Dear Future Gamer,

So Shane Bluemel (FG22) 'understands the games market' does he? 'Since the dawn of time, no follow-up to a machine has seen the same success as the original.' He then goes on the say (quite rightly) that 'Nintendo saw a drop in sales from NES to SNES'.

But what's he talking about with Sega? As far as I'm aware, the Master System was never a major success. It certainly suffered in Japan - Nintendo's dominance with the NES was far too great - and in the USA & UK similar crappy performances ensued. But the Mega Drive? Now that was a huge success - far, far greater than the MS. In Japan, the SNES was indeed more successful, but the MD was a phenomenon in the States, and in the UK.

Success of new consoles really does depend on a good marketing strategy as well as a good crop of games. The Sega advertising of early '90s worked a treat - whether you liked it or not (and I loathed it!). It sold to the age group it was dependent upon - the younger people. When the Mega Drive came out, the average age of gamers was what, around 12-15? The games which were published on the thing prove this to be the case. Sonic the Hedgehog, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles et al, were made for the younger generation. Of course, older people liked them as well, but both the Mega Drive and the SNES were promoted mainly for younger people. Sega's old 'Pirate Sega TV' ad campaign is a case in point. Sophisticated TV it was not!

I agree that the Saturn and PlayStation are (were in the Saturn's case) different things altogether - more sophisticated technology demands more sophisticated games. You can't just have bog standard 2D games on your machines anymore. And this is precisely where the Saturn failed. By its own admission, it misjudged the growing demand for 3D games. As impressive as the Saturn was, technically it was far better at 2D games than 3D (as the Street Fighter Alpha games show).

Even though the Saturn came out earlier than the PS, the demos on the PS looked so seductive (especially that T-Rex head!), Sony was the winner - rightly or wrongly. It is so crucially important for a new console to have this combination of good games, and good promotion. Fail on this at the beginning, and you're buggered.

The N64 has suffered as well. Despite having Super Mario 64, it failed to capitalise on this great initial start by not following it up sooner with more games. Despite what some people might suggest, quality is not encessarily preferable to quantity. I think you need a good combination of both. The N64 has a few outstanding games for it, and some decent games - but why should I spend 45+ quid on a 70 per cent game, when I can pick up a 90 per cent game for £20 on my PS?

Shane mentions that Mega Drives and Game Boys are still outselling PS machines. Mega Drives? I know you can pick them up for about £15 if you search hard enough, but I don't think they are quite the desirable product they once were. Game Boys - yup, they probably do sell more than the PS, but the majority of GB carts are appalling! Off the top of my head I can name about four or five must-have GB games. One of those is Zelda - which is stunning. The other is the original Tetris, the first ever cart for the machine! I can't think of any recent game that has screamed 'buy me! Go on big boy!'

Great support from Nintendo? Let's face it, it doesn't have much choice in the matter. It needs as much revenue from its little hand-held machine as possible - especially now it has decided to announce its new machine for the year 2000. I feel sorry for the N64 - I honestly believe that Zelda is probably the best it will ever get. And that's without really pushing the N64 to its limits yet!

So I don't really think Shane Bluemel understands the industry at all. Hell's bells, I know I certainly don't. I mean, I bought an Atari Lynx for God's sake! Again, what it boils down to, in my opinion, is games and promotion. I never quite see the point in being biased or devoted solely to one console/computer.

I've bought so many crap games in my time - simply because it was on a machine I had, so it 'must be good'. I now just get good games. And if those games just happen to be on the Dreamcast, then I'll get a Dreamcast. But if it so happens that the new Sony machine has the new Final Fantasy 9,10,11, well then I'm damn well gonna buy one of them as well! Sod loyalty! Life's far too short!

Anon

FG: Well said (deliberately short reply to very long letter).