Sega v Nintendo

[Lee]

15 years ago it came down to a fight between two giants in the gaming world...in the blue corner you have Sega, and in the red corner Nintendo. Which was better? Before you answer, take a look at the various aspects;

History

Sega was founded in 1940 as Standard Games, in Hawaii. This was originally o provide coin-operated amusements for American servicemen on military bases. in 1951, the company moved to Japan and in 1952 registered its name SErvice GAmes of Japan. In 1983, Sega released its first console in Japan.

Nintendo was founded in 1889 as a playing card company. After various business ventures over the years, Nintendo hit a niche with their laser clay pigeon shooting system in 1973. Nintendo began to make video games in 1977, it was about this time they hired a student named Shigeru Miyamoto.

The consoles

Counting the worldwide console releases (major releases, not add on such as the Mega CD) you have;
Sega Master system v NES (8bit)
Sega GameGear v Nintendo Gameboy (handheld)
Sega Genesis/Megadrive v SNES
Sega Saturn (32 bit) v Nintendo 64 (64 bit)
Sega Dreamcast v Nintendo Gamecube (128 bit)

The games

Sega has brought us; Sonic, Alex Kidd, Altered Beast, Billy Hatcher, Jet set radio, Space channel 5, Golden Axe, Crazy Taxi, Phantasy Star and Nights, among others.

Nintendo have brought us; Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Metroid, Fire Emblem, Pikmin, Pokemon and Star fox among others.

So which company has had the biggest effect? Which areas were Nintendo best at, or Sega best at?

 

[drwow]

Nintendo Hands down. Nintendo did every smart decision that sega didn't.


Nintendo had the chance to add on a disc-based accessory so you could play disc games in the Super Nintendo.
They had the chance twice actually, once with philips (which later became the philips cd-i) and once with sony, (which later became the playstation)
having an add on like this to any system would've made the price for games jump even higher, due to increased costs of making the game. And they knew the gaming community just wasn't ready for the kind of price leap.


Sega on the other hand come out with there own invention, which was designed for the sega genisis, the Sega cd.
While the games were cheaper. (about $10 cheaper) the games were really nothing great, most of them were available for the sega genisis. so unless you really wanted FMV, there was no point in dropping $400 on it.
And plus, only about 200 games were available for it, in it's entire life.


The Game boy was the first handheld I had ever owned, or game system for that matter, the games were some of the funniest games I've ever played. Tetris, Super mario brother deluxe, legend of zelda, poke'mon
(shut up, it was an awesome game) there were some many good games for this handheld it's no surprise that nintendo even still to this day dominates the market with the handheld division. Even the add-ons for the game boy were awesome, you had the camera with which you could take pictures draw pictures and even print them out on a small piece of paper. it had rumble with certain games. They even released a mini-keybored for it!
Sadley however, the key-bored (it was called a work boy) wasn't made for the many games.


The Sega gamegear was a failure in my book. The system only came with a handful of decent (I'm not counting the ports from the genisis to the gamegear) the rechargable battery life was only about an hour or so long.
The game system it self was huge. This handheld was mostment for carrying around in the car or being able to play it on the couch.
The gamegears screen was also way to small, but, to get around this, Sega came out with an add-on which was basicly just a magnifing glass.
The only Redeemable thing about this system was the fact that you could buy a a special adapter so you could play the game gear on your tv,
Which was a short lived item, because when they re-released the gamegear in 2000, the newer system wasn't compatible.


The Nintendo 64 is one of the best and worst sytems.
first off, the games were just fantastic, you had so many choices,
Legend Of Zelda Ocarina Of Time/Majoras Mask, Donkey Kong 64, Golden eye, Hey You Pikachu (it made the best use of the microphone system),
Star craft 64, Star Fox 64, Super mario 64, Banjo Kazoo, and way way more.
The add-ons were awesome, the brought the rumble to the bigger consoles
You were able to transfer poke'mon from your gameboy to
poke'mon stadium 1 and 2, they had also made a bio-sensor made for tetris 64, that allowed you to hook up to your arm, so the faster your heart beated, the faster the blocks moved. But the system wasn't with it follies,
It released a Disk drive, you would hook up the disk drive to the Nintendo 64 and you could go online and play with other people, but it was too expensive and was never released outside of Japan. The lack of power in the 64 was a problem as well, they had to release a expansion pack for the 64 can't remember how much it was, but it probably wasn't cheap.
Also, as I've said before, the controllers were horrible.


The sega dreamcast was extremly overrated (I mean if you really look at the way people talk about it) The system itself was alright, the games weren't anything spectactular, they had a few good games, Sonic Adventure, Jet Grind Radio, Seag bass fishing (with the rod), Soul caliber, virtua Tennis,
Crazy taxi, Samba de amigo (with the maracas) and Marvel vs capcom. There are probably some more, but I can't think of any more right now.
The bragging about online is something that always made me angry. like there're the one's that started it, but what most people don't know, is that Super Nintendo had already come out with there own online playibility called the XBAND which allowed you to play some fighters over the internet.
The controller is nothing to be proud of, it was almost as big as the first generation xbox controllers!


As for right now, Sega isn't looking all that hot right now ether, the new Sonic game out is a poor attempt at best, it almost seems like there're trying to phase out the fast running we love, for more combat oriented gameplay.
Sega is going down a steep slope fast and it's only a matter of time before they hit the bottom.

 

[Doody-ka-ka]

I think there's no denying that Nintendo has always been a smart company. Altough they had a dry streak with the N64 and Gamecube, they came back and raped with the Wii.

But when it comes to Retro gaming, my favourite was the Genesis. I LOVED Streets of Rage, and several other games that I can even remember haha. I grew up with a Master System, switched to a Genesis and then finally to a PS1. All my friends had SNES', but I still liked my Genesis more.

Sad to see Sega's downfall though, they STILL haven't made a decent Sonic Game in 3d. The new Sonic Unleashed has awesome running parts, which are alot of fun, but then they add so much unneeded shit just to fill the game out.


Thankfully they hosted to birth of 2K Sports.