When you look at the time period between 1986 and 1994, one company in my opinion stands head and shoulders above the rest. That company was Nintendo. One of the best moves Nintendo, or any gaming company made, during this time period. They had an agreement in places with third party publisher that would allow them to make 5 games a year on the Nintendo home console, and make each game a Nintendo exclusive for the games first two years in release. This not only assured quality of the games been made, but also assured Nintendo first rights to great games. The only problem, Sega is close behind Nintendo during this time but falls short. Sega was smart with their Ad camping claim “SEGA does what Nintendon’t” and coming up with a mascot to rival Nintendo’s Mario in the form of Sonic the Hedge Hog. I really like the way Sega was going with their ad camping, be more aggressive than the competition. Showing the Sega Genesis is a more adult console that its games were for a more mature audience.
Sega at the same time really got into a bad spot with the 32x. It only hand a handful of games at launch and it really didn’t do anything to add the Sega genesis other than having an expensive add on to your console. I really think that was the start of their downfall, instead of focusing on multiplies systems they should have just put their energy into a true successor to the genesis system. They really should have giving a longer life span for the genesis and focused on continuing making great games. It seems as though they wanted to be the first ones with a CD based home console. I also believe that Nintendo made one mistake and that was not continuing their deal with Sony and make the Nintendo PlayStation. It’s not so much that it hurt them; I’m looking at it from a hardware stand point. I ‘can’t help but imagine what Mario or a Zelda game would look like on PlayStation 3. Other than that, I really don’t think Nintendo made very many mistakes. They biggest down fall of other companies was they were all focused on what’s next. Where in my opinion they should have been focused on making the most out of the consoles they had.
