22 years on and the debate still rages on...

I remember clearly when Turbo Grafix 16 and Genesis came out at the same time. In fact Turbo Grafix started tv advertising before Genesis. Heres the 1st ad for Turbo Grafix I saw which was summer 89 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbZ0hlR6T7Q.

1st time I heard of Genesis was in a Sears holiday catalog. It showed arcade perfect conversions of capcom and sega games like Space Harrier 2. Basically it was a consolized Amiga (and there were tons of amiga conversions later for it) but with a much worse sound chip. I was sold immediately. I think Turbo Grafix failed in the US because of brand recognition, non recognizable titles, and rumor ( and later confirmation this was before the internet) that it had an 8 bit chip inside and this was the Bit wars of course.

 

Has to be the MD for me.

Mainly because when I was a kid, I didn't know anyone who had a SNES and being a massive Sonic fan I just had zero interest in the system. I think I only ever saw a SNES once for real in its primetime life cycle.

Also prior to my MD I has a Master System and an Amiga 600, I guess when it was time for an upgrade my parents just had Sega in their minds after Commodore died.

When I eventually got my hands on one in my teens I just couldn't bond with it. There's something very slow and sedated about a lot of the games, I can't really put it into words, but everything feels less arcadey.

The GameBoy on the other hand was a constant companion throughout my 16-bit Sega years. Links Awakening...good god, what a game.

 

Blast Processing.

Also I liked that Genesis games came in actual cases instead of paper boxes (which is why it's 10000000000000000x easier to find a complete Genesis game (save for the ones that did have paper boxes) than an SNES one.

 

Oh come now surely this has all settled down now and we dont have to drag this argument out.....(cough snes is rubbish cough)
I must confess all these years on and despite having fairly equal sized collections for each console the Megadrive is the only older console that is constantly hooked up to my tv.

Im sure a large portion of it is the nostalga factor as its the machine a grew up with. And I know certainly in Australia the sega presence in stores and rental places was equal and some cases much stronger than equivalent nintendo stuff.

 

Now that made my laugh a good chuckle! :biggrin-new:

Can you imagine being the team that developed those EA games though?
SNES team won the prize, the Mega Drive team should be pretty sad.
Still I guess we are talking about EA games... they are usually rubbish anyway! :wink-new:

 

Here's another game that uses almost clear voice samples in-game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AFY0KrsUIM

 

So you were barely in school when the PCE hit the market. Remember here (where I lived) in switzerland the PCE didn't even see any release and it still got great cover from magazines and thanks to lots of importers it was also somehow available, although as a very expensive enjoyment in the first few years.
Many of us discovered the PCE in around beginning of 1988 when the mags first started to cover the cute little new game wonder. some of the richer guys got one early, some other had to wait until it was affordable with the self earned pocket money.
Already back then, knowing that it had an almost 1:1 Arcade R-Type available was reason enough to believe that this must be the king of the upcoming console generation.
But I get your point. I can't speak for the USoA, since I've never been there nor did I ever went to school there. But your thread was not just about the old days as your title also does imply, it still didn't change even 22 years later. So why not include it into the debate? I know why, still many peeps believe the old crap from back then. It didn't change a bit even we have much more ressources available now.

 

Saddly then you hadn't the chance to play "a link to the past"

Yeah, good old crap which they tried us to believe. Space harrier 2 isn't even an arcade port and even if it were one it would have been one of the most sorry posts ever.

unfortunatley another big misbelief. not that its main cpu was in fact an 8-bitter, but that it must be much inferior due to that fact. but this story we do all know just too well already.

 

Space Harrier 2 was far better graphically then the other space harrier ports like the master system that existed at the time. For 1989 it looked fantastic. You may trash but for its time it was a great game and was the closest we had to having those kinds of graphics in a home console. Maybe looking at it in that way again will help you like it more

 

I love how heated this is getting it really is like being back at Primrary school in the early 90s

Something I always find remarkable about the Megadrive/Genesis is that there where leaps and bounds from the early games from 89-90 to the later titles as all the developers managed to wring more out of the console. Im sure anyone thats ever booted up a title by Treausre on the megadrive for the first time knows what im talking about they got the old black box to do stuff that everyone says wasnt possible with each new game.

Conversly with the Snes I rember thinking "wow that looks great" when the early titles came out. But a few years later things still looked good but there where no real show stoping leaps apart from the inclusion of the super fx chip in a few titles.

 

I sure didn't say it looked worse than let's say the SMS version, but especially with its very low frame-rate it run on (like 15fps?) it was far far away from an sega arcade like game at that time. I also think that the PCE port of arcade Space Harrier wasn't to shabby, which came out already in 1988. It only laked the checkerboard, but played much like the arcade (also used original tiles & sprites) and also felt faster in gameplay than the SH2 on the genny did.

 

I still Maintain that the Master System had the best version of Shinobi and possibly even Double Dragon.

 

Might be. If only the PCE shinobi had all the original stages (one missing) and the extra weapons, it would have been an as close as an arcade port can get at that time.

 

Another great common thing you hear that's wrong is that the SuperGrafx had the same CPU as the PCE and couldn't keep up with the additional graphical capabilities. PCE had a blazing fast CPU compared to the SNES, and at the very least was competitive with the Megadrive if not able to outperform it on certain tasks.

 

to quote a buddy's statement from a known PCE forum:

And yeah, the PCE and MD were much closer to each other in terms of vast processing, even the PCEs CPU was related to the one from the FC/NES and SNES (65Cxxxx vs. the MDs 68k).
But then again that's only the CPU, and the CPU is one of the last thing in a system that is directly responsible for the graphics you see on the screen or the music you hear from the speakers.

PCEs strength sure is moving a lot of stuff around the screen at a nicely amount of on-screen colors, while the MDs strength is similar but with much inferior colors but in exchange of real 2 layer parallax scrolling which again the PCE lacked in exchange.

 

In my opinion the consoles are two completely different things, the only things they share in common is that they're both 16 bit video games consoles. I know that might sound a bit obvious, but here's what I mean. If you want to play some amazingly epic video games and lose your self in the wonder and the magic, you want a SNES for games like A Link to the Past, Donkey Kong Country, Chrono Trigger etc, however if you want to take a step back into 90s pop culture, that's what you want a MD for. The difference is the markets the consoles were appealed to, the SNES was very much a Japanese console at its heart, where as the MD at least to me sort of signifies 90s pop culture in the west. Look at games like Sonic, Moon Walker and Toe Jam and Earl, it was geared to the sort of Nickelodeon, Fresh Prince high school teens of the age with funky cartoon characters and electronic pop music. In that respect there's no comparison between the two, which one is best is entirely dependant on what you're looking for in the experience.

In my opinion the best console for the games was the SNES, but the best company of the time was SEGA by a long shot. As hinted at earlier, what they had to do and what they achieved in the market was well beyond what anyone could have expected, they came from no where to becoming one of the most revolutionary developers and publishers of the time creating and supporting some of the most unique video games that nobody could have imagined, and from nothing creating some of the best video game of its time. They created a mascot that still rivals Mario to this day, and they tapped into a youth culture through music and style that people look back on and still have fond memories of.

For me the Mega Drive has the best music of any console from any generation, still to this day, no matter how amazing and successful the SNES was, SEGA were and still are the winners to me.

 

that doesn't fly 22 years ago Remember back in the day most kids only had one or the other unless they were rich spoiled brats. YOU HAD TO Choose. It is kinda funny that the debate rages on even though my intent was just to relivie memories of debating which is better.

Either way memroies or rational over which is better it makes for good converstation. But "They're different things" Doesn't fly on the 90s school yard.

 

back then the atari 2600 jnr was still in stores lol my friend back then had one while i had the commodore 64 and sega master system (before getting a MD) but he got eh SMS and then a SNES.

either way unless you were a rich kid you only had one or the other SEGA or Nintendo in my area at the time it was predominantly SEGA.

It was a more simple time back then, no dark undertones, it didnt matter if we were beating up male or female characters, if there was a hero or heroine in a game or even no descriptive robots, aliens, monsters etc, bad guys were bad guys, good guys were good guys, you came to kick ass and chew bubble gum.

 

Was there ever an Intellivsion VS Atari VS Coleco debate? that I am not old enough to remember

 

The snes is technically the better machine and the games are still played to this day in my house by my kids...but yet the mega drive never gets used.

In my opinion sega did a fantastic PR job on the MD, but it was Nintendo that made the better console.