Super Nintendo vs Sega Genesis

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About

Super Nintendo vs Sega Genesis refers to the debate of preference between Nintendo's 16-bit Super Nintendo Entertainment System console and Sega's 16-bit Genesis console released in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The debate over console preference has raged on since the 90s and has been a staple debate amongst gaming outlets about which console was better.

Origin

On August 14th, 1989, almost a year after its initial release in Japan, video game company Sega released the Sega Genesis (known as the Mega Drive in Japan), to the North American market. At the time of its release, Nintendo dominated the video game market with its 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). With the release of the Genesis, Sega brought with it a marketing strategy to promote their brand new video game console, commenting on how the console had more powerful hardware and had 16-bit graphic capabilities, unlike Nintendo's NES. The marketing strategy was cemented with the advertisement slogan of "Genesis does what Nintendon't."

On August 23rd, 1991, Nintendo released its new 16-bit console, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (referred to as the SNES or Super Nintendo) to the North American market. Boasting more powerful graphical capabilities than its predecessor, the console was prepped for similar success with their previous console. While the side by side hardware comparison between the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis leaned towards Nintendo's favor, the Genesis had a more powerful processor in its hardware, allowing it to run games at faster speeds compared to the SNES. Sega's marketing team took advantage of this strength and used it in their advertisements against Nintendo, coining the term "blast processing."

Marketing strategies between Nintendo and Sega differed from each other, with Nintendo often marketing the Super Nintendo as a more "family-friendly" console to consumers, with the likes of its company mascot Mario, while Sega marketed the Genesis as the "cooler" console, often utilizing its at the time newly made mascot Sonic the Hedgehog. Over the course of the fourth console generation's sales cycles, ultimately, the Super Nintendo would end up edging out Sega in the end, with worldwide unit sales of 49.1 million for the Super Nintendo, and 35.25 million for the Sega Genesis.

Spread

Despite the debate of console preference peaking in the 90s among gamers, the debate would resurface online years later. One of the earliest debates online can be traced back to November 17th, 2011 when YouTube channel Console Wars uploaded their first video to the channel, a comparison of Aladdin games between Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, the comparison between the consoles being the centric theme of the channel.

On August 13th, 2012, James Rolfe of Cinemassacre and Angry Video Game Nerd fame created a two-part video series with part 1 discussing the history of the rivalry between Nintendo and Sega in the 16-bit era, and part 2 comparing the two consoles' strengths, weaknesses and library of games. The combined total view count between the videos has garnered over 6 million views as of November 23, 2020.

Many other gaming YouTube channels would weigh in on the debate over the years as well, including media outlet WatchMojo, gaming news channel ReviewTechUSA, and many more. The debate between Nintendo and Sega was also being weighed in on by entertainment outlets.

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