What If The Internet Community Of Today Existed During The SNES/Genesis Era?

BlueSwim

BlueSwim

CAGiversary!
These questions just popped into my head out of the blue and I thought I'd put them out there.

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What if the vocal Internet gaming community of today(blogs, forums, podcasts, etc.) existed during the NES & SNES/Genesis eras of gaming?

What changes(if any) to the now classic games themselves would open-forums like GAF and various gaming podcasts have caused?

Would the outcome of the 16-bit wars have been different because of the vocal media and/or NPD sales data discussions?

How would it have effected companies the gaming industry during that time?

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I'm pretty sure companies who made terrible movie-licensed games would have been crucified even worse than they are now in modern times.

Maybe the 'Sonic the Hedgehog' series wouldn't be so screwed up today if there was an outspoken community to smack Sega on the nose early-on when they tried something new with Sonic.
 
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Now that I think about it, I'm not even sure what the "outcome" of the 16-bit wars was. I knew which kids in class had which system, but I had no idea who was outselling who! Oh man, if we had today's internet back then, it would have provide tons of extra ammunition for all the CONSOLE WARZ arguments in recess. I just remember debating who had the cooler commercials.

I think my first exposure to the internet gaming community was when I was playing Mortal Kombat II in a comic shop and some kids showed up with a list of Fatalities they printed out from PRODIGY.
 
[quote name='BustaUppa']Now that I think about it, I'm not even sure what the "outcome" of the 16-bit wars was. I knew which kids in class had which system, but I had no idea who was outselling who! Oh man, if we had today's internet back then, it would have provide tons of extra ammunition for all the CONSOLE WARZ arguments in recess. I just remember debating who had the cooler commercials.[/QUOTE]

SNES/Super Famicom sold about 50 million units, while Genesis/Megadrive sold about 30 million. Nintendo won worldwide, but both units sold very well and Sega definitely wasn't a failure. I think Sega won in Europe and it came very close here in the U.S. too.

[quote name='BustaUppa']I think my first exposure to the internet gaming community was when I was playing Mortal Kombat II in a comic shop and some kids showed up with a list of Fatalities they printed out from PRODIGY.[/QUOTE]

Honestly this sounds like me. I think I was that kid.
 
Do you know how many cr@ppy games I wouldn't have bought? Because we'd have review sites to screen most of the shovelware. Can you imagine CAG back then?!?!?
 
[quote name='chrisnsally']Do you know how many cr@ppy games I wouldn't have bought? Because we'd have review sites to screen most of the shovelware. Can you imagine CAG back then?!?!?[/QUOTE]

I think you nailed it with your comment. There is a ton of games I would have never bought If there was reviews back in the day.
 
Theres also a on of gems that critics bash, yet are amazing...
SNES is my favorite system and i consider it to be the best game system ever. Gaming was better back than. Yeah there was a "war" but it wasn't like it is today. Too much "mine is better than urs" and money is more involved. Back than, games were made for the most part for fun, and to bring people an escape from life, profit came second. Priorities nowadays are backwards. I think if we had what we have today (podcast, the innernettes, and review sites) those years wouldnt be as amazing as they were. Just my 3 cents.
 
[quote name='jman619']I think you nailed it with your comment. There is a ton of games I would have never bought If there was reviews back in the day.[/QUOTE]

you mean like they used to have in magazines? maybe im so old that i can remember those days.... ?
 
Yeah, magazines filled the void, you just had to seek out certain issues or you'd miss a review and it was often times hard to locate multiple reviews for a certain game unless it was a huge release. It required you to trust a publication far more than nowadays, and back then Nintendo Power never gave even the shittiest of games below a 6.

I think games would have sold better, though, at least the ones that deserved it. No demos, no trailers, etc outside of gaming specialty stores. I still have a few VHS tapes that Nintendo sent out to preview Donkey Kong Country! Those were the days...
 
It would just have been the same as it has been the past few generation from N64-PS1 on when gaming forums where prevalent.

Lots of silly company loyalty and fanboy console war non-sense. Except it would have been even worse since there were probably less adults hardcore into game then than there is now. So most every forum would probably have been like Gamefaqs.

In terms to the specific questions, no I don't think it would have any real impacts on the outcome, licensed games etc. just like it doesn't now. The vast majority of people buying consoles aren't posting regularly about them on forums even today. They just buy the console, buy a couple games a year and play sporadically.

As for games, I, like others stated, read back in the day magazines--EGM, gamepro etc., so I seldom got stuck with any awful games.
 
"Wahhhh the Atari was much better! These new fangled games are too focused on graphics over gameplay. Also what is this lightgun nonsense they're just marketing to casual gamers."
 
JSP: If we're talking SNES/Gen era, you're going too far back ;)

There would've been epic Sega-does-what-Nintendon't flamewars, though.
 
[quote name='Arakias']you mean like they used to have in magazines? maybe im so old that i can remember those days.... ?[/QUOTE]

I forgot about that. I didn't buy to many magazines. I have a few,but not many.
 
If the internet community of today existed during the SNES/Genesis era it wouldn't matter nowadays because the Genesis/SNES Mortal Kombat blood debacle would've blown up the internet and possibly the world. We should be grateful that we avoided that disaster.

EDIT - Sega was way better than Nintendo.
 
[quote name='Rodimus']SNES/Super Famicom sold about 50 million units, while Genesis/Megadrive sold about 30 million. Nintendo won worldwide, but both units sold very well and Sega definitely wasn't a failure. I think Sega won in Europe and it came very close here in the U.S. too.
[/QUOTE]
Sega has a 2 year head start though. Nintendo rode the NES cycle out like crazy. Once SNES hit, it tracked way ahead of Genesis, its eventual lead in the US and Japan was a foregone conclusion. It just took a while to overcome Sega's 2 year head start. For some reason Europe did prefer Genesis though.
 
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