The Obsession With The Raw Power

[codeninja]

Throught the gaming history the system with more RAW power lost the battle.

NES vs Master System - NES destroyed MS
SNES vs MegaDrive - SNES won worldwide, while MD has more CPU raw power
PSX vs N64 - PSX won with 33MHz R3000; N64 had 93MHz R4400
PS2 vs XBox - PS2 won hands down with the worse hardware in every aspect

However, today, we see Sony and MS debating who's system is more powerful. Isn't it weird?

 

[weirdocollector]

That's marketing, baby !

 

[spray]

better power =/ better games

 

[Mikelx215]

Less power = cheaper hardware

 

[daclassicgamingmaster]

codeninja, can you make a thread that doesnt in some way shape or form point towards sony or m$?

 

[Alpha2]

in the 16 bit era you;re completly ignoring the TG16/PCengine which was the weaker of the 3 systems and lost out to both the SNES and Genesis, especially after it was revealed to the public that the CPU was actually 8bit.

Also the Genesis made more money than the SNES in a short period of time. While Sega did in fact kill of the Genesis leaving the SNES to flurish for a year or twio longer the longer life span of the SNES (as well as far more impresive graphics like 32,000 colors and mode 7 scaling vs 512 blurry ones and nothing else) left a greater impression on the public.

N64 vs PSone, Cartridges vs CDs with cinematics real music and more impressive games. You also fail to mention the Saturn which was the PSone's most direct competition, was originally no more powerful than a 32X until Sega got scared by the suprise unvailing of the Sony hardware which forced them to shove a second processor into it to try and compensate. Possibly making it more powerful but few in any developers could take strong enough advantage of it to make a visible difference.

PS2 vs DC, DC was easily less powerful dispite being a very capable system but still failed. Mostly due to Sega's poor management and lack of faith in their hardware (again) But to befair they didn;t have DVD playback which also gave the PS2 another reason to be purchased for many households. Your comparison also fails to not that in the PS2 vs Xbox battle the Xbox failed to win the interest of not only gamers but developers as evidenced by the libraries of either system. Sony had developed a level of consumer loyalty in the previous generation, dispite the occasional hardware malfunction they still had the games people wanted to play because the companies wanted to produce those games for the system they felt to be a more profitable platform.

 

[Spearhead]

PS2 vs Saturn, Saturn was easily less powerful dispite being a very capable system but still failed. Mostly due to Sega's poor management and lack of faith in their hardware (again) But to befair they didn;t have DVD playback which also gave the PS2 another reason to be purchased for many households. Your comparison also fails to not that in the PS2 vs Xbox battle the Xbox failed to win the interest of not only gamers but developers as evidenced by the libraries of either system. Sony had developed a level of consumer loyalty in the previous generation, dispite the occasional hardware malfunction they still had the games people wanted to play because the companies wanted to produce those games for the system they felt to be a more profitable platform.

​

I'd guess you mean Dreamcast here, and not Saturn?

 

[Alpha2]

You assume correctly I accidentally transposed PS and PS2 a couple of times aswell before I hit the post button. Ultimately both Sega machines got beat by the sony machines in almost the same way.

 

[Squidge]

The megadrive certainly had more CPU raw power, but the SNES could easily beat it with it's more advanced SPC700 audio processor, DSP, and powerful graphics controllers. So in the end the SNES was actually the more powerful, as although the processor was less powerful, it didn't need to do as much to achieve the same results.

 

[Radek]

Throught the gaming history the system with more RAW power lost the battle.

NES vs Master System - NES destroyed MS
SNES vs MegaDrive - SNES won worldwide, while MD has more CPU raw power
PSX vs N64 - PSX won with 33MHz R3000; N64 had 93MHz R4400
PS2 vs XBox - PS2 won hands down with the worse hardware in every aspect

However, today, we see Sony and MS debating who's system is more powerful. Isn't it weird?

​

It's a marketing at its best...

People like to rationalze theirs decisions to feel better about them. The "power" issue is important but when there is enough of it then a support, available titles and other aspects will be more significant.

Admiting to being "less powerfull" would have a very negative effect of perception of machine. That's how the truth is worth for people...

 

[codeninja]

codeninja, can you make a thread that doesnt in some way shape or form point towards sony or m$?

Sony & MS do own the biggest chunk of market share and mind share, and they do generate the biggest buzz. Hence, more stuffs to talk about them. I'm fully aware of the fact that subject of Sony is very sacred and can't handle any shape or form or hint of negatism. At the same time, Sony is just a company that sell products to make money for their shareholders like million others out there. Putting too much meaning to an electronics product is silly.

This thread, I didn't intend to bash anyone, and if you thought I did, it's rather your mind talking rather than me talking.

 

[craigix]

Throught the gaming history the system with more RAW power lost the battle.

NES vs Master System - NES destroyed MS

​

Maybe in the USA, but certainly not in Europe.

 

[Rico]

Not in Europe, no. And didn't the SNES have more power than the Mega Drive, overall?

Also codeninja, we really need someone like you in off-topic, you're singlehandedly keeping this forum busy

 

[Alpha2]

The SNES benefited from numerous special chips both aurally and visually that trumped the Genesis which pounded away without them (the Genesis didn't get true mode 7 untill the Sega CD and while it had some cool sound tracks over the years the SNES produced almost ochestral level themes with ease). Add in things like the super FX chip games and the SNES looks far mroe powerful in comparison.

 

[Ravnos]

I don't think it's fair to include the Super FX in there because it wasn't actually a part of the system hardware. If we're going to include that, then we also have to include the likes of the Virtua Processor, which was no slouch either.

 

[Reaperman93010]

I think the humble gameboy is the best example of marketing succeeding against raw power. Nobody thought THAT would last as long as it did.

1989-1998--nearly ten years, with a system that was 10 years obsolete when it was launched.

 

[thingley]

I agree that marketing is a huge factor - but isn't the most important factor the availability, price and quality of games?

I remember Atari having a problem trying to replace the 2600VCS as their main console because the VCS had just so many games already in the shops for it. The new console that wouldn't play the old titles died on it's arse fairly quickly and the old VCS was still on the shelves in the 1990's.

If you move away from consoles - in the UK the humble ZX spectrum beat the superior C64 mostly thanks to a handful of talented programmers (Ultimate now RARE and Jon Ritman to name a couple) . Our weird British games just weren't as good on the C64.

Many of the 8 bit systems also survived for a long time and effectively beat off competition from the newer better consoles because the new machines were so expensive. A Snes game would set you back £50 (possibly more) but if you had an old c64 or speccy knocking around you could buy a game for less than £10. We kept our old computers as second systems and if anything bought games for them more regularly than snes or megadrive ones.( I only got snes games at christmas or birthdays)

 

[Angel]

I remember Atari having a problem trying to replace the 2600VCS as their main console because the VCS had just so many games already in the shops for it. The new console that wouldn't play the old titles died on it's arse fairly quickly and the old VCS was still on the shelves in the 1990's.

​

I'd suggest you visit Atari age.com, or read up on Atari history. That statement is pretty much false. The amount of games on the shelves is what brought about the video game crash in 1983. The market was flooded with crappy games and good systems like the Colecovision and the Atari 5200 suffered because of it.

BUT!!! for reasons that only Atari knows, they thought they could still sell the 2600, repackaged it to the JR, but it wasn't the 2600 that affected the other systems, after the crash and lossing MILLIONS of dollars, they released the 7800 too little too late, and then you had the Lynx that was superior to both the GameGear and the Gameboy, and the price was competative, but the lack of any real kind of marketing strategy helped kill those 2 systems off, more so just the sheer crappiness of the 7800 killed that system, and the trend continued with the Jaguar. The Jaguar had some marketing but with its 5 processors it was extremely hard to program for, so most fans believe that the power of the Jag was never fully tapped.

Advertising and Marketing killed Atari's lesser known systems, not the 2600, and also the same games were being released for the new systems that people had on the 2600, yes they were better, but try as a kid explaining to your parents to buy you a new $300 system and $40 game in the mid 80's that you already had on your 2600 regardless of how much better it was.

 

[thingley]

The 7800 wasn't a complete disaster as far as I remember - I thought Jack Tramiel wanted to concentrate all his efforts on the Atari ST. He only eventually released the console to make a buck once the success of the nes showed that people still wanted consoles. You are right about the old arcade conversions tho'...

These arcade conversions were no match for nintendo games - a good nintendo game would have kept you playing for weeks to see the end of it whereas nearly all of the 7800 catalogue are 'quick blast' titles.

So here again it's the lack of games killing a system (not to mention Tramiel missing the boat by holding off the release of the 7800 till the nes had already taken over).

And over here at least Atari DID keep selling the 2600 - it remained on the shelves until the early nineties in the Jr form. Many of my friends were bought them (when they were very young) as a christmas stocking filler - much like the joysticks with several games on that you can buy now.

I know what a huge deal the crash was in the states but my recollection was it was triggered by a small number of really high profile blunders by atari. I'm thinking of that appalling Pacman conversion to the VCS and the risible ET game.

 

[Angel]

The 7800 wasn't a complete disaster as far as I remember -

These arcade conversions were no match for nintendo games - a good nintendo game would have kept you playing for weeks to see the end of it whereas nearly all of the 7800 catalogue are 'quick blast' titles.

So here again it's the lack of games killing a system (not to mention Tramiel missing the boat by holding off the release of the 7800 till the nes had already taken over).

And over here at least Atari DID keep selling the 2600 - it was remained on the shelves until the early nineties in the Jr form.

​

It was a complete disaster, 2 years to late, outdated hardware straight from the git go. Atari passed up the rights to distribute the NES as an Atari system to release the 7800, c'mon, it was a complete disaster from the start.

5200 did not have the lack of games, out of all the systems released, the 5200 has one of the best, bad games to good games ratios. it has many more good games than bad. the arcade conversions are far superior to the 2600's. And the 5200 was not backwards compatible with the 2600, which a lot of people at the time already were getting large libraries of 2600 games and wouldn't be able to use them on new hardware. The 7800 as i already stated was a disaster, rehashed 2600/5200 games, original games that were completely crappy, no marketing, bad timing. But it was backwards compatable, but again, to little, to late, lots of things made this fail.

And i never said that Atari DIDN'T stop selling the 2600, they were pumping the machine for every last cent, just like nintendo pumped the Gameboy, it was their most successful console, but it WAS NOT the amount of games that kept it on its shelf like you state as their main system.