I know Americans and Canadians definitely would've appreciated Terranigma. But I also think it would've been pretty cool if we got some the European sports games you guys exclusively played in your region. I think it would've helped us Americans understand and appreciate other sports played outside the U.S. much like you guys with Madden.
The biggest differences to me from a german point of view. 1. Similiar to the UK with the Sinclar ZX, the C64 was very popular in Germany. 2. It seems that almost every kid in Germany had a Game Boy, so Nintendo was a allready established name. 3. In Germany you could get the Nintendo Club Magazin (Nintendo Power) for free at your local toy store. 4. Nintendo put a lot of effort into localization! (It was even printed ontoo the boxes "Mit deutschem Bildschirmtext", so Zelda-A Link to the past, was a huge sucess, simply because german kids could finally got what was going on and follow the story.) 5. No Arcades! The legislature put video game machines in the same categorie as slot machines, so you wouldn't find Video Games outside of shady casinos, billiard saloons etc. all prohibit to persons under 18 y.o. (Therefore no kid in germany would even know what an arcade mode in a game was. We just called it ultra hard mode or mode with time limit^^) 6. No comperative advertising, also prohibit.
Ehm no. The explanation was given, that it fell under the same law as slot machines. Yes, it was stupid and I am thankful to know arcades from the US Armee basis. But still, sometimes we could experience it at festivals etc.
Actively I only experienced the late part of the "war", with one friend of my parents having a SNES and another one an Amiga 500. So that is basically the stuff I played. Later on I had a Gameboy and got the PS1 from my father, chipped obviously. So I was one of those who had both, a Playstation and N64 back then. Games like Speedball 2, Lemmings, SWIV, Wings of Fury, Super Mario World, Lion King, Donkey Kong Country, Tetris, etc
Brilliant video once again ! The Americans sometimes have an hard time believing the NES and Nintendo weren't omnipotent. Thanks for bringing the European story to the masses.
+Martin Sutcliffe Nintendo did lose Europe but it was a close effort, Japan and the USA were Nintendo's and Sega did push USA market, Australia was also an area of interest, in the end, Nintendo had the numbers in Japan and USA to stop Sega from winning the 16 bit wars.
@@joed5150 That, and something I picked up on even at a kid was that the SNES had superior graphics and sound to the Genesis. I was happy to be an SNES owner and had endless fun with my small library of games for it.
amen to that, growning up i knew ONE person that had a nes my cousin, and he was a fucking pleb anyway, always laugh at the americans disbelief that not everybody loves nintendo
After the Kimblitz, I'd reckon you would have taken a long break. But these last few weeks have been the best videos you've ever done. This vid in particular is important, I find, because the European theatre (as it were) for the 16 bit wars is never covered. Your stuff is exactly what games journalism should aspire to; intriguing fact based information mixed with opinion steeped in the personality of the content maker which is approachable, charming and NOT condescending or pandering to the viewer. Keep up the good work Kim!
This is my first video of Kim's. What's the Kim Blitz? Yes I know the original comment is a year old but I'm hoping you'll see past that and answer anyway :P
Have been watching your videos for year or 2 now and I must say they are probably some of the best on YT. Keep up the great work. This shits better than ANYTHING on the telly!
Another fantastic video, honestly one of the best researched and presented channels I have seen on TH-cam. You'd honestly write an amazing book as you are great at not only breaking down a topic but also looking at events from another perspective. Well done :)
As for what happened here in Brazil: Sega was huge, the Master System and the Mega-Drive sold well. After that I didnt hear much of them. 32x was nonexistent and the Saturn failed miserably in comparison to the playstation. One big reason was the high price of the games and the impossibility of playing pirate games (the playstation could play pirate games and piracy is a disease here in south america). The Dreamcast did ok, but again the piracy killed the system.
Very refreshing to see how Nintendo and Sega faired in the UK/Europe during the late 80's and early 90's. Mirrors my experience from that time perfectly. I wish I could recall the Rik Mayall ads though.
It's funny how the Sega vs Nintendo war was the reverse in the UK/Europe compared to the US/Canada. In the US/Canada, Nintendo won the 8-bit war before Sega gave them a tough 16-bit war. In the UK/Europe, Sega won the 8-bit war before Nintendo gave them a tough 16-bit war.
Brilliant video, so good to finally get a UK perspective! I grew up with an Amiga 500 until getting a SNES in 1994, a second-hand Mega Drive around 1997 and an N64 in 1999. 16-bit games were extremely cheap and easy to find in the late 1990s as everyone was buying Playstation/N64 games instead - I almost doubled my game collection in 1998 alone.
Appreciate the video, as an American i thank you for the educational video. Being a life long gamer in my 30's i had some knowledge of the differences between the US and European game markets but you brought up a lot of details that i had no idea of. I'm actually a little shocked that so many people had no idea that the video games market was vastly different in other countries. Even today there are significant differences depending on where your from, just look at how hard of a time Microsoft has had in Japan since the original Xbox.
I think a lot of it is basic economics for uk familys at the time, spend 40 quid on a game for an nes in 1988 or buy a microcomputer and get games for as little as 99p (cents) or 7 quid for a brand new release and that's it really, when sega came along they managed to keep the price pretty low while the quality was as good in not better than the nes so people got on board with sega also i think the arcade recognition helped with games like outrun shinobi eect ect
Another awesome vid, thank you! Incidentally, the console wars 'The Northern Version' was: The hard kids got a Mega drive, the rich kids got a Snes, the rest of us played Street Fighter 2 on our Commodores. Your best mate was basically the kid you knew with Sensi soccer and a second controller :)
I had never even heard of the master system til I found some retro games channels on TH-cam, it's very interesting seeing all the different perspectives, awesome video, just found your channel, have a great day everyone.
Excellent video as always. Shadowrun and Flashback for the Sega Genesis/Megadrive were my two favorite games of that generation, and I still play them through every year or two. They were both so unique and beautiful and interesting. If anyone hasn't played them, I recommend them even today.
+Shinku Quickman The European SNES never got EarthBound (which was released in North America) either. Europe had to wait until it was released on the Virtual Console for Wii U to play it legally.
I hope a few American enthusiasts end up stumbling upon this. Being a Brit in my late '30s I can obviously relate and concur with a lot of the observations and views here. I was lucky in that as a child my first proper start with gaming was with a Sega Master System (with Hang-On / Safari Hunt built in & the light phaser peripheral and Afterburner) which was bought abroad in the States circa 1988. It took a year or so before I knew anyone else with one but it wasn't before long that loads of Speccy and C64 owners had upgraded. NES owners were always rare but we all knew that the Mario and Mega Man games were amazing thanks to the timed demo pods the local Virgin Megastore had (games were Mario 1, Mario 2, Turtles, Mega Man and Bayou Billy) - alongside a proper booth area which was dedicated to the Sega Master System. Curiously, the demo area for the SMS didn't have control pads out for the public to try: You had to wait in line and ask to try a game out, but of the selection on offer most would be ones from the budget-but-quality line - titles like The Ninja, Secret Command, Wonder Boy and Alex Kidd in Miracle World. Double Dragon was far and away the most popular game, though - it was all about that 2-player co-op. Shinobi and Wonder Boy in Monster Land were the most traded games amongst the kids in the neighbourhood, and Wonder Boy III: The Dragons Trap was popular even after we'd got our minds blown from grey imported Mega Drives sporting Super Hang On, Super Shinobi and Ghouls n' Ghosts. PAL Mario 3 carts finally appeared in shops after the Snes Mario 4 bundle came out, by the time which the luckier amongst us had already mastered the first wave or two of Super Famicom games.
One thing I find REALLY interesting about this is that some people in the game industry had this goal that a game console would be a long-term household item in EVERY home, line a telephone or a television, but the industry competition kept pushing for more better faster stronger and expected you to buy a new console every couple of years. But in Europe and South America they ACHIEVED that appliance state where a console was so popular you could keep selling them forever, but they threw this advantage away in favor of unified strategy. As an American I gotta say I would far have preferred long tail product cycles like we saw with SONY where the PS2 and PS3 were sold ten years after debut. Honestly I would prefer that a really good piece of hardware be manufactured forever and they just update it slightly (give the N64 and PS2 HDMI output, fix the Dreamcast so that every game works with VGA output). Alas...marketing.
It was like the future had arrived...I remember sitting up all night playing games like Wonder Boy, Budokan and California Games, just blown away by it.
Also yeah it's always been pronounced seega in Australia and I found it odd when I started seeing videos of people that pronounced it different But apparently we are the ones not saying it correctly ???
+S Wils Sega pronunces it like the American "SEGA!" in ads and pre roll you hear in many Sega games. Is also pronunced and written as "SEGA" in Japan. Some marketing firms didn't stay on message. On an aside, in Canada we say both S N E S and snes but as "sness" and not "snez". I hear the former less often among non retro/gaming people though.
I grew up in England and only knew the NES and SNES well. Tho equally, it seemed like an even amount of kids in school were raving about Sega as much as Nintendo, it felt very even.
I recall reading a preview of Chrono Trigger in either Total or NMS and getting very excited for it, only for it to never show up (at least until the DS, but I didn't wait that long to play it!). Another superb vid with a much needed alternate perspective on the 16-bit days, those were great times indeed.
Great Video Kim Justice! As an American it's great to hear the UK/Euro perspective on this and the early computers... Now to see if you have a video on the Atari ST.. :)
Awesome video Kim - definitely a different experience you had in the U.K. with the console wars than we did in the US, just like it was with computers. I’d be interested in a similar video on the BBS experience there including BBS games. Thanks for being awesome!
I live in the US, and I had a Master System, but I didn't get it until the end days of the NES. I already had a Genesis/Megadrive by then, but I was just a kid who loved games and wanted to try more and more kinds of games
Thanks for another awesome vid! It's very interesting how all these things went down in different countries. Here in Finland, the Nes and the SMS were released virtually at the same time, and the Nes was even about a fifty euros (in today's money) more expensive than the Master System, but still the SMS was totally obscured by the big N. Don't quite know why, but my guess would be Super Mario Bros. Even the MegaDrives were quite rare in comparision to other countries.
You nailed it Kim. We had our own,independent market for computer games.We had the power of the Amiga and ST (ST aguably), and so when we saw the NES we weren't struck with it.Compare that to the US who rode the crash and saw the NES as the saviour of gaming,we just have very little nostalgia for the NES.I think we only,UK,sat up and noticed the 16bit console counterparts due to the quality of the games the got made.Great video Kim.
i just realized I've been watching a lot of your video and i must say. Wow you have great content. I also love that your not American because you have a different perspective on console and specific eras like the 16 bit wars. I'm subscribing now. Again great content and keep up the great work.
Another amazing video - thank you for making this - really great to here the British (our) perspective on the console wars. Very nostalgic and oh so very true :)
Excellent video! It's so interesting that back then, being pre-internet, we were so unaware of the differences between UK video games and the outside world, particularly 1) How far behind NES games were. I was probably only just discovering the magic of Mario 1 when Mario 3 was coming out in Japan. 2) I had no idea what a turn-based RPG was. I thought Zelda was an RPG. 3) Name changes. Shadow Warriors, Starwing, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Illusion Of Time .... nowadays I'm almost forgetting the names of these games I originally knew,
Did you not read the mags at the time? I remember getting Club NIntendo and them saying Archon would come out, then I'd get C&VG or Mean Machine and see it wasn't but then I@d see all the import games that wouldn't play on my mattel Nes, I was pretty annoyed! I even wanted to start importing games! I also thought Zelda was a RPG and still do to this day, don't like the turn based stuff. And I also got confused over some of the name changes. :D
Superb vid Kim. Another thoroughly entertaining doc that for once was refreshing to see the UK perspective. It's so weird for me hearing the nes didn't have much of a foothold here as I had a nes back then and I never got that impression. Most of my mates had nes consoles and I remember when the tmht game got a pack in release it was a pretty big deal. Of course I did know people that had micro computers and master systems but the nes seemed just as high profile around my way. Maybe it was just in London as I have been told the nes was virtually non existent in other parts of the country in particular up north.
superb video Kim, I've wanted to see someone do this subject for years. Very well done. Isnt it odd that the star of Segas adverts was one of Rik Mayalls crowd and best known for playing Spudgun in "Bottom" alongside Mayall?
At the peak of profitability, the Mega Drive/Genesis was on top and continued to be for another 2 years. To claim the SNES won would be like saying, the winner of a race didn't really win because someone else continued to run well after the race was over.
He is welsh actor Peter Wingfield, also known for playing in Soldier, Solder; Stargate SG-1, Holby City, NCIS: LA, and he had a role in X2: X-Men United as well as the awful Catwomen from 2004.
Another great nostalgia trip! It's hard to say how important it was but no one I knew had a multitap for either console. The J-Cart, which must've been a Codemasters copyright, and the Micro Machines games in particular were massive among my peers and added a feather in the cap of the Sega Fanboys. I've never even seen them mentioned in any retro gaming channel's output but I don't know why.
I grew up with an NES(I'm American) and the whole time I never knew the Master System existed. I actually thought Sega's first console was the Genesis until just a few years ago. It looks like a great system.
Thanks for this window into the 16-bit wars in Europe. You guys got some nice releases over there; Flink, especially looks great. Much more color than I would have expected from a Genesis game. Edit: Just looked up Flink and realized it did get a release in the US. It's over $100.00 now, though.
Great video, finally someone who doesn't tell the american story of the console wars. I have found memory's of both NES/SNES and Master System / Megadrive. I have the idea that the NES in the Netherlands was a bit bigger then the Master system. During my childhood i remember seeing more NES system then Master System. A Russian who lived a few blocks over had the Master System and i loved it :D But then again in europe we had 2 distributors. Pal-A was mattel and Pal-B was probably Nintendo itself ?
On an anecdotal level I saw 10 times more NES consoles in Ireland than I saw Master Systems. This I believe was spurred on by there being lots of Playchoice 10's in arcades. There were MS games for rent in video shops though so someone must have owned them although I only knew one kid. The Mega Drive seemed to do slightly better than the SNES because it was cheaper and people didn't have much money at the time but there wasn't much between them by the end.
Wait, they discontinued the Mega Drive 2 in the UK after 96? I can vividly remember the Argos and Index catalogues having Mega Drive 2's with a 6 in 1 cart available for about £40-£50 up to about 2000! I'd ask 'would that have been unsold stock' but when I think how big the system was they would have sold them all waaaay before 2000.
madcapoperator You're right. Even in 2000, the old Woolworths (RIP) on Argyle Street in Glasgow still had a Mega Drive II hooked up to a TV with Sonic 2 looping. I can't remember if it was actually for sale, but that Mega Drive unit must have been set up in the same place for at least six years -- just shows how often they changed their store layout! ;)
Matt Neilson Probably just old stock to sell off, the the last Mega Drive game released in the UK was Fifa 98 in late 1997 by then the N64 as out and the Playstation was starting to get ridiculously popular and became number 1 in the UK. Saying that up until summer 1998 you could still rent Snes and Mega drives games from Blockbuster.
It's always interesting when talking about games with people that only have the US history to go on. People will preach about how we wouldn't have games today had it not been for the holy Nintendo, yet have absolutely no idea of what was going on in other parts of the world and no knowledge of the home computer market. Nintendo obviously did a lot of great work, but to give them all of the praise and all of the credit when they did just as much to destroy it, it's just a crying shame. Given how expensive the games were and how much alternatives were on offer, some people will just not understand that Nintendo didn't really effect your time with games. I have some fond memories of Nintendo games, but they are a very small part of my time with games.
I think that just comes from youtube being very American dominant, Even Brit TH-camrs pronounce things like septics these days. I had commodore, Sega and NIntendo, but it's NIntendo that made up most of my gaming in the UK :D
This is quite a nice video, Kim. I'm from Argentina and I remember the 8 and 16 bit wars really well; blood, tears and all =P I have some great info that you might like. When it came to the 8 bit wars, South America was more on the Nintendo side, with Argentina being absolutely pro Nintendo. As a matter of fact, we had a pirate system called the Family Game (based on the Famicom) that screwed Nintendo's sales because it was cheaper than the NES and it let you play EVERY bloody game. I remember buying Captain Tsubasa 2 and enjoying the heck out of it. Even with a better pirate console around, the official NES surpassed the Master System. Now, Brazil was Master System's heaven and I dare say the top country in the world when dealing with the good old 8 bit from Sega. The 16 bit war had a clearer general outcome, since the Mega Drive outsold the SNES in South America, even in Argentina, and of course in Brazil (the biggest SA markets). What you might not know is that Brazil still releases official SEGA licensed Mega Drive consoles under Tectoy (the Mega Drive 3, for instance) up to this very day! They are selling close to 200.000 brand new Mega Drive consoles a year. No, I'm not joking. Of course, by1996 everyone had a Playstation here (south americans are, for the most part, HUGE Sony fans), so we didn't love "the nostalgia thing" as much as americans that kept on buying SNES like crazy after '94. BTW, if SNES won the 16 bit war (and that's debatable, given what I just said), that's beacause of two countries: USA and Japan and, well...maybe Mexico.
We didn't really have a video game crash in the early 80s. By the time Nintendo came around with the Famicom/NES, 8-bit micros and homecomputers were already well established, and stayed like it far into the 90s, with some of the later machines being things like the Amiga and Atari 500.
If you liked this then think about having a gander through my social media, and get yourself on my Patreon: www.patreon.com/KimbleJustice
Excellent documentary, much better than this one th-cam.com/video/HRNXVtuhyYI/w-d-xo.html
I totally forgot that Rik Mayall was in Nintendo ads....
Got other country on Europe 🇪🇺 type Sweden 🇸🇪, Denmark 🇩🇰, ect Sega channel or not? I is Swedish 🇸🇪.
It was 2007 not 2004.
I know Americans and Canadians definitely would've appreciated Terranigma. But I also think it would've been pretty cool if we got some the European sports games you guys exclusively played in your region. I think it would've helped us Americans understand and appreciate other sports played outside the U.S. much like you guys with Madden.
The biggest differences to me from a german point of view.
1. Similiar to the UK with the Sinclar ZX, the C64 was very popular in Germany.
2. It seems that almost every kid in Germany had a Game Boy, so Nintendo was a allready established name.
3. In Germany you could get the Nintendo Club Magazin (Nintendo Power) for free at your local toy store.
4. Nintendo put a lot of effort into localization! (It was even printed ontoo the boxes "Mit deutschem Bildschirmtext", so Zelda-A Link to the past, was a huge sucess, simply because german kids could finally got what was going on and follow the story.)
5. No Arcades! The legislature put video game machines in the same categorie as slot machines, so you wouldn't find Video Games outside of shady casinos, billiard saloons etc. all prohibit to persons under 18 y.o. (Therefore no kid in germany would even know what an arcade mode in a game was. We just called it ultra hard mode or mode with time limit^^)
6. No comperative advertising, also prohibit.
I live in germany but I didn't experience that time.
Nice to know how it was in germany back then!
Ehm no. The explanation was given, that it fell under the same law as slot machines. Yes, it was stupid and I am thankful to know arcades from the US Armee basis. But still, sometimes we could experience it at festivals etc.
Actively I only experienced the late part of the "war", with one friend of my parents having a SNES and another one an Amiga 500. So that is basically the stuff I played. Later on I had a Gameboy and got the PS1 from my father, chipped obviously. So I was one of those who had both, a Playstation and N64 back then.
Games like Speedball 2, Lemmings, SWIV, Wings of Fury, Super Mario World, Lion King, Donkey Kong Country, Tetris, etc
@@nickthelick I think it was a bit more about gambling. Not unlike what is happening today, just in a slightly different way.
spectrum boys 4 life!
Brilliant video once again !
The Americans sometimes have an hard time believing the NES and Nintendo weren't omnipotent. Thanks for bringing the European story to the masses.
+Martin Sutcliffe Nintendo did lose Europe but it was a close effort, Japan and the USA were Nintendo's and Sega did push USA market, Australia was also an area of interest, in the end, Nintendo had the numbers in Japan and USA to stop Sega from winning the 16 bit wars.
Haruhi Suzumiya it wasn't close at all in europe between nintendo and europe.
It's hard to understand because as much as I loved my Genesis, NES and SNES just had truly superior libraries.
@@joed5150 That, and something I picked up on even at a kid was that the SNES had superior graphics and sound to the Genesis. I was happy to be an SNES owner and had endless fun with my small library of games for it.
amen to that, growning up i knew ONE person that had a nes my cousin, and he was a fucking pleb anyway, always laugh at the americans disbelief that not everybody loves nintendo
After the Kimblitz, I'd reckon you would have taken a long break. But these last few weeks have been the best videos you've ever done. This vid in particular is important, I find, because the European theatre (as it were) for the 16 bit wars is never covered. Your stuff is exactly what games journalism should aspire to; intriguing fact based information mixed with opinion steeped in the personality of the content maker which is approachable, charming and NOT condescending or pandering to the viewer. Keep up the good work Kim!
+H.D Beird Absolutely this. I can't echo this enough.
This is my first video of Kim's. What's the Kim Blitz? Yes I know the original comment is a year old but I'm hoping you'll see past that and answer anyway :P
Have been watching your videos for year or 2 now and I must say they are probably some of the best on YT.
Keep up the great work.
This shits better than ANYTHING on the telly!
I think this my all time favourite Kim video. And that’s saying something
Another fantastic video, honestly one of the best researched and presented channels I have seen on TH-cam. You'd honestly write an amazing book as you are great at not only breaking down a topic but also looking at events from another perspective. Well done :)
As for what happened here in Brazil: Sega was huge, the Master System and the Mega-Drive sold well. After that I didnt hear much of them. 32x was nonexistent and the Saturn failed miserably in comparison to the playstation. One big reason was the high price of the games and the impossibility of playing pirate games (the playstation could play pirate games and piracy is a disease here in south america). The Dreamcast did ok, but again the piracy killed the system.
O Mega-Drive e meu console favorito! Tenho memorias fantasticas dele nos anos 90!! Good old times!
in chile the megadrive was kinda popuiar, but we had one of the worst tv commercials for sonic 1.
Juan Vedder for me in the UK the Mega Drive/Genesis was king. I didn't know anyone who had a SNES.
The Dreamcast was born dead.
@@Bellocks1 I has a Megadrive and then a Snes, and knew several who had a Snes, but i think the Mega sold more in the UK.
Very refreshing to see how Nintendo and Sega faired in the UK/Europe during the late 80's and early 90's. Mirrors my experience from that time perfectly. I wish I could recall the Rik Mayall ads though.
First video of yours I've watched. Wow, these must take ages! Great watch.
To get this good. It takes Ages.... Sega
It's funny how the Sega vs Nintendo war was the reverse in the UK/Europe compared to the US/Canada. In the US/Canada, Nintendo won the 8-bit war before Sega gave them a tough 16-bit war. In the UK/Europe, Sega won the 8-bit war before Nintendo gave them a tough 16-bit war.
Razor Edge
Actually Sega didn’t even win so called 8 bit war in Europe.
Brilliant video, so good to finally get a UK perspective!
I grew up with an Amiga 500 until getting a SNES in 1994, a second-hand Mega Drive around 1997 and an N64 in 1999. 16-bit games were extremely cheap and easy to find in the late 1990s as everyone was buying Playstation/N64 games instead - I almost doubled my game collection in 1998 alone.
Another top video Kim, keep up the great work.
As a Yankee who never knew any of this side of the story, this was a great video. Thank you so much.
I always love hearing about the video game market in other parts of the world. Thanks for sharing!
Your videos are quickly becoming the best thing about Mondays, especially your documentary like videos. Can't wait for the next vid. :D
One of your best videos yet Kim! They were such magic days *sniff*
Kim, your documentaries are excellent, please keep up the great work! I always get excited when I see that you have uploaded a new vid!
Appreciate the video, as an American i thank you for the educational video. Being a life long gamer in my 30's i had some knowledge of the differences between the US and European game markets but you brought up a lot of details that i had no idea of. I'm actually a little shocked that so many people had no idea that the video games market was vastly different in other countries. Even today there are significant differences depending on where your from, just look at how hard of a time Microsoft has had in Japan since the original Xbox.
I think a lot of it is basic economics for uk familys at the time, spend 40 quid on a game for an nes in 1988 or buy a microcomputer and get games for as little as 99p (cents) or 7 quid for a brand new release and that's it really, when sega came along they managed to keep the price pretty low while the quality was as good in not better than the nes so people got on board with sega also i think the arcade recognition helped with games like outrun shinobi eect ect
This video is marvelous at almost 42 Mins! Very good job!
Another awesome vid, thank you! Incidentally, the console wars 'The Northern Version' was: The hard kids got a Mega drive, the rich kids got a Snes, the rest of us played Street Fighter 2 on our Commodores. Your best mate was basically the kid you knew with Sensi soccer and a second controller :)
Every video you have made lately is pure deep fried gold.
Thanks Kim, this is one of my most watched vids of yours, excellent work!
Another great video Kim!! Wonderful to hear a thorough point of view from another perspective. Keep up the GREAT work!!
I had never even heard of the master system til I found some retro games channels on TH-cam, it's very interesting seeing all the different perspectives, awesome video, just found your channel, have a great day everyone.
Excellent video as always. Shadowrun and Flashback for the Sega Genesis/Megadrive were my two favorite games of that generation, and I still play them through every year or two. They were both so unique and beautiful and interesting. If anyone hasn't played them, I recommend them even today.
Still can't believe that the European SNES never got Chrono Trigger. What a mistake.
+Shinku Quickman The European SNES never got EarthBound (which was released in North America) either. Europe had to wait until it was released on the Virtual Console for Wii U to play it legally.
+Shinku Quickman Based on this video they really got burned rpg-wise. :\ Rough stuff...
+Bunnellius Well, Europe did get Terranigma. Never got released in America.
There was lots of games neither those in North America or Europe have gotten.
Yeah, I was gonna say Earthbound but someone beat me to it. Seriously, with no EB and Chrono Trigger, you guys BARELY HAD A SNES
I hope a few American enthusiasts end up stumbling upon this. Being a Brit in my late '30s I can obviously relate and concur with a lot of the observations and views here. I was lucky in that as a child my first proper start with gaming was with a Sega Master System (with Hang-On / Safari Hunt built in & the light phaser peripheral and Afterburner) which was bought abroad in the States circa 1988. It took a year or so before I knew anyone else with one but it wasn't before long that loads of Speccy and C64 owners had upgraded.
NES owners were always rare but we all knew that the Mario and Mega Man games were amazing thanks to the timed demo pods the local Virgin Megastore had (games were Mario 1, Mario 2, Turtles, Mega Man and Bayou Billy) - alongside a proper booth area which was dedicated to the Sega Master System. Curiously, the demo area for the SMS didn't have control pads out for the public to try: You had to wait in line and ask to try a game out, but of the selection on offer most would be ones from the budget-but-quality line - titles like The Ninja, Secret Command, Wonder Boy and Alex Kidd in Miracle World. Double Dragon was far and away the most popular game, though - it was all about that 2-player co-op.
Shinobi and Wonder Boy in Monster Land were the most traded games amongst the kids in the neighbourhood, and Wonder Boy III: The Dragons Trap was popular even after we'd got our minds blown from grey imported Mega Drives sporting Super Hang On, Super Shinobi and Ghouls n' Ghosts. PAL Mario 3 carts finally appeared in shops after the Snes Mario 4 bundle came out, by the time which the luckier amongst us had already mastered the first wave or two of Super Famicom games.
"I hope a few American enthusiasts end up stumbling upon this." Why's that? Shame we didn't get Elite on the NES at any rate. Cheers.
@Johnny B. Bad I was a UK Nes owner, rare made some of my favourite games, I had most, they were just the best.
It's funny, the most traded games in my playground were Super Mario 2 and Zelda. Toys'r'us had yuge selection of Nes games (and Master and C64)
big up youself kim. your content is always awesome and your channel is my new favourite on the whole of youtube.
The amount of detail you put into your videos is inspiring.
Great video again! Thank you Kim.
Alex Kidd is GOD in Brazil \o/
Master System and TecToy forever, man!!!
One thing I find REALLY interesting about this is that some people in the game industry had this goal that a game console would be a long-term household item in EVERY home, line a telephone or a television, but the industry competition kept pushing for more better faster stronger and expected you to buy a new console every couple of years.
But in Europe and South America they ACHIEVED that appliance state where a console was so popular you could keep selling them forever, but they threw this advantage away in favor of unified strategy.
As an American I gotta say I would far have preferred long tail product cycles like we saw with SONY where the PS2 and PS3 were sold ten years after debut. Honestly I would prefer that a really good piece of hardware be manufactured forever and they just update it slightly (give the N64 and PS2 HDMI output, fix the Dreamcast so that every game works with VGA output).
Alas...marketing.
Wow going from the Spectrum to the Mega Drive I bet you felt like a boss
It was like the future had arrived...I remember sitting up all night playing games like Wonder Boy, Budokan and California Games, just blown away by it.
Double Doobie Nah going from spectrum to the Super Famicom. THAT is when people felt like a boss
Lucas O'heyze Nah it wasn’t. If you play Super Metroid, Star Fox, R Type, F Zero, Contra 3, and Sonic Blast Man, those games will blow your balls off.
@@firemonger5409 I like how you are dictating other people's memories 😂
Lol I went from an amstrad to mega drive it was amazing I couldn’t believe what I was seeing
In that Sega ad at 17:30, isn't that Peter Wingfield who played Methos in the Highlander TV show and was also in Holby City?
Sweet! Got my Kim Justice fix tonight!
Also yeah it's always been pronounced seega in Australia and I found it odd when I started seeing videos of people that pronounced it different
But apparently we are the ones not saying it correctly ???
+S Wils Sega pronunces it like the American "SEGA!" in ads and pre roll you hear in many Sega games. Is also pronunced and written as "SEGA" in Japan. Some marketing firms didn't stay on message.
On an aside, in Canada we say both S N E S and snes but as "sness" and not "snez". I hear the former less often among non retro/gaming people though.
Great video Thanks Kim!
I grew up in England and only knew the NES and SNES well. Tho equally, it seemed like an even amount of kids in school were raving about Sega as much as Nintendo, it felt very even.
Yeah, it was about 50/50
Another great video Kim, i've really enjoyed your last 4-5.
thanks for sharing Kim Justice
Another fantastic video Kim. You seem to somehow be improving the quantity and quality of your work? Incredible stuff! :-)
Yet another fantastic video, what a great body of work you've produced, nice one.
Can't wait to dig into this. Cheers!
Enjoyed that, thanks Justice
Thanks for clarifying the snes pronunciation differences, I always wondered why people spell it out online lol
The fact that Chrono Trigger never saw a release over here on the SNES was bloody criminal.
Bloody amazing Kim thanks again
I recall reading a preview of Chrono Trigger in either Total or NMS and getting very excited for it, only for it to never show up (at least until the DS, but I didn't wait that long to play it!). Another superb vid with a much needed alternate perspective on the 16-bit days, those were great times indeed.
another great video, really enjoyed it. Very informative some interesting facts I did not know
Great Video Kim Justice! As an American it's great to hear the UK/Euro perspective on this and the early computers... Now to see if you have a video on the Atari ST.. :)
You do great work Kim. Keep it up!. Also, good on ya for dropping an OSW Review reference.
I still remember the TV ad that said "Do me a favour... Plug me into a SEGA" aww good times.
+KaotikKnight Is that the advert with the talking colour bars?
GeoNeilUK yes it was.
Awesome video Kim - definitely a different experience you had in the U.K. with the console wars than we did in the US, just like it was with computers. I’d be interested in a similar video on the BBS experience there including BBS games. Thanks for being awesome!
I live in the US, and I had a Master System, but I didn't get it until the end days of the NES. I already had a Genesis/Megadrive by then, but I was just a kid who loved games and wanted to try more and more kinds of games
This video is absolutely amazing great work Kim justice these videos are amazing keep up the great work 👍
brilliant video as always
Thanks for another awesome vid! It's very interesting how all these things went down in different countries. Here in Finland, the Nes and the SMS were released virtually at the same time, and the Nes was even about a fifty euros (in today's money) more expensive than the Master System, but still the SMS was totally obscured by the big N. Don't quite know why, but my guess would be Super Mario Bros. Even the MegaDrives were quite rare in comparision to other countries.
Best strike witches but poor taste (Sega boy here) in old consoles!
Strike Witches seems pretty interesting, at least after five minutes of research. First time I ever heard of such a thing, so thanks!
THe Nintendos' really sewed up the Nordic area.
Big like dudue! I LOVE your documentaries man, you're my go to guy. Keep up the good work.
Great video Kim
@13:40 I love how on the promo material for the SNES you can see ZELDA III amongst the other launch titles 😎
You nailed it Kim. We had our own,independent market for computer games.We had the power of the Amiga and ST (ST aguably), and so when we saw the NES we weren't struck with it.Compare that to the US who rode the crash and saw the NES as the saviour of gaming,we just have very little nostalgia for the NES.I think we only,UK,sat up and noticed the 16bit console counterparts due to the quality of the games the got made.Great video Kim.
Great channel Kim Justice!
i just realized I've been watching a lot of your video and i must say. Wow you have great content. I also love that your not American because you have a different perspective on console and specific eras like the 16 bit wars. I'm subscribing now. Again great content and keep up the great work.
Awesome video mate!👍👍👍👍
Another amazing video - thank you for making this - really great to here the British (our) perspective on the console wars. Very nostalgic and oh so very true :)
Excellent video! It's so interesting that back then, being pre-internet, we were so unaware of the differences between UK video games and the outside world, particularly
1) How far behind NES games were. I was probably only just discovering the magic of Mario 1 when Mario 3 was coming out in Japan.
2) I had no idea what a turn-based RPG was. I thought Zelda was an RPG.
3) Name changes. Shadow Warriors, Starwing, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Illusion Of Time .... nowadays I'm almost forgetting the names of these games I originally knew,
Did you not read the mags at the time? I remember getting Club NIntendo and them saying Archon would come out, then I'd get C&VG or Mean Machine and see it wasn't but then I@d see all the import games that wouldn't play on my mattel Nes, I was pretty annoyed! I even wanted to start importing games! I also thought Zelda was a RPG and still do to this day, don't like the turn based stuff. And I also got confused over some of the name changes. :D
Great as always
Superb vid Kim. Another thoroughly entertaining doc that for once was refreshing to see the UK perspective. It's so weird for me hearing the nes didn't have much of a foothold here as I had a nes back then and I never got that impression. Most of my mates had nes consoles and I remember when the tmht game got a pack in release it was a pretty big deal. Of course I did know people that had micro computers and master systems but the nes seemed just as high profile around my way. Maybe it was just in London as I have been told the nes was virtually non existent in other parts of the country in particular up north.
Same here, I had a Nes and so did friends. The sales were 50/50
Love your stuff. Patreon next month.
superb video Kim, I've wanted to see someone do this subject for years. Very well done.
Isnt it odd that the star of Segas adverts was one of Rik Mayalls crowd and best known for playing Spudgun in "Bottom" alongside Mayall?
At the peak of profitability, the Mega Drive/Genesis was on top and continued to be for another 2 years. To claim the SNES won would be like saying, the winner of a race didn't really win because someone else continued to run well after the race was over.
Know Your Video Games
I love the fact Nei is your avatar. Nothing to do with your comment, I know. But any reference to PS2 fills my heart with joy.
Exactly snes only won when sega focused everything on the saturn. Snes loss during the 16bit era time period. Fact
David Steck and that's the same here in the States. Sega won!!
Reginald Eberhart Nope.
TheAlphaOmegaX3 yep
17:05 that actor looks like Methos from the Highlander TV show.
+Phil V He is!
He is welsh actor Peter Wingfield, also known for playing in Soldier, Solder; Stargate SG-1, Holby City, NCIS: LA, and he had a role in X2: X-Men United as well as the awful Catwomen from 2004.
Phil V I thought I saw a puddy cat. Kidding thought at first glance I saw a Seth Green
The Sega dude, on the UK commercials is Welsh actor Peter Wingfield, he was part of the Highlander TV series cast.
Another great nostalgia trip! It's hard to say how important it was but no one I knew had a multitap for either console. The J-Cart, which must've been a Codemasters copyright, and the Micro Machines games in particular were massive among my peers and added a feather in the cap of the Sega Fanboys. I've never even seen them mentioned in any retro gaming channel's output but I don't know why.
HUGE kudos for using the HWA track. I thought I was the only one who remembered (let alone bought) Super Sonic.
I grew up with an NES(I'm American) and the whole time I never knew the Master System existed. I actually thought Sega's first console was the Genesis until just a few years ago. It looks like a great system.
It was a lot stronger. Look up Phantasy Star.
Did you mean to reply to a different comment?
America did a complete Number on the US brainwashing it. Europe had a thriving diverse games market
I think you mean marketing. Brainwashing is something else.
Brainwashing is a turn of phrase, meaning Nintendo completely manipulated Americans through marketing and illegal practices.
Thanks for this window into the 16-bit wars in Europe. You guys got some nice releases over there; Flink, especially looks great. Much more color than I would have expected from a Genesis game.
Edit: Just looked up Flink and realized it did get a release in the US. It's over $100.00 now, though.
Thanks for the refreshing viewpoint.
Much Lov.e
Great video, finally someone who doesn't tell the american story of the console wars. I have found memory's of both NES/SNES and Master System / Megadrive.
I have the idea that the NES in the Netherlands was a bit bigger then the Master system.
During my childhood i remember seeing more NES system then Master System.
A Russian who lived a few blocks over had the Master System and i loved it :D
But then again in europe we had 2 distributors. Pal-A was mattel and Pal-B was probably Nintendo itself ?
On an anecdotal level I saw 10 times more NES consoles in Ireland than I saw Master Systems. This I believe was spurred on by there being lots of Playchoice 10's in arcades. There were MS games for rent in video shops though so someone must have owned them although I only knew one kid.
The Mega Drive seemed to do slightly better than the SNES because it was cheaper and people didn't have much money at the time but there wasn't much between them by the end.
Awesome video man! Subbed.
£50 for a game in the 1980s was obscene
I was looking around for a UK version of what happened with Sega and Nintendo.
Wait, they discontinued the Mega Drive 2 in the UK after 96? I can vividly remember the Argos and Index catalogues having Mega Drive 2's with a 6 in 1 cart available for about £40-£50 up to about 2000! I'd ask 'would that have been unsold stock' but when I think how big the system was they would have sold them all waaaay before 2000.
madcapoperator You're right. Even in 2000, the old Woolworths (RIP) on Argyle Street in Glasgow still had a Mega Drive II hooked up to a TV with Sonic 2 looping. I can't remember if it was actually for sale, but that Mega Drive unit must have been set up in the same place for at least six years -- just shows how often they changed their store layout! ;)
Matt Neilson Probably just old stock to sell off, the the last Mega Drive game released in the UK was Fifa 98 in late 1997 by then the N64 as out and the Playstation was starting to get ridiculously popular and became number 1 in the UK. Saying that up until summer 1998 you could still rent Snes and Mega drives games from Blockbuster.
A NEW KIM JUSTICE VIDEO WOHOOO! :D
I really enjoy watching your videos. thank you
Alex really is special to us. I had a Mega Drive first - I still needed to get a MS just for Miracle world...And every single Sonic game.
Come for the great documentary, stay for Kim's singing!
The Sonic 2 on the Master System wasn't a port of the one on the Mega Drive/Genesis, it was an entirely new game.
It's always interesting when talking about games with people that only have the US history to go on. People will preach about how we wouldn't have games today had it not been for the holy Nintendo, yet have absolutely no idea of what was going on in other parts of the world and no knowledge of the home computer market.
Nintendo obviously did a lot of great work, but to give them all of the praise and all of the credit when they did just as much to destroy it, it's just a crying shame. Given how expensive the games were and how much alternatives were on offer, some people will just not understand that Nintendo didn't really effect your time with games. I have some fond memories of Nintendo games, but they are a very small part of my time with games.
I think that just comes from youtube being very American dominant, Even Brit TH-camrs pronounce things like septics these days. I had commodore, Sega and NIntendo, but it's NIntendo that made up most of my gaming in the UK :D
The land of Europe! Hahaha... Perfect american perspective!😂
Fun fact, the boffin actor in the Sega adverts would go on to play Spudgun in Bottom, which starred Rik Mayall
This is quite a nice video, Kim. I'm from Argentina and I remember the 8 and 16 bit wars really well; blood, tears and all =P I have some great info that you might like. When it came to the 8 bit wars, South America was more on the Nintendo side, with Argentina being absolutely pro Nintendo. As a matter of fact, we had a pirate system called the Family Game (based on the Famicom) that screwed Nintendo's sales because it was cheaper than the NES and it let you play EVERY bloody game. I remember buying Captain Tsubasa 2 and enjoying the heck out of it. Even with a better pirate console around, the official NES surpassed the Master System. Now, Brazil was Master System's heaven and I dare say the top country in the world when dealing with the good old 8 bit from Sega.
The 16 bit war had a clearer general outcome, since the Mega Drive outsold the SNES in South America, even in Argentina, and of course in Brazil (the biggest SA markets). What you might not know is that Brazil still releases official SEGA licensed Mega Drive consoles under Tectoy (the Mega Drive 3, for instance) up to this very day! They are selling close to 200.000 brand new Mega Drive consoles a year. No, I'm not joking. Of course, by1996 everyone had a Playstation here (south americans are, for the most part, HUGE Sony fans), so we didn't love "the nostalgia thing" as much as americans that kept on buying SNES like crazy after '94. BTW, if SNES won the 16 bit war (and that's debatable, given what I just said), that's beacause of two countries: USA and Japan and, well...maybe Mexico.
Lots of Brazilians here normally say Sega was more popular.
15:00 I remember demoing Contra and Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers for the NES in Sears and the video game stores in the United States.
Love the video!
What's the music you can hear during the sega commercials between 17 and 19 minutes?
Anyone got any idea what the background music being used around 22:00 - 23:00 is?
It’s like a mix of Sonic and 90’s club music and I kind of need it
We didn't really have a video game crash in the early 80s. By the time Nintendo came around with the Famicom/NES, 8-bit micros and homecomputers were already well established, and stayed like it far into the 90s, with some of the later machines being things like the Amiga and Atari 500.
Ah The Bit Wars, I served in the Sega Army. Many of my fellow comrades never came back. 😔😔
Does anyone know which was released in the UK first? Sega Megadrive or Nintendo Gameboy??