SEGA/Nintendo vs Xbox/Playstation - best rivalry all time?

Sony Vs MS because of the internet battles alone are 100 times more epic. The hilarious gif's, megatons and sick burns are much more entertaining.

Back in the 90's the fanboyism was not nearly as bad. Most of the people I knew owned a SNES and Genesis. They mostly argued about games, but even then they would still play the other consoles games and have fun.

Nowadays, people will argue for hours on the internet on the tiniest details just to prove they are right. It is more intense/hate filled....and I like it. :P

Sega and Nintendo had properties that poeple were able to grow up with therefore maintain a stronger affection towards. Sony could also belong in this club but evidently decides not to considering the short lifespan of their IPs

Microsoft has jack shit besides HALO

Sega used to run commercials mocking Nintendo. Microsoft and Sony don't do this.

Gaming was really in a new period in the late 80's, throughout the 90's. Lots of innovation, 3d gaming, controllers getting better, New types of games.

Now it feels like gaming has peaked. Fps is all the same now. Buttons consists of, run, aim, shoot, throw grenade, change weapon, melee, duck. Get shot screen goes red, until your health comes back. Then along comes double jump, ghost etc... As deployed in at least killzone sf and Destiny. Most 3rd person sandbox games and 3rd person action/adventure games have the same formula.

It feels like this era of Microsoft vs Sony is in an era where innovation is out of the window and games have peaked. Innovation is dead.

Innovation is 99% of the fun of gaming. Playing goldeneye on the n64 was far more enjoyable than playing cod advanced warfare on the ps4 for me. Even though now I would find goldeneye outdated. At that time I had never played anything like it. Now there is 1000026357 fps that come out every year.

The Dreamcast was not a niche market. If anything, its SegaNet online service was accessible to more people than the Xbox 1's Xbox Live was. While Xbox sold about twice as much as the Dreamcast, Xbox Live was only accessible to a small portion of users who paid the subscription fee, while SegaNet was accessible to all Dreamcast users for free, not to mention every Dreamcast coming with a built-in modem. Also, SegaNet had many of the features that Xbox Live had, and was more-or-less the basis for Xbox Live. However, Microsoft had the money to make up for its huge losses with the Xbox, while Sega couldn't afford to take the same risks, so Microsoft could afford to develop its Xbox Live infrastructure further than what Sega was able to do. While Microsoft deserves credit for taking it further, Sega deserves the most credit for introducing online gaming to consoles, just for the Dreamcast alone, let alone the relatively niche online services of the earlier Mega Drive and Saturn consoles.

This is completely untrue. The North American gaming market in the early 1990s was actually BIGGER than it is today, when taking inflation into account. And that was largely because arcade gaming was huge back then. While gamers today largely stay at home and download the latest games online, gamers back in the early 90s were generally more physically and socially active, going out to arcades to play the latest games. And Sega mostly dominated the arcade industry back then, though with competition from Capcom, Namco and Midway.

Uhhhh.....no it definitely wasn't. $10-20 billion in the 90's is a joke compared to the $60+ billion generated in recent years. Also, SNES sold around 49 million while GEN sold 29 million, pretty pathetic when you begin to compare it to Playstation numbers. And let's not get into the whole slew of upcoming videogame movie releases coming out....Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, Resident Evil, Warcraft...much more numerous than it was back then seeing as how gaming is becoming more accepted by the general public. Then you have videogame ads being displayed in various sports events, lots more cross-development between film directors and game designers, schools like Full Sail University in business, videogame soundtracks now being composed by an orchestra (unlike the 8 bit days where you had a couple of guys writing MIDI tracks in their mom's garage).... not to mention female gamers were largely non-existent in the 90's. The list goes on and on.... And what are you talking about LOL? Going to the arcades just to spend hours playing MK doesn't make you a physically active person, unless you count mashing buttons as exercise. Ever heard of Dave And Busters? People still go to arcades today, just not as much.

To put it short sweet and bluntly:

Sega vs Nintendo rivalry was: BEST GAMES

MS vs Sony rivalry is: BEST SALES

The philosophy difference in the approach of the competition with the rivalries is what makes this question silly.

At the very least Sony still has a little bit of the, "let's make the best games" philosophy from the Sega / Nintendo game era but with MS only concerned with maxing profit from holiday sales there isn't much of a "war" to talk about game wise.

If you are a corporate investor you probably feel the MS/Sony "rivalry" Is the best. NOONE talked about sales during the Sega/nintendo era.

The only thing that even makes the MS/Sony rivalry relevant are the insane psych ward level fanboys that came along with the arrival of the xbox console. Never have I a seem a group so bent on to defending a company who are NOT trying to deliver the most and best games on their home platform...thus the stupid arguments we have today and "teh rivalry".

My Point^

Again, your comment is almost completely untrue, clearly based on purely subjective opinion rather than actual objective statistical facts...

$10-20 billion was how much the US game industry alone was worth in the early-mid-90s. In 1993-1994, the US game industry was worth nearly $16 billion, equivalent to about $25 billion today. In comparison, the US game industry today is worth just over $17 billion, much less than its worth in 1993-1994 (with inflation).

$60 billion is how much the entire worldwide industry is worth today. There were no worldwide figures available back then. But Japan's game industry was worth nearly $18 billion in 1995, equivalent to about $27 billion today. In other words, just Japan and the US alone around 1993-1995 were worth about $52 billion in today's money, and with other territories on top of that, the worldwide figure in the early-mid-90s was comparable in size to today's industry. But overall, today's worldwide industry is probably bigger, but not because of growth in traditional markets like the US, UK, or Japan, but because of rapid growth in relatively younger markets like China, Korea and Russia.

Also, the Mega Drive/Genesis sold over 40 million, not 29 million. Either way, the reasons why consoles sold less units than today is because, firstly, they were more expensive back then, when taking inflation into account. Secondly, the arcades were huge, a bigger market than consoles, so consoles lost much of their potential sales to arcades. And thirdly, there was also a huge rental market back then, which also reduced the potential sales of consoles. Without stiff competition from arcades and rentals, consoles now sell more than they did back then.

As for crossovers with other media, do I need to remind you of the large number of high-profile video game movies that came out in the 90s, e.g. Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Mario Bros, Double Dragon, Tomb Raider, Pokemon, etc. Or all the Saturday morning cartoons based on games? Video games were seen as a mainstream hobby in the 90s, just as they are today.

Female gamers were always around, but rarely acknowledged, just like today. Even back in the 8-bit era, the NES's user base was about 33% female, according to Nintendo of America in 1988. And that figure was even higher in Japan, where female gamers have always had a stronger presence. This whole idea of female gamers only recently entering gaming is nothing more than a myth, completely contradicted by historical statistical evidence.

And finally, going to arcades isn't exactly physical exercise, but at the very least, that made arcade gamers more physically and socially active than modern gamers today who can download and play everything from home, without ever having to get off their chair/bed/sofa. While arcades are around today, the revenues they generate today are just a tiny fraction compared to the huge revenues they generated in the 80s to 90s. And it was the arcades where Sega grossed most of its revenues, despite its dominance on consoles in the early 90s.

Sony did mock Ninty in the 90's

But Ninty was no stranger to slamming their rivals then either:

Sega vs Nintendo

How is it my opinion when these are facts substantiated by many credible sources? I'm really not convinced because it seems to me you're cherrypicking certain statistics, and misrepresenting or confusing them. Where are you getting your figures? In 1994, the US industry was worth only $7 billion.Today, it's worth $21 billion, not $17 billion like you mentioned earlier. Worldwide today, its valued at $65 billion, compared to 1994 when the WW market was valued at only $20.8 billion. You're right that the younger markets are contributing to the overall worldwide growth, but it also further supports my point earlier that videogames are more popular and diverse than ever before. Now, if you want to talk about inflation, well that doesn't really explain anything. It doesn't tell us what the mindshare is. It doesn't tell us the demographics of old/young/male/female gamers. It doesn't tell us how many households are actively buying videogames. It doesn't tell us its cultural influence upon the world as a whole. So its not a reliable gauge in determining the size and scope of an industry.

Back in the days when Nintendo and Sega clashed, the internet was still in its infancy and most people relied on gaming magazines and TV ads for awareness. Thanks to the proliferation of the internet, people are much more educated about their gaming purchases and are buying games more as a result. Sites like this site and Kotaku have been heavy contributors in spreading awareness about videogames. Gaming back then was still largely seen as a hobby for children and young teenagers, unlike today where the average gamer is now 31 years of age.

Nintendo had Mario, and Sega wanted to create a mascot that would directly compete with Nintendo so they made Sonic as an attempt to undercut Nintendo and gravitate towards the older crowd, which worked to some extent, although that still didn't really help much in eliminating the negative stigma surrounding videogames. Though Sony had Crash initially as a gaming mascot, they wanted to do away with mascots altogether because of the fact that it created the perception that gaming was for kids, and it worked to great effect, which is why the Playstation went on to be the first videogame console to break the 100 million barrier.

As for movies based on games, I'm not denying that there were ones made in the 90's....that's why I said "much more numerous than it was back then" as to imply that there were movies indeed being made, just not as much when compared today. Also, I want to point out that Prince of Persia was the highest grossing videogame movie ever made, trumping all those 90's films. Then you have the Spike Videogame awards, BAFTA, IGF, and a new show called The Game Awards. Did you know that the PS3 controller won an Emmy, or that Journey earned a nomination for a Grammy? What other videogame has ever earned a spot in the 55 years since the Grammy Awards began its inception?

That 33% of NES gamers being female becomes laughable especially when you compare it to the number of female gamers that game on a 3DS, Wii U, mobile phone, PS4, PC, or Xbox One. According to the ESA, female gamers over 18 play games more than boys 18 and younger, making it 48%.

Then you have gaming celebrities coming out of the woodwork and being more open about their hobby like Felicia Day and Olivia Munn, not to mention you have groups like the Frag Dolls trying to promote the idea that gaming is cool and that women shouldn't be ashamed to hold a controller in hand. Also female cosplayers are taking over the scene and popularizing gaming, something which was unheard of in the 90's.

Lastly, I agree that arcades were bigger in the 80's and 90's, but to say that gamers were more physically/socially active back then is misleading, especially when you ignore that people frequent LAN gaming centers, attend gaming conventions like PAX or Blizzcon, play games centered around social interaction like Words With Friends and certain Facebook gaming apps, and attend on-campus cyber cafes on many college institutions. You also forget that there are such things as pro gaming tournaments as well, something which wasn't present in the early 90's and I'd argue is much more socially interactive and lucrative than going to the arcades. People are still just as physically/socially active today, just in different ways among a wider variety of venues and not just arcades.

@jg4xchamp: Lmao do you honestly know how much cheaper it was to produce a game back then? The money it takes to make one tripple A title of today could fund 2 years worth of games back then.

You definitely don't remember the debates between the SNES's Mode 7 and the Genesis's Blast Processing. People actually still cared about graphics back then.

The problem with your figures is that they only deal with the home market, not the arcade market. For most of the 80's and 90's, the arcade market was bigger than the home market. You can find detailed historical figures (with sources) for the US and Japan markets here and here. As you can see, when taking both the arcade and home sectors into account, inflation adjusted, then both the US and Japan markets were clearly bigger in the 90's than they are today. The US market's 1993 peak of $24.63 billion (inflation adjusted) has not been matched ever since. And the Japan market's 1996 peak of $27.51 billion (inflation adjusted) has also not been matched ever since. These markets have not grown, but the worldwide growth is mainly fuelled by newer markets like China, Korea, and Russia, rather than traditional markets like the US, Japan, or UK.

What you're saying about the average age of the gamer might have had some truth in the console market, but the arcade market has always been predominantly adult dominated, even as far back as Pong. There is no evidence to suggest the average age of the arcade gamer has increased. The only difference is that the average age of the console gamer has increased, in correlation with the decline of the arcade market.

Actually, Tomb Raider is still the highest-grossing video game movie, when the revenue is adjusted for inflation. The Sands of Time has come very close, but it didn't beat Tomb Raider's inflation-adjusted revenue (over $366 million). Although Tomb Raider is technically a 2001 movie, it's based on a game franchise that was huge in the 90's. Also, let's not forget Tomb Raider was the vehicle that launched Angelina Jolie, one of the world's biggest female movie stars, to superstardom. The same cannot be said about any video game movie since.

A majority of the 48% of female gamers today are casual gamers. Since the NES was a mostly hardcore console, and casual games barely even existed back then, most of those 33% female NES gamers were hardcore gamers. But then again, modern gaming in general (even AAA gaming) has become relatively casual compared to games back in those days. Either way, 33% female gamers was still far more than the picture you were presenting in your initial post. And that's in the 8-bit era. That figure would have been higher in the 16-bit era.

Pro gaming tournaments have been around since the 80's, as far back as the arcade golden age in the early 80's. Throughout the 80's and 90's, there were world championships dedicated to pro gaming (e.g. Twin Galaxies, Nintendo World Championships, and plenty more) and popular mainstream TV shows dedicated to pro gaming (e.g. Starcade, GamesMaster, and plenty more). Furthermore, gaming tournaments were held in most major arcades back in the 90's, especially fighting game tournaments. Pro gaming isn't something new. Either way, pro gaming is a bad counter-example, since only a minority of gamers are involved in it. Back in the 80's to 90's, a majority of gamers were arcade gamers. A majority of gamers back then went outside to social venues to play games, whereas a majority of gamers today stay indoors to play games (or on their phones outside).

He's still not wrong though. The 16-bit era had WAY more debate that were not just about anything graphics or tech related.

Not true at all. Games back then were just as expensive as they are today. The difference is that most of the budget went towards manufacturing expensive ROM cartridges, which usually cost a lot more than the game's production and marketing budgets combined. But with the arrival of optical discs in the 32-bit era, it became possible to devote most of the budget towards the production and marketing rather than the manufacturing. And with the arrival of digital distribution last gen, manufacturing costs are virtually non-existent today.

Sega and Nintendo on variety alone. Even multiplats in most instances were vastly different.

I wouldn't say Microsoft and Sony is even close to that legendary rivalry considering Sony's wiped the floor with them thus far. Sega and Nintendo traded blows, even if I think the Snes is the definitive winner of that era.

@Jag85: Sorry you are wrong. Crash Bandicoot had a budget of about 2 million and that was expensive at the time. Something like uncharted 4 has a budget in the 50 million range. Sorry but it's not even close.

Shenmue set the record at 70 million but now that's pretty average for a AAA title.

I have 35. Sega vs Nintendo by a mile, now we have the plus of forums and that help. But back in the 90s was a open war between companies. Great times.

The point clearly flew over your head. I was talking about manufacturing costs, not production costs. You might want to learn the difference.

Just for the record, Crash Bandicoot's $2 million production budget was nowhere near the most expensive game at the time. In comparison, Final Fantasy VII had a production budget of $45 million, and a combined production & marketing budget of $145 million, equivalent to $213 million today. And that's without taking any manufacturing costs into account.

More importantly, the manufacturing costs of some 90's games exceeded the entire production & marketing budgets of even the most expensive games of the 21st century. For example, a single SNES cartridge cost $15 in 1996, and even more than that in the early 90's. Multiply $15 by the 20.6 million SNES cartridges that Super Mario World sold, and you get $309 million manufacturing costs at the very least. And then adjust that for inflation, and it cost at least over $550 million in today's money just to manufacture Super Mario World cartridges in the 90's.

@Jag85: Yet Manufacturing cost was offset by the fact that cartridges would cost anywhere from 60 to 80 dollars. I never said CB was the most expensive but it was in line with other AAA titles. Not to mention we are talking about Nintendo vs Sega. FF7 was well after that. I can't believe you are actually trying to argue that games are OVERALL far more expensive to produce now then they were then.

If you don't grasp that simple concept there is no point arguing with you.

Nintendo vs Sony

Again, you're ignoring what I'm saying about inflation not being relevant when it comes to determining cultural impact and influence. Yeah, money spent in the 1990's is worth more than today, but it doesn't mean more people were playing games in the 90's than in the 21st century. The only thing it means is the currency value has grown. That's it. You can get many more people to spend $1 to play Angry Birds vs spending $70 to play Mario Kart 64. Hypothetically speaking, if Mario Kart made $100 million in sales then that roughly equates to 1.5 million people buying the game. Similarly, if Angry Birds made the same amount, then that equates to 100 million consumers. Simple math. That's why it makes absolutely no sense to say the market was bigger back then when factoring inflation. More money made doesn't necessarily mean more people. Focusing only on the US and Japan while ignoring everything else as proof that gaming was bigger strikes me as you being disingenuous.

Funny you point out that the 48% of female gamers are casuals, as the same can be said about the arcade market, as games like Pong and Galaga were also commonly played by casuals, which are also casual games. For instance, my dad likes Pac-Man, but refuses to play Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. What's the 33% based out of? 34 million in the Americas? 19 million in Japan? As of right now, there are 195 million gamers in the US alone, 48% of which are women. Do the math and explain how 33% is bigger than 48%? Furthermore, how do you know all those 33% of NES players are hardcore gamers? If all you bought was Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros and nothing else, that doesn't make you a hardcore gamer.

You say that PGL gamers only represent a minority, while arcade gamers represent a majority...which begs the question, how many arcade gamers were around in the 90's? Of those gamers, how many of them were repeat costumers or people with only a casual interest? As of right now, there are 9 million registered users across the globe...definitely not a minority. And these are hardcore gamers we're talking about, people who spend 8 hours a day finetuning their craft and making plenty of money doing it, which can be said more than the arcade-goer who ocasionally spends $5 worth of tokens playing Pac-Man.

That's not going to offset the manufacturing costs if many of those cartridges are left unsold. Take Pac-Man 2600, for example. Atari sold 7 million cartridges for $30 each, grossing over $200 million around 1982-1983, equivalent to over $500 million today. Despite grossing so much revenue, Atari ended up making a loss on Pac-Man 2600, because they manufactured 12 million cartridges, with 5 million of them left unsold. The fact that over $500 million (in today's value) wasn't enough to make a profit on Pac-Man 2600 means that its total cost was equivalent to at least hundreds of millions today, most of it spent on manufacturing cartridges, followed by licensing and marketing costs, and royalty fees... but with hardly anything spent on making a decent port of the actual game itself.

The moral of this little Atari story: Developing and publishing cartridge-based video games back in the 80's and 90's was very expensive and risky back then.

Sony vs ms isnt a rivalry, its an ass whooping

@Jag85: 9 million copies would have produced a profit of 200 million. The game didn't sell 9 million it sold 7 million so it made far less then 200 million. The 200 million figure was just a estimate by analysts but it never achieved that goal.

Definitely the SEGA vs Nintendo rivalry because you were either a Mario fan or a Sonic fan in those days but it's just funny to see Sonic on Nintendo formats considering the big rivalry.

The world population was also smaller back then, so your argument about more people playing games today is itself a disingenuous argument, since the world population is also larger today. Besides, the currency inflation is generally consistent with the population growth. As for Angry Birds, that only sold 12 million paid downloads before it went free-to-play, so your hypothetical argument makes very little sense. Unless your argument is equating every $1 transaction with a mobile user, in which case it would be trumped if we equated every quarter spent on arcade games with an arcade user. And like I already said, there is a lack of online sources available for other markets besides Japan and North America, so there's nothing "disingenuous" about using whatever sources are available to us. And yet, even just combining Japan and the US results in an overall market value in the 90s not too far from the entire worldwide market value today.

The 33% female gamers figure was for NES gamers, not arcade gamers. The figure for arcade gamers was most likely higher than this, since, like you said, arcades had more "casual" games. As for how many Americans played video games in the 90s, over 145 million Americans reportedly played video games in 1999, or 60% of the US population at the time, roughly the same percentage as today. And just for the record, Super Mario Bros is widely considered a "hardcore" game, more so than most of today's "hardcore" games. But Duck Hunt is pretty "casual", I'll give you that.

And whatever you said about PGL gamers was also true for the gamers who participated in contests such as Twin Galaxies, Nintendo World Championships, StarCade, GamesMaster, etc. Also, in terms of hardcore player numbers, Street Fighter II alone had 25 million American players in 1994, and that figure was even higher for Japanese players. And Street Fighter II was widely regarded as a "hardcore" game.

I'll never understand why Sega didn't just come out with another console instead of keep making add-ons for the Genesis.

Did they not have the capital?

But yeah, I still remember the "blast processing" commercials. It's like they latched onto the one area where they beat the SNES and ran with it.

sony versus microsoft for me

I'm not being disingenuous. You do realize you just shot your own argument down when you say the world population was smaller back then, which ironically would make all those percentages you throw out seem smaller than they really are. I have the facts on hand from the ESA, gameindustry.biz, gamasutra.com, credible sources that all support my arguments that the industry is indeed larger. You misrepresented my argument by saying the North American and Japanese market was larger when my initial point was that gaming industry as a whole is larger thanks to Sony/MS. That's a fact. It's true that gaming in the golden ages of Sega/Nintendo was niche and was largely dismissed as a children's hobby until Sony and MS took the stage and encouraged the development of games that appeal to older demographics. My Angry Birds example was only to show you how using inflation to determine mainstream appeal is flawed so it actually makes perfect sense. And yes, I'm equating every $1 transaction with every mobile user as there are billions of mobile phone users around the world and that 1 transaction = 1 user. As for your equating every quarter spent on arcade games with an arcade user....umm you do realize how ridiculous that argument sounds right? Think about it. Every quarter spent on an arcade booth was from each unique individual? Really? Me and a friend spent $40 playing House of the Dead at Dave And Busters the other day and that game costs 2 quarters per play. That's why there's no accurate way to measure how large the arcade market really is because for all we know, $1 billion in revenue spent for tokens could be anywhere from 500k to 1 mil players with tons of money to burn. Can't say the same thing with online transactions however.

As for the 33% female gamers figure, well that's what I was saying all along....those were NES gamers. I notice you didn't answer my question when I asked what the 33% was based out of so I'm gonna ask again - what's it out of? 34 million in North/South America? 19 million in Japan? But of course you don't have an answer for that because 33% female NES players is clearly smaller than 48% of female gamers in the entire US.

As for 25 million Street Fighter II players, well that number becomes laughable when you begin to compare it to 100+ million Call of Duty players across the world. =p

You and I both know that these boards have discussions where people do talk about things that aren't related to graphics or tech. Its not that people are so heavily focused on graphics, it's just that you notice them more. The obsession with graphics during 8-16 bit wars was hardly any different than the ones of today. The only reason it doesn't seem talked about as much back then was there was no internet back in those days.

So your entire argument basically boils down to appealing to authority, i.e. just because some random internet sites today are saying the 16-bit era was just a minor market, therefore it must be true. I've already posted historical statistical evidence demonstrating this to be patently false, yet you continue to repeat the same biased subjective opinion. What the actual historical statistics demonstrate is that whatever growth there has been in the home market is offset by the decline in the arcade market. Also, it's silly to equate a single $1 microtransaction with a single individual user. Many mobile gamers spend anywhere from dozens to thousands of dollars on microtransactions for a single mobile game, making the $40 you spent on an arcade game seem like spare change in comparison.

Since the 33% was stated by Nintendo of America, they were most likely referring to the North American user base. And like I already said, that's just the NES user base. We don't know the figure for other platforms, but considering how the arcades attracted more casual users, the percentage of female arcade gamers would have been higher than 33%, not to mention the percentage of Japanese female gamers being higher than in North America.

And finally, it's disingenious comparing the American user base of a single 90's game to the worldwide sales of an entire 21st century franchise. If you were to compare Street Fighter II's worldwide user base in the 90's (easily over 50 million just in the US and Japan alone, let alone worldwide), then SF2's user base in the 90's was comparable to several COD games combined today. And that's despite COD being a relatively casual franchise today compared to SF2 in the 90s.

inflation, higher price of new games, higher price of new systems, population growth are the many reasons why the high number of units sold and money made in gaming today is much higher than it was in the 1990s.

There where movie based video games back then, and there where movies based on video games back then, that is nothing new to salivate on.

There's always been girls into video games, this is not a 2000s thing, this goes back to the 70s with the Pong and Odyssey and Atari 2600 game systems.

You probably thought they were non-existent because there wasn't a ecosystem back in the 90s that allowed everyone in the world to communicate in an online community and self-identify their gender like it's been for the past 15 years.

Other than that, you really need to brush up on gaming and electronic history because you come off sounding really ignorant.

So what if I'm appealing to authority? These are credible professionals who have done their research and analysis, people who I'd consider more trustworthy than someone who chooses to let their nostalgia cloud their rationality. I mean, listen to yourself when you call me biased. You're picking and choosing and distorting whatever fits your viewpoint while continually ignoring everything else while I look at whole picture. I just told you that I do agree that the arcade market is smaller today, but when you factor in the emergence of mobile and online game markets in the 2000's, then it dwarfs the arcade market by comparison. I honestly think you have tunnel vision because you only look at revenue as proof, but then fail to acknowledge other cultural impacts like cyber cafes in schools and award shows like Spike. Oh, I forgot to mention that videogames are being used for medical purposes and research and millions of Wii's have been used in nursing homes, something that can't be said in the 90's. Plus 100 mil Wii's + 80 mil PS3's + 80 mil Xbox 360's > 49 mil SNES + 40 mil GEN. What app costs a thousand dollars? Gaming apps are dirt cheap and much more easily accessible than going to an arcade. It's not silly equating a single microtransaction with an individual user because most people nowadays own a smartphone individually.

So you want to use baseless conjecture and speculation against solid evidence? Um..........okay. But until you come up with some evidence then your claims are just empty talk. Until you do so, I still stand by my assertion that there are 195 million gamers in the US, 48% of which are female, which is bigger than your 33%.

Finally, 100 million Call of Duty gamers > 50 million+other countries SF2 gamers. Plus the Call of Duty franchise makes more money and is much more mainstream than SF.

Of course everything is higher today than it was in the 90's. Gaming back then was niche and development teams were smaller, and it was largely looked down upon by many people.

You need to work on your reading comprehension. I just said movie based games are more numerous than it was back then, which is supposed to imply that there were movies made, just not as much.

When I say women were largely non-existent, that's to say women were far and few in between. Key word largely, NOT completely. Again check your reading comprehension because you can't read for shit.

No, I'm actually pretty well-versed in gaming history, you need to go back to school because it's apparent you failed your English courses.

@FreedomFreeLife: this but, people need to stop saying Sony killed sega.

Sega killed themselves with the Saturn and the Japanese wing of sega not letting the successful us branch do their thing. Sega was going to partner with Sony, and the Ceo also was in the works for the SRI tech but sega us got shot down on everything do to Yamachi's pride and not liking sega usa's success. Sega was fighting with itself. The sega Saturn forced so many employees to quit.

Now what I wonder is why so many Nintendo fans from that era hate Sony so much.

Amiga 500 vs Atari ST.

Every personal attack you've used against your opponents applies to yourself (i.e. pot and kettle). Your arguments are completely irrational (relying on some random journalists just because they said something you agree with, instead of examining the actual historical statistical evidence for yourself to confirm it), and you pick & choose and distort whatever fits your narrow-minded tunnel vision while refusing to acknowledge the whole picture (choosing to be wilfully ignorant of the golden age and renaissance of arcade gaming, just so you can keep pushing your debunked narrative of gaming being just a "niche" hobby back then). And to top it off, you attack c_smithii for his "English" even though your own posts are full of terrible grammar and punctuation. If you're going to be a grammar Nazi, at least get your own grammar and punctuation right, hypocrite.

Anyway, the mobile game revenues in North America and Japan today don't come anywhere near the arcade game revenues of those same regions back in the 80s to 90s. And your excuse of mobile apps being cheap is a cop-out argument, since arcade game credits cost much less than what mobile "free-to-play" microtransactions cost today. And are you seriously asking what "app costs a thousand dollars?" There have been countless mobile users who have spent hundreds to thousands of dollars on "cheap" and "free-to-play" mobile apps like Angry Birds, Candy Crush Saga, Puzzle & Dragons, Clash of Clans, Smurfs Village, etc. Do you not know anything about how the "free-to-play" model even works? It seems that not only are you ignorant of arcade gaming, but you appear to be ignorant of mobile gaming as well.

Your other arguments don't hold any water either. Gaming award shows have always been around, e.g. the Golden Joysticks, Arcade Awards, Gamest Awards, etc. And I remember having plenty of online gaming sessions at my school library back in the 90s, so that's not new either. As for exercise-based gaming, ever heard of DDR? That was a huge phenomenon in the late 90s to early 2000s, especially in Asia. Or even long before that, Sega's Hang-On already popularized motion-controlled gameplay in arcades of the mid-late 80s, two decades before the Wii. And comparing 7th gen console sales to 4th gen console sales is silly, not just because the world population was smaller, but because there are no sizeable arcade or rental markets around today to "steal" away potential console sales today like they did back in the 4th gen. As for female gamers, even if there are more female gamers today, the very fact that 33% of NES gamers were female alone debunks your nonsensical claim that "female gamers were largely non-existent in the 90's." As for COD, the entire franchise has 40 million monthly active users, not 100 million. And even if it did, it's ridiculous comparing an entire franchise to a single game in the first place. No single COD today comes anywhere near SF2's player numbers in the early 90s.

How does my personal attacks apply to me? Unlike you, I'm not relying on nostalgia to color my biases. You're just parroting off what I say because you have nothing original to say on your own. If you think they're some random journalist spouting off things that confirm my biases, what's makes you think yours are any more credible? Hell, the site you used for your historical statistical data is the same exact site I used so you just owned yourself there LOL. You can talk about inflation until you're blue in the face dude but the point is it doesn't matter, because all it shows is the currrency value has gone up. In case you don't know, money isn't the only indicator of a bigger industry when there are several factors at play. The site I pulled up earlier was the same site you used I'm using hard facts to support my points while you rely on conjecture that's spun out of thin air..."oh the percentage of female arcade gamers may be higher than this, but I don't have any hard evidence to prove this but you must believe me anyway cause I said so." The point is gaming as a whole is bigger than ever, and it's only going to increase. The arcade market peaked in 1982 but for the most part its been under $10 billion throughout the 90's which is pretty weaksauce if you're gonna use that as your main point because the console market on average alone is bigger than that. You didn't debunk anything when I said gaming was a niche hobby because it's true. Google any editorial about videogames in the 90's and they will all say the same thing about it being underground, niche, or people not taking games seriously. They were considered overpriced toys because all they did was play games and had cartoony mascot characters. Nowadays since the turn the century, multimedia devices have taken storm and gaming has has become bigger than ever.

Explain to me how arcade game credits cost less than F2P when F2P is literally free? I didn't have to pay a single dime to play Candy Crush so you're just starting to sound really foolish now. Anyway comparing arcade revenues vs mobile game revenues only in NA and Japan is pretty weak when the difference isn't even significant, and unlike arcades, mobile phones are everywhere and more accessible. Almost everyone has a phone and is therefore a potential gamer. Whereas with arcades, you could only find them in certain places. Even in the 90's, unless you lived in a populated area, it was hard to find an arcade, so I don't even know why that's even a debate. Mobile gaming is bigger than the arcade ever was and will only increase as long as Apple sells more iPhones and Samsung sells more Galaxies. It's inevitable that one day mobile gaming is going to double or even triple the arcade market as well as being a $35.4 billion market by itself by 2017.

No sizeable arcade or rental markets today? Ever heard of Family Video? Redbox? Gamefly? Dave and Busters? Chucky Cheese? Lol and you say I'm willfully ignorant. If you want to give yourself a pat on the back for debunking my "female gamers being largely non-existent in the 90's" claim, then go right ahead, but you admitted that there are more female gamers today so I want to thank you for that. =p That 40 million active users you mentioned for Call of Duty was taken from an old article from 2012, which has long since increased by now. As for no single COD game coming anywhere close to SFII's 25 million (I want to emphasize that 14 million of which were console ports), ummmmmm what are you talking about? MW3 already beat it by selling 26.5 million, Black Ops also with 26.2 millon, Black Ops 2 sold 24.2 million, and Ghosts sold 23.8 million. If you want to keep spreading lies and misinformation then go right ahead. I'll just continue to shoot them down.

"I'm not relying on nostalgia to color my biases."

Oh yes you are, but in the opposite direction, promoting a biased whiggish version of gaming history.

"You can talk about inflation until you're blue in the face dude but the point is it doesn't matter, because all it shows is the currrency value has gone up."

You're clearly ignorant of economics. The prices of goods were cheaper back then, so of course the currency needs to be adjusted for inflation.

"The arcade market peaked in 1982 but for the most part its been under $10 billion throughout the 90's which is pretty weaksauce if you're gonna use that as your main point because the console market on average alone is bigger than that."

Once again you choose to be willfully ignorant of inflation. The US arcade industry in the early 90s is worth over $15 billion in today's money, bigger than today's US console market. Furthermore, console games today cost $60 on average, whereas arcade games back then only cost a quarter. The same amount of revenue for an arcade game is equivalent to far more players than the same amount of revenue for a console game.

"You didn't debunk anything when I said gaming was a niche hobby because it's true"

If you think a multi-billion dollar industry was just a "niche hobby", then you must be delusional. In the early 80s (arcade golden age) and again in the early-mid-90s (arcade renaissance), video games were generating more revenues than both Hollywood movies and pop music combined in North America, a feat that has never been repeated since. And yet you dismiss all that immense mainstream success as just a "niche hobby"?

"Google any editorial about videogames in the 90's and they will all say the same thing about it being underground, niche, or people not taking games seriously."

And when were those editorials actually written? I doubt any of those editorials were written before last gen. Unlike you, I rely on first-hand primary sources actually written in the 80s and 90s, instead of third-hand tertiary sources written in the 21st century. And the articles and editorials actually written in the 80s and 90s present a completely different picture to your claims, with many of those 80s-90s articles repeatedly mentioning the mainstream popularity of video games.

"Explain to me how arcade game credits cost less than F2P when F2P is literally free?"

Do you even know what a microtransaction is? F2P is free to play, but to progress through the game, you need to pay microtransactions to buy virtual goods. That's where F2P games make most of their money from.

"It's inevitable that one day mobile gaming is going to double or even triple the arcade market as well as being a $35.4 billion market by itself by 2017."

We'll see when that day comes, but it certainly hasn't happened in the present. You must be grasping at straws to bring up future predictions instead of actual real figures.

"No sizeable arcade or rental markets today? Ever heard of Family Video? Redbox? Gamefly? Dave and Busters? Chucky Cheese? Lol and you say I'm willfully ignorant."

You are being willfully ignorant. The US arcade game market today is only worth $2 billion, which is a tiny fraction of what it was in the 80s to 90s.

"As for no single COD game coming anywhere close to SFII's 25 million (I want to emphasize that 14 million of which were console ports), ummmmmm what are you talking about? MW3 already beat it by selling 26.5 million, Black Ops also with 26.2 millon, Black Ops 2 sold 24.2 million, and Ghosts sold 23.8 million."

In other words, you're comparing the entire worldwide lifetime sales of these COD games in 2014 against just the American user base of SF2 in 1994. If we're talking worldwide, then SF2 sold a lot more arcade cabinets in Japan than it did in America, and it also captured 60% of the UK coin-op market, not to mention its immense popularity in other markets around the world. That 25 million US figure is barely just scratching the surface of SF2's worldwide player base in the early 90s.

The same can be said about you about being biased. I'm not promoting anything. You're arguing against actual history and distorting the facts, and then you spread misinformation and lies like your COD claim. And then you claim 33% of NES females is larger than the picture I was presenting before I debunked it. More misinformation. As if it couldn't get any sillier, you try to discredit my sources saying they were some random internet sites without even analyzing the info I present and showing me why they're wrong. That tells me that you are 1) lazy 2) willfully ignorant (I'm going to use that phrase since you're so fond of using it so much) 3) have no argument and that I'm right. For every point you bring up I've shot down, but whenever I challenge you with a question you either choose to sidestep it or ignore it.

Prices of games weren't necessarily cheaper. There you go again with the falsehoods. NES games were $50. SNES cartridges ranged from $50-60. Same with N64. Right in line with today's prices, only difference is we have less purchasing power.

And there you go bringing up that inflation argument again. Thankfully, many credible news sites don't share your viewpoint. Yeah, the "Computer and Videogame Industry tops $22 billion in 2008 but was an actual decrease compared to 1994 LOL" No one in their right mind would describe that as a decline. Everyone else sees that as a JUMP over the previous years, just like the US industry's $21 billion present day > US industry's $15 billion in the 90's. That's not a decrease. That's an improvement. You're the only one I know so far who thinks otherwise, kinda reminds me of the folks who believed the holocaust was a hoax - people who are just disconnected with reality. Just keep in mind that you are in the minority, you would fit right in along with the conspiracy theorists and their nutty ideas.

Yes, I'm not denying there were billions made in the 90's, but I'm also considering the general attitude towards gaming back when Nintendo and Sega clashed. It was an underground hobby that didn't get a lot of respect from those who worked in more traditional forms of entertainment. Videogames back then were seen as mindless forms of entertainment as evidenced by the popularity of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. Narratives were generally more simple and childish, which was why they were widely regarded as a hobby for kids and teenagers.

Contrary to what you say, it's not mandatory to pay microtransactions. I don't have to pay actual money in Injustice: Gods Among Us just to obtain a character if I can alternately grind through it. People only pay money if they're impatient and don't want to do the extra work or spend time in earning things, so my point still stands.

I'm not grasping at straws when I say that mobile gaming is going to double or triple the arcade market, because I know it's going to happen. You make it sound as if the arcade revenue figures in the 90's will never be surpassed, when every journalist makes forecasts of the promise of increasing growth and potential. Face the facts, mobile gaming > arcade.

And no, I'm not comparing the entire lifetime sales figures of the COD franchise vs SFII. MW3, when taken alone against SFII, actually outsold SFII by itself. Same with Black Ops. You said no other COD game comes close and I already showed you that there are games that reach or surpass SFII's numbers. Also, I like how you're moving the goalposts when you insinuate that 25 million figure as "barely scratching the surface" when you take into account the arcade cabinets sold in Japan and UK. Sounds like grasping at straws to me especially since you have to use both the sales figures for cabinets and cartridges to get a more favorable number LOL to even compare with a single COD game. So how many are there actually, or are you just going to come up with some arbitrary number? Well, hey I can move the goalposts too and say that COD's numbers are barely scratching the surface when you take into account the number of pre-owned copies sold or the bundles that came with the consoles, so COD's sales figures must be higher LMAO. =p

"NES games were $50. SNES cartridges ranged from $50-60. Same with N64. Right in line with today's prices, only difference is we have less purchasing power."

The difference is that the NES, SNES and N64 were using expensive ROM cartridges that cost anywhere from $10 to $35 to manufacture, while games today use either cheap optical discs costing under $1 or digital distribution which costs nothing. If games still used ROM cartridges today, they would cost a fortune. But even that doesn't tell us the whole story. Back in the 90s, there was also a huge game rental market worth billions, where you could rent a console game for just $5 or less. And in the arcades, it only cost a quarter to play the latest AAA games. It was more expensive to buy ROM cartridges, but it was a lot cheaper to just rent them, and even cheaper to play the higher-quality arcade versions.

"Yeah, the "Computer and Videogame Industry tops $22 billion in 2008 but was an actual decrease compared to 1994 LOL. No one in their right mind would describe that as a decline. Everyone else sees that as a JUMP over the previous years, just like the US industry's $21 billion present day > US industry's $15 billion in the 90's."

Nice try at distorting the truth. That was in 2008, at the peak of the Wii's popularity. But since then, the US video game industry has declined to just $15 billion in 2013, according to the NPD. Also, that $15 billion in the early 90s is worth $25 billion today, so nice try at deliberately ignoring inflation yet again. Either way, gaming history is full of ups and downs, with a decline towards the end of almost every generation, before picking up again as a new generation begins.

"Videogames back then were seen as mindless forms of entertainment as evidenced by the popularity of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. Narratives were generally more simple and childish, which was why they were widely regarded as a hobby for kids and teenagers."

Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat were seen as mature games, not kiddie games. Kids weren't even allowed into many arcades at the time. And beyond arcade centers, these games were commonly found in bars and gambling parlours, i.e. places for adults, not kids. The whole kiddie image is something mainly associated with Nintendo back then, not with Sega, nor with arcades or computers. You're generalizing an entire era based on ignorance. As for narratives, that didn't matter in games back then anymore than they do for sports. Video games were more like sports back then, whereas today they are becoming more like movies. Either way, many 90s games did have mature storytelling, with games like Snatcher, Dragon Quest V, Policenauts, YU-NO, FF Tactics, Xenogears, Suikoden II and Planescape Torment still having better stories than most RPG's today. RPG storytelling has barely improved much since the late 90s.

"I'm not grasping at straws when I say that mobile gaming is going to double or triple the arcade market, because I know it's going to happen."

You are grasping at straws by bringing up hypothetical "what ifs" that haven't happened yet. I am talking about things that have actually happened in the past and present, not guessing what a possible hypothetical future might look like.

"Also, I like how you're moving the goalposts when you insinuate that 25 million figure as "barely scratching the surface" when you take into account the arcade cabinets sold in Japan and UK."

I already said several times now that SF2's 25 million figure is for the United States only. And yet you keep distorting the truth by presenting this figure as if it was for the whole world. Comparing COD's worldwide sales to just SF2's American user base is highly disingenuous and completely irrational. But if you want to compare worldwide figures, then we could talk about revenue, in which case SF2 easily grossed more revenues than the last several COD games combined. Or we could talk about pop culture (which you keep bringing up), in which case SF2's impact on games, movies, music, anime, comics and TV shows easily trumps COD. In fact, SF2 grossed more revenue in arcade quarters (the equivalent of well over $4 billion today, not including the Turbo or Super versions) than the highest-grossing movies of all time. And yet you expect me to believe gaming was just an "underground hobby" in the 90s? Get real.

"Doesn't change the fact that cartridge prices were right in line with today's prices"

Only cartridge prices were, since they were very expensive to manufacture. On the other hand, CD prices were cheaper, and floppy disk prices even cheaper than that. Disk-based games today are more expensive than disk-based games back then.

"The market back then wasn't ready for those prices, which was part of why they failed, whereas it's different today because you can get away with pricing your console at $400 and still sell gangbusters."

Back in the 90s, $400 was worth a lot more than what it's worth today. The prices of everyday goods, from supermarket food to travel fares to house prices, were a lot cheaper back then compared to today. If you don't even remember how much cheaper most goods were back in the 90s, then you were obviously too young to remember that era. Furthermore, the average income was a lot less, and the world GDP was a lot smaller. If you still don't understand why inflation is necessary to compare different time periods, then you need to learn some basic economics 101.

"Secondly, do yourself a favor and don't use references that you disagree with since the NPD reports it as a growth, not a decline, because that would make you a hypocrite."

You clearly have very poor reading comprehension. I said it was a decline compared to the 2008 figure you quoted, not compared to 2012. Learn to read, boy.

"Nope, actually SF and MK are still juvenile in nature because many kids still played it which raised concerns amongst the general public about whether videogame violence influences violent behavior."

Your argument is nonsensical. Many kids today play COD, which makes COD juvenile according to your logic. Either way, the main reason for the outrage back then was because of the lack of an age rating system, which was resolved with the creation of the ESRB.

"games like Deux Ex, Skyrim, Mass Effect, Witcher, Dragon Age, FFXII, Dark Souls easily put those games to shame."

Ironically, the storytelling in most of those modern RPG's you mentioned are relatively juvenile compared to 90's RPG's like Dragon Quest V, FF Tactics, Xenogears, Suikoden II and Planescape Torment. But since you're not familiar with 90's RPG's, you obviously wouldn't know that. RPG's back then were often more like reading a novel, while RPG's today are often more like watching generic Hollywood action movies.

"Ooooh but wait...SF2 grossed more than the last several COD games combined? There you go talking out of your ass again. COD tops $10 billion in revenue."

Your vocabulary must be very limited, since you clearly don't know what the word "several" means. If your comeback is to post the entire COD franchise's revenue, consisting of over a dozen games spanning over a decade, then that's just desperate. Nevertheless, you just proved my point. If we divide that $10 billion figure with the twelve major releases (ignoring the minor releases), then that averages out to $833 million each. In comparison, SF2 grossed the equivalent of over $4 billion today, just from arcade quarters, within several years, without even including the Turbo or Super versions, or any of the money made from cabinet sales, or any of the home console & computer ports, or any of the numerous other games in the Street Fighter franchise. It's pretty sad that you need to combine the entire COD franchise's revenues just for it to compete with SF2's revenues on its own.

"As for pop culture, keep telling yourself that. All I have to do is go to a local mall and see stores selling COD memorabilia. If I go up to a random person and ask if they've played or heard of COD, there's a 90% chance that they've played or heard about it. Same thing can't be said for SFII since no one talks about it except 2-D purists and nostalgia freaks while the newer generation plays SFIV."

I was obviously talking about SF2's cultural impact in the early 90s, not today. But if you weren't around back then, then you obviously wouldn't know just how popular and mainstream SF2 was back then. Either way, the facts speak for themselves: SF2 inspired far more movies, music, anime, comics and TV shows than COD ever did.

"Get your head out of the gutter and wake up to reality."

It would be nice if you would get your own head out of your own bottom, boy. Your utter disdain towards gaming history couldn't be anymore obvious.

Sega vs. Nintendo produced amazing games. Nintendo hasn't really been the same without Sega around... They still produce high-quality stuff, but it doesn't feel like it's in the same quantity, nor as varied. Too many Mario games nowadays, and not enough other stuff.

Sony vs. Microsoft has not produced the same results. Instead, it's more like the opposite. They both fight with one or two games a year, and the rest of the arguments are over pixels and sales.

Video gaming was not a niche-concept in the 1990s. It was not even a niche concept in the 1980s.

Now the 1970s, sure . video gaming was new, and consumers didn't see the first home console until the late 70s with the Magnavox Odyssey and the Atari VCS.

In the 1990s there weren't as much movies based on games but there were plenty of games based on movies back then. I'd recon more games based on movies back then there is today. Off the top of the head of movie games I owned. Cliffhanger, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Batman Returns, Alien vs Predator, Judge Dredd, Street Fighter: The Movie, Terminator 2, Home Alone.

I think the only reason you would think women were largely non-existent is because there was no medium back in the 1990s that identified gamers by gender. Since today we have sites like Youtube and a plethora of other sites, blogs, community forums and game hosted online communities that allow you to self-identify, you finally can see there's more gamers than just who's in your local community, doesn't mean one sex was less or greater existent between decades, it may very well be the same gender ratio it was 20 years ago. And as far as I care the subject of women existing in gaming is a moot point. You're a gamer regardless if you're a male or female.

Some of this is common sense stuff that does not require that you have to be excelling in English courses to understand.