How Sonic Helped Sega Win the Early 90s Console Wars
In the early 1990s, Sega had a 6% market share in the US whilst Nintendo had 94% – but by the middle of the decade, the Mega Drive had become one of gaming's great success stories, with 65% market share. How did it happen?
The following is an extract from Sega Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works, a documentary art book written by the Guardian's Games Editor Keith Stuart and produced in collaboration with Sega of Japan. It's published by Read Only Memory, and is out now.
It was the first week of September 1990 when the commercials hit American TV. The Sega Genesis had been out in the country for a year, quietly building a fan base with slick arcade conversions like Altered Beast and Golden Axe. With its 16-bit credentials stamped on its casing like a muscle-car badge, it was the most powerful console on the market, and had the potential to reshape gaming in its own, sleek image. But first it would have to defeat the competition. And that meant having to take out Nintendo.
Original Article at www.kotaku.com
No comments:
Post a Comment