Back in those days in the early 90s I started gaming. I've been on the Sega Mega Drive side and even without the internet we had fanboy flame wars. Like "Oh, my Super Nintendo is so cool and your Mega Drive sucks!" I answered "Yeah and why didn't Nintendo develop the first CD based console if it is so great? Huh, Sega did that, you fucker!" After all Sega Mega Drive was when Sonic was cool. IGN has a great article from which I will quote a few passages.
The struggle for domination between the SEGA Genesis and the Super Nintendo is doubtlessly the most knock-down fight for supremacy in the history of gaming. Playgrounds were bitterly divided over which system was the best. The Sonic crowd and the Mario loyalists often came to blows, cracking skulls when the coolness of a beloved mascot was questioned.
Actually, there were no cracked skulls. But exaggeration is the hallmark of good storytelling, you know.
[...]
But the most obvious factor in the performance of the Genesis is the appearance of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991, which really gave SEGA a much-needed face. The Genesis had a real mascot that was synonymous with the company, just like Mario. The first Sonic game sold over four million units. The 1992 sequel outpaced it with six million units.
[...]
By 1994, SEGA had lost substantial ground to Nintendo in America. The two had been fairly close going into 1992, with Nintendo making strong gains against SEGA, thanks in no small part to the fact that every Super NES came with a copy of the acclaimed Super Mario World. According to market data, SEGA had a 55-percent share. But when SEGA started fracturing its audience with add-ons like the SEGA CD and 32X and Nintendo kept on producing triple-A games for its loyal fans, the battle was won. Nintendo pushed ahead of SEGA, which spent all of its 16-bit good will on the ill-fated Saturn.
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