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NES vs. Master System in terms of power

The NES was designed in 1982-1983 and released in 1983, with the aim of being better than the Colecovision. It succeeded at this, and was by far the most powerful system yet at the time of its release.

The same week that Nintendo released the NES in Japan, Sega released its first console, the SG-1000. It's basically a Colecovision with very few changes; converting games between the Colecovision and SG-1000 is quite easy for programmers. Naturally, graphically the NES crushed it, and Nintendo's games were better too. The SG-1000 sold terribly and only released in Japan, Italy, Australia, and maybe a few other countries, but not anywhere in the Americas.

So, Sega went and made a new model. developed in in 1984-1985, the Mark III, which was fully SG-1000 backwards compatible, but had better hardware and a new graphics mode that could outdo the NES. It released in 1985 (1986 in the West) as the Mark III/Master System. It succeeds at its aim of being better than the NES graphically, but it's two years newer hardware, and was designed with the express purpose of beating NES graphics, so it better have! Comparing the NES to the SMS without mentioning that the SMS was Sega's second try at a NES competitor, and released more than two years after the NES because their first NES competitor failed, is only telling half of the story. Of course, in Japan the SMS/Mark III was a failure too, just like the SG-1000 had been, but at least the second time they managed to do better overseas (in Europe and Brazil, that is, of course).

It is too bad that they overlooked the audio, though; SMS music isn't up to the NESes level. it's not even close. Sega tried to address this with the FM sound addon, but they only released it in Japan... and even with that, NES v SMS FM is debateable.

(The Game Gear doesn't have the FM, so Game Gear audio is quite a lot worse than Game Boy audio, while GG graphics are far better than Game Boy graphics.)


So, if you want to see how much better the NES is than the Sega hardware available when the NES actually first released. The NES and SG-1000 versions released in 1986, and the Master System version in 1987.
Here is Wonder Boy/Adventure Island for the NES. It's okay. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJQgrOCtUSs
Here it is for the SG-1000. Just managing to get a game to scroll at all on the Colecovision (and thus also the SG-1000) takes effort... this is one of the later SG-1000 games. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpIS3bL-VDw
And here is the Master System version. It's by far the best of the three. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj3cyTBTkSg

The game gear had Gunstar Heroes. No NES contra game comes close to that.
GG Gunstar Heroes is indeed pretty solid, and impressive for the hardware, but it should be "Five Force", not "Seven Force"... on GG it only has five forms. :p Also, the game looks great, but it does have a lot of flicker. A LOT of flicker. And slowdown too, but slowdown is not uncommon on the GG. They pushed the hardware with that game, I think. It does do a good job of showing what the GG could do, though. Instead of abandoning the handheld market, Sega probably should just have released an upgraded GG.. Nintendo-style, with a faster CPU and such.
 

Quaz51

Member
- The biggest NES constraint is the 2bpp GPU (3 colors sprite) vs 4bpp GPU (15 colors sprite) for SMS (like a Genesis). 3 colors characters is a challenge.
- The biggest NES strength is his cartridge bus that included direct GPU bus (like a neogeo) to customize Tileset access (you can bankswhitching Tileset and product complex background animation or sprite animation)
 

Celine

Member
NES library was yearslight ahead of SMS, although they had some very good titles. Here on Brazil, SMS was very popular and could face NES head-on, It was one of the most successful countries were SMS was released, thanks to the great marketing effort from TecToy, Sega's official publisher here.
Oh yeah, Master System sold roughly 2.5 million units combined in Japan and US, a small fraction compared to the the total.

Master System/Mark III sales
JP: 700K
US: less than 2M (?)
Europe: 6.2M (as March 1993)
Brazil: 5M
 

BKK

Member
The same week that Nintendo released the NES in Japan, Sega released its first console, the SG-1000. It's basically a Colecovision with very few changes; converting games between the Colecovision and SG-1000 is quite easy for programmers. Natrually, graphically the NES crushed it, and Nintendo's games were better too. The SG-1000 sold terribly and only released in Japan, Italy, Australia, and maybe a few other countries, but not anywhere in the Americas.

Technically it was the computer variant SC-3000 which was released overseas, although New Zealand did see a very limited release of the SG-1000, which is now ultra rare (I'm guessing maybe only several hundred and probably no more than 1000 at most were released). You can tell that model by the console having the Grandstand brand on it. The only other country which saw a console release was Taiwan, where Aaronix released the SG-1000 II. It was pretty successful in Taiwan, and several clone systems were released there, including Bit Corps' DINA 2-in-1 which was compatible with both Colecovision and SG-1000 software. This did see a release in the US as the Telegames Personal Arcade after Telegames obtained the Colecovision rights. It was only marketed as Colecovision hardware though, and no SG-1000 software was released in the US.

Oh yeah, Master System sold roughly 2.5 million units combined in Japan and US, a small fraction compared to the the total.

Master System/Mark III sales
JP: 700K
US: less than 2M (?)
Europe: 6.2M (as March 1993)
Brazil: 5M

JP is probably more like 1m, SG-1000 also sold around 400k in JP.
US is probably something like that, I've never seen any solid numbers unfortunately.
Brazil number includes SoC machines with built in games and no cartridge slot, which I don't really consider to be true SMS hardware. It would be nice to have a Brazil figure for true SMS hardware only.
 

AmyS

Member
It's probably already been said in this thread, but, the NES/Famicom is 1983 hardware, whereas the Sega Mark III is 1985 hardware, regardless of the U.S. release dates of the NES and Master System in 1985 and 1986 respectively.

If the Famicom had been released in 1985 in Japan, it would've probably been more or less equal to the Mark III,


Regardless, the main point is, the later NES and especially the later Famicom carts were easily on par with many of the Master System games. Especially the Famicom games that didn't come out in the U.S. at all, or, ones that used a better mapper chip than the NES version (i.e. Castlevania III).

That however does not change the fact that the Mark III / SMS hardware is better than the base Famicom / NES hardware, but that should be of no surprise since we are talking a 2 year difference (perhaps 2.5 years since Famicom released in June '83).
 

Celine

Member
JP is probably more like 1m, SG-1000 also sold around 400k in JP.
Could be.
I used this source:
http://wikiwiki.jp/gamehard/?%B9%F1%C6%E2%A5%CF%A1%BC%A5%C9%C7%E4%A4%EA%BE%E5%A4%B2

US is probably something like that, I've never seen any solid numbers unfortunately.
Brazil number includes SoC machines with built in games and no cartridge slot, which I don't really consider to be true SMS hardware. It would be nice to have a Brazil figure for true SMS hardware only.
That's true!
 

Synth

Member
Regardless, the main point is, the later NES and especially the later Famicom carts were easily on par with many of the Master System games.

Easily on par?... I'm sorry, but no. Absolutely not.

This is Castlevania III on NES: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB1_20zMpBQ
This is Sonic 1 on SMS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQPvA0OvR24

They barely look like they belong to the same generation... and it's not even as if Sonic represents the best that the SMS puts out. Some of the most accomplished NES games struggle to compete with the SMS' average. The two machines are worlds apart... as they should be for devices separated by two years of tech.
 

AmyS

Member
Easily on par?... I'm sorry, but no. Absolutely not.

This is Castlevania III on NES: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB1_20zMpBQ
This is Sonic 1 on SMS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQPvA0OvR24

They barely look like they belong to the same generation... and it's not even as if Sonic represents the best that the SMS puts out. Some of the most accomplished NES games struggle to compete with the SMS' average. The two machines are worlds apart... as they should be for devices separated by two years of tech.

I stand corrected.
 

Rubik8

Member

This has been a very eye opening thread. I played a lot of SMS at a friend's house, but I think his library was limited to earlier releases; I never saw anything on the system that compared to this Sonic video. The SMS hardware really was impressive.
I was a Nintendo loyalist. I could never get past that horrible SMS controller. The d-pad grated my thumbs to a pulp and no pause button on the controller, wtf? The lack of a select button really limited the games. That may have been NES's biggest advantage besides the game library. And the "SMS sound" is still irritating, the games all sound alike to me, but that's just personal preference I guess.
 

-KRS-

Member
I remember when I got the 3d glasses and the gun to play space harrier. it had better graphics than the NES

Space Harrier on the NES/FC is so terrible lol. I always wondered if Sega let Sunsoft do bad Famicom ports of some of their games to make the Master System look better in comparisons.
 

lazygecko

Member

Return of the Joker is not Batman Returns though. Here is the actual Batman Returns on NES, by Konami. I don't know who developed the SMS Batman Returns.

Return of the Joker was made by Sunsoft, who used external hardware enhancements in the cartridges to a much greater degree than usual. And in general they were just damn good at handling the NES hardware, to the point where the outsourced 16-bit ports of their game actually looked (and sounded) a lot worse.
 

Quaz51

Member
Return of the Joker is not Batman Returns though. Here is the actual Batman Returns on NES, by Konami. I don't know who developed the SMS Batman Returns.

Return of the Joker was made by Sunsoft, who used external hardware enhancements in the cartridges to a much greater degree than usual. And in general they were just damn good at handling the NES hardware, to the point where the outsourced 16-bit ports of their game actually looked (and sounded) a lot worse.

Don't need hardware enhancement for this graphics quality on NES, just mappers with bank switching with good granularity (1KB bank) like the classic nintendo mapper MMC3 for fast TileSet switching.
Impossible on SMS because cartridge port don't have direct GPU access, SMS TileSet is inevitably in VRAM. You can't make a Batman like this with a very big sprite and lot of animation, You can't make a background with all this animation.
 
The Lion King on the Master System: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ_lljf94pk
Lion King on the NES: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5C42JWJzbg

The master System game is pretty much a carbon copy of the Game Gear game though, with a higher screen resolution and worse looking colours (a lot more dithering in the SMS game) .

Here's the Game Gear version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcXZoAtWHBQ

But what's interesting is that there is an unlicensed pirate version of the Lion King on the NES and it actually looks better than the officially licensed version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmhP6ACiLhQ

The pirate version looks comparable to the SMS game in many ways. The colour doesn't look as good due to the four colours per sprite/ tile limitations, but the developers still make good use of the NES palette regardless.The music is good too.


Ι thinks SMS wins this as far as visuals are concerned.

Anyway, i wanted to chime in about NES fighting games talked above i recently tried this one on Retroatch Wii and was surprised it was a NES game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FTd8vd6ACE

For comparison, Street Fighter II on the Master System: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztB42sZXgmw Not bad for a TecToy port. Though that Street Fighter Zero 2 '97 NES port you've posted looks like it plays a little better. Pretty impressive.
 

Ceallach

Smells like fresh rosebuds
Well, the Master System was released after the Famicom, so no shit it's better hardware.

The better comparison are the Famicom and the SG-1000 which came out at about the same time.
 
Easily on par?... I'm sorry, but no. Absolutely not.

This is Castlevania III on NES: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB1_20zMpBQ
This is Sonic 1 on SMS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQPvA0OvR24

They barely look like they belong to the same generation... and it's not even as if Sonic represents the best that the SMS puts out. Some of the most accomplished NES games struggle to compete with the SMS' average. The two machines are worlds apart... as they should be for devices separated by two years of tech.

I'd rather play Castlevania III any day. :D

Try using Kirby's Adventure for comparison.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJXM4EPbPe0
 

Tain

Member
The Master System hardware is obviously more powerful and the library awfully overlooked, but I can't get behind claims that the library trumps the Famicom's.
 

sörine

Banned
Considering the two year gap, the performance increase from Famicom to Mark III seems less impressive when you consider PC Engine also then came out just 2 years after that.
 

Zee-Row

Banned
2 players was the only good thing about the SMS version of Double Dragon. That game is ugly looking and has glitchy gameplay.
 

SnowTeeth

Banned
Well, the Master System was released after the Famicom, so no shit it's better hardware.

I'd love if the finality of this argument worked in the SNES vs Mega Drive/Genesis sound chip debate...


The Master System hardware is obviously more powerful and the library awfully overlooked, but I can't get behind claims that the library trumps the Famicom's.

Totally agree that the Master System library is overlooked though I don't think people are claiming the Master System library surpasses that of the NES. While I'm sure someone has claimed that somewhere sometime, it certainly hasn't been a theme in this thread.


Try using Kirby's Adventure for comparison.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJXM4EPbPe0

That game is amazing, but doesn't it use an on-cart chip to help make it look and sound that way?
 
2 players was the only good thing about the SMS version of Double Dragon. That game is ugly looking and has glitchy gameplay.

I've owned a real cart of this for my Master System II, and i agree. The gameplay was rather glitchy and there was a lot of flickering going on. It was still amusing to play in 2 player mode, but the NES version of Double Dragon was a better game overall.

The Master System does have ports of Streets of Rage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_2dMZmFWEs
And Streets of Rage II:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0Uc4R1gEYs

But neither game had a two play mode. It is also interesting to note that these are completely different versions from the Game Gear games. Usually Game Gear and SMS games are cross ports of each other and look identical aside from resolution and some colour differences. But the Game Gear version of Streets of Rage 1 had redrawn sprites that were at a much lower resolution than the SMS game, obviously to fit more characters on screen. Also Adam is missing from the Game Gear game and there is a two player mode via link cable: I did have Streets of Rage 1 for the Game Gear, and it was pretty awesome back in the day, to be honest.

Streets of Rage GG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvyXWWdBWR0
Streets of Rage II GG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGwChG7GY0o This one has all three characters, unlike the first one. But I have no idea if it is 2 player. Never played it.
 
It's funny how in America the NES dominated to such a degree, that I didn't even know the SMS existed until over a decade later when I read about it on the internet. Sega Genesis was huge in the US, almost on par with SNES, but SMS was a non entity.
 

Synth

Member
I'd rather play Castlevania III any day. :D

Try using Kirby's Adventure for comparison.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJXM4EPbPe0

This thread has nothing to do with what you'd rather play though. :p

As for Kirby's Adventure. For a NES game that looks really good. As for looking on par with SMS games? I really don't think so. That Kirby game can barely compete with something like Fantasy Zone II on the SMS, let alone any Sonic games. The fact that Kirby is often held up as one of the best looking NES games says a lot tbh.

That Batman Return Of The Joker game that was posted earlier is the only compelling case I've ever seen for the NES having software on the SMS' level, and that probably says more about the devs than the machine considering it seems to be such an anomaly.

sörine;127789595 said:
Considering the two year gap, the performance increase from Famicom to Mark III seems less impressive when you consider PC Engine also then came out just 2 years after that.

Yea, the SMS seems to be some kind of Dreamcast-like scenario, trapped in between two proper generation shifts.

I'd love if the finality of this argument worked in the SNES vs Mega Drive/Genesis sound chip debate...

If the SNES sound chip was purely additive rather than alternative then it probably would work in that debate. As it stands though the SNES can't take almost any Genesis sound and simply make it better in the way that the SMS could take pretty much any NES game and improve upon it graphically.
 

Quaz51

Member
That Batman Return Of The Joker game that was posted earlier is the only compelling case I've ever seen for the NES having software on the SMS' level, and that probably says more about the devs than the machine considering it seems to be such an anomaly.

I don't think Batman return of the joker can be port on SMS unchanged, there too many Tileset bank switching for animate Batman sprite and the background (and it's a 60fps game). Tileset bank switching is the only strength of the NES (with audio) but is very helpful.
 

lazygecko

Member
For fighting games, I think the SMS port of Fatal Fury Special is surprisingly nice. The gameplay feels much more intact and fluid compared to other 8-bit fighters.
 

Synth

Member
I don't think Batman return of the joker can be port on SMS unchanged, there too many Tileset bank switching for animate Batman sprite and the background (and it's a 60fps game). Tileset bank switching is the only strength of the NES (with audio) but is very helpful.

It probably can't be. At the very least nothing comes to mind on the SMS that I can think of as an equivalent for the background animations in that... which is why I think it's a very good pick (unlike say Castlevania or Kirby, which get rolled over by some rather average SMS games). I didn't mean for it to sound like a great developer would achieve the same effect on the SMS, more that this particular hardware advantage for the NES is either difficult to use that effectively, or the scenarios where it's applicable are more limited, else I'd have expected to see more software comparable to it.

I do agree with you though that that is the only real advantage I can attribute to the NES graphically, and with all the things the SMS does that the NES has no real answer for (like that Road Rash example posted recently), I wouldn't say it's enough to bring the two consoles in line with each other. I'm glad you posted it though, as I'd never seen it before.
 

SnowTeeth

Banned
Except it doesn't because the two are so fundamentally different.

I'm not saying that it's an accurate argument, just that it would be a nice and easy way to stop the ongoing trashing of the MD's sound capabilities by all the detractors in the SNES vs Mega Drive/Genesis sound debate. Not that it would stop people from doing so, as there will always be the "robot farts" and "beeps and boops" lines coming from the other camp, but I would think that reminding people that the SNES is the "newer" hardware might help some people realize that maybe that's why that chip has some of its advantages.


If the SNES sound chip was purely additive rather than alternative then it probably would work in that debate. As it stands though the SNES can't take almost any Genesis sound and simply make it better in the way that the SMS could take pretty much any NES game and improve upon it graphically.

While I'd love to hear the SNES take on something like the Gunstar Heroes OST I know it wouldn't be up to scratch. There's no way the SNES can reproduce all that's going on there and any attempt to match it wouldn't sound as good.
 

Celine

Member
The Lion King on the Master System: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ_lljf94pk
Lion King on the NES: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5C42JWJzbg

The master System game is pretty much a carbon copy of the Game Gear game though, with a higher screen resolution and worse looking colours (a lot more dithering in the SMS game) .

Here's the Game Gear version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcXZoAtWHBQ

But what's interesting is that there is an unlicensed pirate version of the Lion King on the NES and it actually looks better than the officially licensed version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmhP6ACiLhQ

The pirate version looks comparable to the SMS game in many ways. The colour doesn't look as good due to the four colours per sprite/ tile limitations, but the developers still make good use of the NES palette regardless.The music is good too.




For comparison, Street Fighter II on the Master System: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztB42sZXgmw Not bad for a TecToy port. Though that Street Fighter Zero 2 '97 NES port you've posted looks like it plays a little better. Pretty impressive.
Speaking of pirate ports, Aladdin for NES is quite impressive:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CqGfNci6Q4
 
For fighting games, I think the SMS port of Fatal Fury Special is surprisingly nice. The gameplay feels much more intact and fluid compared to other 8-bit fighters.

I've seen Fatal Fury for the Game Gear, but I never knew there was a Master System version...

The Game Gear version looked and played really well, and it made impressive use of the Game Gear's colour palette:

H1jRQVw.png


The Master System version looks identical: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv45iGIFSts
Here's the Game Gear version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPHUzlXUdec

Also, there seems to be a port of Virtua Fighter Animation for the Master System as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI88Rfz_64s Yet again, I thought this one was only available on the Game Gear.
 

notBald

Member
That game is amazing, but doesn't it use an on-cart chip to help make it look and sound that way?

It's just a MMC3, which isn't all that complex. MMC5 is the only chip that lets you have more colors and such, but no game really uses it. Not even Castlevania III, which use an inferior chip with extra audio channels in the Japanese version.

One thing the SMS can do that I've not seen in any NES game is glitch free 8-way scrolling (i.e. scroll diagonally). In theory it's possible to get it glitch free by adding more video memory in the cartridge, but the only games that did that was Atari's 4-way scrolling Gauntlet.

It should also be possible by using black sprites to cover the glitches. Don't know if any game bothers, as you usually want to use the sprites for gameplay.
 

lazygecko

Member
I'm not saying that it's an accurate argument, just that it would be a nice and easy way to stop the ongoing trashing of the MD's sound capabilities by all the detractors in the SNES vs Mega Drive/Genesis sound debate. Not that it would stop people from doing so, as there will always be the "robot farts" and "beeps and boops" lines coming from the other camp, but I would think that reminding people that the SNES is the "newer" hardware might help some people realize that maybe that's why that chip has some of its advantages.

Well either way I don't really find it relevant. Using it as an argument just feels disingenuous and highlights a lack of understanding in how they both work and what they can and can't do.

While I'd love to hear the SNES take on something like the Gunstar Heroes OST I know it wouldn't be up to scratch. There's no way the SNES can reproduce all that's going on there and any attempt to match it wouldn't sound as good.

I think there is a precedent here in Demolition Man. Can't be 100% sure of course, but it sure sounds like many of the instruments in the SNES port were recorded straight from the Genesis version. Results are fairly predictable.
 
Speaking of pirate ports, Aladdin for NES is quite impressive:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CqGfNci6Q4

This looks like it was done by the same team that did the Lion King port. It's really impressive work, those pirates seem to possess some crazy NES coding skills.

The officially licensed NES port of Aladdin doesn't look this good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViDOJcHDpts

It's also interesting that the licensed version is a port of the Genesis game, while the pirate version is a port of the SNES game.
 

Quaz51

Member
I do agree with you though that that is the only real advantage I can attribute to the NES graphically, and with all the things the SMS does that the NES has no real answer for (like that Road Rash example posted recently), I wouldn't say it's enough to bring the two consoles in line with each other. I'm glad you posted it though, as I'd never seen it before.

There are some NES games with FX impossible on SMS (Tileset bank switching again) without downgrade.
Some shoot use lot of bank switching, for exemple Crisis Force have vertical parallax scrolling because use 60hz Tilset switching impossible on SMS (or with a very basic background pattern) with a 60fps scrolling.
http://youtu.be/3cl2yizTrgQ?t=2m46s
http://youtu.be/3cl2yizTrgQ?t=33m21s
Video are low fps but game and scrolling are full 60fps, it's more impressive in game.

Or "two background plan" FX at 60fps in some games like Metal Storm with complex pattern
http://youtu.be/D_xGOAnpCqQ?t=25s

even Ninja Gaiden 3 use lot of Tileset bank switching for animate background and Ryu's sprite. I think animated objects in background is more common on NES games.

NES can't compete with SMS on pure graphics quality (because it's 2bpp GPU vs 4bpp GPU) but for animation NES is good.
 
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