Topic: What do people say about Nintendo being market leader again?

[Chozo Ghost]

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Originally posted by: GoldenPhoenix
This old editorial from Gamedaily is pretty funny to read now!

They try to defend that editorial now

Not only were they wrong, but they don't even realize why they were wrong. I admit I only skimmed through the original article (it isn't worth wasting my time on it) but I noticed them arguing how PS3 and 360 games are going to look a lot better in a few years. Who the heck cares about how much better the games will look than Wii games? They already look a zillion times better than Wii games now, so obviously this is not the reason why the 360 and (especially) PS3 aren't selling as well. Heck, even most last gen games look better than Wii Sports, but somehow Wii sports is insanely popular.

They just don't get it that graphics don't really matter that much. They also said the sound on the Wii is "Gamecube 1.5", but again, who really cares? Most consumers don't have giant home theatre systems with a zillion speakers all over their room; and even if they did, what does that have to do with playing games and having fun?

Being the "experts" that they are, you'd think they'd have realized how little graphics matter in the grand scheme of things. In almost every generation the weaker system has won...  

[NWR_insanolord]

The only time the weakest didn't win was with the Genesis and SNES, and the Genesis did a few things better than the SNES, and it could be argued that the Genesis could have won if Sega of Japan didn't force the American branch to abandon it in favor of the Saturn, a move that gave Nintendo an extra couple of years on the market virtually unopposed.

[GoldenPhoenix]

The only that ticks me off is that there doesn't need to be this huge monster gap between Wii and 360 games. Yeah there will always be a sizable one, but games like Galaxy show you can have some gorgeous visuals if the hardware is tapped right.  

[Chozo Ghost]

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Originally posted by: insanolord
The only time the weakest didn't win was with the Genesis and SNES, and the Genesis did a few things better than the SNES, and it could be argued that the Genesis could have won if Sega of Japan didn't force the American branch to abandon it in favor of the Saturn, a move that gave Nintendo an extra couple of years on the market virtually unopposed.

I don't think the Saturn was responsible for the Genesis being in 2nd place, because the Saturn came out near the end of the Genesis' lifecycle, and it was in 2nd place by then (I think). It was actually the 32x attachment and the Sega CD attachment which did the Genesis in. It created a lot of market confusion and consumers lost faith in the Sega brand as a result. This is also why the Saturn failed.

Anyways, the SNES-Genesis battle was really the only exception to the rule of the weaker system always winning, and in this case it wasn't really that clear, because the Genesis may have had worse graphics, but it was faster than the SNES. So in that sense, the Genesis kinda was more powerful. It made games like Sonic (where you need lots of speed) possible. That's why the Genesis did better on arcade games, shoot-em-ups, and sports titles; whereas the SNES did much better on pretty much everything else, especially RPGs.

And the SNES actually got much more advanced as time went on, with things like the Super FX chip which it bundled into games like Star Fox. In 1995 the SNES was kicking out games that looked as good as or better than the Playstation games of the time... I mean, check out DKC or SMRPG.... it is hard to believe those were done on a 16bit system.

[GoldenPhoenix]

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Originally posted by: Chozo Ghost

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Originally posted by: insanolord
The only time the weakest didn't win was with the Genesis and SNES, and the Genesis did a few things better than the SNES, and it could be argued that the Genesis could have won if Sega of Japan didn't force the American branch to abandon it in favor of the Saturn, a move that gave Nintendo an extra couple of years on the market virtually unopposed.

I don't think the Saturn was responsible for the Genesis being in 2nd place, because the Saturn came out near the end of the Genesis' lifecycle, and it was in 2nd place by then (I think). It was actually the 32x attachment and the Sega CD attachment which did the Genesis in. It created a lot of market confusion and consumers lost faith in the Sega brand as a result. This is also why the Saturn failed.

Anyways, the SNES-Genesis battle was really the only exception to the rule of the weaker system always winning, and in this case it wasn't really that clear, because the Genesis may have had worse graphics, but it was faster than the SNES. So in that sense, the Genesis kinda was more powerful. It made games like Sonic (where you need lots of speed) possible. That's why the Genesis did better on arcade games, shoot-em-ups, and sports titles; whereas the SNES did much better on pretty much everything else, especially RPGs.

And the SNES actually got much more advanced as time went on, with things like the Super FX chip which it bundled into games like Star Fox. In 1995 the SNES was kicking out games that looked as good as or better than the Playstation games of the time... I mean, check out DKC or SMRPG.... it is hard to believe those were done on a 16bit system.

Wasn't NES stronger than the Master System?

[NWR_insanolord]

No, the Master System had the benefit of being developed a couple years after the NES, it was technologically superior to the NES. And it got less than 10% of the market.

[darknight06]

The SNES/Genesis deal isn't true if you count the Sega CD and 32X, which very much did play a big role in that generation.  One could say that a lot of the reason for the Genesis sliding down had everything to do with them trying to outdo the SNES in HARDWARE, even when it wasn't practical.  Sega theoretically could've just kept the Genesis the way it was and it would've been far better off in the long run.  It's not like they couldn't pull some slick looking effects off, hell most of that systems lineup did everything in it's power to make the SNES look like it wasn't that hot (look at everything games like Gunstar Heroes did and tell me they weren't trying to prove a point) and truth be told the Genesis was THE place for sports games, with titles like Madden and the NFL 9x series.

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No, the Master System had the benefit of being developed a couple years after the NES, it was technologically superior to the NES. And it got less than 10% of the market.

That's not how it happened in Europe...

[NWR_insanolord]

Yeah, now that you mention it, I do remember reading that the Master System did better in Europe than it did in North America. Though I'd consider anything but immediate failure a huge success considering Sega's North American partner company was Tonka Trucks. And it had about negative 4% market share in Japan, so any European success is probably canceled out in the overall numbers by that.

[darknight06]

The reason Nintendo never got to Europe like they intended to with the NES had a lot to do with the lawsuits from Atari that they were too busy trying to fight off.  Interesting thing is that before the NES got to America Nintendo was originally considering Atari to be the distributor, but of course Atari was too busy destroying themselves and taking the market along with it.

[Chozo Ghost]

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Originally posted by: GoldenPhoenix

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Originally posted by: Chozo Ghost

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Originally posted by: insanolord
The only time the weakest didn't win was with the Genesis and SNES, and the Genesis did a few things better than the SNES, and it could be argued that the Genesis could have won if Sega of Japan didn't force the American branch to abandon it in favor of the Saturn, a move that gave Nintendo an extra couple of years on the market virtually unopposed.

I don't think the Saturn was responsible for the Genesis being in 2nd place, because the Saturn came out near the end of the Genesis' lifecycle, and it was in 2nd place by then (I think). It was actually the 32x attachment and the Sega CD attachment which did the Genesis in. It created a lot of market confusion and consumers lost faith in the Sega brand as a result. This is also why the Saturn failed.

Anyways, the SNES-Genesis battle was really the only exception to the rule of the weaker system always winning, and in this case it wasn't really that clear, because the Genesis may have had worse graphics, but it was faster than the SNES. So in that sense, the Genesis kinda was more powerful. It made games like Sonic (where you need lots of speed) possible. That's why the Genesis did better on arcade games, shoot-em-ups, and sports titles; whereas the SNES did much better on pretty much everything else, especially RPGs.

And the SNES actually got much more advanced as time went on, with things like the Super FX chip which it bundled into games like Star Fox. In 1995 the SNES was kicking out games that looked as good as or better than the Playstation games of the time... I mean, check out DKC or SMRPG.... it is hard to believe those were done on a 16bit system.

Wasn't NES stronger than the Master System?

I don't know what the deal was with the master system since I never owned one, knew anyone who had one, or ever even seen one until I seen pictures of it online.

That said, the system might have been technologically better or worse than the NES, but it didn't have much market presence at all so it really can't be looked at as being competition. In that generation the NES had what was essentially a monopoly on the industry. Everyone who cared at all about video games had one, and it was even featured in a lot of the movies from that time... Ghostbusters is a good example. Look at how they controlled the statue of liberty with the NES controller...

Actually, from what I've heard, the Sega Gamegear is really nothing more than a portable Mastersystem. If that's true, then I owned a master system and never even knew it. But even in this portable form, it wasn't terribly successful...

[Chozo Ghost]

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Originally posted by: darknight06
The SNES/Genesis deal isn't true if you count the Sega CD and 32X, which very much did play a big role in that generation.  One could say that a lot of the reason for the Genesis sliding down had everything to do with them trying to outdo the SNES in HARDWARE, even when it wasn't practical.  Sega theoretically could've just kept the Genesis the way it was and it would've been far better off in the long run.  It's not like they couldn't pull some slick looking effects off, hell most of that systems lineup did everything in it's power to make the SNES look like it wasn't that hot (look at everything games like Gunstar Heroes did and tell me they weren't trying to prove a point) and truth be told the Genesis was THE place for sports games, with titles like Madden and the NFL 9x series.

That's a very excellent point...

If we consider the Sega CD and 32x attachments as being a part of the Genesis, then when you put them together that really does make the Genesis a technological juggernaut compared to the SNES.... therefore, the Genesis would really be the more powerful system, and that would mean this would not be an exception to that rule of the weaker system always winning, because with those additions the SNES really was weaker...

[DAaaMan64]

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Originally posted by: Chozo Ghost

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Originally posted by: darknight06
The SNES/Genesis deal isn't true if you count the Sega CD and 32X, which very much did play a big role in that generation.  One could say that a lot of the reason for the Genesis sliding down had everything to do with them trying to outdo the SNES in HARDWARE, even when it wasn't practical.  Sega theoretically could've just kept the Genesis the way it was and it would've been far better off in the long run.  It's not like they couldn't pull some slick looking effects off, hell most of that systems lineup did everything in it's power to make the SNES look like it wasn't that hot (look at everything games like Gunstar Heroes did and tell me they weren't trying to prove a point) and truth be told the Genesis was THE place for sports games, with titles like Madden and the NFL 9x series.

That's a very excellent point...

If we consider the Sega CD and 32x attachments as being a part of the Genesis, then when you put them together that really does make the Genesis a technological juggernaut compared to the SNES.... therefore, the Genesis would really be the more powerful system, and that would mean this would not be an exception to that rule of the weaker system always winning, because with those additions the SNES really was weaker...

BUT BUT what about Mode 7 GRAFIX?

[ThePerm]

addons do not ccount, not everyone can afford an addon, and addons segment markets.  If 90% of people buy the addon then ok, but they were overly expensive, short lived, and not well adopted.

Instead of making all those addons and dedicating programming teams to making marginally better graphic 2d games Sega should have just made more crappier looking FUNNER games

[Chozo Ghost]

I think those addons could have worked out better than they did if Sega merged the 32x and Sega CD into one thing, and gave their full support behind that as their next gen system rather than messing with the Saturn. Video gaming history would have been very different if they did this, I think.

That way they would have had a 32bit CD based system which was also backwards compatible with the popular Genesis. They also could have made the Saturn actually be those things merged together into one model so people who didn't already own a genesis could go that route. If they had done this, then they would probably have dominated the 32bit generation instead of Sony.

[Nick DiMola]

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Originally posted by: Chozo Ghost
If they had done this, then they would probably have dominated the 32bit generation instead of Sony.

It would've really been fantastic to have Sega as Nintendo's big competitor rather than Sony/Microsoft. Sega was so similar to Nintendo in terms of innovation and character/IP creation that this industry would be leaps and bounds better had it turned out that way. Unfortunately we have two juggernaut companies that don't primarily deal in gaming trying to dominate yet another industry. I would really love for Nintendo to acquire Sega and make their empire that much more dominating over Sony and Microsoft. It probably won't happen, but hey it would be nice.

[Chozo Ghost]

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Originally posted by: Mr. Jack

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Originally posted by: Chozo Ghost
If they had done this, then they would probably have dominated the 32bit generation instead of Sony.

It would've really been fantastic to have Sega as Nintendo's big competitor rather than Sony/Microsoft. Sega was so similar to Nintendo in terms of innovation and character/IP creation that this industry would be leaps and bounds better had it turned out that way. Unfortunately we have two juggernaut companies that don't primarily deal in gaming trying to dominate yet another industry. I would really love for Nintendo to acquire Sega and make their empire that much more dominating over Sony and Microsoft. It probably won't happen, but hey it would be nice.

I agree. Sony and MS are in it to control your living room and/or to push proprietary media formats on us. Nintendo is the only purely gaming company left since Sega pulled the plug on their hardware division. We must make sure Nintendo doesn't go the way of Sega (unlikely now, but who knows what things will be like in a few years).

Sega was the only other hardware company which also made great innovative games to go with it. There have been other hardware companies (such as Atari) but they didn't have the same level of game innovation. Sega and Nintendo are the only companies like this, and they are probably the only ones like this there will ever be so we need to hang on to Nintendo dearly, because they are the last true gaming company left. If they ever leave us, then its just soulless media centers from then on...

However, I guess it isn't beyond the realm of possibility that Sega could get back in the hardware business someday... you never know. I can't see it happening now, but then again how many of us could see Nintendo being on top again?

[darknight06]

The thing is, Sega still isn't very good at business and that's the main thing that killed them in the first place.  Sega would have to become an entirely new company in order to come back and with their track record, that's just not happening.  Nintendo isn't going anywhere because even when they were supposedly down, they still made money off the software and the hardware.  May not have been as much as it is now, but that's not even the point.  They could arguably survive at least 2 Xbox type systems in losses before things start looking bad financially.  However, as conservative as they are with money, they're not going anywhere anytime soon.

[Mario]

Well if Nintendo can bounce back after GameCube, anyone can start fresh from anything.

[NWR_insanolord]

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Originally posted by: Mario
Well if Nintendo can bounce back after GameCube, anyone can start fresh from anything.

The GameCube's predecessor wasn't way too expensive and hard to develop for, and prior to that predecessor Nintendo didn't make two expensive add-ons to their 16-bit machine that made next to no significant contributions to the console's software lineup.

[redgiemental]

Well there was the GameCube broadband adapter....... If we're talking about GameCube add ons that added almost nothing to the software line up.

As for the 16 bit machines the lack of similar add ons for the SNES wasn't for lack of trying. PlayStation says hello.

[Ghisy]

I love how this thread has become an old school system-talk!
As for Europe and Japan, the Megadrive/Genesis got its ass kicked by the SNES/SFC. Everyone I knew here in Europe had a SNES.
Nintendo had the awesome idea to put add-ons in their carts (i.e. Super FX chip) instead of releasing hardware based add-ons that people didn't really wanna buy, considering the lack of games using them.
It's too bad this isn't possible anymore with disc based-games.

[KDR_11k]

From what I head the N64 WAS harder to dev on than the PS1. Not more expensive tho, except for the games.

[GoldenPhoenix]

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Originally posted by: KDR_11k
From what I head the N64 WAS harder to dev on than the PS1. Not more expensive tho, except for the games.

Yeah I seem to recall N64 being a pain, but that may have been because of the cartridge limits (Not sure though). It is with the Gamecube that Nintendo had a system far easier to develop for than Sony's PS2.

[NWR_insanolord]

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Originally posted by: redgiemental
Well there was the GameCube broadband adapter....... If we're talking about GameCube add ons that added almost nothing to the software line up.

As for the 16 bit machines the lack of similar add ons for the SNES wasn't for lack of trying. PlayStation says hello.

The BBA can't really be compared to the Sega CD and 32X, No game required it (PSO came close). As for its contribution to the console, well it's Sonic CD versus Phantasy Star Online and LAN play for a handful of games (I've never done it myself but everyone who has seems to think LAN MK: Double Dash is the greatest thing ever). I am aware of the Nintendo PlayStation and the stories behind it, it may be the single most influential thing in gaming since its beginning and yet so few really know about it. Nintendo was smart enough to not release it, which Sega wasn't for either of its Genesis add-ons.

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Originally posted by: KDR_11k
From what I head the N64 WAS harder to dev on than the PS1. Not more expensive tho, except for the games.

The N64 wasn't anywhere near as hard to develop for as the Saturn. The Saturn was designed as the ultimate 2D machine, but when Sony and Nintendo came out pushing 3D they added another processor for 3D stuff, and to really get things working you had to use both, which was difficult. It also launched at $400 to Sony's $300 and Nintendo's $200 or 250, I can't remember which offhand. (Hard to develop for because of multiple processors, more expensive than both its competitors? Where have I heard that before?)  

[Chozo Ghost]

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Originally posted by: Ghisy
I love how this thread has become an old school system-talk!
As for Europe and Japan, the Megadrive/Genesis got its ass kicked by the SNES/SFC. Everyone I knew here in Europe had a SNES.
Nintendo had the awesome idea to put add-ons in their carts (i.e. Super FX chip) instead of releasing hardware based add-ons that people didn't really wanna buy, considering the lack of games using them.
It's too bad this isn't possible anymore with disc based-games.

That's one advantage of cartridges; however, I remember (especially around 1995-1996) how new SNES and N64 games were EXTREMELY expensive compared to the disc based games of the Playstation. I remember new SNES games were $70 or more and there were even some N64 games that tipped over $100!

That situation didn't last long, because the competition forced the prices down... but it wasn't all price gouging, because cartridges are very expensive to manufacture. Especially when they have special enhancement chips built into them. But this is probably why CD based systems don't have as long lifecycles as the cartridge based systems of the past. With a cd system the games are limited by the hardware and can't add new chips to it, but they are much cheaper at least.