Did the SNES really win?

[Bottino]

This is incorrect. SNES didn't go on to outsell Genesis in any big way, until after it was discontinued.

What part of mainly did you not understand?

Also, i remember reading somewhere that the Genny 3 sales were around 2 million units or something.

[j_factor]

But Sega was DONE making any new Genesis stuff, so most didn't bother with the Majesco consoles released in these post-discontinuation years. Especially since existing Genesis games were found at fewer & fewer retailers. Sales of the Genesis 3's don't amount to much in the end.

While Nintendo was still releasing new SNES games and supporting the console.

Not really. In 1997, Sega released a few Genesis games, including The Lost World, World Series Baseball '98, and NFL '98. Nintendo's only first-party release that year was Kirby's Dream Land 3, along with publishing Space Invaders and Arkanoid from Taito. I might be missing something but it's roughly the same. Both systems also got the EA Sports lineup that year. SNES did have additional third-party releases in Harvest Moon and Lost Vikings II, so it had slightly more releases. Maybe 10 to 7. The following year, both consoles got precisely one release, Frogger.

The Genesis 3 sold decently on being a budget console. Majesco also reprinted quite a few games and sold them at a reduced price. The SNES had some reprints in the Players Choice line, but not as many.

[graffias79]

I take issue with the claim that the SNES's sound chip was "technically superior". It was an 8 channel sample player with a Gaussian interpolation filter run through an effects DSP. The problem with that was the puny amount of sound memory that the SPC unit was allowed. While being able to record and play back the sound of real instruments was great, they had to be very short and looped. Often you can hear the looping points because the sample isn't long enough to go through an entire phase. The Genesis on the other hand contained a Yamaha FM synthesizer with six 4-operator channels. Each channel was capable of generating 4 sine waves/operators and either outputting them or using some to modulate others. Each channel also contained an ADSR envelope. One channel could also be used to play back PCM audio. There was also a Z80 CPU that could be dedicated to run the sound chip independent from the main CPU. The Genesis also contained the same TI SN76489 based sound generator found in the Master System which added 3 square waves and a white noise generator. The SNES may have sounded more subdued but "technically superior" isn't a phrase I would use to describe it.

[True Grave]

I take issue with the claim that the SNES's sound chip was "technically superior". It was an 8 channel sample player with a Gaussian interpolation filter run through an effects DSP. The problem with that was the puny amount of sound memory that the SPC unit was allowed. While being able to record and play back the sound of real instruments was great, they had to be very short and looped. Often you can hear the looping points because the sample isn't long enough to go through an entire phase. The Genesis on the other hand contained a Yamaha FM synthesizer with six 4-operator channels. Each channel was capable of generating 4 sine waves/operators and either outputting them or using some to modulate others. Each channel also contained an ADSR envelope. One channel could also be used to play back PCM audio. There was also a Z80 CPU that could be dedicated to run the sound chip independent from the main CPU. The Genesis also contained the same TI SN76489 based sound generator found in the Master System which added 3 square waves and a white noise generator. The SNES may have sounded more subdued but "technically superior" isn't a phrase I would use to describe it.

All i know is that despite the Genesis being my favorite of the two consoles back in the day, games like Final Fantasy II and Link to the past on SNES still gave me an eargasm.

Genesis sound chip has its strengths too but, SNES chip could do some good stuff.

[GeckoYamori]

The only aspects that objectively make it technically more advanced is the true stereo panning and larger amount of memory. But since the nature of SNES sound is exponentially more memory dependant than generated synthesis, it becomes a gigantic bottleneck in many ways.

People who say it's technically superior often tend to be those who have little to no idea on how both chips actually work. There's also an correlation I've noticed in that the more trained and experienced you are with music and sound, the less you like the way most SNES games sound. The short looped instruments take away a lot of life and movement from the sounds, but most of all it's tuning issues that are rampant across SNES soundtracks.

[A Black Falcon]

What part of mainly did you not understand?

Also, i remember reading somewhere that the Genny 3 sales were around 2 million units or something.

Majesco initially projected that they thought they'd sell 1.5 million Genesis 3s, but then it sold even better than expected. Exact final sales aren't known, but 2 million is a good guess. And that was definitely above Nintendo's SNES sales in '98; the Genesis 3 was cheaper for quite a while, and sold very well.

This is incorrect. SNES didn't go on to outsell Genesis in any big way, until after it was discontinued.

First, as I said earlier, the question of which system sold better, SNES or Genesis, is pretty much unknown. Maybe the SNES sold better overall even before Sega's collapse in '95, or maybe it didn't; they were within a few million of eachother for sure. That seems like it should be a gap large enough to figure out who was ahead, but it isn't; it was too close to call, because back then good, accurate sales numbers didn't really exist.

So, the Genesis won over the TG16 from '89 to mid '91. Then the SNES and Genesis were close with who knows who winning overall from mid/late '91 to '94. Then Nintendo won from '95 to '97, and last most likely Sega won in '98 thanks to the Genesis 3. And after that the generation faded out. Who was ahead overall? I don't know.

After that, the SNES and Genesis were both discontinued in the US in 1998-1999. It's only Japan where the SNES outlasted the Genesis. In the North American market, though, are you thinking of how Sega cut back Genesis support in '95? That wasn't actually discontinuation. Sure, the SNES had a lot more game releases in '95 through '97, and certainly outsold the Genesis, but the Genesis was NOT discontinued, and Sega released games for the system until 1997. There were more SNES releases in '97 than Genesis releases, but Nintendo stopped supporting the SNES only slightly after Sega -- their last SNES game released in late '97, a few months after Sega's last Genesis game.

In North America, the SNES and Genesis each had only one game released for them in 1998 -- Majesco's port of Frogger. That Majesco Frogger port was the only SNES release in '98, and the only Genesis release in '98 as well.

Overall, I wouldn't be surprised if in the US the Genesis actually sold better, but there's no way to know for sure, and it could be the other way.

But Sega was DONE making any new Genesis stuff, so most didn't bother with the Majesco consoles released in these post-discontinuation years. Especially since existing Genesis games were found at fewer & fewer retailers. Sales of the Genesis 3's don't amount to much in the end.

While Nintendo was still releasing new SNES games and supporting the console.

As I've already said, millions of people bought the Genesis 3. It was a definite success, don't underrate it. The Genesis 3 and the games Majesco re-released were pretty easy to find in '98. It's after that that the system quickly vanished from stores, as the SNES did as well. Just because the Genesis faded in '95 doesn't mean it completely vanished! It didn't.

Not really. In 1997, Sega released a few Genesis games, including The Lost World, World Series Baseball '98, and NFL '98. Nintendo's only first-party release that year was Kirby's Dream Land 3, along with publishing Space Invaders and Arkanoid from Taito. I might be missing something but it's roughly the same. Both systems also got the EA Sports lineup that year. SNES did have additional third-party releases in Harvest Moon and Lost Vikings II, so it had slightly more releases. Maybe 10 to 7. The following year, both consoles got precisely one release, Frogger.

Right. Sega did indeed release more first-party titles in '97 than Nintendo, though Nintendo's one game was a major franchise title; Sega's last major franchise titles were back in '96, while their '97 games were just a few sports games and The Lost World. The Lost World is a good game, but in prominence it's no Kirby.

As for the total number of releases, I looked it up; the SNES had 10 games released in the US in '97 (3 EA Sports titles and 7 other games), while the Genesis had 6 (5 EA or Sega Sports games and one other game).

The Genesis 3 sold decently on being a budget console. Majesco also reprinted quite a few games and sold them at a reduced price. The SNES had some reprints in the Players Choice line, but not as many.

The Genesis 3 sold 1.5+ million systems and beat projections! It was a definite success. You can tell that it did well, because a few years later Majesco re-released the Game Gear in 2000, that time to much less success I believe... and they didn't try anything like it again after that. Majesco did indeed reprint a bunch of games for both systems (Genesis in '98 and GG in '00) too. They also released one new game for each of the two systems as well -- Frogger for the Genesis in '98 (though they released a SNES version at the same time, of course), and the apparently previously unreleased, but finished in 1994, Super Battletank for the Game Gear in 2000. (The only GG game released after Sega's last game, 1997's The Lost World!)

[Folco]

Yeah, we here in Europe prefer to call it Mega Drive. Mega Drive and Master System destroyed NES and SNES when it comes to European market. Hell, a lot of people out here don't even know what SNES even is.

SNES, winning the 16-bit war? Ha!

In Europe (we are talking about mostly western countries) it depended heavily on a per Country basis.
For example MD clearly outsold SNES in UK but I don't think the same could be said for Germany or France.

A similar argument could be made for NES and Master System.

Whatever outsold what in Europe it wasn't by a huge margin (no one "destroyed" anything).