The Nintendo Death Watch - The Competition Approaches

The Sega Master System premiered a year after Nintendo's debut, but due to a lack of software support the Master System could not keep up.

As the 1990's dawned, Nintendo received some real competition from the Sega Genesis, Turbo Graphics, 3D0 and Jaguar systems.  All of these systems were far more powerful then the original 8-bit Nintendo, and beat Nintendo to market with far superior technology.  This would become a pattern with Nintendo, coming to market with a new system very late and behind everyone else technologically.

But Nintendo soon launched their next-gen console, the Super Nintendo System (SNES).  It was not as advanced in some respects as its competitors, but had the superior library of games.

Much like the Sega Master System, a lack of software support killed off Nintendo's competitors again.  The 3D0 also suffered from buggy hardware, and the Jaguar was "gimped" with a pre-X-Box brick-like controller. 

Sega Genesis was a fair system, and was able to outsell Nintendo in 1993.  But they were undone by making a mistake that the higher ups at Nintendo would soon be making: gimmicks. The Sega CD and Sega Genesis 32X were peripherals add-ons which allowed the Genesis to play more "technically advanced" games.  And both were complete failures due to a lack of third party support.

Eventually Nintendo’s larger pool of third party support, family friendly image, and brand loyalty propelled the SNES to the top of the industry.

And then cracks started to appear in the foundation of Nintendo. 

In July of 1995, Nintendo released the Virtual Boy game system, which turned out to be a flop of unparalleled proportions.   Instead of being small and cute ala the Game Boy, it was a Virtual Reality system you plugged your head into.  It was supposed to ride the wave of interest in "Virtual Reality," but only could produce various shades of red.  While it produced a slight 3D effect, all 22 of its games paused every 15-30 minutes to remind the player to rest their eyes to prevent eyestrain.

This was the first warning sign for Nintendo.  A "gimmicky" system that served no real purpose, relied heavily on its in-houses licenses such as "Mario" to support it, was over hyped, and did not keep up with the technology of the day.  Which leads us to the Sony Playstation.

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