Console war history

First, with the similarities: it’s always been about ‘who has what hardware’, availability, and why this product should be chosen over the other. There are other reasons though. Let’s start with release dates. It was the Nintendo Entertainment System vs. Sega’s Master System. The NES was on the market in 1985, earlier than the Master System, released in 1986. This earlier availability translates into a larger amount of systems distributed earlier, longer exposure to the market, and familiarity with the name. In spite of its shortcomings, the Master System succeeded where the NES was less available, primarily the PAL regions. The same reason the Playstation 2 won out over the Gamecube and Xbox in the competitive market was early exposure and availability. This was later to be seen again with the Xbox 360 trailing shortly behind the Nintendo Wii, and the Playstation 3 falling behind in the market. Early exposure seems to be the trump card in marketing with most console competition, as is accessibility.

A key difference between 1985’s market and today’s market is most apparently the diversity levels in the mainstream consumer’s options. Personal Computers are another mix in the equation as well as the home consoles. This increase in options also means a greater division in consumers. On a competitive level, the Sega Master system had the potential of equaling the NES, but failed to grasp the mainstream consumer market in North America and Japan. There were fewer mainstream options in the mid-80’s, but only because the industry was recovering from the home console crisis. The late 80’s saw a two-part competition between Nintendo and Sega.

Hardware advancements, in spite of pioneering new trends in technology, have never really grasped the scope of successful marketing. This has been seen time and again. First with Sega’s Master System, then with the Atari Jaguar and 3DO, thirdly with the Dreamcast, and more recently with the Playstation 3’s 8-cell [6 out of 8 are actually used] processing unit (I personally don’t believe the system design to be too efficient), all of which never really met early critical success on the market, but were praised (except the current gen consoles) to be pioneering consoles of their respective eras later on.

Generally, early marketing schemes bashed the other consoles with comparisons, as well as slogans. The marketers of Sega’s Master System did side-by-side comparisons of graphical capabilities and compared realism. Today, we see similar forms of counter-marketing, but those never seem to beat out the current contender. Mac versus Windows, Playstation versus Xbox, and the third man is eliminated from the picture.

Console wars are as common as political debates. People hold to the systems like glue.