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Did the Super Nintendo actually win the 16-Bit war?

Did the SNES beat out Blast Processing?

  • No, Sega moved on to the Saturn.

    Votes: 69 16.0%
  • Yes, the SNES outperformed the Genesis commercially.

    Votes: 361 84.0%

  • Total voters
    430

cireza

Banned

OUCH ! Twice the framerate of the Snes version šŸ¤£

We also have a native port of Wolfenstein, thanks to the community, that destroys the SNES. The MegaDrive simply has much more processing power, it was superbly built.
 
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Marvel14

Banned
After reading yet another article saying how the SNES eventually won the 16-bit war, I was thinking about how it went down at the time. Here's the wiki summary-





8jeAiv7.gif




Now, the SNES might've gotten a lead at one point, but I don't remember the market drastically shifting one way enough to be considered a real victory, as in forcing the Genesis to go under or die off at all. Sega cut the Genesis off before it was done to move onto the Saturn, even counting the 32X. I also don't consider the Saturn a response to the SNES, so it doesn't count (to me) that way either.

If the SNES pummeled the Genesis like the PlayStation did the Saturn, I'd consider it a true victory even though the Saturn also got yanked in favor of a successor. Even before the Saturn launched, development had already shifted towards it since publishers knew it was coming and at that point Genesis development began to dwindle. It's not like everyone abandoned the Genesis in favor of the SNES.

The only reason the SNES continued to do well into the 32-bit generation is because it was all that Nintendo was doing. Same deal as the NES until the SNES finally showed up late. If the 32X never happened, the Saturn and N64 swapped launch dates and Sega strongly pushed the Genesis the way Nintendo actually did the SNES, it likely would have also done well during the 32-bit generation until it was replaced late. Especially if Sega continued to experiment with accelerator chips like the SNES did. Hell, even if the 32X and Saturn still went the way they did, the Genesis still would've gone on strong if Sega fully backed it.

Anyways, what I'm asking on a neutral forum is did the SNES truly claim victory, or did Sega simply bow out to move on to bigger things?
Your first poll choice essentially kills the argument in your thread. Sega moved on to the Saturn and crashed and burned...if they were beating Nintendo at 16 bit they would have stayed put to continue beating them..which is what Nintendo did until the 64 bit era.
 

Fat Frog

I advertised for Google Stadia

and possible 2023 release for Xenocrisis 2 genesis.

Happy new year, Nintendogs šŸ¤£

#console war 2023 šŸ„³
 

RetroAV

Member
Your first poll choice essentially kills the argument in your thread. Sega moved on to the Saturn and crashed and burned...if they were beating Nintendo at 16 bit they would have stayed put to continue beating them..which is what Nintendo did until the 64 bit era.
Sega was already on top with 16-bit. New threats were entering the market (3DO, Jaguar, PS1). Sega decided to focus on 32-bit to maintain its market share. Seeing how Sony would go on to beat both Sega and Nintendo with its PS1, I'd say Sega's decision to move on to Saturn when they did was justified.
 

Drell

Member
Sega was already on top with 16-bit. New threats were entering the market (3DO, Jaguar, PS1). Sega decided to focus on 32-bit to maintain its market share. Seeing how Sony would go on to beat both Sega and Nintendo with its PS1, I'd say Sega's decision to move on to Saturn when they did was justified.
Making yourself a place in the 32 bit market doesn't mean you have to instantly ditch your well established one you had in the 16 bit market. I'm no expert for sure so I may be wrong, but I'm sure there was money that could still have been made with the Megadrive to finance Saturn stuff.
 

cireza

Banned
Making yourself a place in the 32 bit market doesn't mean you have to instantly ditch your well established one you had in the 16 bit market. I'm no expert for sure so I may be wrong, but I'm sure there was money that could still have been made with the Megadrive to finance Saturn stuff.
This is especially true for the transition from Saturn to Dreamcast. They ditched Saturn wayyyyy too early. There were still great games to be published, like Deep Fear that didn't make it to the US while it should have found some success there. Grandia, which should have been translated. Virtua Fighter 3 which had a Saturn version completed. And many Japanese games that could have been brought to the US, like the Capcom fighting games for example, or SNK games.

Instead of keeping the console alive for 1 or 2 more years, they stopped everything and this was a bad decision. You should always have a running console when you launch a new one, and maintain the old console for a few years.
 
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RetroAV

Member
Making yourself a place in the 32 bit market doesn't mean you have to instantly ditch your well established one you had in the 16 bit market. I'm no expert for sure so I may be wrong, but I'm sure there was money that could still have been made with the Megadrive to finance Saturn stuff.
Sega of America wanted to continue supporting Genesis, but Sega of Japan decided to move to Saturn. When SoJ realized how serious the competition from Sony was, it was all hands on deck and they immediately ordered SoA to shift focus as well. I'm not saying it was right or wrong, just stating how it played out.
 

Toots

Gold Member
Thank you op you made me realize with your poll that Argentina didnā€™t win last World Cup, France just moved on to the next one šŸ˜‚
 

Celine

Member
You are incorrect. Articles constantly had them announcing numbers making it seem competitive until sometime in 96.



Nope, competitive=/=winning.

At the start of December they didn't have 500,000 units put together 1995.

In April 1996 Sony had only sold 1.2 million consoles in NORTH AMERICA, not even separating the US though would be most of it,
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1996/06/26/Sony-reports-strong-PlayStation-sales/2058835761600/
Are you playing dumb?
The part of my post you conveniently omitted from the quotation, which describes why Saturn was never competitive in US not even in the beginning, come from analyzing NPD data.

It's foolish to pretend the "orange" line trajectiory is somewhat close to the "blue" line and "red" line, even when looking at just the initial part.
I repeat Saturn was never competitive in US, not even in the beginning. In US Saturn bite the dust from the get go.

Yl1PP3A.jpg
 
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Fat Frog

I advertised for Google Stadia
This is especially true for the transition from Saturn to Dreamcast. They ditched Saturn wayyyyy too early. There were still great games to be published, like Deep Fear that didn't make it to the US while it should have found some success there. Grandia, which should have been translated. Virtua Fighter 3 which had a Saturn version completed. And many Japanese games that could have been brought to the US, like the Capcom fighting games for example, or SNK games.

Instead of keeping the console alive for 1 or 2 more years, they stopped everything and this was a bad decision. You should always have a running console when you launch a new one, and maintain the old console for a few years.
Exactly, they should have release Saturn versions of their games and later (as a final gift to their fans) Dreamcast versions of their PS2, Xbox, NGC games...

It was sooooo good when Sega was releasing Sonic, Disney games on Genesis, SMS, GG... šŸ˜
 
Are you playing dumb?
The part of my post you conveniently omitted from the quotation, which describes why Saturn was never competitive in US not even in the beginning, come from analyzing NPD data.

It's foolish to pretend the "orange" line trajectiory is somewhat close to the "blue" line and "red" line, even when looking at just the initial part.
I repeat Saturn was never competitive in US, not even in the beginning. In US Saturn bite the dust from the get go.

Yl1PP3A.jpg

Your chart literally shows that it was competitive until 14.

We had Sat and PS1 enter in news articles, 1996 competitive, with sales a few hundred thousand apart, with both picking up steam leaving analysts to question if the slow adoption of next gen was ending at the time, followed by the 3DO's fire sales.

I get people don't like the Saturn but you're acting like the PS1 was 1 million+ ahead in 2 months when it wasn't. Saturn was for early 1996 still the number one consoles maker in the US with a dead Genesis.

You're trying to show a Sony slowly rising gap as "never competitive" it was when Sega stopped being competitive that the bigger gaps came in. Competitive does not mean "tie" or "winning" competitive means that there's competition and both consoles were taking customers, and the Saturn was initially, yes the mistakes and Segas decision to focus on non-games hurt them, as well as the long0term consequence of pissing off retailers among many other things, that clearly wasn't obvious early on. With you're definition of "competitive" most products should go bankrupt because they aren't right next to number one, Pepsi and RC should stop making drinks.
 

Celine

Member
Your chart literally shows that it was competitive until 14.
The chart show the trajectories between PS1 and Saturn hardware sales in US were never close, not even in the beginning and the gap only grew bigger with time.
Even with PS1 slow start, it was outselling the Saturn at bare minimum* 2.5:1 month after month in US (*ratio was higher in the first 6 months of PS1 lifespan you indicated).

In the beginning Saturn was competitive with PS1 but only in Japan.
 
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This is especially true for the transition from Saturn to Dreamcast. They ditched Saturn wayyyyy too early. There were still great games to be published, like Deep Fear that didn't make it to the US while it should have found some success there. Grandia, which should have been translated. Virtua Fighter 3 which had a Saturn version completed. And many Japanese games that could have been brought to the US, like the Capcom fighting games for example, or SNK games.

Instead of keeping the console alive for 1 or 2 more years, they stopped everything and this was a bad decision. You should always have a running console when you launch a new one, and maintain the old console for a few years.
SEGA America were muppets, lets face it. They tried to hold on the Mega Drive for far too long and killed the Saturn way too early given they weren't going to release the DC untill late 1999
 
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