Why was the SNES so good?
With the SNES Mini (or SNES Classic Edition) out now, it is time to reflect on what made the original great. It's clear as day when I watch videos and read chats on livestreams about it. The SNES was so good because it had a very good balance of first-party, second-party, and third-party support; and technology that pushed the envelope.
Nintendo believed that all their success in the past was solely because of them. This is especially evident with regard to how they designed the Nintendo 64 and its whole ecosystem. The whole ecosystem of the Nintendo 64 was basically telling third-party developers and publishers, "Don't make games for us." The cartridges were very expensive, and development was far more difficult than for the PlayStation.
Nintendo was a very confident company to the point of arrogance. They probably looked back on the SNES and looked at the greatest games in its library. They probably saw games like Super Mario World, Link to the Past, and Super Metroid and their egos filled with pride, as they should have, but they did not see the real reason for their mainstream success: third-party games.
Third-party games drove the success of the SNES. Street Fighter II was a huge exclusive for a while. There was doubt among gamers whether Sega Genesis could even run Street Fighter II at all until it finally got its own version. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a huge IP, especially in North America. I know I loved everything about it, from the cartoon, movies, and games. Turtles in Time was one of the best arcade-ports ever created at the time.
As much as Nintendo, gaming-enthusiasts, and gaming-critics can see that the quality of Nintendo's own games is a notch above the rest, it's the third-party IPs that drove the sales of the SNES. New videogame-specific IPs like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, licensed properties like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and licensed sports like NCAA Basketball, are more exciting and relevant to children and general consumers alike.
Children and general consumers are not Nintendo-fanchildren yet. They have more objective eyes. They see the whole picture and think more like consumers and less like gamers who can see the value in buying a console on exclusives alone. They look at the breadth of a console's library; if it's just Nintendo-games, they are not going to buy the console.
Software
Nintendo believed that all their success in the past was solely because of them. This is especially evident with regard to how they designed the Nintendo 64 and its whole ecosystem. The whole ecosystem of the Nintendo 64 was basically telling third-party developers and publishers, "Don't make games for us." The cartridges were very expensive, and development was far more difficult than for the PlayStation.
Nintendo was a very confident company to the point of arrogance. They probably looked back on the SNES and looked at the greatest games in its library. They probably saw games like Super Mario World, Link to the Past, and Super Metroid and their egos filled with pride, as they should have, but they did not see the real reason for their mainstream success: third-party games.
Third-party games drove the success of the SNES. Street Fighter II was a huge exclusive for a while. There was doubt among gamers whether Sega Genesis could even run Street Fighter II at all until it finally got its own version. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a huge IP, especially in North America. I know I loved everything about it, from the cartoon, movies, and games. Turtles in Time was one of the best arcade-ports ever created at the time.
As much as Nintendo, gaming-enthusiasts, and gaming-critics can see that the quality of Nintendo's own games is a notch above the rest, it's the third-party IPs that drove the sales of the SNES. New videogame-specific IPs like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, licensed properties like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and licensed sports like NCAA Basketball, are more exciting and relevant to children and general consumers alike.
Children and general consumers are not Nintendo-fanchildren yet. They have more objective eyes. They see the whole picture and think more like consumers and less like gamers who can see the value in buying a console on exclusives alone. They look at the breadth of a console's library; if it's just Nintendo-games, they are not going to buy the console.
Hardware
Sure, the Sega Genesis was clocked higher than the SNES, but it's obvious that the SNES had more capable graphics-hardware. Strictly from a superficial glance, its game were clearly more colorful, had bigger sprites, higher-fidelity sound, and wacky special-effects like hardware scaling and rotation (Mode 7).
Other than that, you could say that the Sega Genesis and SNES were on par with each other. A game designed for Sega Genesis could run on SNES if you tweaked it a little, whereas Nintendo Switch is not on par with PlayStation 4; you have to do a lot more to get a game designed for PS4 to run on NS.
There's this misleading saying that software sells hardware. That is only true when everything else is equal. If two competing pieces of hardware are nearly identical, then yes, the better software on one platform will elevate that platform above the other. If the hardware is no good to begin with, no amount of magical software will sell it.
Why is NS selling like hotcakes? It's certainly not the library, which is filled with ports of Wii U games and independent games. I don't know the exact sales-numbers, but NS has probably sold at least half the entirety of Wii U's lifetime-numbers already, in seven months. Why? It's because it is an intriguing piece of hardware.
Conclusion
With the astronomical success of the NES and SNES Minis, I hope Nintendo has learned why the original consoles were successful to begin with. It wasn't just because of Mario and Donkey Kong. It was because of Mega Man, Castlevania, Street Fighter, etc. Nintendo 64 Mini won't nearly be as popular because third-parties abandoned it. The only reason it will sell out is that scalpers will once again be drawn to Nintendo.
Comments
Post a Comment