In the heavily competitive video game industry, the fast paced bid to reach the top of the mountain had both game companies and the player communities behind them to become heavily invested, across several generations.
In the specific case of video game consoles, it was always an investment to even obtain one, so most players would settle for just one out of a sea of competitors. This meant that game companies would aggressively advertise towards their demographics and pitted their respective player bases against each other.
Players would compete trying to justify their choice in console and these arguments, alongside the heavily publicized marketing escalated to what could be described as ‘wars’ between consoles. While the current console wars are no longer anywhere near as heated as they used to be, it is still quite common for players to stake their entire identity behind the console they bought or grew up with.
Popular era
The first and most popular era of video game console wars was around the Nintendo vs SEGA period, specifically the 90’s which pitted Nintendo’s Super NES against the SEGA Genesis. Now 30 years later, players still strongly identify with one console or the other, despite only one company, Nintendo, still competing. Before the SNES, the Genesis would compete against the previous generations’ NES.
This didn’t go well for SEGA, as even though it had newer graphics and hardware, the Genesis’ starting lineup of games couldn’t come even close to competing with the NES’ beloved and legendary library of games, including some of gaming’s all time classics like Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda, Metroid and Mega Man. When the SNES hit the shelves though, it was a much more even fight, one that SEGA would push hard on every front.
While Nintendo was almost never direct in its competition against it, SEGA was quite obvious who they were gunning for with its advertising, like with the infamous “SEGA does what Nintendon’t.” However, what really gave SEGA the edge in the earlier period of that generation was the introduction of their flagship franchise, Sonic the Hedgehog. The design of the character with sharp details, standoffish personality, cool for the time attitude and gameplay based around speed really resonated with the gamers of that time, far more than the relatively ‘boring’ Mario.
This mascot versus mascot competition with Sonic and Mario would go onto becoming one of gaming’s most iconic and beloved cross franchise rivalries, though it is a bit lopsided nowadays. SEGA also sold the Genesis as being faster overall in direct comparison to the SNES, which despite having a slower CPU, had more advanced graphics hardware as a later release. Though Genesis did initially outsell the SNES, this lead would not last long.
Games for everybody
In the long term, what the SNES did to completely blow the Genesis out of the water was quite simple. While SEGA marketed their games for the dedicated gamer crowd of young males, such as those with a strong lineup of sports and fighting games, Nintendo had games for literally everybody. At the end of its lifespan, the Genesis supported a little over 700 games, and the SNES would go on to develop 1700+.
While a lot of it was clearly cheap shovelware and licensed games, its library still had a much broader appeal for all gamers, casual and hardcore alike. And beyond that, the SNES had an endless catalog of games that still rank as some of the greatest games of all time that pushed the boundaries of what was possible for gaming as a whole.
Besides Sonic, the SEGA Genesis’s lineup consisted of some strong original titles such as Strider, Streets of Rage, Earthworm Jim and Gunstar Heroes and some well loved ports like the Mortal Kombat version that still retained red blood. But those could not even come close to comparing with the Juggernaut Nintendo titles like, Super Mario Kart, Donkey Kong Country, Super Metroid, Star Fox, Chrono Trigger and Earthbound.
While Nintendo might be considered the clear victor of the 4th Generation of Video Game consoles and the first real Console War, the results are still a hot button and divisive topic to this day, and the closest SEGA would ever come to challenging Nintendo’s stranglehold on gaming.