IGN: Sega ahead of it's time.

[Jamisonia]

Sony only pushes new technology to help other parts of their company, not because they care about gaming. PS1 was because they wanted to hurt Nintendo. PS2 was designed to push DVDs in Japan. Japan was really into LaserDisc, and Sony had an atrocious record with LaserDisc. They needed a format to succeed that they were fully behind. The PS3 was most definitely solely designed to beat HD DVD. Sony didn't use Blu-Ray because they thought it was better for gaming. They used Blu-ray so that their format would succeed. If you think Sony cares about innovating gaming, you're dead wrong.

Nintendo uses less powerful hardware yes. This is because this hardware is tried and true, meaning its cheap and its RELIABLE. Sony has had a horrible track record with reliability in consoles. The PS1 had major problems, especially for early revisions. The PS2's are well known of have laser problems, and even good ones have issues with blue bottom discs. The PS3 has the YLOD issue. None of Sony's issues have been on the scale of the RLOD, but every Sony console has been known to have issues. Nintendo consoles are known to be extremely reliable.

[isiolia]

As mentioned, on the console front Nintendo has had the most powerful hardware until this gen (Xbox launched late enough that the fact that they barely edged out the GC's hardware power is meaningless). It's really only this gen that Nintendo decided to focus their R&D and marketing on carving out a totally new market (and succeeded brilliantly).

Can't really agree there. Nintendo has almost always had inferior hardware, at least in some respects, compared to the competition. The Master System is more powerful than the NES. The Atari 7800, compared to it, is more like a Saturn to PSX comparison - the NES was just friendlier to the style of games being made. The NES, at one point, was also the competition for the Genesis and TG-16. In turn, the SNES is a weaker system than the Genesis except for the graphics chip, and was also Nintendo's offering against the Neo Geo, 3DO, Jaguar, CD32, 32X...
While many of those systems came out after Nintendo's, they were still the competition. Technically, there was a year or so where the SNES was up against the Playstation and Saturn.

I'd argue that the only time Nintendo has put forth a standout in term of tech power was the N64. What that thing had, in terms of 3D acceleration, was amazing for the time and price point. Even on the PC front you only barely had 3D accelerators (often jokingly called decelerators for their lack of performance) starting to make a scene, and here comes Nintendo with Super Mario 64.
The system's lack of texture memory, general storage space, and capabilities outside of 3D held it back some, but what it did well was very impressive at launch.

The Gamecube was just solid. Certainly not bad, but it wasn't pushing boundaries the way the N64 did.

I'm just confused as to why Nintendo would choose far less storage space than their competitors two gens in a row.

Because their happy, family friendly exterior hides the cold heart of a ruthless Japanese businessman. They made bank on cartridges. Mini DVDs were rarer, and thus harder to pirate.

Arguably too, some of the Gamecube's superior tech helped them save money on building the system. It had great capability to use compressed texture data, but in turn Nintendo gave it relatively little memory, and limited output modes.

[MrPopo]

You can't complain about a console being underpowered compared to a console that releases after it. It is expected that later released hardware will be better than earlier released hardware.

Also, SNES not more powerful than the Genesis? Faster CPU, more colors, more sprites, better sound.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

You can't complain about a console being underpowered compared to a console that releases after it. It is expected that later released hardware will be better than earlier released hardware.

Also, SNES not more powerful than the Genesis? Faster CPU, more colors, more sprites, better sound.

I'm pretty sure the SNES had a much slower CPU, which was the whole reasoning behind Sega's "Blast Processing". Sports games definitely were faster, and the Genesis seemed to handle more sprites easier than the SNES could.

[isiolia]

You can't complain about a console being underpowered compared to a console that releases after it. It is expected that later released hardware will be better than earlier released hardware.

Also, SNES not more powerful than the Genesis? Faster CPU, more colors, more sprites, better sound.

I think it's relative. Each company is going to the drawing board to come up with their system for the coming generation. Offhand, I can't think of any that released simultaneously, even well-established rivals. The Genesis was on the market what, two years prior to the SNES? But we'd still consider them competition.

The SNES's core CPU is less powerful than the one in the Genesis. The effective clock rate is lower (up to 3.58Mhz, compared to the 7.67Mhz of the Genesis's 68k). On top of that, the Genesis has a Z80 as a coprocessor.
They still aren't exactly the same, but the with respect to core CPU power the Genesis is more powerful. The results that the SNES gets are due to superior audio and video support chipsets.

Realistically, both of them are limited more by their support hardware than their CPU, and the SNES had better support hardware. Still, if you do consider the gap between their release dates, Nintendo really wasn't pushing the edge on what they could have done.

the Genesis seemed to handle more sprites easier than the SNES could

The SNES could handle more, actually (128 total, versus 80 max for the Genesis), but again this is part of the graphics chip capabilities, not the core CPU.

[arnold_the_bartender]

Also, SNES not more powerful than the Genesis? Faster CPU, more colors, more sprites, better sound.

SNES is better than the Genesis in terms of orchestral tracks. Genesis is better for synth sounds, harder and upbeat styles of music, and dat bass. That G.E.M.S. crap was horrible. Rarely ever done right.

[Erik_Twice]

Sega has always used a lot of bass and synths in their games. OutRun, Space Harrier and Phantasy Start would sound shallow on a Super Nintendo.

[GameMasterGuy]

Sega has always used a lot of bass and synths in their games. OutRun, Space Harrier and Phantasy Start would sound shallow on a Super Nintendo.

Not to mention Earthworm Jim!

[arnold_the_bartender]

I just don't get why certain games sounded muffled, as if a filter was used. Donkey Kong Country is an example of this and many SNES games have bass that sounds "tinny". The games that don't sound muffled are nice and clean but are usually orchestral tracks.

[BurningDoom]

I just don't get why certain games sounded muffled, as if a filter was used. Donkey Kong Country is an example of this and many SNES games have bass that sounds "tinny". The games that don't sound muffled are nice and clean but are usually orchestral tracks.

SNES sound tinny? Vs. the Genesis? You're kidding, right?