One could argue that this war wages today between the
current heavy hitters Sony and
Microsoft...Sorry Nintendo I don’t think you
count anymore...
Anyway, the console wars (also known as the bit wars) took
place in the early years of the 90s. It was fought between Nintendo’s Italian
Stallion, and Sega’s spiky haired fast talking (he didn’t actually talk did he?)
rebel Sonic.
Ok so they didn’t actually fight, but oh boy the company’s
sure did.
For the most part Nintendo played a clean game akin to a politician that wants to win with honour, VS Sega’s aggressive mud-slinging with the “Genesis does, what Ninten-don’t” campaign.
Now back then video games were still highly thought of as “a
kid’s toys” and as such if you were lucky enough to have a console at all, it
was one or the other at the discretion of your parents.
What this did was turn lunch room discussions over which
system was better into all out guerrilla warfare!
I wish I was kidding, I remember getting punched over a
heated argument as to why Mario would win in a fight against Sonic...An
argument I later proved correct 20 years later with a battle in Super SmashBros Brawl...
Ok I’m off topic sorry!
My point was you had one or the other, and people passionately
defended whichever system they had. Games very rarely went multi platform
either back then, so by having one limited your ability to play games so your
choice mattered a lot more. Not like today when damn near everything gets
released on everything...does it sound bad that I kinda hate that? I think it
just takes away the whole experience.
Speaking of mascots does anyone remember what Sony’s used to
be? ;) No Google, That’s cheating!
For more information about the console wars check here.
