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[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

So an old article from 1996 in the Japanese newspaper Nikkie Sangyo Shimbum, going over the cratering of the 16-bit market shortly after the PlayStation's release, was finally translated and posted on MDShock (as you can guess, it's a MegaDrive-centric website). The article basically mentions of how while the 16-bit consoles were still selling, the software wasn't. And what's more interesting is that it affected everyone, not just Sega as it's commonly assumed.

Of course, Sega had the biggest losses a lot of which were due to self-inflicted wounds from bad management and budgeting, but even Nintendo saw big losses for the SNES after the PS1's (and to a smaller degree, Saturn's) release, taking a 9.8 billion yen loss after clearing out unsold SNES inventory following March 1995. Capcom, took a 7.5 billion yen loss after doing similar for their software. Sega's revenue in the European market went from 60 billion yen in 1993 to 20 billion yen in 1995, so on and so forth.

Neat, short article definitely worth a read, but there are some striking takeaways from it. For one, the gaming market was absolutely ready to move on from 16-bit hardware, likely due to increasing software costs as the games were getting bigger and bigger, meaning bigger carts, meaning more costs. The hardware itself was still selling decently well in territories like NA, but with significantly shrinking software sales it's more likely gamers were doing more renting of 16-bit software than buying, or grabbing games at discount bin prices from late '95 onward. I personally remember being able to go to flea markets as a kid and pick up games like SF2 Champion Edition on Genesis for like $5, and that wasn't that old of a game (1993 IIRC).

I think it also shows that even with SoA's mistakes in the 16-bit gen (poor marketing for Sega CD, the entirety of the 32X, scattershot quality of software from Sega Technical Institute, etc.), they may've been incidentally forced to make a decisioni that was actually the right call for the time, in significantly scaling down Genesis/MegaDrive support in 1995 for the NA and European market. The common argument against this decision is that 16-bit was still selling. Well, yes, 16-bit consoles were still selling, but it looks like 16-bit software, outside of some exceptions (I'm sure games like Yoshi's Island did pretty well in NA & European regions for example) the actual games weren't and there isn't much point keeping a platform going if the games aren't moving inventory.

But anyway, really neat little article that's worth the time to read. Anyone else around at the time, how was the 16-bit market looking for you in '95 or what were your own gaming plans around that time?

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Kind of misleading

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Kind of misleading

I mean, the 16-bit software market did crater in the West at that time. You see the write-offs.

It'd of been interesting to see how things would've played out if 32-bit didn't arrive outside Japan until 1996.

 

[TwiztidElf]

We look back on the SNES/MD era with fondness, and rightfully so.
But at the time, at the end of what felt like a really long gen, the market was saturated with 2D platformers, creativity was stagnating, and consumers were desperate for the next thing.
A possible market crash? Sure, maybe, but the stage really was set for huge market disruption.

For me personally, I was fortunate to have got my hands on one of the first Playstations exported out of Japan in Dec '94, so it was all Ridge Racer all the time. Followed by Battle Arena Toshinden.

 

[Dream-Knife]

I remember Toy's R Us has a ton of SNES and Genesis stuff as late as 1998. They rebranded the 16-bit consoles as budget systems.

 

[Grildon Tundy]

So an old article from 1996 in the Japanese newspaper Nikkie Sangyo Shimbum, going over the cratering of the 16-bit market shortly after the PlayStation's release, was finally translated and posted on MDShock (as you can guess, it's a MegaDrive-centric website). The article basically mentions of how while the 16-bit consoles were still selling, the software wasn't. And what's more interesting is that it affected everyone, not just Sega as it's commonly assumed.

Of course, Sega had the biggest losses a lot of which were due to self-inflicted wounds from bad management and budgeting, but even Nintendo saw big losses for the SNES after the PS1's (and to a smaller degree, Saturn's) release, taking a 9.8 billion yen loss after clearing out unsold SNES inventory following March 1995. Capcom, took a 7.5 billion yen loss after doing similar for their software. Sega's revenue in the European market went from 60 billion yen in 1993 to 20 billion yen in 1995, so on and so forth.

Neat, short article definitely worth a read, but there are some striking takeaways from it. For one, the gaming market was absolutely ready to move on from 16-bit hardware, likely due to increasing software costs as the games were getting bigger and bigger, meaning bigger carts, meaning more costs. The hardware itself was still selling decently well in territories like NA, but with significantly shrinking software sales it's more likely gamers were doing more renting of 16-bit software than buying, or grabbing games at discount bin prices from late '95 onward. I personally remember being able to go to flea markets as a kid and pick up games like SF2 Champion Edition on Genesis for like $5, and that wasn't that old of a game (1993 IIRC).

I think it also shows that even with SoA's mistakes in the 16-bit gen (poor marketing for Sega CD, the entirety of the 32X, scattershot quality of software from Sega Technical Institute, etc.), they may've been incidentally forced to make a decisioni that was actually the right call for the time, in significantly scaling down Genesis/MegaDrive support in 1995 for the NA and European market. The common argument against this decision is that 16-bit was still selling. Well, yes, 16-bit consoles were still selling, but it looks like 16-bit software, outside of some exceptions (I'm sure games like Yoshi's Island did pretty well in NA & European regions for example) the actual games weren't and there isn't much point keeping a platform going if the games aren't moving inventory.

But anyway, really neat little article that's worth the time to read. Anyone else around at the time, how was the 16-bit market looking for you in '95 or what were your own gaming plans around that time?

I read the article. Thanks for posting. Always interesting to see a time capsule like this with the knowledge of how things played out.

This part stuck out: “The market has been flooded with low-quality software,” said Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi. Consumers in North America who want to buy 16-bit games are rapidly disappearing.

I think what happened was that, by 1996, these 16-bit consoles were cheap enough to produce and purchase that those console sales were from a bunch of casual game players (I mean "casual" non-derogatorily) who picked them up on whims. They'd be happy with the handful of pack-in games and not go looking for the Vectorman's and ComixZones that were for the more hardcore. You could draw a parallel to how many people bought Wii's and were content to just stick to Wii Sports. And with the oversaturation of low-budget money-grab games that came out for the Wii as companies chased that huge audience.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I mean, the 16-bit software market did crater in the West at that time. You see the write-offs.

It'd of been interesting to see how things would've played out if 32-bit didn't arrive outside Japan until 1996.

We look back on the SNES/MD era with fondness, and rightfully so.
But at the time, at the end of what felt like a really long gen, the market was saturated with 2D platformers, creativity was stagnating, and consumers were desperate for the next thing.
A possible market crash? Sure, maybe, but the stage really was set for huge market disruption.

For me personally, I was fortunate to have got my hands on one of the first Playstations exported out of Japan in Dec '94, so it was all Ridge Racer all the time. Followed by Battle Arena Toshinden.

The transition from generation to generation wasn't so easily defined and cyclical at the time. You had a jump from 8 bit to 16 bit to 32 bit, but the expectation was largely that people would continue buying and playing the older systems for a period.

That wasn't really the case for the first time with the 32bit generation. We were talking about quite a serious leap in not just graphics but gameplay as well. You had large user bases on 16bit systems with publishers trying to sell games as cheap as possible to sell on as many systems as possible.

That being said, there was never going to be an atari like crash just because there was an abrupt decline in sales for games on 16 bit systems.

1996 was a big transition period for gaming but there was never going to be a crash.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

That’s an exaggeration. While CDs lowered the cost of software compared to cartridges, the average cost of games was still pretty high in the PS era, and until we got to the 7th gen with downloadable titles, we’d spend the same price for any new game, regardless of its presumed quality. On the PS2 a game like Mr. Mosquito would retail for a few dollars less than, say, Kingdom Hearts. CDs and DVDs were just much cheaper for publishers, so they could take more risks and quickly print more copies if a game did better than expected.

A big problem with 16-bits in their twilight days was that a lot of shovelware came out then, and not before. You’d expect stuff like, say, the SNES port of Mr. Do! in 1991, not 1995. And every cart was very expensive, both for the publisher and the customer. It’s like devs and publishers somehow waited until those systems had reached their absolute peak before starting to release crap games, like the SNES and the Genesis still had a good 4 or 5 years ahead of them and had never been popular before. Kinda like those “test games” for Switch from the big publishers that we’re still joking about today. In that sense, yeah, it was a bit like the 1983 crash, but even so, the scope of the crash was limited to those systems. The popularity of home consoles was never going to crumble like it did in ‘83; the games market would never crash that hard again. In 1996, with the PlayStation well into its second year and churning out incredible game after incredible game and the N64 looming on the horizon, the 16-bit market was dead anyway, bad games or not.

 

[nush]

You’d expect stuff like, say, the SNES port of Mr. Do! in 1991, not 1995

There was Arkanoid for the SNES in 95 as well. Checked, it was 97! I did buy it new as well.

 

[Neff]

“The market has been flooded with low-quality software,” said Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi.

Maybe he should have buffed the Nintendo seal of quality to refuse shit like Home Alone and Wayne's World then.

 

[Kadve]

A: the cratering of sales of the prior generation does not make it a "crash" compared to the 1983 one.

B: That would make it the third. People always forget the crash of 1977.

1970s in video gaming

The first commercially viable video game was Computer Space in 1971, which laid the foundation for a new entertainment industry in the late 1970s within the United States, Japan, and Europe. The first major crash in 1977 occurred when companies were forced to sell their older obsolete systems...

gamicus.fandom.com

 

[nush]

Maybe he should have buffed the Nintendo seal of quality to refuse shit like Home Alone and Wayne's World then.

We made royalty money off all those carts produced regardless of if they sold through or not, now we are crying about it.

 

[Trunx81]

The last snes game I bought was Super Street Fighter 2 in the “Nintendo best of” box. Talked with the guy in the store about just wanting to have it in my collection and we both agreed that the time of 16 bit was over.

It was a neat generation, but the chaos that came after it with what it seemed like dozens of different consoles coming out (Jaguar, 3DO, Amiga 32) made it hard for me as a kid to decide for the best next gen console. So I waited for the N64, but aside from Mario 64, nothing impressed me enough to buy it when it eventually came out. The new generation was also quite expensive, therefore I switched to PC. Came back to consoles with the GameCube.

 

[ManaByte]

Remember when Nintendo was marketing DKC against CD based consoles?

 

[nush]

therefore I switched to PC.

As did many when PC's became valid game playing machines. You can't ignore that when discussing console history and that PC played it's part very fucking well during the generational transition. If you could afford to pay to play.

 

[The Pleasure]

The last snes game I bought was Super Street Fighter 2 in the “Nintendo best of” box. Talked with the guy in the store about just wanting to have it in my collection and we both agreed that the time of 16 bit was over.

It was a neat generation, but the chaos that came after it with what it seemed like dozens of different consoles coming out (Jaguar, 3DO, Amiga 32) made it hard for me as a kid to decide for the best next gen console. So I waited for the N64, but aside from Mario 64, nothing impressed me enough to buy it when it eventually came out. The new generation was also quite expensive, therefore I switched to PC. Came back to consoles with the GameCube.

New Generation was expensive so you went to pc where it cost thousands of dollars to play shit on minimum specs. But at that time pc gaming was amazing as it was nothing like consoles.

 

[Phunkydiabetic]

So an old article from 1996 in the Japanese newspaper Nikkie Sangyo Shimbum, going over the cratering of the 16-bit market shortly after the PlayStation's release, was finally translated and posted on MDShock (as you can guess, it's a MegaDrive-centric website). The article basically mentions of how while the 16-bit consoles were still selling, the software wasn't. And what's more interesting is that it affected everyone, not just Sega as it's commonly assumed.

Of course, Sega had the biggest losses a lot of which were due to self-inflicted wounds from bad management and budgeting, but even Nintendo saw big losses for the SNES after the PS1's (and to a smaller degree, Saturn's) release, taking a 9.8 billion yen loss after clearing out unsold SNES inventory following March 1995. Capcom, took a 7.5 billion yen loss after doing similar for their software. Sega's revenue in the European market went from 60 billion yen in 1993 to 20 billion yen in 1995, so on and so forth.

Neat, short article definitely worth a read, but there are some striking takeaways from it. For one, the gaming market was absolutely ready to move on from 16-bit hardware, likely due to increasing software costs as the games were getting bigger and bigger, meaning bigger carts, meaning more costs. The hardware itself was still selling decently well in territories like NA, but with significantly shrinking software sales it's more likely gamers were doing more renting of 16-bit software than buying, or grabbing games at discount bin prices from late '95 onward. I personally remember being able to go to flea markets as a kid and pick up games like SF2 Champion Edition on Genesis for like $5, and that wasn't that old of a game (1993 IIRC).

I think it also shows that even with SoA's mistakes in the 16-bit gen (poor marketing for Sega CD, the entirety of the 32X, scattershot quality of software from Sega Technical Institute, etc.), they may've been incidentally forced to make a decisioni that was actually the right call for the time, in significantly scaling down Genesis/MegaDrive support in 1995 for the NA and European market. The common argument against this decision is that 16-bit was still selling. Well, yes, 16-bit consoles were still selling, but it looks like 16-bit software, outside of some exceptions (I'm sure games like Yoshi's Island did pretty well in NA & European regions for example) the actual games weren't and there isn't much point keeping a platform going if the games aren't moving inventory.

But anyway, really neat little article that's worth the time to read. Anyone else around at the time, how was the 16-bit market looking for you in '95 or what were your own gaming plans around that time?

Wait wait wait....Sega of America's....mistakes? Haha you can tell this was written from a Japanese perspective. The history that is commonly known (and appears to be true) is that Sega of America essentially "saved" Sega during this period. Without Sega of America tbe company wouldn't have been able to hit the heights it did during the 16bit period. Sega of Japan was an absolute nightmare it seems, and did whatever they could to hold back SoA.

 

[Hardensoul]

I sure didn’t feel like the 16bit era was going to crash! It was a time when I just got out of high school and I got job. Was able to afford to buy my own SNES. I bought at least 40 games back then.

There were a lot gaming magazines at the time GamePro, EGM, GameFan and Next Generation that I regularly read. Felt like the golden age of gaming to me.

Sega seem to be the main culprit with all those add ons for Genesis! Confusing the consumers.

 

[Elysion]

I wonder how things would‘ve developed if Sony hadn’t released the PS1. Who would have gotten more support from Japanese publishers then, Sega with the Saturn, or Nintendo with the N64? Would Square have released FF7 on the Saturn thanks to its CD support, or would they‘ve made it for N64, but with low res backgrounds and without any FMVs? Their decision could well decide which console sells more in Japan in the long term.

Without the PS1 it seems the console market in the second half of the 90s would’ve remained more fragmented, with no clear international market leader (different regions would have different market leaders). Sega probably wouldn’t had to leave the hardware market, and Microsoft probably wouldn’t have entered it at all without Sony‘s dominance. Maybe the 3DO M2 could’ve actually been released?

 

[bender]

On the PS2 a game like Mr. Mosquito would retail for a few dollars less than, say, Kingdom Hearts. CDs and DVDs were just much cheaper for publishers, so they could take more risks and quickly print more copies if a game did better than expected.

Not always the case. Katamari Damacy retailed at $19.99 when it launched.

 

[Trunx81]

New Generation was expensive so you went to pc where it cost thousands of dollars to play shit on minimum specs. But at that time pc gaming was amazing as it was nothing like consoles.

Not really. I inherited the old Pentium 133mhz from my parents, got a used Monster3D and even played FF7 on it.

 

[SkylineRKR]

16-bit software was crazy expensive. I couldn't afford much games back then, and mostly bought used, rented or traded. They were priced at like 150-180 guilders a piece, which is the equivalent of 80-90 euros, which in like 1994 ish, is worth 130 euros now according to my calculator. Thats 130 off your income for a game. Not even Sony is approaching that with their current pricing.

And worse yet, the 32-bit consoles were far above my pay grade back then, being a high schooler still. They launched at a price thats valued at 700 euros now. They were twice or three times as expensive as the SNES and Megadrive. The 32-bit games were cheaper though.

 

[Kuranghi]

Shes not even thicc though, shes just toned, whats the deal?

How dare you betray your namesake.

 

[sinnergy]

16-bit software was crazy expensive. I couldn't afford much games back then, and mostly bought used, rented or traded. They were priced at like 150-180 guilders a piece, which is the equivalent of 80-90 euros, which in like 1994 ish, is worth 130 euros now according to my calculator. Thats 130 off your income for a game. Not even Sony is approaching that with their current pricing.

And worse yet, the 32-bit consoles were far above my pay grade back then, being a high schooler still. They launched at a price thats valued at 700 euros now. They were twice or three times as expensive as the SNES and Megadrive. The 32-bit games were cheaper though.

Didn’t you have a job? I bought most of games with money made from delivery of papers .. paid 200+ guilders for Golden Eye even .. build my whole 16 bit collection doing that .

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

We look back on the SNES/MD era with fondness, and rightfully so.
But at the time, at the end of what felt like a really long gen, the market was saturated with 2D platformers, creativity was stagnating, and consumers were desperate for the next thing.
A possible market crash? Sure, maybe, but the stage really was set for huge market disruption.

For me personally, I was fortunate to have got my hands on one of the first Playstations exported out of Japan in Dec '94, so it was all Ridge Racer all the time. Followed by Battle Arena Toshinden.

Man, that must've been a cool AF time. Would not end up with a PlayStation (or N64) until '98, but that's probably when I was about at the age to appreciate those sort of games better.

I guess since I got into the 16-bit market so late (basically, as it was ending), I hadn't been exposed for as long to as much to feel there was some saturation. Everything felt like a new experience. Thankfully I formed a good taste for the better games quickly and got a neat little Genesis collection going before moving on to PS1.

I remember Toy's R Us has a ton of SNES and Genesis stuff as late as 1998. They rebranded the 16-bit consoles as budget systems.

Yeah, I've heard it was that way for a lot of retailers. Cabbages, Electronics Boutique, KB Toys etc. I remember going to a FuncoLand before getting a PS1; if you didn't go hunting for 16-bit software wouldn't know they even existed.

I read the article. Thanks for posting. Always interesting to see a time capsule like this with the knowledge of how things played out.

This part stuck out: “The market has been flooded with low-quality software,” said Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi. Consumers in North America who want to buy 16-bit games are rapidly disappearing.

I think what happened was that, by 1996, these 16-bit consoles were cheap enough to produce and purchase that those console sales were from a bunch of casual game players (I mean "casual" non-derogatorily) who picked them up on whims. They'd be happy with the handful of pack-in games and not go looking for the Vectorman's and ComixZones that were for the more hardcore. You could draw a parallel to how many people bought Wii's and were content to just stick to Wii Sports. And with the oversaturation of low-budget money-grab games that came out for the Wii as companies chased that huge audience.

In that way it's kind of funny because I was definitely a casual at that time; my dad had to get me my Genesis (I was just a kid then) and he got the one with the Madden bundle. But I played that Madden game for like all of 30 minutes before wanting some "real" games. I don't ever remember learning of these games from magazines but I eventually came across stuff like the 6-in-1 cart, Gaires, SF2 Champion Edition, Aladdin etc. and thought they looked really cool, so ended up with those and didn't look back.

Also started picking up gaming magazines around that time but almost all of the coverage was firmly on 32/64-bit consoles and PC so, I might've been very lucky to instinctually wanted to get games like Gaires and SF2 without knowing anything about them. Though those games being really cheap by that point also likely helped.

Maybe he should have buffed the Nintendo seal of quality to refuse shit like Home Alone and Wayne's World then.

Those Seal of Quality labels were never worth much tbh. Just basically a means of saying "Yeah. This game is legally licensed", and nothing more. I also think they were made in reaction to the market after the Atari crash, people who were still worried about new games being low quality.

 

[a multicultural team of v]

The transition from generation to generation wasn't so easily defined and cyclical at the time. You had a jump from 8 bit to 16 bit to 32 bit, but the expectation was largely that people would continue buying and playing the older systems for a period.

That wasn't really the case for the first time with the 32bit generation. We were talking about quite a serious leap in not just graphics but gameplay as well. You had large user bases on 16bit systems with publishers trying to sell games as cheap as possible to sell on as many systems as possible.

That being said, there was never going to be an atari like crash just because there was an abrupt decline in sales for games on 16 bit systems.

1996 was a big transition period for gaming but there was never going to be a crash.

Yeah this is a huge part of it. Back then generations were murky, I remember as a kid playing Atari in the late 80s/early 90s and NES into the mid 90s, but when the 32-bit generation hit that sort of "reset" the market and turned it into actual generations. Used/borrowed games were absolutely massive back then too, usually from relatives, so it was like this huge wave of consumer trends just crashed into the mid 90s and 16-bit game sales took brunt of it. The huge leap in graphics like you said only exacerbated it.

For example, I still remember the day my cousin got the Ghostbusters Atari game, which makes absolutely no sense when you consider it came out in 1984 and I was born in 1984, but that is just how it was back then for lower-middle class families: you got games real late. A year later Super Mario 3 was released and we were likely still playing Atari. I probably didn't get an NES until right around or before the SNES came out.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

As did many when PC's became valid game playing machines. You can't ignore that when discussing console history and that PC played it's part very fucking well during the generational transition. If you could afford to pay to play.

I don't know if that transition number was as much as you think. PC gaming at that time had a pretty big difference in terms of key genres, game design trends etc. compared to console games of the era. Not to mention a LOT of franchises and IP were exclusive to either console or PC. If you really wanted to play FF, Dragon's Quest, Silent Hill, MGS, Gran Turismo, Castlevania, Shining Force, Dragon Force, Mario, Tekken, Donkey Kong, Mario Kart etc., you NEEDED a console. And often times, PC equivalents of some of those types of games (even some ports) were mediocre at best.

If you wanted to play stuff like Elder Scrolls, DaggerFall, Leisure Suit Larry, Sam & Max, Gabriel Knight, Flight Simulator, Quake, System Shock etc., you NEEDED a PC. And a lot of console equivalents (including ports) were either just badly done, or very stripped-down in terms of complexity or controller options.

Wait wait wait....Sega of America's....mistakes? Haha you can tell this was written from a Japanese perspective. The history that is commonly known (and appears to be true) is that Sega of America essentially "saved" Sega during this period. Without Sega of America tbe company wouldn't have been able to hit the heights it did during the 16bit period. Sega of Japan was an absolute nightmare it seems, and did whatever they could to hold back SoA.

Well, that's not 100% fair because usually we barely hear from the Japanese side on this type of stuff. They tend to be very conservative and don't disclose business decisions even in retrospect, so we really only hear about these things from one side of the coin, and therefore don't have the whole story.

But it's very possible that, due to such, the perception of Sega of America might be a bit skewed. Here's a vid I came across on a small YT channel that I like to watch some gaming stuff from, they actually go in a bit on some of SoA's perception from the 16-bit era and some of Tom Kalinski's claims.



Would also recommend their PC-Engine documentary video because it has some really interesting insights on common thought surrounding that system (both in America and Japan) and its market performance during the generation:

I wonder how things would‘ve developed if Sony hadn’t released the PS1. Who would have gotten more support from Japanese publishers then, Sega with the Saturn, or Nintendo with the N64? Would Square have released FF7 on the Saturn thanks to its CD support, or would they‘ve made it for N64, but with low res backgrounds and without any FMVs? Their decision could well decide which console sells more in Japan in the long term.

Without the PS1 it seems the console market in the second half of the 90s would’ve remained more fragmented, with no clear international market leader (different regions would have different market leaders). Sega probably wouldn’t had to leave the hardware market, and Microsoft probably wouldn’t have entered it at all without Sony‘s dominance. Maybe the 3DO M2 could’ve actually been released?

Really good question; I've hypothesized about it in the past, some other members have as well.

IMO, if there was no PS1, and N64 still remained a cartridge-based system, I think the Saturn would've gotten a lot more support, while Nintendo would've retained more 3P support from the SFC/SNES gen. While the Saturn was difficult to program for, the N64 wasn't braindead easy, either, and systems like PS2 were arguably as complex if not more complex than Saturn yet dominated the market.

I think you'd of had companies like Square and Enix supporting Sega hardware for the first time, but not exclusively: they'd maybe find a way to do versions of bigger games for both Saturn & N64, and probably push Nintendo harder for the 64DD to come earlier than it did to help facilitate that. Companies like Capcom, I think, their support for N64 would've remained about the same as it did, but maybe with games like Strider 2 going to N64 and the RE series staying attached to Saturn.

In general I think Saturn would've had a lot more AAA Japanese 3P support from hold-outs like Square, Enix, Konami etc. and likely been the home for other IP like Tomb Raider and Resident Evil, which became associated with PlayStation that gen. N64 would've gotten more Japanese 3P support too, but not as much, but probably made up for it with the Western 3P support they had, though I also think some of those devs would've prioritized Saturn at least more in parity with N64.

Overall sales is probably the more interesting factor. SNES & Genesis/MegaDrive had about 80/90 million units between them that gen. PS1/N64/Saturn had about 145 million between them, so a 55 million difference on the low. Assuming the expansion of 3P software we saw with PS1, if most of that still came even without PS1 existing, probably at least 50% of those users would've gone to Nintendo & Sega, so maybe you end up with a gen closer to 115 million altogether.

In that scenario I think you'd probably get something like a 45% Nintendo/55% Sega install base split, so 51.75 million N64 and 63.25 million Saturn for 5th gen sales. Although, maybe that gap could shrink a bit in favor of Nintendo depending on the timing, pricing, and overall strategy of the 64DD.

Like, if the N64 was actually just essentially 64DD in terms of storage media (maybe some part as ROM and the other as rewritable storage) but with same specs architecture-wise, I think it'd probably help them effectively tie with Saturn or just barely edge out an install base lead over them.

Shes not even thicc though, shes just toned, whats the deal?

How dare you betray your namesake.

I beg your pardon?

 

[Kuranghi]

I beg your pardon?

Shes lovely but I disagree on thicc status, shes just toned to me. The 2nd one is a perspective trick to reel in the thicc-lovers like yourself!

I mean, I guess her tits are thicc, I'll give you that.

 

[nush]

I don't know if that transition number was as much as you think. PC gaming at that time had a pretty big difference in terms of key genres, game design trends etc. compared to console games of the era. Not to mention a LOT of franchises and IP were exclusive to either console or PC. If you really wanted to play FF, Dragon's Quest, Silent Hill, MGS, Gran Turismo, Castlevania, Shining Force, Dragon Force, Mario, Tekken, Donkey Kong, Mario Kart etc., you NEEDED a console. And often times, PC equivalents of some of those types of games (even some ports) were mediocre at best.

This discussion is about the 16 bit transition, you've listed a lot of 32 bit franchises that came much, much later. If you walked into a game shop in 95/96 (Remember how big win 95 was BTW) you'll have seen half the space was quite often given to PC releases and the other half split between multiple consoles.

PC gamers back then wanted to play big boy games, not kiddie shit like mario.

 

[Neff]

I also think they were made in reaction to the market after the Atari crash, people who were still worried about new games being low quality.

Yep, that's pretty much it. In fairness, the seal of quality was nothing more than a promise that a shipped game would work like it should, be more or less bug-free, and deliver a certain acceptable grade of visual/sound polish, which the Atari range of software promised anything but. It didn't matter if the game was actually any good or not.

 

[V4skunk]

I believe it because there were loads of snes and mega drive games that not many people purchased! Every one went for all the big games like Mario and Sonic etc... And back then cartridge games were £50-60.

 

[nush]

I believe it because there were loads of snes and mega drive games that not many people purchased! Every one went for all the big games like Mario and Sonic etc... And back then cartridge games were £50-60.

The exchange rate and chip shortages meant that many bigger carts were not released in the west or in limited numbers. Plus they were competing with a large cheap back catalogue and used games too.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Yeah this is a huge part of it. Back then generations were murky, I remember as a kid playing Atari in the late 80s/early 90s and NES into the mid 90s, but when the 32-bit generation hit that sort of "reset" the market and turned it into actual generations. Used/borrowed games were absolutely massive back then too, usually from relatives, so it was like this huge wave of consumer trends just crashed into the mid 90s and 16-bit game sales took brunt of it. The huge leap in graphics like you said only exacerbated it.

For example, I still remember the day my cousin got the Ghostbusters Atari game, which makes absolutely no sense when you consider it came out in 1984 and I was born in 1984, but that is just how it was back then for lower-middle class families: you got games real late. A year later Super Mario 3 was released and we were likely still playing Atari. I probably didn't get an NES until right around or before the SNES came out.

I got an NES when I was 5, but I was born in 1985, putting that in 1990, five years after the system launched. I didn't get a SNES until 1994.
At least 3 years after it launched. As you said Mario Bros 3 was a huge deal and I was playing it well after it released. Super Mario World blew my mind because I had probably seen it back to back with Mario bros 3. I actually never owned SMB3. I can recollect almost every NES game I ever owned.

I got a PS1 probably in 1997 and that was easily the closest to launch I'd gotten a game system. I'd played the system in stores with things like Coolboarders, Battle Arena Toshinden, and Xtreme.

Since then I've always gotten systems in their launch years. That just wasn't a thing back in the day.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Shes lovely but I disagree on thicc status, shes just toned to me. The 2nd one is a perspective trick to reel in the thicc-lovers like yourself!

I mean, I guess her tits are thicc, I'll give you that.

Her booty's also pretty thicc so she's thicc where it counts IMO

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Yep, that's pretty much it. In fairness, the seal of quality was nothing more than a promise that a shipped game would work like it should, be more or less bug-free, and deliver a certain acceptable grade of visual/sound polish, which the Atari range of software promised anything but. It didn't matter if the game was actually any good or not.

Even that wasn't really covered by those seals of quality; plenty of SNES and Genesis games with obviously bad graphics. Eek the Cat on SNES for example shipped with a graphics bug dimming the entire image's contrast & brightness settings super low. Wasn't a problem for Nintendo apparently to let the game ship like that. Sega had similar examples with Genesis/MegaDrive.

The exchange rate and chip shortages meant that many bigger carts were not released in the west or in limited numbers. Plus they were competing with a large cheap back catalogue and used games too.

I know DRAM chips were "scarce" during that time, to the point the DRAM market was found guilty of price fixing, but was there a similar case with ROM chips too? I'd be interested in learning if so.

 

[nush]

I know DRAM chips were "scarce" during that time, to the point the DRAM market was found guilty of price fixing, but was there a similar case with ROM chips too? I'd be interested in learning if so.

I tried a search but it's just giving me current year chip shortage results. I do remember it being reported in gaming magazines at the time and this was after the great late 80's chip shortage that hit Nintendo.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

I tried a search but it's just giving me current year chip shortage results. I do remember it being reported in gaming magazines at the time and this was after the great late 80's chip shortage that hit Nintendo.

Ah okay; yeah I definitely remember hearing about DRAM price fixing charges coming about sometime in the early '90s, from a couple things I've read a long time ago. I was curious how much of that was down to actual scarcity versus exaggeration to gouge out buyers/clients.

Sure would hate if that is happening currently with the chip shortages :/

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

We look back on the SNES/MD era with fondness, and rightfully so.
But at the time, at the end of what felt like a really long gen, the market was saturated with 2D platformers, creativity was stagnating, and consumers were desperate for the next thing.
A possible market crash? Sure, maybe, but the stage really was set for huge market disruption.

For me personally, I was fortunate to have got my hands on one of the first Playstations exported out of Japan in Dec '94, so it was all Ridge Racer all the time. Followed by Battle Arena Toshinden.

Now that I think of it, I wonder if the PlayStation would have had such an impact on me if somehow I could get an early imported one. I wouldn’t have traded my Nintendo platformers and other SNES games for a game like Ridge Racer at the time, and I still wouldn’t want a new console that pretty much relies on a single racing game for its launch. Same reason I had no interest in OG XBox at launch: it didn’t have the genres I was interested in. So I‘m glad I got a PS when stuff like Resident Evil was already out. I used to read game mags religiously at the time, and I remember the first 32-bit game reviews raving about games I had no interest in.

 

[nush]

Now that I think of it, I wonder if the PlayStation would have had such an impact on me if somehow I could get an early imported one.

Those were dark days, pay an absolute insane amount just to play Ridge Racer, or umm Tama or if you got desperate Parodius (That was already on the SNES).

 

[Kuranghi]

Her booty's also pretty thicc so she's thicc where it counts IMO

I wrestled with myself over this in bed last night and I'm coming around to your way of thinking OP.

 

[deriks]

What if I told you that the "Video Game Crash" never existed in first place?

 

[apple_of_enlightenment]

Just picked this up, not sure it's very relevant to this thread but it's interesting and couldn't find anywhere else to post

 

[Fuz]

I think we need a second videogame crash.

 

[Futaleufu]

What if I told you that the "Video Game Crash" never existed in first place?

The Atari Crash

 

[Celine]

16-bit consoles had the last hurrah in US in '95 and '96, especially the SNES.
Software sales began declining but were still pretty robust.
During 1995 the biggest software revenue was recorded on SNES, followed by Genesis whereas all the other platforms were far behind.
In 1996 PS1 edged out the SNES, whereas N64 in just 3 months sold more than the total Saturn software sales up 'til that point.
In 1997 N64 edged out the PS1, whereas Saturn measly software sales began decline YoY.
In 1998 the outcome of the N64/PS1 power struggle was decided with PS1 securing the top spot while N64 got a strong second place.

NPD Group, not long ago, made available the annual top 20 best selling games in US for each year since 1995:

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

I wrestled with myself over this in bed last night and I'm coming around to your way of thinking OP.

There's some spicy NSFW Reddit stuff (might be her official Reddit page tbh...yep it's the official Reddit page) that's even more convincing

Just picked this up, not sure it's very relevant to this thread but it's interesting and couldn't find anywhere else to post

Nice find; love some of these older gaming docs as they have a perspective more relevant to the business/industry of the time which is really helpful for discussion in retrospect.

16-bit consoles had the last hurrah in US in '95 and '96, especially the SNES.
Software sales began declining but were still pretty robust.
During 1995 the biggest software revenue was recorded on SNES, followed by Genesis whereas all the other platforms were far behind.
In 1996 PS1 edged out the SNES, whereas N64 in just 3 months sold more than the total Saturn software sales up 'til that point.
In 1997 N64 edged out the PS1, whereas Saturn measly software sales began decline YoY.
In 1998 the outcome of the N64/PS1 power struggle was decided with PS1 securing the top spot while N64 got a strong second place.

NPD Group, not long ago, made available the annual top 20 best selling games in US for each year since 1995:

I'd imagine Nintendo's own 1P software were the primary drivers for their software revenues in 1995, especially going by that list. I'm curious what actual hard numbers for the software in that 1995 list were, though.

 

[MonkeyClaw36]

Didn’t you have a job? I bought most of games with money made from delivery of papers .. paid 200+ guilders for Golden Eye even .. build my whole 16 bit collection doing that .

Guilders... Oh man.... I forked out 250 of em just for Street Fighter 2 on the SNES. Was the most expensive normal retail game I ever bought....
Was Goldeneye that expensive? I can't remember.

 

[Celine]

I'd imagine Nintendo's own 1P software were the primary drivers for their software revenues in 1995, especially going by that list.

It's likely because Nintendo was (still is?) the biggest publisher in US around that time:

Top publishers by software sales (in USD thousand) in the United States, Sep. 1995 - Aug. 1996 (source: NPD - TRSTS Report)
## Publisher Sales
01 Nintendo 267,953
02 EA 203,953
03 Williams Ent. 153,180
04 Acclaim 135,086
05 Sega 133,792
06 Disney Int. 45,269
07 Squaresoft 29,965
08 Capcom 20,757
09 Virgin Int. 19,416
10 Konami 13,470

People talks all the time about the rivalry between Nintendo and Sega because they were both hardware makers back in the days but most don't realize that Nintendo main opposition came from EA.
The two companies are mutual antithesis.
Nintendo and EA can work togheter to earn money but make no mistake they will always be at the antipodes because their DNAs clashes.

 

[deriks]

The Atari Crash

Now we are talking

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

It's likely because Nintendo was (still is?) the biggest publisher in US around that time:

Top publishers by software sales (in USD thousand) in the United States, Sep. 1995 - Aug. 1996 (source: NPD - TRSTS Report)
## Publisher Sales
01 Nintendo 267,953
02 EA 203,953
03 Williams Ent. 153,180
04 Acclaim 135,086
05 Sega 133,792
06 Disney Int. 45,269
07 Squaresoft 29,965
08 Capcom 20,757
09 Virgin Int. 19,416
10 Konami 13,470

People talks all the time about the rivalry between Nintendo and Sega because they were both hardware makers back in the days but most don't realize that Nintendo main opposition came from EA.
The two companies are mutual antithesis.
Nintendo and EA can work togheter to earn money but make no mistake they will always be at the antipodes because their DNAs clashes.

Well going by what you've provided in software sales terms yeah, definitely seems EA was Nintendo's biggest rival. But I don't think it's that easy to write Sega out of the equation either because the Genesis/MegaDrive was one of EA's main platforms for software support that gen, along with certain microcomputers and later PC.

And if you go from just talking software unit sales and talking software revenue, I think Sega probably is much more in that picture considering the revenue certain arcade games like Daytona USA and Virtua Fighter 2 (VF2 primarily in Japan) brought...how much of that went to Sega versus arcade operators is another story, considering revenue sharing models weren't established then so Sega'd have to get revenue from arcade unit sales directly and bank the profits from that.

I'm guessing companies like Capcom and Disney didn't release a lot of games in the 1995 calendar year. Though again, in a case like Capcom's I guess total revenue figures were buffed decently by arcade coin-op performance, non arcade operator revenue coming from CPS2 unit sales for various games and conversion kit expansions.