What is cool about the Genesis mini is that you can change the region and it will change the art and games.
You actually have allot more games on it since it has ones from different regions.
I know it can switch versions of games by region (like Castlevania), but can it actually switch to an alternate region's lineup? Are all lineups built in as standard?
What is cool about the Genesis mini is that you can change the region and it will change the art and games.
You actually have allot more games on it since it has ones from different regions.
I know it can switch versions of games by region (like Castlevania), but can it actually switch to an alternate region's lineup? Are all lineups built in as standard?
What is cool about the Genesis mini is that you can change the region and it will change the art and games.
You actually have allot more games on it since it has ones from different regions.
I know it can switch versions of games by region (like Castlevania), but can it actually switch to an alternate region's lineup? Are all lineups built in as standard?
Was there ever an explanation for why they decided to lose the coloured ABXY buttons on the US SNES?
That plus the sharp edges makes me think the SNES got redesigned by someone who was doing 90's comic book designs. Edgy, no colours, what is this thing you call 'fun'...
Has anyone found a source for cheap Playstation classics through an online retailer as opposed to a store? I suddenly decide I want one and cant' find one anywhere. Target doesn't even seem to have them on their website anymore. I wonder how much of a loss for Sony it was.
Sounds like retailers took most of the hit here with them slowly liquidating the stock over time. What's better for Sony is that this debacle won't affect stocking for PS4 and PS5 stuff. It just means they will have a hard time getting anyone to order another retro box from them.
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SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
Was there ever an explanation for why they decided to lose the coloured ABXY buttons on the US SNES?
That plus the sharp edges makes me think the SNES got redesigned by someone who was doing 90's comic book designs. Edgy, no colours, what is this thing you call 'fun'...
Almost certainly a foreign marketing release committee decision. Not even necessarily a bad one--I much prefer the Super Famicom/EU SNES design, but that's simply because that's what I'm used to, and everything I've seen suggests the muted colors make the US SNES look much more at home with other home electronics (short of making the console black plastic, which would probably resemble their competitors too much).
SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
edited August 2019
I've probably posted about this before, but I was so disappointed when I saw the US version of the SNES. I think it was either Nintendo Power or Electronic Gaming Monthly that featured the Super Famicom at the back of one of their issues and I absolutely loved the look of the design, from the smooth and rounded console shape to the colorful face buttons. I got used to the design we got and even have a bit of a fondness for it, but I still really like what Japan and Europe got.
I probably should have sought out a Euro version of the SNES Mini.
Nintendo was very wary of being called a "toy" by retailers and the public. At the time, I'm assuming they thought colored facebuttons and round design made the console seem more toy-like. The NES was redesigned from the Famicom for the same reason. The boxy design of the SNES was probably to make it seem more like a piece of home electronics equipment.
I think there was some merit to this thinking, actually. Remember when the Gamecube launched: lots of people thought it was toy-like because of the purple color and the handle. It gave the perception that the GameCube was a console for younger people.
Edit: Just found the Playstation Classic on Amazon for $19.99. Cheap enough for me!
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Specifically after the Atari crash, major American retailers weren't interested in stocking dedicated video game consoles anymore. They considered them a fad whose time was past. Nintendo jumped through a lot of odd hoops to try and convince retailers that they had a real computer/appliance rather than a game system. Arguably rob the robot was basically a trojan horse to achieve that end, that was a big part of the pre-release marketing. I doubt they needed to continue the charade after NES and then Genesis established themselves but maybe they just wanted to play it safe.
Specifically after the Atari crash, major American retailers weren't interested in stocking dedicated video game consoles anymore. They considered them a fad whose time was past. Nintendo jumped through a lot of odd hoops to try and convince retailers that they had a real computer/appliance rather than a game system. Arguably rob the robot was basically a trojan horse to achieve that end, that was a big part of the pre-release marketing. I doubt they needed to continue the charade after NES and then Genesis established themselves but maybe they just wanted to play it safe.
It might have been business reasons, too. In "Game Over" David Sheff talks about how Nintendo didn't want to be called a toy because toys typically were sold using a method called December 10 dating, where retailers didn't have to pay for the items until December 10th (well into the Christmas Season), and would also demand mark-down money from toy companies if their toys hadn't sold. Nintendo (rightly, IMO) thought that was nuts, said its product wasn't a toy, and demanded retailer pay Net 30 like nearly every other industry used.
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I think the "16-bit" logo looks gaudy on all 3 regions' cases. If you want to tell me it's a 16-bit console, that's what the box is for. To me it's silly to tell me what kind of CPU is in my console on the case of the console...
The SNES significantly outsold the Genesis and didn't need a "16-bit" logo. Like I said, you can advertise that on the box and in your commercials. It just looks garish on the console.
The bit wars were definitely a thing back in the day. Atari even claimed that the Jaguar was more powerful than their 16 bit competitors because it was a "64 bit" system (it had two 32 bit processors, and 32+32=64 so clearly that means it's a 64 bit machine).
The problem was that there was no universal standard for bits, different companies used different specs (CPU, bus path, etc) and as a result you could say that the Xbox was a 32 bit system whereas the Dreamcast was a 128 bit system, making comparisons meaningless, which is why we don't use them anymore.
The SNES significantly outsold the Genesis and didn't need a "16-bit" logo. Like I said, you can advertise that on the box and in your commercials. It just looks garish on the console.
Blue is regions where the Genesis/Mega Drive outsold the SNES. They were about even worldwide, but in some places (like the UK) the Mega Drive more than doubled SNES sales.
And Nintendo chose the name Nintendo 64 for a reason (but only after announcing the Ultra 64 and taking some ads out). They needed something to point to over the 32-bit Playstation.
The SNES significantly outsold the Genesis and didn't need a "16-bit" logo. Like I said, you can advertise that on the box and in your commercials. It just looks garish on the console.
Blue is regions where the Genesis/Mega Drive outsold the SNES. They were about even worldwide, but in some places (like the UK) the Mega Drive more than doubled SNES sales.
And Nintendo chose the name Nintendo 64 for a reason (but only after announcing the Ultra 64 and taking some ads out). They needed something to point to over the 32-bit Playstation.
Hm. If I’m reading this right and Wikipedia is to be believed (I mean come on, everything on there is 100% accurate, right?) Genesis sold 30.75 million vs SNES’s 49.10 million. Doesn’t sound about even at all.
The SNES significantly outsold the Genesis and didn't need a "16-bit" logo. Like I said, you can advertise that on the box and in your commercials. It just looks garish on the console.
Blue is regions where the Genesis/Mega Drive outsold the SNES. They were about even worldwide, but in some places (like the UK) the Mega Drive more than doubled SNES sales.
And Nintendo chose the name Nintendo 64 for a reason (but only after announcing the Ultra 64 and taking some ads out). They needed something to point to over the 32-bit Playstation.
Hm. If I’m reading this right and Wikipedia is to be believed (I mean come on, everything on there is 100% accurate, right?) Genesis sold 30.75 million vs SNES’s 49.10 million. Doesn’t sound about even at all.
The Genesis number excludes those manufactured by third parties. Sega didn’t build their own units for places like Brazil or Korea, and the console rights for the US were sold to Majesco at some point - that’s when we got the Genesis 3.
There is a ton of subtle console warring in just about every Wikipedia “best selling” list. If you look at the “Best selling ps4 games” list, for example, it shows that the highest-selling Call of Duty game on the PS4 only sold a million copies.
The menu music seems to go on for a while, which is cool!
Worthy of note: switching regions did not switch the actual lineup of games, just changed the versions of the games it has. As expected. But still, very cool!
There is a ton of subtle console warring in just about every Wikipedia “best selling” list.
The specter of the 16 bit console wars still haunting us in 2019 is pretty ridiculous considering the average individual probably has a dozen devices in their home that will play Genesis or SNES games for free, and between microconsoles, Virtual Console/Genesis Collections, and various other re-releases it's not like we're not completely inundated with high quality, low cost legal and official options to buy and play the best games from the era. In this glorious modern era of accessibility for retro gaming there is no reason why someone who was a Sega kid can't fire up Link's Awakening and see what everyone was talking about back in middle school, and there's no reason why the kid who got an SNES for his 10th birthday and became a Nintendo diehard can't fire up Phantasy Star IV and play one of the finest JRPGs of all time.
That said, the Genesis was the superior console and anyone who disagrees is a dork GENESIS DOES WHAT NINTENDON'T
That said, the Genesis was the superior console and anyone who disagrees is a dork GENESIS DOES WHAT NINTENDON'T
Yeah, I suppose I might also bitterly cling to the past if my company of choice put out unsupported add ons, tanked their next two systems, went out of the hardware business and started making games for the competition. Nintendon’t do that though, so I’m good.
The bit wars were definitely a thing back in the day. Atari even claimed that the Jaguar was more powerful than their 16 bit competitors because it was a "64 bit" system (it had two 32 bit processors, and 32+32=64 so clearly that means it's a 64 bit machine).
The problem was that there was no universal standard for bits, different companies used different specs (CPU, bus path, etc) and as a result you could say that the Xbox was a 32 bit system whereas the Dreamcast was a 128 bit system, making comparisons meaningless, which is why we don't use them anymore.
Yep. Something I find more ridiculous is how many game cartridge boxes (this was mostly a 16-bit era thing, as I recall) advertised how many megabits the ROM was. Even as a kid who got duped into renting or even buying all sorts of bad games, I knew that number meant pretty much jack shit about the quality of the game.
I don't know anyone who looked at a game box and bought it because it said it was a "20 megabit adventure."
The bit wars were definitely a thing back in the day. Atari even claimed that the Jaguar was more powerful than their 16 bit competitors because it was a "64 bit" system (it had two 32 bit processors, and 32+32=64 so clearly that means it's a 64 bit machine).
The problem was that there was no universal standard for bits, different companies used different specs (CPU, bus path, etc) and as a result you could say that the Xbox was a 32 bit system whereas the Dreamcast was a 128 bit system, making comparisons meaningless, which is why we don't use them anymore.
Yep. Something I find more ridiculous is how many game cartridge boxes (this was mostly a 16-bit era thing, as I recall) advertised how many megabits the ROM was. Even as a kid who got duped into renting or even buying all sorts of bad games, I knew that number meant pretty much jack shit about the quality of the game.
I don't know anyone who looked at a game box and bought it because it said it was a "20 megabit adventure."
Sega were doing that as far back as Master System games.
(Another console that deserves a Mini version. But it'll never happen.)
I'm comparing the game lineups on the Japanese and Asian (i.e. Korea/China) versions of the Mega Drive Mini. On the whole I think the Asian unit is the way to go; looks like the Japanese one (that matters to me, at least), and doesn't lose anything I'd really miss (just a couple I don't know but would be curious about) but gains a couple of good ones, like Out Run 2019 and Castle of Illusion (may or may not be moot when they're hacked). Also it comes with two controllers, which is big. Still need to establish if they'll be 6-button or 3-button; 3 is possible since Street Fighter II is a game that is missing.
According to the Console Wars book, the folks handling Sega of America stuff just had no idea what to do with the Master System, which is a large part of why it didn't do well in North America. The marketing team switched up for Genesis, and that's a large part of why the Genesis dominated the first half of that generation.
I don't know what the numbers were like, but I always got the impression (living here) that the NES was pretty niche in Europe; certainly the UK. It wasn't obscure by any means, but the Master System had more presence (it was quite well marketed by Mastertronic over here, a huge name in budget computer games, whereas the NES was marketed by Mattel and squarely positioned as a toy, which it wasn't all that good at), and NES games were prohibitively expensive by comparison too. (Nintendo's real UK foothold came with the Game Boy, originally.)
The UK was still ruled by home computers of the time. The Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 were the big names in the 8-bit generation, with other players like the BBC Micro and the Amstrad CPC; IBM-compatible PCs were almost entirely business-only computers here in the '80s, again mainly due to their extortionate cost, and the Mac was almost entirely an enthusiast (and desktop publishing) product for similar reasons. The 16-bit generation of computers was ramping up in the late '80s, as the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga took over. But the 8-bits still took years to die off; Spectrum software was around as late as '93.
Really, the Mega Drive and SNES were where consoles took off genuinely strongly here. And as the ST and Amiga faded into specific niches (the ST was a brilliant musician's computer and the Amiga became a more general cult machine), the PC was becoming an affordable and flexible option and started to become the main computer platform.
Please. You weren't a true 90's console warrior unless you cared far, FAR too much about how many different colors the system could produce.
Same with the computers. And whether or not they had a blitter chip. And whether that mattered. And CPU clock speeds... oh wait, that one still goes on.
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I know it can switch versions of games by region (like Castlevania), but can it actually switch to an alternate region's lineup? Are all lineups built in as standard?
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That's gotta be comparing the model 2 to the model 1. All 2s are the same size as each other, and all 1s are the same size as each other.
The Genesis 3 is freakily small, though.
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It don't know if it switches the lineup.
I'd be surprised. But it would be awesome.
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I was just joking because the posted pic was much smaller than the other 2. But that doesn't show up on mobile.
As I've gotten older, though, I've grown much more appreciative of the Model 1 design. Same goes for the SEGA CD.
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That plus the sharp edges makes me think the SNES got redesigned by someone who was doing 90's comic book designs. Edgy, no colours, what is this thing you call 'fun'...
Sounds like retailers took most of the hit here with them slowly liquidating the stock over time. What's better for Sony is that this debacle won't affect stocking for PS4 and PS5 stuff. It just means they will have a hard time getting anyone to order another retro box from them.
The menu music seems to go on for a while, which is cool!
My Backloggery
Almost certainly a foreign marketing release committee decision. Not even necessarily a bad one--I much prefer the Super Famicom/EU SNES design, but that's simply because that's what I'm used to, and everything I've seen suggests the muted colors make the US SNES look much more at home with other home electronics (short of making the console black plastic, which would probably resemble their competitors too much).
Heh, my mistake. Wasn't paying much attention to the resolution sizes of the images, just the file sizes. And yeah, I was doing it on mobile.
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I probably should have sought out a Euro version of the SNES Mini.
My Backloggery
I think there was some merit to this thinking, actually. Remember when the Gamecube launched: lots of people thought it was toy-like because of the purple color and the handle. It gave the perception that the GameCube was a console for younger people.
Edit: Just found the Playstation Classic on Amazon for $19.99. Cheap enough for me!
3DS Friend Code: 0404-6826-4588 PM if you add.
It might have been business reasons, too. In "Game Over" David Sheff talks about how Nintendo didn't want to be called a toy because toys typically were sold using a method called December 10 dating, where retailers didn't have to pay for the items until December 10th (well into the Christmas Season), and would also demand mark-down money from toy companies if their toys hadn't sold. Nintendo (rightly, IMO) thought that was nuts, said its product wasn't a toy, and demanded retailer pay Net 30 like nearly every other industry used.
3DS Friend Code: 0404-6826-4588 PM if you add.
What they should have done was have a “Blast Processing!” plate on the console.
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The problem was that there was no universal standard for bits, different companies used different specs (CPU, bus path, etc) and as a result you could say that the Xbox was a 32 bit system whereas the Dreamcast was a 128 bit system, making comparisons meaningless, which is why we don't use them anymore.
Blue is regions where the Genesis/Mega Drive outsold the SNES. They were about even worldwide, but in some places (like the UK) the Mega Drive more than doubled SNES sales.
And Nintendo chose the name Nintendo 64 for a reason (but only after announcing the Ultra 64 and taking some ads out). They needed something to point to over the 32-bit Playstation.
Hm. If I’m reading this right and Wikipedia is to be believed (I mean come on, everything on there is 100% accurate, right?) Genesis sold 30.75 million vs SNES’s 49.10 million. Doesn’t sound about even at all.
The Genesis number excludes those manufactured by third parties. Sega didn’t build their own units for places like Brazil or Korea, and the console rights for the US were sold to Majesco at some point - that’s when we got the Genesis 3.
There is a ton of subtle console warring in just about every Wikipedia “best selling” list. If you look at the “Best selling ps4 games” list, for example, it shows that the highest-selling Call of Duty game on the PS4 only sold a million copies.
Worthy of note: switching regions did not switch the actual lineup of games, just changed the versions of the games it has. As expected. But still, very cool!
Steam | XBL
The specter of the 16 bit console wars still haunting us in 2019 is pretty ridiculous considering the average individual probably has a dozen devices in their home that will play Genesis or SNES games for free, and between microconsoles, Virtual Console/Genesis Collections, and various other re-releases it's not like we're not completely inundated with high quality, low cost legal and official options to buy and play the best games from the era. In this glorious modern era of accessibility for retro gaming there is no reason why someone who was a Sega kid can't fire up Link's Awakening and see what everyone was talking about back in middle school, and there's no reason why the kid who got an SNES for his 10th birthday and became a Nintendo diehard can't fire up Phantasy Star IV and play one of the finest JRPGs of all time.
That said, the Genesis was the superior console and anyone who disagrees is a dork GENESIS DOES WHAT NINTENDON'T
Yeah, I suppose I might also bitterly cling to the past if my company of choice put out unsupported add ons, tanked their next two systems, went out of the hardware business and started making games for the competition. Nintendon’t do that though, so I’m good.
I don't know anyone who looked at a game box and bought it because it said it was a "20 megabit adventure."
Sega were doing that as far back as Master System games.
(Another console that deserves a Mini version. But it'll never happen.)
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My Backloggery
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Genesis_Mini#Games
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I think the NES was a juggernaut by the time the master system was stateside.
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It wasn't that close in Europe, Master System pretty much trounced it. That and Brazil made for a fairly strong PAL-exclusive library for the system.
The UK was still ruled by home computers of the time. The Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 were the big names in the 8-bit generation, with other players like the BBC Micro and the Amstrad CPC; IBM-compatible PCs were almost entirely business-only computers here in the '80s, again mainly due to their extortionate cost, and the Mac was almost entirely an enthusiast (and desktop publishing) product for similar reasons. The 16-bit generation of computers was ramping up in the late '80s, as the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga took over. But the 8-bits still took years to die off; Spectrum software was around as late as '93.
Really, the Mega Drive and SNES were where consoles took off genuinely strongly here. And as the ST and Amiga faded into specific niches (the ST was a brilliant musician's computer and the Amiga became a more general cult machine), the PC was becoming an affordable and flexible option and started to become the main computer platform.
Same with the computers. And whether or not they had a blitter chip. And whether that mattered. And CPU clock speeds... oh wait, that one still goes on.
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