Retro Vault is our regular weekly feature in which we dive into gaming's past and share five classic nuggets of retro nostalgia. If you missed last week's Retro Vault you can read it here.
August 1989 - "Genesis Does" US print advert
After its Master System lost the 8-bit war to the NES by some margin in the US, Sega wanted to make sure the 16-bit race was far closer. In order to get a headstart on Nintendo it released its 16-bit Genesis (the Mega Drive in Europe and Japan) in 1989, a full two years before Nintendo had time to respond with the SNES.
This meant that for the first two years of its life the Mega Drive was in direct competition with the NES, a far less powerful console. Sega played on this with its "Genesis Does" campaign, running in magazines and on TV.
The claim was that "Genesis does what Nintendon't" - or, in other words, the sort of stuff the Mega Drive was capable of couldn't be done on the NES. TV ads drove this home with a catchy jingle that hollered: "You can't do this on Nintendo."
By the time the SNES arrived in the US, the Mega Drive had two years' worth of games, so Sega switched its marketing campaign to ask gamers why they would bother buying a system with hardly any titles.
Comments
6 comments so far...
FixBeatGames on 31 Mar '13 said:
only heard about the konix system recently, never in the day when i was younger. i can't believe they honestly thought they'd be able to sell all that tack needed just to play games which on the advert looked worse than MegaDrive/SNES anyway.
also, doesn't the ad say "32 bit system" and then a few seconds later say "16 bit system" ?
edit: i love these retro vaults. i'd love a whole website devoted to reviewing past magazines, there's loadsa websites with the actual mags, but i like these retrospect reviews of the reviews you do! more please!
Funkymonk on 31 Mar '13 said:
I grew up with the Megadrive and Mean Machines magazine. I wonder what happened to the legendary Julian "Jaz" Rignall?
razors edge on 31 Mar '13 said:
Use t'internet young Padawan.
I f**king loved The Simpsons Arcade game. Many, many pennies shoved in that with my buddies back in the day.
The two player special attacks were corking.
Laughlyn on 1 Apr '13 said:
simpsons arcade was awesome. i piled many a 10p into it in skeggy through my youth, along with final fight and double dragon, turtles, wrestlefest and of course the 4-6 player x-men game. its a shame most arcades now have lost that grimey buzz of yesteryear and are full of whiz bang machines for 2 quid a pop
flyfletch on 1 Apr '13 said:
Hes now the vice president of GamePro media in the US.
KK-Headcharge78 on 2 Apr '13 said:
I had the Simpsons arcade game on my arcade machine, epic if not a little annoying as it got harder and harder. Loved Mean Machines too, deffo my mag of choice after 'Massive jugs' monthly