futurefields
Diamond Member
Killer Instinct wont be 1080?
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Did Sony catch Microsoft by surprise with their system specs?
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Krakn3Dfx
Platinum Member
720p/60fps according to the devs.
Anarchist420
Diamond Member
The Super NES wasn't more powerful than the genesis. It had a better feature set, more RAM, and was more efficient, but it wasn't more powerful.
zerocool84
Lifer
Also we need to remember that the PS4 was originally set to have 4GB RAM, they bumped it up to 8 later in development and all the release date games were made with the 4GB in mind. I'm sure Microsoft saw that and automatically thought they'd have the more powerful system.
futurefields
Diamond Member
I'm not sure on the technicals but I believe SNES actually was more powerful than Genesis. You can tell by the games which are much better looking and also ran better.
For example I had Mortal Kombat II on Genesis and a friend had it on SNES. It looked better and ran smoother on SNES.
Same thing with all sports games that were multiplatform at the time. NBA Live immediately springs to mind as being a classic multiplatform sports game that looked and performed better on SNES.
futurefields
Diamond Member
Seeing how SNES is 2 years newer than Genesis I would be amazed if Genesis was more powerful.
In fact I am almost positive SNES was more powerful than Genesis.
In fact I am almost positive SNES was more powerful than Genesis.
HeXen
Diamond Member
Genesis CPU 7.67 MHz 16/32-bit 68000
Snes CPU: 3.58 MHz 16-bit 65c816 - 6502 Compatibility (unused)
Genesis Ram: 64kb
Snes Ram: 128kb
It is demonstrable that the SNES could actually display 2-3 times the colors on screen, while the Genesis could display 2-3 times the sprites and independently scrolling 2D planes. The SNES also could scale and rotate one 256 color plane, which could be made to look like large objects such as Bowser in Super Mario World or the Bomber in the first level of Contra IV. Alternately, games on the Genesis typically ran with less slowdown, featured faster scrolling levels, "tilted" sprites and backgrounds, and featured more custom special effects like scaling backgrounds and fully polygonal gameplay without any cart loaded processors. The Genesis' software effects are best seen in Contra Hard Corp, Castlevania Bloodlines, Batman and Robin, Ranger X, Sonic 3D Blast's bonus levels, LHX Attack Chopper, and Red Zone, for starters.
Hardware specifications in the game industry are only the product of marketing
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Sonikku
Lifer
I'm guessing they didn't care. I'm guessing they thought the masses would be so breathtakingly in awe of this device that tracks your facial movements and heart beat in a time when Microsoft was handing over all kinds of personal private data to the government and NSA that it wouldn't even matter if they were the weaker system. Microsoft did not misinterpret sony so much as they misinterpreted the market.
Arkaign
Lifer
I'm not sure how you get to that last line. Specifications by their nature are cold, hard, technical facts. Facts which determine what a console is capable of.
In the case of Genesis/Mega Drive vs. Super NES/Super Famicom, they both had advantages, though more so for SNES overall.
SNES resolution, color palette, graphics modes, and most especially SOUND were considerably improved over Genesis.
Genesis however did have a faster CPU, and that really helped a lot with shmups and hyper-fast action titles. Shmups were usually awful on SNES, with the rare exception such as Axelay.
Anyway, titles like MUSHA, Thunder Force 3, Sonic, etc, all wouldn't have been done justice on SNES. And titles like Final Fantasy II, III, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario Kart, etc, would have either been impossible or significantly hampered on Genesis.
Imho, that's not 'marketing', that's just the facts.
Arkaign
Lifer
Definitely, but it doesn't mean that they don't mean anything whatsoever. That's just as silly as the people who said that Xbox 360 wasn't any better than Xbox or PS3 wasn't any better than PS2 back in the last gen.
A marketing aspect is far from 'Hardware specifications in the game industry are only the product of marketing'.
That's like saying a Dodge Caravan and an Ariel Atom are the same thing, and that any difference in specification is only the product of marketing 😛
HeXen
Diamond Member
lol, facts. Well here's 5 simple facts for ya.
1. Specifications by nature are numbers on paper and it's capabilities are always listed as theoretical. What a developer does with it is completely different. Very few 8-32bit games ever reached the theoretical limits of hardware. Look at Jaguar, NG, Lynx, TG16 among others that never had any games push past the first processor. Even Saturn only had a couple games that fired up both video processors much less the other 6 at the same time.
2. The 16bit wars was mostly hardware marketing or did you really think the TG-16 was really 16bit? lol I suppose you thought "Blast Processing" was real too. Why did the super fast 16bit processor in the Lynx only have games that looked 8 bit? ....oh yeah, marketing.:hmm:
3. I copied and pasted that from an article or did you think I happened to have those specs burned permanently into my brain?
4. I never said one was better than the other. YOU took those specs and automatically assumed one was superior. Now that's marketing.
5.The only system that is superior is whichever one has the most games that you enjoy. Personally I think Amiga and NES trashed all the other platforms only cause I really enjoyed many of the games it had. Without Capcom and Square, Snes wouldn't have been on anyone's list outside of Mario and Zelda.
So yes, look it up, go ahead, I'll wait. The console wars used hardware specs to market their system's superiority cause people are stupid or did you forget the words "330 Megabit -24 bit graphics!!" in large bold in every mag? It really wasn't 24bit and few games reached such high memory use so the cold hard facts that such "specs" equates to what you'll experience in it's games isn't really a fact at all is it.
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Arkaign
Lifer
What? You're fundamentally mixing many different things, and you mistake insults and condescension for some kind of valuable tactic in a rational discussion.
Specifications are engineering facts that reflect the cold, hard reality of what the components are, what their clock speeds are, what their features are, and so on. This is indisputable like 2+2=4. That's not 'theoretical', that's measurable.
Yes, developers can utilize said specs in many different ways, and even ways that are unforeseen until someone gets creative and goes about utilizing what's available in a different manner.
Marketing and actual capabilities are basically unrelated. One can say all kinds of things, but the reality of what's IN the box will never change. And the truth is, what's IN the box determines your fundamental limits and performance characteristics. To deny that is bordering on insanity. Now does a higher level of hardware capability make things 'more fun'? No, not really. Game design is king. However, raising the bar on capabilities (yes, specifications) enables more detailed and fluid game experiences.
The 16-bit wars had a ton of idiotic marketing, yes. But does any of that actually change the fact that all of the 16-bit systems had drastically differing capabilities? The SNES was too slow to do justice to many extremely fast-paced titles. The SNES did have vastly superior audio hardware in comparison to Genesis and TG16 (obviously TG-16 CD and Genesis CD audio tracks were better still, but not usable for much beyond BGM and cutscene audio). The SNES did in fact have a vastly better color palette that made for more vibrant graphics.
Not only are all of those things factual in the material specification of the consoles, but they are factual in the reality of the games that we saw for each.
And of COURSE the best system is the one that gives you the most enjoyment. I don't think anyone would argue with that. That's why I still have a huge number of retro games alongside the new stuff.
330 Megabit - 24 bit graphics. Again, you're mixing marketing with actual specifications. The Neo Geo was hugely expensive and that made it largely irrelevant to the era outside of the arcade. The actual hardware specifications of the Neo Geo were not marketing however, the thing WAS better than Snes and Genesis in almost every measurable way in purely hardware terms. However, without 3rd party support, and with a price tag that was utterly insane, it was meaningless.
Taking it full circle to today, with the majority of games being cross-platform, and with both consoles being released at the same timeframe, yes, the specs WILL in fact come to light in actual use. They are not 'made up', they are not 'theoretical', they simply ARE what they ARE. That doesn't mean that Grand Theft Auto 5 on Xbox 360 won't be a better game than tons of PS4/XB1 games, for example. That doesn't mean that someone playing a game on a console that has slightly lower details, less AA, or choppier framerate won't be having JUST as much fun as someone playing it under better performance circumstances.
Now do you get it? I never said better specs make for better gaming, but you were the one who ended a post with 'Hardware specifications are ONLY the product of marketing'. I'm sure basically every engineer on earth would have something to say about that. And for that matter, if specifications fundamentally do NOT EXIST outside of marketing then : Atari 5200 is the exact same thing as an Xbox One. Don't tell me that their specifications and capabilities are different. The 5200 is easily capable of playing Forza 5 and Battlefield 4 online in full HD, right? Because clearly specs are only the product of marketing.
Specifications are engineering facts that reflect the cold, hard reality of what the components are, what their clock speeds are, what their features are, and so on. This is indisputable like 2+2=4. That's not 'theoretical', that's measurable.
Yes, developers can utilize said specs in many different ways, and even ways that are unforeseen until someone gets creative and goes about utilizing what's available in a different manner.
Marketing and actual capabilities are basically unrelated. One can say all kinds of things, but the reality of what's IN the box will never change. And the truth is, what's IN the box determines your fundamental limits and performance characteristics. To deny that is bordering on insanity. Now does a higher level of hardware capability make things 'more fun'? No, not really. Game design is king. However, raising the bar on capabilities (yes, specifications) enables more detailed and fluid game experiences.
The 16-bit wars had a ton of idiotic marketing, yes. But does any of that actually change the fact that all of the 16-bit systems had drastically differing capabilities? The SNES was too slow to do justice to many extremely fast-paced titles. The SNES did have vastly superior audio hardware in comparison to Genesis and TG16 (obviously TG-16 CD and Genesis CD audio tracks were better still, but not usable for much beyond BGM and cutscene audio). The SNES did in fact have a vastly better color palette that made for more vibrant graphics.
Not only are all of those things factual in the material specification of the consoles, but they are factual in the reality of the games that we saw for each.
And of COURSE the best system is the one that gives you the most enjoyment. I don't think anyone would argue with that. That's why I still have a huge number of retro games alongside the new stuff.
330 Megabit - 24 bit graphics. Again, you're mixing marketing with actual specifications. The Neo Geo was hugely expensive and that made it largely irrelevant to the era outside of the arcade. The actual hardware specifications of the Neo Geo were not marketing however, the thing WAS better than Snes and Genesis in almost every measurable way in purely hardware terms. However, without 3rd party support, and with a price tag that was utterly insane, it was meaningless.
Taking it full circle to today, with the majority of games being cross-platform, and with both consoles being released at the same timeframe, yes, the specs WILL in fact come to light in actual use. They are not 'made up', they are not 'theoretical', they simply ARE what they ARE. That doesn't mean that Grand Theft Auto 5 on Xbox 360 won't be a better game than tons of PS4/XB1 games, for example. That doesn't mean that someone playing a game on a console that has slightly lower details, less AA, or choppier framerate won't be having JUST as much fun as someone playing it under better performance circumstances.
Now do you get it? I never said better specs make for better gaming, but you were the one who ended a post with 'Hardware specifications are ONLY the product of marketing'. I'm sure basically every engineer on earth would have something to say about that. And for that matter, if specifications fundamentally do NOT EXIST outside of marketing then : Atari 5200 is the exact same thing as an Xbox One. Don't tell me that their specifications and capabilities are different. The 5200 is easily capable of playing Forza 5 and Battlefield 4 online in full HD, right? Because clearly specs are only the product of marketing.
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Anarchist420
Diamond Member
Thank you.🙂
The SNES was very limited in scrolling capabilities, Genesis backgrounds had far more depth.
color palette yes, resolution no (few Super NES games used 512x448, most Genesis games were 320x224, the extra fine art detail in Genesis games is proof of that), Sound was just different (although most Genesis motherboard revisions had terrible circuitry); the Super NES couldn't do FM synth in hardware, the Genesis only had one PCM channel.
I'm not biased either, as I like the Super NES better overall, but just barely.
Anarchist420
Diamond Member
Not really; the Super NES version's AI sucked because of its weak CPU.
That's because Sculptured Software put more effort into the SNES port than Probe did into the Genesis version. Probe could barely enhance Mortal Kombat II for the 32X and don't even get me started about how much they missed on the Saturn version.
mmntech
Lifer
The SNES had a better graphics chip than the Genesis. It was also using a 16-bit DPS when Sega was still using FM synthesis. The Genesis did have a faster clocked CPU, which I think allows for a more consistent 60fps in fast motion games like Sonic. This was really the meat of their "blast processing" gimmick. Though it really only benefits racing games, and Sonic.
There's really no question that the SNES was better than the Genesis. Though it had two years on Sega's system. Which at the time was a huge technology gap. The Genesis was originally made to mimic Sega's mid to late 80s arcade hardware. They were heavily focused on making popular arcade games playable at home. A lot if not most of the Genesis/MegaDrive's early games were arcade ports.
Anarchist420
Diamond Member
That's a matter of opinion. As for which one was more powerful they can't really be objectively measured. The specs are purely marketing ploys and have been so in every generation. The PSOne couldn't have done Panzer Dragoon Saga as well as the Saturn just like there were PSOne games that wouldn't have looked as good on the Saturn.
I don't remember seeing anything like Shinobi III's backgrounds (look at the second part of the first round) in any Super NES game. Sure the colors sucked, but Super NES backgrounds were typically very static and very close to the foreground.
IHateMyJob2004
Lifer
The Wii is a different market. Nintnedo targets kids. Microsoft and Sony target teens/20 somethings.
Kids don't need high end graphics and parents don't want higher costs. And 20 somethings without kids can blow more money on things like consoles. 8 years olds don't have money to buy anything.
zerocool84
Lifer
No, Nintendo with the Wii, tried to target the average person that doesn't play games. They did extremely well with the Wii, the WiiU, not so much.
cmdrdredd
Lifer
Yep and people who don't play games also don't buy games so everything except Mario and zelda etc. flopped.
cmdrdredd
Lifer
When the 360 released it was not as fast as a high end PC. I don't see your point.
futurefields
Diamond Member
Let's not be dense.
Xbox 360 graphics were comparatively very high end when it was released 8 years ago in 2005.
Arkaign
Lifer
That's true, today it would be like stuffing a Radeon 7970 into the XB1. They really really wimped out with the new console specs, probably for a combination of reliability and cost concerns. That's why it's so idiotic when you hear people say that the new consoles are like 'high end PCs'. They're just not. Hell they will struggle with 1080p in many titles.
Will there be tons of great games? Yes.
Will they be way way better than current gen consoles? Yes.
Are they anywhere near as high end relatively speaking as 360/PS3 were on their launches? No, they're massively gimped by comparison when you look at same-era specs, outside of ram. They really put too little ram in last time, and this time they got that right. But the CPU is weak, and the GPUs are weak. No way to really argue that.
Console overhead is lower though. Not quite as low as some try to say, after all an 8800GTX @ 1280x720 and medium details/low AA can still run most games just fine. And that's a card older than Moses. It has more to do with low target framerates, high optimization over time, and so on. In 3-4 years PS4 and especially XB1 will look incredibly weak. We should be approaching the ability for single GPUs to run 4K with high details by that time.
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