The gaming system wars started long before the battle between Sega and Nintendo, but it was the 16-bit era that pitched the computing (Atari ST and Amiga 500) and console (Sega Mega Drive and SNES) giants against one another.
These bitter system wars waged on (Ed: they are still simmering!) between ST/Amiga owners and their Mega Drive/SNES console counterparts, both sides arguing that their system was best. Declaring a winner was always fraught with danger, especially when the battle turned to the technical specifications front.
When gamers use the hypothetical capabilities (specs) of their chosen machine instead of presenting hard evidence (Ed: like the actual games!) to argue their point, it descends the debate into the realm of the potential – the ‘what if’ scenario! As we know, you can’t play potential! Most machines have untapped potential and could definitely produce better games than what we’d seen from them, but that does not count unless you are about to create the next best homebrew game.
So gamers, a battle between systems should never be about what they can do, just what they did do. It’s great to think about the ‘what may have been‘ scenario, but all that will do is make you bitter and twisted – just enjoy what there is on offer, as there is plenty of variety out there for even the most discerning gamers. Oh yeah, none of these machines are as good as the PC-Engine anyway! *winks*
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