Opinions That Don't Matter Volume 2: Sega vs Nintendo

Sega vs Nintendo. Just seeing that phrase makes me think of my childhood and the 1990's, and as such also makes me think of flannel, grunge music, FOX Kids, Bugle Boy, bowl cuts, and people who look like the extras from Wayne's World. But the Sega vs Nintendo 'rivalry' didn't start in the 90's, it obviously began in the 80's, wherein I was swimming around in a pair of testicles for most of the decade. The first console I ever played, though, was the Sega Master System, and it was amazing. I didn't own an NES, but my aunt did, and all she had was Super Mario Bros and a bunch of shitty third party movie based licensed games. And seriously, people, most 8 bit games are terrible now and were terrible back then, too. We just played them because they were all we had, but deep down we knew. Oh, we knew.

My experience with the NES was limited and the Master System, despite being superior, had no good 'name' franchises like Mario or Zelda. Plus it's not like it was marketed well (at least in North America), and Nintendo had more of a stranglehold on the video game market than Chris Benoit did on... too soon. Way too soon. But that all changed when the Sega Genesis came out, because Sega actually gave a shit about it and marketed it aggressively. Hit arcade titles I could play in the comfort of my own home? Wow! These games suck! Okay, the launch titles for the Genesis sucked, but the graphics were amazing and it excited me beyond the point that I should have been excited.

The first games I remember getting that were actually really 'good' for the Genesis were Castle of Illusion and of course, Sonic the Hedgehog. Put yourself in the shoes of a child in 1991 and compare the crisp graphics and rapid speed of Sonic to a plodding, dull NES game and you'll realize why Sega and the Genesis was the first company to take the ball from Nintendo. Plus the Genesis had awesome plastic cases for its games, and not until the new millenium did Nintendo decide to stop being asses and putting their games in cardboard boxes that were easily bent and lost.

But then, uh oh, Nintendo got fucking pissed and they released the Super Nintendo in August of 1991, roughly two months after Sonic came out. And truthfully, I didn't care, because I thought the Genesis was so awesome by that point. We had no internet back then, there was no way to see much of the SNES in action, outside of word of mouth and the occasional video game magazine. That's also the reason why we all ended up buying such shitty games all the time back then, too; there was no internet and we didn't care about magazines, so every game we got or asked for would just be a blind buy that we though looked cool, and if it sucked, oh well.

My aunt got the SNES, probably in hopes of my sister and I spending more time at her house, the fat bitch. But boy did she fuck up, because outside of Super Mario World her library was a potpouri of shit, such as Krusty's Fun House and Wayne's World (Ah, two references to Wayne's World in one article, the first time such a feat has been accomplished since 1995.) So we didn't care about the SNES at all, and I ignorantly though that it sucked, because she had such bad games. But then I stumbled onto an old issue of GamePro, back when it wasn't awful, and I actually got my mom to buy me some SNES games I thought looked cool, to play at her house.

Back then I had no clue about most of the awesome games for the SNES, because I really had no means outside of television commercials and comic book ads. And since I didn't own an SNES, I couldn't play it often, because going over my aunt's house was the equivalent of saying goodbye to any sense of humanity for a day. The Genesis was my main means of video game delight, and then what happens? Sega fucks up with all their accessories no one cared about, most notably the 32X, which came out shortly before their lauded Saturn. Fans felt lied to and support for the Genesis died out while the SNES perservered well into 1996, before making way for the Nintendo 64.

So then I guess you could say it became a matter of the Saturn vs the Nintendo 64, right? Well tough shit, because the PlayStation entered the fray and since it was superior in every way to the Saturn, no one cared about the Saturn. Which is a shame, because I actually liked the Saturn. By that time, CD based video game media was the hot new thing, and both the PlayStation and Saturn utilized it, while Nintendo stuck with cartridges for the N64. And maybe it was just my Saturn, but just getting it to play a game felt like how someone in 1985 getting their first computer and booting it up must have felt like.

The last Sega console we'd ever see was the Dreamcast, released in late 1999. The N64 and the PlayStation were still its main competition, and it was technically superior to both - but uh oh, next year the PlayStation 2's coming out, let's wait for that. I think people were still pissed at the shit Sega pulled with the Sega 32X that they still distrusted them and were wary about investing in a Saturn and a Dreamcast. A couple years later, Sega would be out of the console makin' business and became more of a focused game developer, making games for Sony, Microsoft and, surrealy, Nintendo.

What's the lesson to be learned here? Mussolini faked his death? No, there is no lesson. The 90's were awesome for me in many ways, video game especially. The days of the Genesis and SNES are my fondest of all video game memories, followed closely by the N64 and PlayStation 1 era. It's a shame Sega phased itself out, but at least they're still relevent. Sony sort of took its place and ended up kicking Nintendo's ass, then Microsoft threw its 80's aviator glasses into the mix. For the past year I've been collecting a lot of old Genesis and SNES games I never had a chance to play in my youth, so I'm getting sort of a second 'look' at the 16 bit era, which is fun. But I'm not getting any more NES games, for the sake of all that is good and pure.