectrum games to Amstrad with little to no effort, making the game library grow extremely fast. The Amstrad even got some ports of the Spectrum's killer aps that the C64 didn't, such as Knight Lore and Alien 8.

Hmm, the CPC doesn't seem THAT similar to the Speccy... same CPU (slightly faster) and same sound chip (which the Spectrum 48k initially lacked -beeper only), with general lack of hardware graphics features. (no sprites or scrolling) But other than that the graphics hardeware seems considerably difference. Spectrum with 320x200 monochrome+cell block color bitmap system using 4-bit RGB-I and CPC with odd 3-level RGB graphics and 320x200 4-color or the usually used 160x200 16-color mode. If by some chance the memory map or bios was similar that might help a bit, but otherwise it's just the CPU and sound chip. (probably mostly the CPU)
And in that case, the MSX would fit quite well, same CPU (3.58 MHz to the speccy's 3.5 MHz) and same sound chip, but rather different graphics with tile/character based bitmap modes (no direct framebuffer), and hardware sprites, but no scrolling. (so a good bit more suited to games than much of the competition, but certainly weaker in general compared to the C64 or Atari machines -both had V/H hardware scrolling and sprites as well)

So basically, I think though it was late the Amstrad basically leached off of the Spectrum until it had gained a foothold, and then started to get its own proper software. it also had some other features which were liked, such as the fact that it was an "all in one" system (they came with tape decks built in and monitors as standard) the guy who made it, Alan Sugar (cockroach) was basically famous for doing this, and had built his business up by simply selling all in one hi fi's or something like that.

Interesting that France became a leading market for it given the SCART Mandated TVs around the time meaning they could be used as RGB monitors too, though I seem to recall that Amstrad took a long time to produce official SCART cables (to boos monitor sales?), but there were homebrew and aftermarket cables available iirc.

The Speccy out lasted it too, but Amstrad had bought out Sinclair by that point too. There was the rater considerably upgraded CPC Plus, but that seems to have gotten comparably little support. (and Sinclair's interesting Loki project ended up halting with the buy-out when the design team left and formed Flare starting a new project based on their experience which became the Flare 1 chipset later consolidated as the ASIC used in the Multisystem -now THAT really would have been interesting to see in place of the CPC Plus, or especially the GX-4000 -the Flare 1 was completed ~1987 iirc, the Slipstream ASIC ~1989)

I'm not sure about whether the Atari 8-bits were similar enough to C64 to leach off that system (I seem to remember some close ports of really old games between the two) but this would have been less preferable anyway as the C64 didn't have masses of popular original software here until the mid to late 80s, before then the biggest games arrived on Spectrum, and were then ported to C64 a few months later, the notable exceptions being Impossible Mission, and Beach Head

The C64 would likely be leeching off the A8 more the vice versa, at least early on. The A8 was probably the leading game computer in North America up to the C64's rise. (the Apple II got a lot of support too, but probably more due to its install base -facilitated by earlier release and less than ideal marketing on Atari's part -the Apple II was rather expensive and much less capable for games in general -didn't stop some dedicated programmers from pushing pretty hard)
Atari kind of blew it in 1983 with the A8 (really critical years in the US market), after taking ages to consolidate the overbuilt 1979 chasis (both in terms of boards and the aluminum castings necessary for older FCC spec) a botched transition to new models with the release with the 1200 XL in 1982 and then the 600 and 800 XL having to catch up in '83, but then the halt on all products that fall killing that chance for the 600/800 to catch-up and losing the holiday market. (the halt done as the initial stages of reorganization of the red-tape riddled bureaucratic mess that was Atari Inc -and otherwise promising undertaking by James Morgan, but the timing of that halt/evaluation period was very unfortunate, and of course Warner rashly sold Atari before the reorganization could even complete...)

Cart based C64 games never really took off that well in the UK, they only started to gain a small amount of popularity towards the end of the system's lifespan, they were just too expensive for what they were.

I don't think cart based C64 games really took off anywhere. I may be wrong but I think disk was the primary media expected to be used when it was launched in 1982 unlike the Atari systems with the heavy emphasis on cartridges. (possibly more than any other home computer platform)
There were carts, but afik they weren't particularly popular.

Its a shame the C64 didn't stay popular in the US for longer as I could really see the system there becoming more of a cartridge based machine to compete with the NES. Really, if you program the C64 carefully and use high res overlays and such the C64 can look quite comparable to the NES, was there any other plus points for using cartridges instead of tape/disc other than load times? (ie could you do more with the game)

Commodore did try that, but exceptionally poorly with the C64GS. It wasn't even a game console, but a repackaged computer (like the Atari XEGS), but unlike the XEGS it lacked a keyboard making the large portion of games requiring key inputs useless; that and it came out in 1990 compared to the XEGS in 1988. (and again, the XEGS was a fully functional Atari 65XE computer)
By that point, a consolized Amiga would have been much more attractive... though really even that should have been more like '88/89. (A C64 game system in '86 perhaps, but CBM management seems to have been less than ideal by that point, or pretty much from 1984 onwards -possibly tied to jack Tramiel's departure -not that he would necessarily have pushed for a game console, but the Amiga marketing issue for one, or the C64's management, or the mess with the C128, Plus/4, etc -C65 could have been great, at least had it come about several years earlier than it did)
As for carts in general, the big advantage was not having to load into RAM, but run code and pull data directly from ROM (at least in these slow systems, but later on cheap ROM stayed relatively slow compared to RAM and loading/paging to RAM was almost always done -so for Jaguar, Lynx, N64, etc). Thus you can use much less RAM that you otherwise would need.
That, and in the case of paging to RAM the load tines are exceptionally fast faciliating things liek dynamic updates. (especially for animation -though in cases with the video bus directly mapped to ROM, reading from ROM directly would also be possible as with the VCS, A8/5200, 7800, and NES, though the latter has a dedicated video bus mapped to the cart slot while others have shared CPU/Video buses)

No way the 2600 would work with just 128 bytes or RAM otherwise. (the starpath supercharger of course adds a chunk of RAM for the casette to load into, rather like the Sega Channel adapter) Same for most consoles as such, relying on ROM with limited onboard RAM.

I just checked up on it, I've found one source saying the Atari 8-bit was released late 1980 in the UK for £649, which surprises me, but at that price no wonder I didn't think it existed until years later.

According to Wikipedia the C64 was released in 1983 at £399

Hmm, OK but that's still pretty vague: the Atari 400 would have been FAR cheaper than the 800 (it was ~$550 vs ~$1000 in 1979 with 8 kB in the US and I think by '82 they were down to ~$250 and ~$500 -not counting rebates- with 16 and 48 kB respectively).
And given that print ad which seems to have been from 1982 (almost definitely no later than '83), the 16 kB 400 was down to £160. (which would have been totally fine for most, if not all cart based games -not some very late XE/XL specific games though- for tapes/disks it's more limitng, but I think a fair amount of software was made for 16 or even 8 kB systems -given the lowest common denominator being non-upgraded 8k 400s) Given the relative price of the 800, it seems likely to be in the £300 range.

I think it might be more due to marketing/distribution problems in the region as they certainly had a very competitive (if not the most competitive) library of games in the early 80s. From discussions I've had before, distribution does indeed seem to have been very limited. (compared to the VCS/2600 and the ST and 7800 later on, of course)
I could see the proprietary tape drive being somewhat a hindrance (especially with the higher cost due to SIO hardware), but the base units seem to have been pretty cheap and even the custom cassette decks should have been relatively affordable. The bigger issue would simply have been availability of software on that format, the same issue Commodore had early on. (except Atari had carts as a major format and while not cheap, they didn't require an accessory to use, let alone an expensive disk drive)
Tapes were popular early on for the A8-bits in the US, but more as program storage (including hobbyists and programmers) than a software distribution format iirc. (I should ask the guys on AtariAge) I'm pretty sure by the early 80s disks were more common though and increasingly so. (for 79/80/81 perhaps tapes were more attractive, but again most software, especially games would have been on carts)

All I'm going to say is that Slap Fight music wouldn't fool a Master System/C64 owner for a second, the synthetic electric guitar sound may not be as prominent, but its still there.

Where? I don't here it... Unless you're talking about the title screen/demo. (and that's more the buzzy unfiltered sawtooth sound than the filtered pulse wave guitar sound last I listened to it)

Some of the mid levels in Super Turrican just sound clearer and classier than those Capcom games, same goes for a lot of other European games, they sound more polished, you'd have to play some of those games yourself to tell if there's any actual technical reason why they sound better because I wouldn't know where to start unfortunately.

Could be composers actually catering to the forced interpolation and filtering of the SNES thus selecting sounds/instruments that cater to that. (I've definitely heard some that sound great normally but really wrong with interpolation disabled in emulators -not so with most/all capcom games, but the case with Star Fox and several other Nintendo games, need to check out Super Turican though)
Otherwise it could simply be the compositions used too.

I just had a minor check of subsequent years out of curiosity, and the NES seems to have had a much better 1987 in the US than the Master System, MS just really has Outrun, Wonder Boy, Miracle Warriors (first JRPG released in the US?), and Zillion as stand-outs, with a good few decent games, I think

Holy crap, the box art seems to have substantially improved by 1987! Look at Miracle Warriers: http://www.pwned.com/gamecovers/sega..._Dark_Lord.jpg
Or was that released in 1988 in the US... that would make sense as most of the decent to good art seems to have come after the shift to Tonka. Like with Wonder Boy in Monster Land and such.
Especially with the terrible Wonder Boy and Zillion box covers in '87.

1988 was a really great Master System year though, with certainly some of the most advanced software for that year arriving on Master System Phantasy Star, Ys, Golvellius, Aleste, R-Type (PC-Engine didn't arrive in the US until 1989), Shinobi, as well as large numbers of good games.

I really wonder how well the SMS was doing under Tonka. It's market share certainly fell, but all that necessarily means is Nintendo was growing much faster, Sega could still have had an increase in sales at the time, but a modest one. (the marketing -box art and advertising at least- seem to have improved by a huge margin from '86/87)

None were as cool as some of the Japanese ads though.

[Thenewguy]

Hmm, Commodore was notorious for being cheap in the US, especially with the price war against TI in '82/83, but I'm not sure how that translated to Europe

The Spectrum was designed to be built as bare bones and cheap as absolutely possible, you can't really undercut that.

probably a big part of why something as limited as the Speccy could proliferate as it did

It didn't help that most early C64 games looked like arse anyway, really blocky like Atari games. The Spectrum's colour clash problems only started to become a major issue when games started to have background graphics in them (as opposed to the mono black you'd get with early 80s games) so a lot of those early games looked comparable on the two systems anyway, making the C64 look frivolous with its higher cost, when the scrolling arcade style games started to appear in the mid 80s, thats when the graphical difference became hugely notable. Apart from that the Spectrum had the two killer aps in 1983 anyway Rareware's Jetpac (at this stage Rare were known as Ultimate play the game), and Manic Miner, take a look at CVG's multiformat awards for 1983 -



Every single game here is a Spectrum original or exclusive, the only look in the C64 gets is Llamasoft getting 4th for software developer of the year (obviously for Attack of the Mutant Camels) from this year onwards Rareware became the game developer in the UK, achieving almost a Nintendo like mythic status here, they ruled the early-mid 80s, with each release hyped up more than the last, and they never really bothered with the C64, moving from Spectrum to NES when they released Wizards and Warriors.

Was the VIC-20 at all popular in Europe? That was certainly a cheaper machine

The VIC-20 and ZX81 were fairly popular in the UK for a while, but I wouldn't say they ever became mainstream popular.

the usually used 160x200 16-color mode.

No, this mode was rarely used for Amstrad games, the commonly used mode was the 320X200 4 colour mode.

in that case, the MSX would fit quite well, same CPU (3.58 MHz to the speccy's 3.5 MHz) and same sound chip, but rather different graphics with tile/character based bitmap modes (no direct framebuffer), and hardware sprites, but no scrolling. (so a good bit more suited to games than much of the competition, but certainly weaker in general compared to the C64 or Atari machines -both had V/H hardware scrolling and sprites as well)

The MSX did get some Spectrum ports, but I think it just seemed like a very Spectrum-like machine, arriving later and with far less software, it didn't really offer very much that the Spectrum and C64 weren't already offering, the Amstrad had a few of its own features, as well as being sold as an all in one system, and marketed as a more professional system.

And given that print ad which seems to have been from 1982

Given the relative price of the 800, it seems likely to be in the £300 range.

The advert actually has July 1983 written in the title, which makes sense tbh as I've seen a price of £300 for the 800 for 1983 on old-computers.com, and I would imagine that the price cuts the advert talks about may well be due to the UK release of the C64.

they certainly had a very competitive (if not the most competitive) library of games in the early 80s.

Dunno dude, most people i've spoken to seemed to just use them to play Spectrum ports, and every game I've played thats been recommended to me in Atari Vs C64 threads has been pretty laughable tbh. I guess some of the games would've been pretty competitive pre-1983 in comparison to 2600 games, but 1983 and later were probably the years the home micros took off around here.

Or was that released in 1988 in the US... that would make sense as most of the decent to good art seems to have come after the shift to Tonka. Like with Wonder Boy in Monster Land and such.
Especially with the terrible Wonder Boy and Zillion box covers in '87.

Mobygames has it down as a US release for 1987 but it could be inaccurate I guess, the Hardcoregaming101 site has a section on it which says it was "probably the first JRPG released in the US" and Phantasy Star is down as a 1988 US release, but the Sam Pettus article says that Phantasy Star was the first console RPG released in the west,

either way Miracle Warriors would've been very late 1987 at earliest, so maybe they changed the box art right at the end of 1987.

The Sam Pettus article states Tonka taking over 1988, but this says 1987 http://classicgaming.gamespy.com/Vie...&id=29&game=10 so I guess there's a possibility Tonka took over around the end of 1987 sometime.

EDIT: I just had a look at a screen shot of the back cover or Miracle Warriors and it says "1988 Tonka" so I guess Mobygames is wrong on that one coming out in 87' in the US, I find it pretty cool that the quality of the cover is an indication of year though, I never knew that. So I guess the bad Master System packaging was around in the US for about 1.5 years.

Also if you think the US cover of Miracle Warriors is cool, look at the Japanese one