Sega Master System Vs. NES

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gilly

Sega Master System Vs. NES

Postby gilly » February 29th, 2012, 12:28 pm

According to those specs, the 7800 can only handle carts up to 32KB. Is that true? Or is that merely the size of the largest cart released? If that's so, than there's where programers could not take full advantage of the system. Almost all master system carts were at least 128KB ( 1 megabit) with the largest being 4 megabits and sega cards being 32KB.

oldschoolgamer

Sega Master System Vs. NES

Postby oldschoolgamer » February 29th, 2012, 3:14 pm

Well, according to wikipedia, the 7800 could support 48 kb of rom at a time without bank switching, while the NES could only support 32 kb.

porypowerhour

Sega Master System Vs. NES

Postby porypowerhour » March 1st, 2012, 11:59 am

There's a lot of Master System games that were released late in its life in like Brazil. There's even a Sonic Spinball port for it.

But while I love the SMS, the NES wins for me because I'm a loyal Nintendo fan and it has such a vast awesome library.


Alex

Sega Master System Vs. NES

Postby Alex » March 9th, 2012, 3:53 am

I was gonna say that the visual difference is obvious but then I realised some of the best looking titles didn't come to you guys in the US. Those are:
Aladdin
Battlemaniacs
Cool Spot
Chuck Rock 2
Daffy Duck
Deep Duck Trouble
Dynamite Headdy
Ghouls 'n Ghosts
Land of Illusion
Power Strike II
Robocop vs. Terminator
Street Fighter II
The Smurfs

Of course, Phantasy Star, Fantasy Zone II and Wonder Boy III look great too. But with these old systems art style plays a big role and Nintendo had most of the talented third party support (Sunsoft, Capcom, Konami, Tecmo etc.).

The sound chip is less flexible, there's no triangle wave for that thick bass the NES has and you can't shape the square waveforms as much. The composers who got the most out of the PSG chip (there was an FM chip in Japan btw) are Jeroen Tel (The Flash), Alberto Gonzales (Smurfs, TinTin) and Matt Furniss (Alien 3, Lemmings, Trivial Pursuit etc.)

This is the only instance of PSG and FM chips working together that I know of, the JP BIOS screen music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K73DWqhOnnI



8th lutz

Sega Master System Vs. NES

Postby 8th lutz » March 10th, 2012, 4:19 pm

The issues with the 7800 went deeper than Atari having decent in house development and Nintendo didn't resort to illegal, anti-competitive practices. The other issues with the 7800 was how much Atari was willing to spend and Atari 2600 still having games being developed.

I mentioned the amount of money Atari was willing to spend because the fact is Atari 7800 actually was capable of having 512k backswitched rom cartridges instead of having 128k or 144k bankswitched rom cartridges. That was due to cost. It really hurt the 7800 in 1988 and 1989 as a result since the NES was having 256k rom cartridges at the time. That also Atari 7800 games in 1988 and 1989 could have been 256k bankswitched rom cartridges.

The other thing with cost with Atari is the reason the 7800 had bad sound. The 7800 was designed to add sounds and ram into game cartridges. Atari 7800 did not add a sound chip in a majority of the games released because of cost.

The problem with the sound could have been avoided though if the Atari 7800 like it was originally planned. The Atari 7800 was to have a Gumby sound chip built into the system instead of the later plan of put in to a cartridge. What I gathered from what a Gumby Sound chip is the fact the sound chip actually was cheaper and better than the sound chip the 5200 had. What happened was GCC the makers of Atari 7800 game Console decided on releasing the system with a 2600 sound chip and put in a 5200 sound in game cartridges and later in the 7800's life Gumby sound chips in game game cartridge.


oldschoolgamer

Sega Master System Vs. NES

Postby oldschoolgamer » March 10th, 2012, 7:02 pm

[QUOTE=8th lutz]Nintendo didn't resort to illegal, anti-competitive practices.

[/QUOTE]

The Justice Department would beg to differ.  Nintendo had a policy of requiring third party developers to agree to not release a game on a competing console for five years in order to get permission to put it on the NES.  It served to discourage third parties from developing for either the SMS or the 7800.  While the SMS still had Sega's first party titles.  Nintendo also threatened to stop supplying retailers that carried rival consoles.

Stephen

Sega Master System Vs. NES

Postby Stephen » March 15th, 2012, 8:39 am

Hey guys, the SMS had superior ports alot of the time, shinobi was better, Ninja Gaiden was better, alien syndrome was better, usually always better


Hagane

Sega Master System Vs. NES

Postby Hagane » March 15th, 2012, 10:59 am

SMS is more powerfull, but it couldn't compete with NES and it vast list of classics, there is nothing on SMS as great as Mario 3, Mega Man 2, Castlevania 3 or Contra.

JWK1
Posts: 904
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Sega Master System Vs. NES

Postby JWK1 » March 15th, 2012, 1:18 pm

[QUOTE]Originally Posted by Stephen
Hey guys, the SMS had superior ports alot of the time, shinobi was better, Ninja Gaiden was better, alien syndrome was better, usually always better[/QUOTE]

Yeah... amazing how those SEGA games played better on the Sega console.  Moreso, since the NES versions were unlicensed Tengen (Atari) ports.  And Ninja Gaiden on SMS was a version that was never on the NES!  (Not to mention it's a cake walk in comparison the NES game which came out 3 years earlier, by the way).

Stephen, dude, I love you and all but you make some ridiculous comparisons to make early Sega consoles appear superior to Nintendo's.

Stephen

Sega Master System Vs. NES

Postby Stephen » March 15th, 2012, 8:14 pm

JWK, I never said the SMS was better than the NES, the PORTS were just better excluding Double Dragon, and smash tv. The nes still has Better games


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