You're Not Seeing Things, This Is Star Fox On The Sega Mega Drive / Genesis

I have to admit that this is one of the most impressive things I've ever seen anyone achieve on a stock Genesis/Mega Drive.

What it tells me though, just as much as how impressive the Genesis is at crunching numbers under the hood, is that, clearly, the real Star Fox can't be even close to squeezing out the full power of the FX chip. I mean, I would think in pretty much every single way the FX chip is surely beyond the technical specs of a stock Genesis, from raw speed (Genesis 7.68 Mhz, FX 10.7 Mhz) to polygons-per-second numbers (don't actually know, but one is a stock console never meant to display 3D polygons, and the other is a chip pretty much solely made for that exact purpose) and so on, so, you'd have to imagine that someone putting the same amount of time (more than eight years at this point) and dedication into pushing it as much as this guy has done with the stock Genesis would be able to achieve much more than we've ever seen from it, and particularly in terms of getting that framerate up to at least a rock-solid 20 fps and maybe even 30 fps, never mind putting more polygons on-screen too. So, I think that would also be real interesting to see as well.

It's also interesting to note that even the stock SNES is capable of half-decent 3D polygon visuals too, as seen in this Star Trek game actually released on the console back in the '90s for example, although there's nothing on-par with the stock Genesis Star Fox demo above:

https://youtu.be/hcKsWmBcE-k

https://youtu.be/VqHhIbB4SLQ?t=216

So, it would even be interesting to see what could be achieved on a stock SNES when pushed to its absolute limits 30+ years later and with all the knowledge gained since then, with as many years of development time on the project as this guy has dedicated, and as much love and passion poured into it as has obviously been given to this Star Fox demo on Genesis.

Regardless, on a stock Genesis--while I think it looks a little below the min threshold to be truly fun to play as the original just managed within its own frame-rate limitations, but it might actually be fine--this achievement with Star Fox really is mind blowing at a technical level.

As above it seems to Megadrive's vastly superior CPU is the key to this, just a shame Sega didn't put more stock into the SVP chip back then instead of dead ends like the 32X as we could have got some truly amazing late gen games to bridge the gap to the Saturn, instead of the crazy muddled hardware situation we did get

This looks amazing, have been following this one, and Gasega68k for a while now

And maybe it is time to end the whole narrative about the Mega Drive having the weaker sound chip? It's not weaker, it's just different. In fact, time has been particularly kind to the YM2612 sound chip. In the right hands, it can do SNES music just fine...

Castlevania IV - Theme of Simon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm7sT87AXFA

PLOK! - Beach:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XydJ8sF4AJU

Breath of Fire 2 - Random Battle + Boss Battle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk1M2MCCCys

Looks great, but the Megadrive obviously has a big indie scene pushing the system further and further. If the Snes had this I'm sure it could do even more incredible stuff.

@carlos82 To be clear, it's not a "vastly" superior CPU, but it is faster in raw speed, at 7.67 MHz on Genesis vs 3.58 MHz on SNES. That's a bit over twice as fast purely on paper.

Although, the SNES CPU is actually similar levels of more efficient than the Genesis CPU is faster, being able to process instructions typically every 2 or 3 cycles vs the Genesis that manages to process instructions every 4 cycles at best and in some cases takes as many as 12 cycles.

The SNES VDP is apparently also much more efficient too:

https://youtu.be/r7Jh_izIc8Q

Each machine has its strengths and weakness under the hood, and a single raw number on paper is never as clear-cut an indicator of which is "vastly" superior as it seems, especially when you factor in everything else that's important in producing a complete game from the visuals and sound to gameplay and controls.

But, realistically, with everything taken into account, the Genesis is better at pushing around raw data and the like, which is more suited to generating 3D graphics via pure brute force alone. Not that 3D is really anything of note on either of these consoles. There's less than a handful of 3D games across both system generally worth giving a crap about. 2D is where it's at, and how they perform there is a far more important thing.

None of that takes away how impressive this Star Fox demo on Genesis is mind you. It's stunning.

@Axelay71 I have literally zero doubt about that. I don't think it could match the Genesis in terms of 3D, certainly not stock system vs stock system, but when it comes to 2D, it's a whole other matter.

Here are just a few examples of the stock SNES doing some impressive stuff in the 2D space, much of which just can't be matched on Genesis:

https://youtu.be/7LAY4ulp63Y

https://youtu.be/q_Cs1F9NFYs

https://youtu.be/TG-KDvn7Rl0?t=217

https://youtu.be/sRBX2GbGr2M?t=152

https://youtu.be/IyrOCNQc_rs

https://youtu.be/oCiSEChgjC4

https://youtu.be/MsS6Wvuzj8k

https://youtu.be/tVg8m_BYqcw?t=1740

https://youtu.be/DM9B36ZvH7M?t=223

https://youtu.be/ATW5uBC62vE?t=1466

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/345276-question-about-mode-3s-full-colour-capablities/?do=findComment&comment=5183891

https://youtu.be/I7kJCfuHSwY?t=3570

https://youtu.be/Tl7D25I6yDc?t=2833

Etc.

Having far more colours, proper transparency, up to twice as many background layers, Mode 7, HDMA, window/shape masking, etc, goes a long way to giving SNES some unique capabilities in the 16-bit era of 2D visuals. The SNES' sound chip and controller also have their own advantages and sometimes disadvantages as well.

And Genesis also has its own strengths too. The Star Fox demo above clearly shows its 3D prowess, and there's many great games that show off its 2D prowess similarly, like almost everything created by Treasure (Gunstar Heroes, Alien Soldier, Dynamite Headdy, Yu Yu Hakusho Makyō Tōitsusen, etc).

But, yeah, I'd really love to see more people showing off what SNES can do in the modern homebrew scene.

The Genesis has and is receiving plenty of the love. In comparison, the SNES, which was by far the most popular and beloved console of the 16-bit era, is receiving nowhere near the love it deserves by the modern development community, all things being relative. It probably won't until someone creates a proper SDK though. But there's obviously still so much untapped potential there.

I mean, there was that recent revelation by Randy Linden, the original SNES Doom programmer, where he said that just by using SNES HDMA, he believes he could increase the frame-rate of that game from 12 fps to 25 fps, which is a huge increase, and he has intentions of actually implementing:

https://youtu.be/BIauSQ_hIgo?t=887

And that's something that was really only discovered in recent times. So, just imagine what else we haven't seen the SNES do that it could. . . .

@RetroGames don't worry my vastly comment was a little tongue in cheek due to all of the blast processing marketing we had back then. Still I am going to check a couple of those videos out as I would like to learn more about each

@carlos82 Well, then you'll love this in regards to "Blast Processing":

http://gendev.spritesmind.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=3341

That really just changes the entire narrative there, especially the later posts that show what the SNES can do in the same space without any such marketing terms.

And, also, there's stuff like this too:

https://youtu.be/DlrxKECsogE

@AJB83 Well, the sound chip isn't "weak" on Genesis, but, par for par, I think the SNES can just do more with eight channels of PCM than the Genesis can manage with its 6 channels of FM (or random variations where you can make one of them PCM and so on) plus the four legacy Master System PSG channels, for the most part. In the right hands though, and depending on what sound you're actually after, both can produce great results.

I mean, I love the intro music in Streets of Rage 2 for example:

https://youtu.be/B6bFGGwZcko

Just as much as I love stuff like this:

https://youtu.be/hUcmkDTuU_I

https://youtu.be/uaSzPReU2_E?t=79

https://youtu.be/7NqV_6EngB8

https://youtu.be/1XM8ReW9NvA

https://youtu.be/wi-NxM1EaXM

https://youtu.be/UT4uMVdZ4nU

https://youtu.be/1LnnxaOh18U

https://youtu.be/bzMkLquzY_c

https://youtu.be/byIjMomjWkA

And, similar to what you demonstrated above, the SNES sound chip can also replicate Genesis music pretty well too:

https://youtu.be/wJFqliQuPtA

https://youtu.be/0mz7EXjNdEw

https://youtu.be/8V8q6Q7TmUw

https://youtu.be/_LKMQuARkDw

https://youtu.be/0TlndPCJWBw

@carlos82 The SVP is cool, but it wasn't a viable foundation for a bunch of new Mega Drive projects. Virtua Racing carts were absurdly expensive, both for manufacturing and customers, and basically an act of PR desperation to prop up a console that had only ever been designed to replicate Sega's 1988 arcade games. Sega were flailing in every direction in '94, supporting the Master System, Game Gear, Mega Drive, Pico, Mega CD, 32X, Saturn and cutting-edge arcade games for different territories and hypothetical demographics. There was no chance of keeping all those plates spinning at once, and the SVP was one of their least sustainable experiments.

@87th Yeah, I think that's sadly true.

Unlike with SNES' enhancement chips, which the system was actually designed with in mind and were used in many titles starting from literally day one, Pilotwings, the Genesis just wasn't designed for this kind of use. The SVP was basically an example of Sega forcing a square peg into a round hole, although it still did an amazing job with Virtua Racing regardless. And I'm sure that no one at the time really cared about whether it was a stock game or a game with a chip or whatever, on either system. But the sheer cost of it per cartridge at the time shows that more than it being a simple "enhancement" chip, which often came at no extra cost to the end consumer on SNES and were used in around 70 games to often great effect (Star Fox, Super Mario Kart, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Doom, Chatty Parodius, Mega Man X2/X3, Super Mario RPG, Star Ocean, Kirby's Dream Land 3, Yoshi's Island, etc), the SVP was pretty much just another [single-use] console add-on for the system like the Sega CD/Mega CD and 32X. It really only fitted into a cartridge because it came out pretty far into the system's life and Sega was willing to pass the additional expense onto the consumer.

Still, it just goes to show that you could have kept expanding the functionality of these consoles almost forever if you really wanted too.

I mean, look, the "SNES" can do proper ray tracing:

https://youtu.be/VeFF344NbZ4

Suuure.

Although, to be clear, that video of it doing ray tracing is indeed real. It's just that, while I think any commercial games from the '90s that used expansion chips on these systems gets a pass because they were just normal cartridge games from the consumer's perspective, other than a price hike in some cases, this kind modern day extreme expansion of the capabilities of these ancient systems isn't really the same thing as far as I'm concerned.

@87th

I'm not saying you are wrong, broadly. but.

Virtua Racing was 100 dollars at launch.

late gen high-meg carts on SNES (and probably genesis, but I'm speaking from what I know) were also quite expensive. I remember my copy of earthbound was 80 bucks at the time, and final fantasy 3 was even higher than that IIRC.)

subsequent scp carts would likely have been less expensive. I think it could have evened out, particularly if the emphasis was there instead of on 32x. alas!

@-wc- Sure, but I doubt many would place as much value on a 3-track racer as an RPG. I remember some late-release SNES games being fairly expensive. I think Donkey Kong Country 3 was £60 over here. That had a lot more to offer to value-conscious consumers than an arcade port, though. Even on PlayStation and Saturn, where the prices were evened out, the arcade games didn't sell nearly as well as bespoke console titles.

@87th

"Sure, but I doubt many would place as much value on a 3-track racer as an RPG"

you have completely overestimated gamers' appetite or even awareness of RPGS in the early 90s, compared to the almost universally voracious appetite for 3D polygonal graphics and arcade quality gameplay.

top ten Sega Saturn best selling games

*arcade ports

Madden NFL 97
Nights Into Dreams
*Virtua Fighter 2
*Daytona USA
*Virtua Cop
Tomb Raider
*Sega Rally Championship
Sonic 3D Blast
World Series Baseball
Panzer Dragoon

sports games - 2
exclusives - 2
console ports/non exclusives - 2
arcade ports - 4
RPGS - 0

arcade ports were HUGELY popular at the time, you couldn't read through the pre/reviews section of a game mag and not read the phrase "arcade perfect" at least a couple times.

I think you are thinking of the LATE 90s, when arcades had started to fall out of favor, and "bespoke console titles" (especially RPGS) started to take over. but we are talking about Sega genesis, here.

(CAVEAT: I'm talking about my own perspective, in the United States. seems worth mentioning 👍)

I seem to remember rumours back in the day of building an SVP chip into a pass-through cart like Sonic & Knuckles with the idea that you’d only need to pay for the expensive chip once and then the games could be cheaper.

I wonder if the 32X killed that idea or if someone got their wires crossed and the 32X was the rumoured “pass-through cartridge”? It’s been so long now I can’t remember where I even heard that rumour (hopefully it wasn’t from someone whose uncle worked at Sega 😅).

As cool as it is to see Starfox on base MD hardware, I’d be really interested to see it running on the SVP and see how it could handle it.

@BulkSlash I heard that and looked into it a few years back. It was in some of the magazines so it was a rumor that was out there. There's not a lot of info in that regard, but I think there was some consideration for that and it fits Sega's style at the time. I believe there's a youtube video that compiled all the info about it. At that point, the issues between SoA and SoJ will building up and the Japanese side wanted to move on to the next system for obvious reasons.

@RetroGames Yeah. Regarding the SNES sound chip and its advantages and disadvantages, while I love FM sound when it's done well, which can be extremely versatile, it was clear the future would involve sample-based sound. Not only could it do so much, including replicate FM-style sound, but it would also likely be easier to use not needing to be able to program for FM. For the SNES, it seemed that memory limitations were the biggest problems, both the system's audio memory and cartridge limitations. And that was just the nature of things at the time, as I'm sure you know. Since the Super Famicom was released in 1990, it was early on in the adoption of sample-based audio for games, even among the arcade side.

@sdelfin Sample-based music wasn't gaming's future either though, that was bypassed too and turned into fully recorded pieces. Game music (and all recorded music) of course now use a blend of everything; live instruments & vocals, sample-based audio AND synthesis.

Both were using technologies still in play today, just in a vastly advanced form. Technology has refined these technologies, and things like VST plug-ins have made previously difficult things like FM synthesis a good deal more simple. I doubt you can listen to the Top 40 these days and not hear a pop/dance song without a permutation of the woody FM bass in it; it is all the rage

@-wc- No, that's fair. I was thinking more of early PS1 releases, like Street Fighter Alpha and Gradius Deluxe, which were derided at the time for not being showcases of the PS1's power. Even Tekken 3 could be considered an arcade port, even if the PlayStation version was massively expanded.

whats with the megadrive homebrew community ?

seems like they have a massive chip on their shoulder and so spend time and effort to try and ‘one-up’ the SNES and extract every last ounce of power from a 35 year old piece of tech.

From recent memory we’ve had Mario world on the megadrive, F-Zero, Final fight and now Starfox plus they’re upgrading games like Streetfighter and Mortal Kombat to try and make them graphically on par with the snes versions as if they can then run around saying ‘we’ve won the console wars!’

Get over it lads - if you want to play any of these games just pick up a snes or better still the arcade versions as they’re still superior and your machine makes fart noises.

@bryce951 It's crazy that you see the whole scene that way . If that is all you get from a happy corner of the internet producing some really cool things, then I truly feel sorry for you.

These comments make great reading.

Picking up on the thread of the SVP in plug in cart form….I read that rumour too. I know Codemasters (who were making the Game Genie at the time) filed this type of design with the patent office in the US and perhaps that prevented sega from taking the idea further. Virtua Racing was a great but expensive console game. Playing now versus Strunt Race FX is night and day - from a co trip perspective at least. Ritual racing is far more playable (although I still love stunt race you definitely need rosier tinted specs va virtua racing).

I really enjoyed reading the above comments. Thank you.

@Hikingguy There were 49.1 million SNES systems sold back in the day vs around 35 million Genesis systems (that includes the Brazilian variations and the $50 bargain-bin Genesis 3). And in modern times the SNES Classic Mini sold 5.28 million units and the Genesis Mini managed around 300,000. That's a roughly 19-1 sales ratio for a new "SNES" console in recent times vs a new "Genesis" console. And, not only that, but there are still many SNES games that regularly appear in every Top 100 Games of All Time list, whereas there are usually no Genesis games, or maybe one or two if you're lucky. See IGN's most recent Top 100 Games of All Time list for a perfect example of this:

https://www.ign.com/articles/the-best-100-video-games-of-all-time

So, I think it's reasonable to state the SNES was "by far the most popular and beloved console of the 16-bit era", and indeed, still is vastly more popular among the mainstream gaming consumers, at least based on any actual data and metrics we can reasonably use to determine such things.

And those two years you refer to being an eternity: Exactly, the Genesis has a two year head start over SNES, largely directly uncontested in the world market, and the SNES still managed to outsell it worldwide by around 15 million units when all was said and done.

It's true that Nintendo had time to make the SNES even more powerful than it ultimately was--I honestly wish it had now--but the truth is that really the only major technical thing holding the SNES back from basically being far beyond the Genesis is that raw CPU speed, and it's clear Nintendo planned to go with a faster CPU initially, with reports it was even discussing having stuff like the SA1 and/or FX chip in there from the get-go, but then it intentionally scaled things back there to save a bit of cost, knowing fine well it could just put enhancement chips in its carts where and when needed to balance that out. And, once it made that decision, it absolutely embraced it full-on. So, yeah, what could have been, but what we got was very intentionally so.

Remember, while every SNES owner could simply buy a large selection of pretty cutting-edge enhancement-chip games like Pilotwings, Super Mario Kart, Star Fox, Doom, Chatty Parodius, Super Mario RPG, Kirby's Dream Land 3, Mega Man X2/X3, Street Fighter 2 Alpha, Yoshi's Island, etc, which, from the consumer's perspective were just more standard [but hugely impressive] games for the system, the Genesis owners, other than with Virtua Racing (that cost more than any SNES title at the time by some margin), had to spend $300 extra to own a Sega CD/Mega CD and/or another $160 for a 32X (with its grand total of 40 games) to play any games that went beyond the Genesis' stock capabilities. And, with hindsight, we can kinda see where decisions like that ultimately lead each company. So, I guess people can judge what was the better approach there at the end of the day.

People are doing some dang amazing stuff with the Genesis in modern times, and it's certainly seeing a lot more homebrew games release for it regularly than SNES too, no doubt about it, but it was back in the '90s when those system truly mattered, and it was back then that SNES owners could actually play all those genuinely mind-boggling and cutting-edge SNES cartridge games like Star Fox, Doom, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Far East of Eden, Stunt Race FX, Yoshi's Island, Vortex, etc, directly on the default console, while, other than Virtua Racing, the Genesis owners were playing some great but otherwise pretty standard Genesis titles for the life of that console, unless they forked out hundreds of extra dollars for those add-on devices. That's a huge difference between what each system and indeed gamers on each of them was getting back when they truly mattered in the market versus the handful of new games we're seeing for mostly one of them just now that a tiny niche of gamers are ever going to truly care about in modern times. And I say that as someone who absolutely wants more new games for SNES too.

I love that we're seeing new games for ancient systems even today, and I'm blown away by some of the stuff that's coming out on Genesis, but these systems absolutely can't be properly and fairly judged by today's standards but rather by what they gave us in their own time, which was the '90s. From genuinely cutting-edge 3D stuff like Star Fox, which predated Virtua Racing on Genesis by quite some time, to even non-enhanced titles like Donkey Kong Country, which was so impressive upon its initial reveal that many people actually thought it was from Nintendo's next generation console--I don't recall a single game on Genesis even remotely achieving such a feat back in the day--I think it's more than reasonable to say that the standalone SNES definitely gave us more cutting-edge and indeed mind-boggling games that blew us away regularly back then than Genesis did.

But, man, the Genesis homebrew scene is certainly doing a stellar job of trying to somewhat change the narrative and/or re-write history in modern times though, that's for sure.

@rob7979 Yeah, I've never personally rated Stunt Race FX, and I think Virtua Racing is easily the better of those two polygonal racers on these beloved 16-bit consoles, for sure.

Of course, I'd rather play F-Zero than every single other racing game on any home console from that generation and indeed any console ever up until that generation, by a long ways, so I guess I think it's more important to properly play to a console's strength and just make a great game in its own right than it is to focus more on tech at the end of the day. Or, as in F-Zero's case, if you can do both at world-class level, you're onto a winner all round.

To be honest, 3D just wasn't what these consoles were good for. There's barely a handful of 3D games on either of these 16-bit systems I even rate. Star Fox is the best 3D console game of that generation imo, but that's actually more because of Nintendo's world-class game design to be honest. Although, admittedly, it was also pretty dang stunning graphically upon release too. And that amazing audio and some genuinely fun gameplay certainly didn't harm it at the time. But, really, it only holds up now due to that great Nintendo design and first class gameplay and timeless audio than really anything to do with 3D the tech.

Virtua Racing on Genesis isn't too bad either. Although I personally don't rate it on the same level as say Star Fox on SNES, even with the SVP's clearly more advanced 3D capabilities.

@Hikingguy The official first party Genesis numbers are 30.75 million, and the additional 3rd party figures make it around 35 million at best, which includes sales of the Brazilian models and $50 bargain bin Genesis 3 like I said. This is still quite some ways off 40 million, and we can't just accept magicking five additional million out of thin air. Any people or sites you've seen telling you otherwise either don't really understand the numbers or have an agenda as far as I'm concerned. Also, we don't count stuff like the Nomad and the JVC X'Eye as "Genesis" numbers, just like we don't count the SNES arcade system or the on-plane systems or the Sharp SNES TV, etc, as "SNES" numbers. I've even seen one site actually include the Sega CD/Mega CD and 32X sales figures in that total "Genesis" number--that's just desperate. We need stop letting bad actors try to skew these numbers into absurd territory just to try and rewrite history so they don't have to accept the objective truth of the 16-bit era. SNES easily outsold the Genesis worldwide, by around 15-20 million units based on both official and generally known third party numbers, and we can't pretend otherwise.

Comparing Minis does nothing more than show that there's 19-1 more people out there who got a new "SNES" console vs a new "Genesis" console in modern times. Neither you nor I know any meaningful narrative beyond that, but I personally think it speaks volumes about where these two consoles sit in modern culture.

Exactly, other than say the FX chip, which was huge news at the time and reported in all the magazines, most people just bought SNES and Genesis games as per normal and never thought more on it than that. This is not the same when buying the likes of the Sega CD/Mega CD and 32X though, obviously.

No one I knew played Doom on the SNES either. And, you're correct: Randy Linden, the guy who originally coded SNES Doom, has already confirmed that he could almost certainly increase the frame-rate from around 12 fps currently to around 25 fps simply by using the SNES standard built-in HDMA to tweak a couple of things. Here's the link to him talking about that: https://youtu.be/BIauSQ_hIgo?t=887

What I'm trying to get it is that you are also correct there too, that the homebrew scene really has been trying to squeeze the absolute most out of Genesis for years now, and they've done an utterly stellar job. And now I'm very interested in seeing what more the homebrew/indie dev scene could do with the SNES if they gave it the same attention going forward. Because, at this point, I think we've seen the Genesis be pushed to its limits pretty much across the board, give or take, whereas I know for a fact that the SNES has far more left to give that remains almost completely untapped. And, because I have already stated that the SNES was/is the most popular and beloved console of its generation and continues to be the most popular and beloved system from that generation even now, I think it also deserves its relative amount of love from the development community--and plenty of awesome new games just like Genesis.

Basically, the Genesis is doing so well in the homebrew/indie scene that it really doesn't need the likes of me to prop it up even further; it's already sorted there (although I can still acknowledge these stunning achievements). But I wholeheartedly believe the SNES absolutely needs and indeed deserves more homebrew/indie support than it's getting right now, and now I'd like to see that happen.

@RetroGames I think most of us want to see that happen. New games are new games, and the more on retro consoles, the better. I have well and truly fallen off the AAA wagon, almost nothing these days interests me in that sector. Graphics don't impress me much any more either, everything looks quite similar these days. I pretty much rely on what indie dev teams create to cater to my needs. I like seeing what people can do with limited hardware, and when they do something amazing, I am taken back to those times when I was a kid of being blown away by graphics and sound. Xeno Crisis has done that for me recently, as has Doom 32X Resurrection.

I wonder why the SNES has no SGDK equivalent yet? SEGA in the 90s had a strong presence in markets where bedroom coding was totally a thing, maybe that's it? Who knows?

One thing I know for sure; I would love to see new Arcade Racers for the Mega Drive and SNES. To see how far raster racing games could be pushed on the Mega Drive with everything we know now would be incredible, and who wouldn't want to see more Mode 7 racers for the SNES?

If possible, it would be amazing to see if Mode 7 could be used in conjuction with polygons? Think the Street Racer port for the Saturn. I don't know how fast it would run, but it would be an interesting thing to see attempted!

@AJB83 Totally agree on all of that.

And, regarding more racing games, if they could achieve this with Mode 7 on SNES back in the '90s, just imagine what they could do now in the racing genre with all we've learned and a larger cartridge to include more frames of animation for vehicles and so on:

https://youtu.be/sRBX2GbGr2M?t=152

And, similarly, look at what they did on Genesis back in the '90s too, with what looks like proper 3D no less:

https://youtu.be/xwbzga9P3XU?t=212

Interestingly, in many ways, I find that game on Genesis even more impressive than the Star Fox demo. I'm not sure how they differ in terms of the way they're doing 3D, but that game seems to have more geometry to my eyes and also looks to run at a really good framerate too--and this was achieved back in the '90s in a normal game development time--which is bonkers.

Genesis really could do some impressive 3D stuff, given it was never even intended for that in the first place.

@RetroGames Yeah, I loved Kawasaki Super Bike Challenge. I am quite certain that it used the same engine as Domark's F1, which was just as impressive and smooth. They both played great too, with really satisfying controls; definitely a step-up over the regular fare.

Yeah, I'd love to see new racers for those consoles with today's knowledge taken into account

@Hikingguy Nintendo has released most of its important first party games on digital services on its various systems since the Wii and DS, and third parties have released most of them pretty much across every digital platform and some physical at this point too. It's not like it's hard to get access to SNES titles and the only way people could play them was to go out and buy a SNES Classic Mini. And, yes, Sega allowed third parties to release a bunch of rubbish officially-licensed knock-offs before both companies decided to release two high-quality mini systems that fans of each system properly gave a crap about for the first time, so I'm sure a few tens of thousands or maybe a few hundreds of thousands who actually bought the crappy Genesis knock-offs could be factored into the Genesis Mini side of things, but not anywhere close to over 4.5 million.

And let's not encourage anyone trying to rewrite history: The official first party sales figures for the Sega Genesis are 30.75 million (before Sega stopped manufacturing systems themselves and left third parties to continue with some models), and those third party models sit at around 5 million for the Brazilian variations and the $50 bargain bin Genesis 3 combined. That's an overall number of around 35 million Genesis consoles sold in its lifespan. These are mostly very known numbers, and certainly with the first party figures. Anything else is pure manipulation designed to encourage people who are ignorant of the facts to spread misinformation, or indeed just pure ignorance of the numbers.

But, regardless, you can try to put whatever narrative you want on it, the sales numbers speak for themselves, both the numbers from the '90s and the numbers from modern times.

The difference between the SNES and Genesis original '90s console sales figures is between 15 and 20 million units in SNES' favour. That's a gap between the two of more units than many actual consoles have managed in their lifespan, such as the Master System, PC Engine, Neo Geo, 3DO, Sega Saturn, Dreamcast, Wii U, and almost even the GameCube, etc.

If one console outsold another by 15-20 million units when the highest-selling console of the whole 16-bit generation managed 49.1 million units total, that is a huge difference between first and second place, and it's a clear sign that, overall, not only was one of them more popular by far, but, unless you want to imagine all those SNES owners hated their consoles, loved by more people too.

And, yeah, if we're talking about polls, most SNES vs Genesis polls that I've seen on sites that aren't specifically dedicated to one system or the other have the SNES ahead in votes by about the same percentage it won in sales. It's not any more complicated than that.

You act as if I'm saying something unfair or untrue here--I'm not. All I'm saying is the SNES was/is more popular and beloved than the Genesis, and the sales figures then and now, plus whatever polls, plus all the Best Games of All Time lists, etc, all speak to that. But, the Genesis is far more popular in the homebrew/indie community right now, that's for sure too.

"I think you believe everything you say is true, but being fair is questionable. I do not believe SEGA ever officially released totals. If you can show me an official SEGA document, I will believe. But I think the totals are higher than what Wikipedia says." - You

So, here's the logic then: There is a figure of 30.75 million first party sales that has been used for decades, and obviously came from somewhere and back in a time closer to the source than now, but you'll debate that with what, some other unsourced and/or guesstimate figures by video game analysts and the like, who are usually way off the mark, or that have been dug up by some randoms decades after the fact just to try and reduce the figures of a sales loss they can't accept, or maybe some random and biased Genesis fan website, or even your feelings?

Here's the sources as supplied on the Sega Genesis wikipedia page:

"Sega sold 30.75 million Genesis units worldwide.[115] Of these, 3.58 million were sold in Japan,[110] and sales in Europe and the U.S. are roughly estimated at 8 million[116][117] and 18–18.5 million as of June 1997 (at which time Sega was no longer manufacturing the system) respectively.[118][74][119]" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Genesis

And the third party Majeco and Tectoy numbers are included there in the article somewhere too, which take it up to about 35 million overall:

"In 1998, Sega licensed the Genesis to Majesco Entertainment to rerelease it in North America. Majesco began reselling millions of unsold cartridges at a budget price, together with 150,000 units of the second model of the Genesis.[118] It released the Genesis 3,[120] projecting to sell 1.5 million units of the console by the end of 1998.[118] Tectoy continues to sell variants of the original hardware (including emulated variants) and has sold an estimated 3 million units in Brazil as of 2012.[121][122]"

Find the quotes and look at the various source links yourself.

Now, how about this: You show me a more reliable figure than the 30.75 million first party units that everyone knows and all the major websites like IGN, Nintendo Life and even Time Extension report. And not stuff posted on "ILoveGenesisAndIAmManipulatingTheData.com".

But, I tell you what, I'll start with this as an article I found that seems quite relevant: https://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?29525-Official-console-sales-data-until-March-96-by-Sega-Nintendo-NEC-Panasonic-Sony&highlight=sales

And then, specifically this post:

https://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?29525-Official-console-sales-data-until-March-96-by-Sega-Nintendo-NEC-Panasonic-Sony&p=708792&viewfull=1#post708792

And these are even on one of those patently biased Sega Genesis fan sites at that.

And, even this completely and utterly biased and manipulate article can't get the actual Genesis numbers beyond 35-40 million (which, let's not laugh here, includes Nomad sales as "Genesis" sales), despite using a bunch of utterly laughable sources for most of the figures and the people writing it actually being absurd enough to include the likes of Sega CD/Mega CD in the "Genesis" numbers at one point too, just so they can write "Hardware Units sold, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis 42-47 million" at the top of the article (now you can laugh):

https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Fourth_generation_of_video_games

And, isn't it funny how, even with all their extensive research and all those clearly very legit sources they found, that ridonkulous total number still has a 5 million variable in both cases.

If neither you nor I have any better and more official sources than that, I think we'd be smart to go with the widely agreed figures by most sane people in the video games industry: That's [officially] 49.1 million SNES and roughly 35 millions Genesis (30.75 "official" first party sales plus 1.5 project sales of the $50 Majesco Genesis 3 and 3 million units in Brazil as of 2012) .

And you are correct, it's not just about numbers, because, if it were, there is no debate to be had, so I wouldn't have to waste breath having it with people like you. Because, no matter how people try to manipulate that data, SNES outsold the Genesis to the tune of millions, period. Other than complete and utter lies, you will never get the Genesis to a sales figure higher than 49.1 million.

So, if we then consider all the different kinds of sales (original consoles, Mini consoles, sales of various games for the platform in modern times on digital stores, sales of goods branded around the consoles, and the like), PLUS everything else, such as how popular each system is now (beyond the miniscule homebrew/indie niche), how many of their best games still appear in every Top 100 list, how much coverage each console gets across the Internet--do a Google search on each and see how they compare--, any SNES vs Genesis polls, and so on, SNES still wins.

At least I'm using some actual reliable numbers and other sources to make such a self-evident statement. All you are doing, it seems, is basically is moaning because you don't like to hear simple facts and truths spoken aloud.

By what metric other than personal opinion can anyone say the Genesis either sold more or is more beloved [as in loved by more people] than the SNES?

So, tell me again then, where is my statement wrong, other than in your gut?

Look, we can talk all day about which system you and I love more, which games you and I think are better, why you and I think this, what each system is actually technically capable of or not as the case may be, and so on, but the other stuff, don't you think we need to get rid of the patently absurd make-belief wishful-thinking already and accept the bits that are clearly true (like SNES patently outselling Genesis, still being more popular today basically everywhere but the homebrew/indie dev scene, and ultimately still being loved by more people), even if it doesn't make us very happy to hear them, just for sake of actual sane conversation about these two beloved consoles again.

@-wc- Well, it's interesting you say that, because I recently had a conversation with my friend about the prices of games for each of these consoles in general back in the day, and my friend was sure SNES games were on average like £20 higher or more. So, I did a check looking through pretty much every issue of Mean Machines, Mean Machines Sega and Nintendo Magazine System to see how the prices actually compared, and it turns out that the SNES games were really only around £5 more expensive on average.

Point being, sometimes we don't remember things exactly as they were.

Now, I'm not saying there weren't some significantly higher priced SNES games than normal at the time--I'm sure I paid £70 or maybe even £80 or whatever for Street Fighter II: The World Warrior on import at launch--but that certainly wasn't the norm, and I expect many of the games we think cost a lot more probably actually didn't cost as much as we think. Someone would need to check that though. I mean, I don't really recall noticing SNES games being more expensive, and the magazines fell in line with my memory when I checked those, but who knows in certain cases.

But, yeah, if Virtua Racing was £100 at launch, that really is a steep price, especially for a simple arcade racer with a few tracks. I don't think either Star Fox or Yoshi's Island were anywhere near that at launch, and they absolutely have far more content and many more hours of single play time, and indeed replay value too imo (the reviews at the time probably said the same--and they did list stuff like that in those magazines I mentioned).

I think, ultimately, it's fair to say that Nintendo's enhancement chip approach generally worked out very well for the most part, both for them and consumers, whereas Sega's single attempt at such a thing with Virtua Racing didn't really turn out as great for them or consumers.

@-wc- This is interesting too. Did you do a check of the highest selling games on all platforms in those years where you looked at the most popular games on Saturn? Maybe you could give that a go too, and get back to us on what types of games sold the most across the whole gaming market at the time. I think that would be useful additional information here.

Edit: Actually, I did a quick search myself.

Here's the Genesis, which is a bunch of platformers dominating the top and then some arcadey and sports stuff:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Sega_Genesis_games

Here's the SNES, which is largely platformers and RPGs or big action games, and not a lot of arcadey or sport stuff:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System_video_games

PlayStation shows a couple of Gran Turismo games near the top and one Resident Evil title, and then the rest are predominantly RPGs, action/adventure games, 3D platformers, survival horror, etc, until we get much further down, and really not a lot of arcadey or sports stuff:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PlayStation_video_games

N64 has a couple of racing games then mostly 3D platformers, action/adventure games, fps, etc, but not a lot of arcady stuff or sports stuff:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_64_video_games

I would certainly say that arcadey and sports games were a big part of the Genesis library for sure, but I think we'd started to transition from arcade type of experiences to the more home console types of experiences by the time we were deep into the SNES and Genesis era to be honest. It's probably why 14 RPGs alone sold over 1 million copies on SNES, which is close to the number of the entire list of million selling games on Genesis. And, by the time we got into those other consoles, yeah, I think the arcades were the old guard at that point.

Now though, ironically, I kinda want to go back to games that only take a couple hours to beat at most, but at least have a lot of replayability, rather than games having hundreds of hours of fluff/filler content like we see nowadays.Although, the SNES still perfectly ticks that box for me, and actually more so than the Genesis, where I often feel most of its best games are actually too arcadey for me, in the sense that I just can't be bothered putting in the effort required to overcome that kind of constant in-your-face pressure gameplay just to get to the next screen.

But there is a lot of personal perspective in all of that too.

@Hikingguy I think it's you who's not reading my posts, because not once have I claimed that total sales is the only metric in the point I'm making, which is SNES is both the most popular and beloved of the two systems.

To cover some of your other points:

Highest selling Genesis Sonic game: 15,000,000

Highest selling SNES Mario game: 20,610,000

Nintendo actually released a Super Mario Bros. movie in the '90s, and Sega didn't release any Sonic movie. And that was following The Wizard, a movie made almost solely to promote Super Mario Bros. 3, which sold over 17 millions copies not long before the SNES came out. And have you seen this ad from around the same time:

https://youtu.be/HU80R7jGanE

Also, are you aware of all the Mario-themed shows that were around at that time too:

https://www.mariowiki.com/List_of_television_series_and_films

Go compare that to all the Sonic shows around at the same time. . . .

You say Sonic was a cultural phenomenon. Are you claiming Mario wasn't?

And both Sega and Nintendo were part of the congressional hearing.

It's obvious why SNES didn't outsell the NES. NES dominated the entire industry at the time, having around 90% market share worldwide. SNES, however, actually had some competition. Maybe you've heard of it, a little console called the Genesis. And between them, the market was more fairly divided than in the 8-bit generation. But, add up the numbers from both generations and see what they are. Overall, the market grew very little. It just got split more evenly.

And you saying "both enhancement chips" shows how little you know. This isn't a story of the FX chip vs the SVP chip. It's a story of around seventeen different enhancement chips for SNES (used in around 70 games, starting from literally day one) and one for Genesis (used in one game late in the system's life). Sega's approach was a late grasp and largely a total failure in terms of market success and adoption (although a very powerful chip). Nintendo's approach was hugely successful and helped augment/support many of the best selling SNES games of all time: Pilotwings, Super Mario Kart, Super Mario RPG, Star Fox, Yoshi's Island, etc.

Nintendo also had the "foresight" to consider using optical media (ever heard of the Super NES CD-ROM System and PlayStation?), but it just gave up on that path with the SNES as it didn't think it make sense at that time. It also tried going the CD route again with Philips and the CD-i too, and similarly failed there. So it's not like CD wasn't on Nintendo's radar. And, let's be clear, it was actually NEC who had the foresight, as it was the PC Engine that trailblazed the use of CDs in a console add-on. Sega wasn't any kind of pioneer there; it was a me too.

And, again, I've never claimed the SNES was vastly superior, just as I don't agree with anyone who thinks the Genesis is vastly superior. I simply said it sold far more units and was/is far more beloved (and I've already covered how I concluded that beyond purely sales numbers only).

@Hikingguy One last thing. You lay some credit at the feet of Sega for the creation of the ESRB, which in some ways makes sense, but go look at how it was created and the companies that were involved:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment_Software_Association

Now, tell me which of the two companies we're talking about is on that list and which of them isn't?

Nintendo was one of the biggest proponents in the creation the rating system. And, given it was really Sega and Nintendo at the heart of the controversy and congressional hearing that led to it, and that it was Nintendo and bunch of other third parties who reacted by forming the ratings system as a direct response to that hearing, it wouldn't be unfair to say that Nintendo overall was actually more important a player in that little moment in the history of gaming and how it all ultimately played out.

All I'm doing with all of the stuff I'm saying here is trying to present the real facts of the situation, not my personal feelings of what I wish were the facts, which I think some other people have a tendency to do.

PS. I posted the game sales figures the wrong way around last time. It was meant to go like this:

Highest selling Genesis Sonic game: 15,000,000

Highest selling SNES Mario game: 20,610,000

I've corrected that now.

PPS. Oh, and one other thing--this really is the last one. You mention how Sega [and presumably] Genesis was such a big deal back then, as if SNES was just another console but Genesis was some kind of phenomenon, but are you aware of this bit of information about the SNES:

"When it launched on November 21, 1990, the Super Famicom was thrust into direct competition with Sega's Mega Drive and NEC's PC Engine. Despite coming to the market late, the console swept aside all challengers when it launched, effortlessly shifting 300,000 units in hours and causing such chaos that the Japanese government famously asked console manufacturers to schedule their hardware launches during weekends in the future (November 21 was a Wednesday). Another story from the time of release was the apparent involvement of the Yakuza; Nintendo is alleged to have shipped the consoles during the night to avoid them being intercepted and stolen by Japanese criminal gangs." - https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/11/hardware_classics_super_famicom

I think, in your obvious lean towards the Genesis (despite repeating you owned both consoles and so on), you've deleted a lot of the actual truths of these two consoles at that time. This is understandable, as passion can to that, but I'm just interested in the [closer to true] facts around this kind of stuff if people are going to throw out a bunch of claims.

So, I'll just state my initial point one more time: SNES was and still is the most popular and beloved 16-bit console, and given that, I think it deserves just as much support from the homebrew/indie dev scene in modern times, and to see a bunch of new games and demos coming out for it too. The Genesis has seen a lot of love in this space recently, more than its fair share imo, and now it's time for the SNES to get some too.

I think the reason is quite simple: Unlike with the Genesis development community, the SNES community hasn't developed a proper complete/SDK that most people can intuitively work with yet, making it just harder to create stuff for SNES in general right now, which is compounded by the terrible original SNES documentation from Nintendo that really doesn't help matters, and until that happens the SNES will continue to see less homebrew/indie support.

Put it like this, if there was something like SNESmaker out there, I'd be working directly on a SNES game right now, and I think that would be true of many more SNES fans too. But, I can't program for the thing, and trying to figure it out is just a mess right now, so all I can do is concept some stuff in GameMaker 8.1 for the time being.

So, basically, your guess is incorrect, and clearly based on some internal immature bias against Nintendo and silly attitude that it's all "kiddie" or whatever.

But, don't get confused, there's far more people out there making SNES ROM hacks and improvement patches and so on compare to Genesis (at least that I've seen on the likes of romhacking.net); there is a large and vibrant SNES community of tinkerers and the like. It's just that this isn't translating into lots of cool brand new games, for the reasons I mentioned above--and that's the only bit I'm truly personally excited about.

I'm still hopeful the SNES will get its time to shine too though. . . .

"But seriously from how you communicate, it is obvious that you do not want to make 16-bit games, you want to make SNES games."

Could I have made that any more clear?

The Genesis is doing just fine and dandy, and it certainly doesn't need any additional support from the likes of me. And now it's time for the SNES to see the relative amount of brand new games it also deserves, and it does actually need and deserve a bit more encouragement from the community in that regard too.

That's basically the main point I've been making all along.

@RetroGames totally agree 👍

@Hikingguy I enjoy many retro systems, but the SNES is easily my favourite, and that's the one I'm advocating for more homebrew/indie development in this case since it's being woefully underrepresented in modern times compared to other systems of that era imo, especially considering it was the most popular gaming system of the entire 16-bit generation by far.

@Hikingguy Well, anything is possible.

@RetroGames As @Hikingguy already pointed it out, there is a good reason why the SNES homebrew dev scene is almost no existent compared to the Sega MegaDrive scene despite being more popular.
The main and simple reason is that the system is a pain to develop for. It has neat GFX hardware features for sure (lot of palettes / colors, transparencies effect, mode 7, HDMA...) but that comes with lot of constraints and limitations, on many aspects the system is actually weaker than the Sega Mega Drive (even on GFX as the sprites capabilities). The MD 68000 CPU is a major advantage of the Sega system compared to the 65816 but definitely not the only one, the SNES does not have much "hidden potential" to reveal, it has already been pushed very far back in time. It's why we had all these enhancement chips and also why today we saw a lot of those fast ROM or SA1 hacks to help in removing game slowdowns.
In fact the Sega Mega Drive has much more potential out of the box and what we're seeing these last years prove it. Having a better SDK for the SNES would help in getting more SNES homebrews for sure, but it will also show off the SNES limitations compared to the Sega Mega Drive.

@Stef_ Well, I agree with you that it's a bit of a convoluted pain to develop on SNES, certainly more so than the Genesis, but you're talking out your butt when it comes to the ridiculous claim that the SNES doesn't have any hidden potential to reveal (all things being relative).

At this point in time, with all the system-pushing stuff coming out for Genesis in recent times (you think you're gonna see much better than Star Fox running on the stock console--yeah, sure), the stock SNES has way more untapped potential than Genesis still left to see, because [almost] no one is really bothering to try and tap that potential right now, so, unlike with Genesis, it is in fact still waiting to been seen.

But, let's just see a few examples of SNES doing stuff you either rarely saw or even never saw, and much of it that goes beyond what you could do on Genesis (and this is just a start with a handful of random examples):

https://youtu.be/-WO-sr04GY8

https://youtu.be/cEfJybDpSOI?t=24

https://youtu.be/IyrOCNQc_rs

https://youtu.be/oCiSEChgjC4

https://youtu.be/MsS6Wvuzj8k

https://youtu.be/7LAY4ulp63Y

https://youtu.be/DlrxKECsogE

https://youtu.be/BvIXUOr4yxU

https://youtu.be/VeFF344NbZ4

This first seven of those are all possible on a stock SNES, and a few of them are doing stuff that's simply not technically possible on Genesis.

And most people at this point are aware of the fact that the original SNES Doom programer even said he should be able to increase the frame rate of that game from 10-15 fps to 25 fps just by using HDMA slightly differently (in a way he wasn't aware of previously), which is a huge jump.

And, as another example, not only can SNES do Sonic (as shown in one of the clips above), which many Genesis fans claimed was impossible for years because SNES didn't have "Blast Processing" (until it actually existed on SNES for all to see), but there's ways it could even improve on it too:

https://inceptionalnews.wordpress.com/2023/02/16/sonic-on-snes-vs-genesis/

That's various examples of the system being pushed in modern times and revealing hitherto untapped/hidden potential. And there's more there for absolute sure: Have you seen anyone truly push the 512x448 mode on SNES, or even a single use of Mode 6, or how about any examples of the system using its indexed colour mode that allows for 2048 colours on background 1 alone as a standard feature of Modes 3 and 4 (without taking up all the CPU resources or stalling the sound chip like the infamous "Blast Processing" does on Genesis and still ends up with a lower-colour and worse-looking version of its own high-colour images than SNES even in standard 256-colour mode), etc?

Also, if a stock SNES game was doing the 3D below in the 1990s, it's very likely even more could be squeezed out of it with modern wisdom and over eight years of [on/off] development time committed to pushing it to its absolute limits similarly:

https://youtu.be/hcKsWmBcE-k

https://youtu.be/VqHhIbB4SLQ?t=216

I get that you think the Genesis is better (and it is some ways, and worse in others), and we've seen a whole bunch of the amazing stuff it can do at this point (old and new)--great for Genesis, and you can be proud of that--now I think it's time for the modern SNES development scene to show just what it can do too.

@Hikingguy So, I get that you think SNES should have easily bested the Genesis given that it came out two years later, and instead it just bested it in some ways and not others. Well, I'll say it bested it in enough ways to ultimately win the 16-bit console war to the tune of millions of units of extra sales and leave all the SNES owners thoroughly satisfied--the sheer amount and quality of the games being one of those ways--which is all that really mattered. You expecting more from it than that is just daft--and that's on you.

Yes, you are correct about me mostly being forward thinking regarding what may or may not happen on SNES going into the future. So, for now, we just have to wait until the SNES indie/homebrew scene actually puts some effort into finally showing off the system in modern times with basically relative AAA quality experiences, and then we can properly judge it next to those other old 16-bit consoles it's going to be up against again. There's no harm in actively encouraging and advocating for that now though.

You're also right that Star Fox running on a stock Genesis is much more interesting [and indeed impressive] than Sonic running on a stock SNES (because every sane and/or informed person has known since the '90s that Sonic was always possible on SNES anyway). But SNES already has a better Star Fox game, so it's a cool technical feat on Genesis but of little worth beyond that if the idea is to get something best of the best out of it at the end. I'm not seeing a 3D polygonal shump on Genesis that's better than Star Fox though, which means SNES still has the best 3D shmup at the end of the day [by far]. Same goes for Sonic on SNES being just a cool technical demo. But SNES has a bunch of platformers that already blew away Sonic back in the day anyway, so it's already got that covered with both a game that shows SNES can do Sonic plus a bunch of platform games of its own that are just best of the best (Super Mario World, Super Mario All-Stars, Yoshi's Island, the whole Donkey Kong Country series). I wouldn't complain if it got a few more best-in-class platformers in modern times to go along with those classics mind you.

And, as per usual, we've still to really see any new stuff on SNES of any merit, so who knows what the future might hold there, which is my point:

Again, Genesis' modern capability is mostly a known and/or measurable entity at this point (we've seen plenty of examples that represent about the best you're ever going to get out of it now imo), and it's getting plenty of support with new games and the like too, so Genesis fans are already sorted on that front.

Now I simply want to see the very best that SNES can also give us in 2023 and beyond as well, because it and all its fans absolutely deserve as much. And unless you're afraid of the SNES stealing the Genesis limelight or something, you really shouldn't have a problem with that.

@Hikingguy You're trolling yourself.

My side point is that the SNES sold more units than Genesis back in the '90s, and it did (by around 15 million units--keep deluding yourself that this is even remotely not the case if it helps you sleep at night), which is just one things that supports my main point: The SNES deserves as much if not more indie/homebrew attention in modern times than any other console from the same era, and now I'd like to see it get it. The Genesis is already getting its share of new games, so not sure why the notion that SNES might see some too apparently threatens you so much that you have to keep trying to argue against it basically.

And don't embarrass yourself by trying suggest the 16-bit console generation was even remotely close to a "draw" if it's actually to be measured somehow, and by more than just opinions. By almost every single possibly-measurable metric, SNES beats Genesis: Total hardware sales (around 15 million units more--that's half of the Genesis sales extra for SNES), size of games library (almost double the amount in total, nearly 2000 to nearly 1000), highest selling games (top selling SNES game sold around 5 million more copies than top selling Genesis game), more millions sellers (50 SNES titles to 17 Genesis titles), more games that still appear in basically every single Top 100 Games of All Time list (go check them all for yourself), bigger influence on industry (from the games that defined genres and spawned endless copycats like Super Mario World, A Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Super Mario Kart, etc, to the shoulder buttons and diamond-shaped face button configuration found on almost every modern controller), continued popularity (SNES Classic Mini sold 5.3 million units, Genesis Mini managed around 300,000 units), etc. In terms of hardware specs, sure you can argue for whatever the hell side you want, as one wins in some ways and the other wins in different ways. So, yeah, there's one broad area where you can argue for a draw, out of a whole lot more areas where SNES just objectively and measurably wins.

The rest is just your personal opinion that I can see, which is that you apparently like the Genesis more and therefore believe it's a "draw", and for whatever reason come across like you really don't want to see the SNES similarly get a bunch of indie/homebrew support in modern times, with you basically trying to manufacture reasons why it shouldn't or just to detract from it (what are you so afraid of).

So, back to my main point again: I think it's high time for the SNES to see its fair share of new indie/homebrew games too.

Dude, I'm not trying to tell you why there aren't more people making new SNES games beyond the obvious facts like it's more convoluted to wrap your head around to develop for, there's not a great SDK for it, and Nintendo's original developement documentation is a total mess.

Those are some of the patent reasons why it's not being supported as much as Genesis right now, and if all those things were finally and properly addressed by the community it would clealry change the situation hugely. It's not some unsolvable mystery. And it's certainly not some bull fanboy-fueled "magic" the Genesis has that the SNES lacks.

I'm simply telling you SNES should be getting much more indie/homebrew support than it is right now based on all reasonable and relative metrics, it absolutley deserves more indie/homebrew support, and now I'd like to see it.

@Hikingguy We don't count or judge the sales of these consoles only by some jingoistic world view. Both SNES and Genesis sold around the world, and the SNES outsold the Genesis by around 15 million units. In terms of sales alone, SNES convincingly won the 16-bit console war (the most reliable sources say it obliterated Genesis in Japan, overall outsold it by a little in North America, was outsold by a roughly similar amount in Europe, was outsold in Brazil, and a few other stragglers make up the rest of the numbers). This is not some kind of debatable or negotiable point.

And, just so you know, the SGDK hasn't been around THAT long. A few people in the Genesis dev scene just did something first that has clearly made a huge impact and fast. There's no great reason to believe the same can't or won't happen with SNES in the not too distant future too, other than the SNES dev scene generally being a bit of an elitist insular mess and aspiring SNES developers having to start from a more convoluted place, which likely goes to mostly why it's so far behind the Genesis one right now.

But let's see what happens in time....

@Hikingguy This "people" isn't. The sheer quality of SNES games and indeed the overall experience speaks for itself and doesn't need to be qualified. But everything I've mentioned above goes to why it deserves its fair share of new indie/homebrew games in modern times too and why I'm saying it's time it got them.

"No doubt, the SNES will get some games in the homebrew market soon"

Perfect. The rest is complete and utter misguided and ill-informed time-wasting gibberish.

Now, let's see how things play out when it finally does get a bunch of new awseome games that similarly push it to its limits and so on to....

See my last reply.