I see you subsequently attempted to flame-proof your post with a revision to forestall Genesis vs SNES arguments, but I think the "American consumers will buy just about any junky thing so long as it has a good advertising campaign" comment is inflammatory and inaccurate enough (at least in this case - there was a time when the product in question was the hands-down leader compared to the old 8-bit nintendo) to have needed comment regardless. No offense intended.
The very notion that anybody would have bought a Genesis puts an interesting light on the idea that American consumers will buy just about any junky thing so long as it has a good advertising campaign.
And Europeans are to be covered by that silly generalization as well? The Genesis/megadrive sold extremely well in Europe as well.
The Genesis beat the SNES to the market by a considerable margin, allowing it a chance to gain considerable momentum. The fact that it was pitched at teens (as opposed to the grade school target audience for the SNES) didn't hurt, either, but you'd classify that as marketing helping a "junky" product.
I'd argue with the "junky" designation. It's hardware was adequate for the time. Yes, the SNES came along a little later with better graphics. However, good gameplay can make up for a bit of technical inferiority. Genesis had some good games on it, games strong enough for it to do quite well in the marketplace.
I still occasionally will hook up my old Genesis to play one of the Sonic games. My old SNES tends to gather dust.
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I see you subsequently attempted to flame-proof your post with a revision to forestall Genesis vs SNES arguments, but I think the "American consumers will buy just about any junky thing so long as it has a good advertising campaign" comment is inflammatory and inaccurate enough (at least in this case - there was a time when the product in question was the hands-down leader compared to the old 8-bit nintendo) to have needed comment regardless. No offense intended.
The Genesis beat the SNES to the market by a considerable margin, allowing it a chance to gain considerable momentum. The fact that it was pitched at teens (as opposed to the grade school target audience for the SNES) didn't hurt, either, but you'd classify that as marketing helping a "junky" product.
I'd argue with the "junky" designation. It's hardware was adequate for the time. Yes, the SNES came along a little later with better graphics. However, good gameplay can make up for a bit of technical inferiority. Genesis had some good games on it, games strong enough for it to do quite well in the marketplace.
I still occasionally will hook up my old Genesis to play one of the Sonic games. My old SNES tends to gather dust.