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Sega Does What Nintendon't
Nintendo hammered Sega in the 8-bit console wars. Just about every kid had an NES; few even knew someone who actually had a Master System. By targeting the same exact demographic but having much weaker marketing presence, no third-party support to speak of and few hits, the system failed to capture gamers' attention. Sega even handed over the system to toy truck manufacturer Tonka for much of its middle years, returning to the market at the very end of its life with a redesigned system in a vain attempt to capture market share. Realizing that directly competing with the behemoth Nintendo had become by 1989 wasn't going to fly, Sega decided to try an entirely new tactic.  In your face, Big N! It wasn't enough for Genesis to capture the core audience of arcade fans or RPG gamers attracted to the advancements made by Phantasy Star II, though. While it still put out classic games that could appeal to kids -- Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse is one excellent example -- Sega ramped up when it hooked up with Electronic Arts. EA's background in PC gaming, a market with a much more mature audience than console gaming at the time, proved extremely valuable to Sega. EA began releasing scads of games for the system, but when its sports games began to really take off a new audience was born. The NES had plenty of sports titles, but the Genesis built an audience of gamers who came back year after year to buy the latest edition of Madden. The SNES had EA Sports, too, but to be cool you played 'em on the Genesis. Even Sega's mascot game, Sonic the Hedgehog, brought a whole new attitude to the table. Mario was plain vanilla, but Sonic looked cool and ran fast. A cult of personality quickly grew up around him, pushing Nintendo's mindshare with hardcore, mature gamers into the toilet. And then there was Mortal Kombat -- Nintendo's kid-friendly censors made sure Acclaim didn't include blood in the SNES version, but the Genesis version was as gory as the arcades. This more or less cemented the Genesis' position. Nintendo reversed its policies in time for MKII, but the damage was done. Sega captured the minds and hearts of millions of gamers with its approach and almost beat Nintendo at its own game -- the Genesis and SNES were neck-and-neck until the tail end of the generation when Sega's multi-system market fragmentation (the Sega CD and 32X) smashed against the brick wall of Donkey Kong Country. The Saturn was launched for a non-existent audience of tech-savvy, high-end gamers, and PlayStation swooped in to absorb the Genesis' core audience with its own attitude and excellent games. Sega pioneered the market, and Sony ended up eating its lunch. Still, that doesn't change the brilliance of Sega's insight. The mass market that the Genesis reached is now the most important audience in gaming. Just ask Nintendo, as the GameCube struggles to find its footing. 
ferricide: The Genesis was just cool. That's all there was to it. I remember the first time I saw the god-awful purple and lilac buttons on the Super Nintendo pad -- not to mention the system's frilly bottom. I more or less immediately disregarded the thing. (I became a devotee later, thanks to the software, but that's another story.) The Genesis captured an audience that the PS2 thrives on these days. Actually, in many ways the Xbox reminds me of a second coming of the Genesis: it's black, nubbly and designed to appear technologically cool, the controller is too big, and it's jam-packed with too many action and sports games and too little else. In 1989 Sega started to pioneer a market Nintendo never dreamed of, and Nintendo's still reeling from the implications of that.
Psylancer: I totally bought into the Genesis image. I vividly remember the lyrics of the MTV-esque TV commercials: "Genesis does! You can't do this on Nintendo. Genesis does!" For a young teen it was so cool! The cool company was telling the other one to stick it. Sonic was shredding up Mario. At a time when many of us were going through our "rebel without a clue" phase, Genesis was the hip, irreverent console ... or at least as hip and irreverent as any geek instrument gets.
Ben: The coolest thing is, Genesis really did do what Nintendidn't. When putting together our 20th Anniversary Famicom Feature last week, I was surprised by the almost complete lack of memorable NES games after 1990. It was worse than I remembered; thank goodness Sega was there to shepherd us through those summers of 8-bit discontent.
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