History of Video Games - Part 10
Nintendo vs. Sega
Catch Up on the Series
1 - Pressing Start / 2 - The New Industry / 3 - Have You Played Atari Today?
4 - The Great Video Game Crash of 1983 / 5 - Leave Luck to Heaven
6 - Now You’re Playing With Power / 7 - 8-Bit Magic
8 - Let’s Make Lots of Money / 9 - War Drums
A Not So United Front
From 1993 to 1994, Senators Joe Lieberman and Herb Kohl led hearings in the United States Congress on violence in video games. With the moral panic of the eighties and nineties, the Democratic Party had an issue where it seemed Americans saw the Republicans as the ones who cared about morality. Whether it was done for political reasons or because they cared, these two Senate stalwarts led hearings that were mostly used to berate and scream at people involved in the industry. Eventually these hearings would produce a lobbying group for the industry, known today as the Entertainment Software Association. It would also produce the ESRB rating system.
One of the more interesting stories of these hearings was the two video game heavyweights, Nintendo and Sega, being grilled by Congress. Both companies went into the hearing ready to be united this one time to prevent a government crackdown. Instead, Nintendo of America’s Howard Lincoln ripped into Sega as the company that delivered violence to kids. Sega’s Bill White was taken aback as he planned to point out that video games weren’t just for kids. Sega then got a little ridiculous, taking out their “console war” talking points against Nintendo, which led to Lieberman commending Lincoln and Nintendo for being more professional. After the hearings, Lincoln was asked by Sega why he didn’t go with the plan to go in a united front. Lincoln essentially told them it was because they sucked.
Two main things emerged from those hearings: a debate about video games and violence had begun, and Nintendo and Sega were absolutely at war.
The Handheld War
One of the small battles in the Nintendo and Sega war was in the growing handheld video game market. Nintendo had released the Game Boy to much acclaim and commercial success. Sega decided to jump in with their own handheld to try to corner the market. The main focus was to go after the Game Boy’s weakness, the monochromatic screen. So, Sega made a system that was essentially a portable Master System with full-color support. The system launched in October 1990 in Japan and eventually made it to the States in the spring of 1991.
Sega positioned the Game Gear similarly to the Mega Drive/Genesis as the “cool” brand. They did their usual attack ads focusing on the Game Gear's colors and even teased that Game Boy fans were dumb. Nintendo even threatened to create protests from the disabled community to attack Sega, which Sega ignored. Like the consoles, it seemed we had a handheld war with Game Gear vs. Game Boy. Sega had games like Sonic the Hedgehog, The GG Shinobi, Space Harrier, Land of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse, and many more Master System and Genesis ports. On paper, Sega had a worthy competitor to the Game Boy, but it was not to be.
The Nintendo Game Boy was a juggernaut and pop culture must-have when it came out. With Tetris and Super Mario Land leading the way, the brick-shaped monochrome handheld dominated the Game Gear. Game Boy had too many advantages that Game Gear didn’t: cheaper, a much longer battery life, and a catalog of titles getting support from some of Nintendo’s best developers and franchises. It even had their own impressive, though graphically weakened, ports, such as the Donkey Kong Land games based on Donkey Kong Country. Towards the end of the 16-bit era, Nintendo released a lighter Game Boy called the Game Boy Pocket and hit titles like The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Wario Land, Kirby’s Dreamland 2, and a bunch of ports from NES and Super Nintendo were too much to pass up for those looking for a handheld.
Ultimately, Sega’s Game Gear only sold about ten million plus units. Sega didn’t give up on the system for a long time but eventually pulled the plug as the focus towards the new 3D era in gaming was coming. Today, much like many other Sega systems, the Game Gear has a cult following that has preserved its legacy. The Game Boy would eventually see sales decline as the initial hype died down, but a couple of pocket-sized monsters and a major revision would save it - but that’s for another part in this series.
In One Corner… Sega
Once Sega had gotten the attention of the public and got their message across what would become their main territory, North America, Sega was able to get together a coalition of adults, teenagers who wanted to be “cool,” kids who also wanted to be “cool,” and some lapsed gamers. Sega’s brand identity was going to be in your face, rock n’ roll. Some aspects of the brand at the time were things like the infamous Sega scream, the blue coloring, the synthetic soundtracks, Sonic the Hedgehog, arcade titles, sports titles, and a willingness to push the limit on more mature content. For the first time, some kids in school were afraid to admit to having a Nintendo system, as Sega was seen as the cool system to have. This, more than anything, was Sega’s number one strength against Nintendo.
Sega's most notable franchise was the Sonic the Hedgehog games, with sequels and spin-offs proving that the blue blur had become their Mario. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 proved to be a monumental event for the system and is still considered by many to be in the running for the best Genesis and/or Sonic game ever made. But Sonic wasn’t the only thing Sega had in their arsenal. Some early hits included Disney’s Aladdin and Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse, both huge hits and established Sega as the best place to play Disney games. Other notable titles included Ecco the Dolphin, Shinobi III, Strider, Golden Axe, Comix Zone, Ristar, Castlevania: Bloodlines, Vectorman, Streets of Rage 2, Beyond Oasis, Gunstar Heroes, and a huge catalog of licensed third-party titles ranging from movies to superheroes. Sega had a stacked lineup.
Another major win for Sega came from the success of Mortal Kombat. The fighting game series was a phenomenon that got a lot of success due to the game having blood and extremely violent moves. Ed Boon and John Tobias created Mortal Kombat, and the games became a big part of the congressional hearings due to the violence in the game. Sega was willing to show the blood, but Nintendo hid the blood behind a code. This was the final straw that made Sega look like the “edgy” and “cool kid” on the block. Eventually, Nintendo would relent in trying to hide the blood in future titles, but despite being graphically worse, the Sega Genesis became the home for Mortal Kombat.
However, Sega did have one big blunder in the 16-bit console war: its obsession with add-ons. Sega wanted to get ahead of Nintendo as the 16-bit era in gaming was a weird time. On the one hand, gaming was getting more mainstream and popular, with developers finding their artistic prowess in the world of pixels and sprites. On the other hand, everyone could see 3D gaming coming, as well as the push to put games on compact disc technology. Sega tried to leapfrog the competition by releasing add-ons such as the Sega CD and the Sega 32X. These add-ons would be too expensive and have little reason for consumers to get them. Instead, Sega’s most successful hardware launch was actually the revised Mega Drive/Genesis console that shrunk the console down and made it look like a more compact CD player. These stumbles with these failed add-ons would come back to haunt Sega when they launched their first 3D console.
In the Other Corner… Nintendo
Nintendo may not have seen Sega coming, but when they adjusted, they had plenty of weapons to use against them. While Sega’s strength was coming off as the cool brand, Nintendo’s strength would be arguably the most important - games. The Super Nintendo would have one of the greatest games library of all time. The console is filled to the brim with important franchise launches, some of the most consequential and greatest games of all time, some of the best video game soundtracks, and creating many childhood memories for many of the core, more mature gamers today - including many in the video game media. While Super Mario World was a great launch for the system, the games after would be just as great.
In my opinion, the greatest 2D video game of all time released on the Super Nintendo, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Shigeru Miyamoto put his heart and soul into making sure the third entry in the Zelda franchise would push the system and showcase a large world to explore. From the moment you boot up the game, the soundtrack is immediately one of the best in gaming, and from the start as a young Link heading into the rain to find your uncle to the end with a climatic battle against Ganon, everything about A Link to the Past feels like the epic adventure we knew the series could deliver after the disappointing sequel. To this day, some have even argued that A Link to the Past is the greatest video game of all time. The game established a formula for the series that would stay over the decades with a focus on dungeons, a twist at the halfway point, and the towns and areas with different notable races and species still a part of the franchise.
Another major title for the Super Nintendo would come from my favorite franchise, Metroid. Super Metroid burst on the scene, delivering an atmospheric and action-packed title that was a big-time look at what we can do to Sega fans. More than any other game, Super Metroid made the Metroidvania genre come alive and established many of the franchise's essentials. There were so many more notable games for the system.
Kirby Super Star and Kirby’s Dreamland 3 were both titles that established Kirby as a mainstay for Nintendo. Super Mario Kart kicked off the most successful spinoff for the Mario franchise. Super Castlevania IV was a hardware pusher that showcased the Super Nintendo’s technology. Secret of Mana became an iconic part of the legacy of RPGs on the system. Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario World 2 gave Yoshi a starring role and gave us Baby Mario and Baby Bowser, as well as one of my personal favorite video game soundtracks. Street Fighter II was an out-of-nowhere hit for the system that would go on to be the launching point of one of the most iconic and popular fighting game franchises. Everywhere you look, Super Nintendo had banger after banger after banger.
Rise of Role-Playing
The one legacy Super Nintendo left outside of the console war was the system that began to give Japanese RPGs the limelight and showcase what the genre and its developers could do. In Japan, the system dominated Sega in sales, as these JRPGs were extremely popular in the region. As mentioned before, Secret of Mana was one of these iconic games for the genre. The Final Fantasy series had two of its most acclaimed games in the series - their fourth and sixth entry. Final Fantasy VI, at the time of release, was a technical masterpiece, showcasing 2D gaming at its very best with an epic story fit for a long novel, characters that have stood the test of time, including one of the most evil villains in video game history, infamous moments like the so-called opera scene, and one of the greatest soundtracks in gaming from the legendary Nobuo Uematsu. Chrono Trigger was a game made by a literal dream team with Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of Final Fantasy, Yuji Horii, creator of Dragon Quest, and Akira Toriyama, author of Dragon Ball. The game has you journey through time to save the world and is considered by some to be the greatest RPG of all time, as it's similar to Final Fantasy VI - filled with iconic characters, notable moments, and an amazing soundtrack.
Nintendo didn’t stay away from the genre, either. They teamed up with Square to release Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. The game was a beginner’s title for the genre and had Mario interact with new characters and even team up with his nemesis, Bowser, to take down a new threat. The sequel to the cult Japanese title Mother was released in North America as Earthbound. You play as Nes, a kid with telekinetic powers who meets new friends and travels a world with quirky characters to save the world from Giygas, arguably the darkest and most evil villain Nintendo has ever made. The game has continued to have an impact today and has a big-time cult following.
Not looking to miss out, Sega did try to get their own RPGs to counter Nintendo, but Super Nintendo remained the console to go for the genre. Still, Sega was able to put out a few important games. Ys III was a solid RPG that has received more recognition due to modern gamers becoming interested in the long-running but not as popular RPG series. Sword of Vermillion was one of the first of the genre to hit the system. Landstalker was compared to the Zelda series. Dungeons and Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun was another interesting title and was a showcase for what Western properties could do for the genre. Sega also had its own two RPG franchises - Shining Force and Phantasy Star.
War Is About to Change
The Nintendo and Sega war was, without a doubt, important for the industry. The industry grew and expanded its reach and consumer base. The number of iconic and consequential games was a major part of the era. Lastly, to this day, even as younger gamers enter the fold, the 16-bit war between Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis remains one of the most well-known and famous eras of gaming. But everything has an end. In the next part of the History of Video Games Series, we will take a look at Sega’s internal troubles, what PC gaming was doing during this console war, the forgotten failed consoles of the era, how a monkey ended the war, and how Nintendo’s betrayal of an electronics giant would pave the way for a new entrant to the industry that would revolutionize gaming forever.