A look back at the five most important console wars in the history of the gaming industry
PlayStation vs. Xbox, Nintendo vs. Sega, Game Boy vs. Everyone -- Console Wars are a historical tradition among gamers, and GamePro is looking back at the five most important battles in the history of the gaming industry!
#5. Sony PlayStation vs. Nintendo 64 vs. Sega Saturn
Did the Sony PlayStation simply have a better lineup of games than Nintendo? Maybe. Should Sega have spent more time in the laboratory with the Sega Saturn instead of wasting three years building clunky add-ons to the Genesis? Probably. Was falling behind in the console race Nintendo's fault? Who knows? But by the end of 1999, everyone knew that the Sony PlayStation was the biggest of the bunch, and it had long since left everyone else in the dust.
Even though Nintendo was churning out smash hit after smash hit -- Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye 007, StarFox 64, and even Perfect Dark -- the PlayStation had a simple solution for hitting the Big N right between the eyes: the Compact Disc.
It turns out that abandoning the old cartridge-format for the CD made all the difference in Sony's first strike against Nintendo, as developers found the CD format a LOT easier to produce and distribute. Of course, it also helped that less honest gamers quickly figured out how to burn PS1 games on the cheap, which led to some wide-spread piracy. It didn't matter as far as Sony's newfound deathgrip on the video game market was concerned, though, selling million upon millions of copies with relatively little effort.
The Sony PlayStation happened to have plenty of good games under its belt, including a few little titles like Crash Bandicoot, Metal Gear Solid, a dozen Tomb Raiders, Tekken, Gran Turismo -- and let's not forget Final Fantasy; Square Enix dumped Nintendo shortly after the SNES era (probably because they couldn't title the games in any intelligent order) and found a new audience with Sony's PS1.
It was like beating Michael Jordan in a slam dunk contest with a broken arm -- the PlayStation had killed Nintendo's home console dominance, and they wouldn't be letting go of it for a good 10 years.
The Victors: Sony, who proved that new technology and a fresh attitude could make a console the new King of the Hill.
The Casualties: NEO-GEO, the Atari Jaguar, and video game arcades in general finally had to give up the ghost, as the technology race suddenly got too narrow (and expensive) for anyone whose name wasn't Sony and Nintendo.
The Fallout: Beating Nintendo at their own game and outright maiming Sega's underpowered Saturn, Sony helped lay the groundwork for the next decade of gamer loyalty and subsequent console warfare
#4. Nintendo DS vs. Sony PlayStation Portable
Everyone expected Sony's new, hand-size PlayStation to trounce Nintendo's weird looking dual-screen second cousin of the Game & Watch. It didn't happen. Today, Nintendo's required by Federal Law to hold their DS releases until weekends in Japan, since children will ditch school for days to pick up any Mario-, Zelda or Dragon Quest title. Heck, even Nintendogs sold millions of copies, and it looked plain silly sitting next to Animal Crossing, Tetris and Pokemon.
Of course, Sony didn't do itself any favors with the most horrible marketing blitz known to mankind. From jive-talking squirrels to sexy European models face-masking black people, Sony's ads for the PSP played out like a train wreck in bullet time. You couldn't make bad press like this if you shot the Pope and played the bongos with his head.
Also, UMDs never really picked up, and load times on most games were horrendous. That disc drive on the PSP sounded like trucks downshifting on raw gravel. Still, you have to give Sony credit for sticking to its less successful, socially awkward child. To this day, the PSP still commands a healthy market share in the portable gaming world, and downsized, slightly cheaper versions of God of War, Tekken and Metal Gear are nothing to sneeze at. Even games like LocoRoco and Patapon have their cult fan followings.
The Victors: Casual gamers, who picked up the DS and finally found out what all this video game nonsense was about.
The Casualties: Sony's brand image, which went from simply being weird in the PS2 era to just getting outright embarrassed in their desperation to outperform the Nintendo DS.
The Fallout: Sony's actively trying to reinvent the PSP for its nebulous demographic, while the DS is still printing money, with 100 Million sold today.
#3. Game Boy/Game Boy Color vs. Sega Game Gear
In reality, Sega's Game Gear had every reason to beat the Game Boy. They had color graphics, Sonic the Hedgehog, and an ad campaign that would put the Obama Administration to shame. It still didn't help though, as the Game Boy continued to sell like hotcakes despite its "creamed spinach color" scheme. Also, Nintendo threw a left hook out of freaking nowhere with the Game Boy Pocket, and later, the Game Boy Color.
By the numbers, most gamers also refused to pay $150 for a portable gaming system in the 90s. That, and the Sega Game Gear probably generated more toxic waste than Nickelback's latest "rock" concert tour, using a whopping six AA batteries. SIX. Even the Game Boy's four battery set up got 10 hours of life, while Sega's Game Gear could barely manage FIVE. (Even a ten-year-old could figure out the better deal.) Nintendo also wised up after the first Game Boy and scaled the Pocket down to just two batteries, making the Game Boy a must-have for kids that wanted to play it loud in math class.
Oh. And Pokemon happened. That was kind of a big deal, too.
The Victors: Parents, who could finally send their kids outside to play, even if it just meant sitting in the grass, playing video games in the shade.
The Casualties: The Neo Geo Pocket Color, the Bandai Wonderswan Color, and every other company that tried to cash in on the Game Boy's success.
The Fallout: Nintendo still hasn't been dethroned as the de facto marketer of handheld gaming, although good titles are becoming increasingly rare with every cycle of Bratz games
#2. Sony PlayStation 2 vs. Xbox vs. Nintendo GameCube
With Microsoft coming out of the woodwork for a piece of the gaming industry pie, Sony and Nintendo suddenly found themselves in a Mexican standoff for most of 2000 through 2006.
Part of the problem with determining the better system (initially), was the fact that everyone had something someone else wanted. Nintendo had Mario and better graphics, Sony had millions of people still in love with the original PlayStation, and Microsoft had an online gaming service that made gamers forget PCs ever existed. Also, each console had specs that warranted plenty of multi-console releases, as third-party developers mastered the art of the "open relationship"
What eventually made the difference was Sony's huge install base, which pretty much trumped Microsoft's late arrival to the dance. They were also smart enough to market the PS2 as a cheap DVD player, while Nintendo insisted they only wanted to make a gaming console. In the next generation, though, everything would get turned on its head, as the Nintendo Wii is currently beating the snot out of everyone else.
The Victors: Sony's PS2 and third-party developers, who still make games for the system to this day (although far too many of them suck, being shovelware).
The Casualties: The Sega Dreamcast, despite having a two-year start on all the other consoles. While plenty of Sega fans still lament its demise, the Nintendo/Sega rivalry effectively died here. Also, both companies are kind of in bed together, with Nintendo squarely on top.
The Fallout: The Age of the Fanboys gained a ton of steam in this generation, as the purity of console loyalty got watered down to a perpetual mud fight that went from couches to Internet forum boards to frat house bathrooms -- although it was worth it just for the PS2 commercials by David Lynch.
#1. Super Nintendo vs. Sega Genesis
Coming off a decidedly lopsided "war" against the original Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega took their lumps from backing the overmatched but gutsy Sega Master System. Thanks to the power of the NES's Holy Trinity -- Mario, Zelda and Metroid -- Sega's first console didn't even come close to beating Nintendo in sales. It was like trying to knock out Mike Tyson with a whiffle bat. Still, Sega took strength from its growing fan base and came back with Nintendo's first real threat: the Sega Genesis.
With initial sales in Japan turning up nothing, Sega USA used the success of Sonic the Hedgehog, along with an ad campaign that got more ridiculously campy as time went on, to start turning up the heat on Nintendo. Fans started digging trenches and hurling slogans at each other, while TV commercials told the public that Sega's Genesis could do "What Nintendon't". It was magical, and the war went on and on.
Nintendo, on the other hand, merely touted the merits of their own system, letting smash-hit titles like Super Mario World, Chrono Trigger and The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past do the work for them. (It also helped that they had a magazine dedicated to their cause.) While SNES units continued to fly off the shelves with every blockbuster game, Sega was throwing in freebees for people to pick up their own machine. In the end, the 16-bit era had divided gamers for the first definitive time, with Nintendo fans and Sega servants on opposite sides of the fence.
The Victors: Probably the video game industry, with combined sales of roughly 80 Million Freaking Consoles between both systems.
The Casualties: Arcades, which saw a lot of their quarter munchers suddenly saving mountains of pocket change for $50 games.
The Fallout: Super Nintendo pulled ahead in the war, besting Sega by a sizeable amount of units sold and dollars earned. Try as they might, Sega never got remotely close to challenging Nintendo's dominance again, and their consoles didn't sustain much impact after the Sega Genesis faded from shelves. Now Sonic's barely keeping things together, running from console to console, while Mario's still sitting pretty on the top of the Nintendo empire.
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http://www.pcworld.com/article/171127-2/5_biggest_game_console_battles.html
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