Talk:Sega Genesis/Archive 6

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Help me find a source

"Although the Sega Master System had proved a success in Brazil and Europe, it failed to ignite much interest in the North American or Japanese markets, which, by the mid-to-late 1980s, were both dominated by Nintendo's large market shares.[5][6] Hoping to dramatically increase its share, Sega set about creating a new videogame console that would be at least as powerful as the then most impressive home computer hardware on the market [citation needed] – the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST, which featured hundreds of colors and near-FM radio quality sound." - Theaveng 15:36, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The reason I removed that last sentence is because I believe a source is unlikely to be found. Sega were a console manufacturer and were competing primarily with other consoles - I've never heard any suggestion of an intention to compete with these computers. I also contest the specs mentioned as the Amiga at least is certainly capable of CD-quality sound, and indeed CD playback, while "hundreds of colors" wasn't possible (or at least practical) until the AGA models arrived in 1992 with their ability to display 256 colours at once from a palette of 16m. Games prior to this used only 32 or 64 colours at once. Miremare 17:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

(1) You seem semi-knowledgeable about Amigas, but not completely. Amigas were limited to 8 bit sound which is high-quality, but not CD-quality (which is 16). And the original 1985 Amiga 1000 and all its descendents had a palette of 4096 colors... the Atari ST also had "hundreds of colors" in its palette (512 to be precise). The phrase was accurate. (2) Where in the deleted sentence did it say "Sega wanted to compete with Atari, Commodore, and Apple"? Strawman argument and/or false assumption, because the sentence said nothing of the kind. Game consoles & computers are separate markets. Just because Sega wanted to create a game console with the same power as, say, an Amiga or Macintosh, does not mean they intended to compete with either Commodore or Apple's computer business. It merely means they sought the same functionality in order to improve home gaming. That's all. - Theaveng 19:35, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, thank you for not re-adding the statement while we discuss it.

1. I don't know about that, as I haven't had much experience of the Amiga's sound capabilities but the Amiga CD32 was certainly advertised as having "CD quality" sound, perhaps for obvious reasons. Anyway, confusion about colour palette/colours on-screen is another reason why this statement in its current form isn't suitable. Isn't it referring to colours on-screen at once? How is anyone supposed to know it isn't referring to this? If you didn't write it, how do you know it isn't referring to this? We shouldn't be selective about these things: you could prove the Mega Drive has equal capabilities to the original line of Amigas, if you were to arbitrarily choose number of on-screen colours as the comparison, because they can both display 64 colours at once. However if you were to equally arbitrarily choose total colour palette instead, you could switch the argument to prove that the Amiga is in fact superior with a far larger palette. See what I mean? Such comparisons with other machines aren't really useful. If we were to compare the Mega Drive to another machine it should be the SNES, as such comparisons were made extensively in real life at the time and are undoubtedly more relevant.

2. No, it doesn't directly say that, but it clearly implies it, and that's why it needs a source. You have just said that "Just because Sega wanted to create a game console with the same power as, say, an Amiga or Macintosh", this is exactly the problem I'm talking about - you cannot assume they wanted to create a machine with the same power as an Amiga or Mac. Who says they did? Who says they had these machines in mind when drawing up their designs? Who says they were even aware of these machines? Such deductions are original research and totally unacceptable for an encyclopedia article. Anything you write in an encyclopedia (and I'm not saying you wrote it) has to be verifiable from reliable sources. Please read the policies I've been directing you towards, they really are very helpful, especially for avoiding conflicts. Miremare 21:30, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

(1) I didn't want to list a detailed specification for the Atari ST and Amiga. (The Atari ST can show 32 colors, unless it's an STe which can show 512 colors, or if you're using Amiga, then it can display 4096 colors, unless you have the AGA chipset which can display 262,000 colors.) That's too wordy so I just shortened it to "hundreds of colors", figuring if the reader really wants to know, they can click the wikilink & find out. ----- Also once again you keep sayying I'm trying to "prove" or "compete" or "compare" with the different systems. Strawman argument; I am doing nothing of the kind. I don't give a crap which is better. I was just trying to improve the sentence that some other editor had placed there. That was all.

(2) I think you're inferring. I was not saying one was better than the other. On the contrary, I consider the Genesis to be an Amiga in a box. They are so close to identical to one another that when I'm playing games I sometimes forget which machine I'm using, and I have to glance down to "remind" myself. You're inferring things ("promote" "compete") that I am not thinking. - Theaveng 12:08, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

1. Which just makes it even less clear. You're apparently referring, with "262,000 colors" to HAM on the Amiga and presumably the ST's equivalent. This is also an unsuitable comparison to make as HAM was unsuitable for games, whereas games is all the Mega Drive does. You have to be specific otherwise people will interpret what you're saying and probably come to the wrong conclusion. If, as you say, you are referring to this with that sentence, it's taken me several talk page exchanges to find this out, and nobody reading the article will find this out at all, unless they happen across the talk page here. The fact is, none of these details should be mentioned - the part of that sentence after the comma is completely unecessary.

2. Yes, I'm inferring because it infers. A statement technically saying one thing while inferring another is just not suitable for an encyclopedia article. And if it's not verifiable you can't say it. This brings us to an edit you made today, that "the Sega System 16 became very popular with gamers, mainly due to its ability to display hundreds of colors and reproduce near-FM quality sound" - again, where is the source to say that graphics and sound were the reason for the board's popularity? As it stands, this statement is original research which is practically a cardinal sin on Wikipedia. Instead of reverting it I'll leave it for you to suitably reword, so please do. We're here to relay verifiable facts only, not our own opinions or deductions, no matter how logical we may think them. Verifiability is everything. Miremare 17:50, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I've seen statements similar to that in printed magazines. The Amiga was definitely used as inspiration, seeing as they used Amigas for early Mega Drive dev stations. But, the Mega Drive is much more likely a cost reduced Sega System 16 (Released the same year as the Amiga). Just look at the specs, the Mega Drive has a scaled back CPU and VPU but an updated FM audio chip from the same manufacturer. The specs are too close to be a coincidence.  :--Anss123 21:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Great! Can you give us the name of the magazine and the date? When I first played a Sega Genesis, I was amazed how much it "felt" just like an Amiga. And when I later reviewed the specs, I found they are near-identical (same CPU, same speed, same graphics (games on the Amiga/Genesis look identical); only the sound is different). I don't know much about the System 16; I'll have to spend the next few hours reviewing it. - Theaveng 12:08, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Request for consensus

I hate to go on about this (really!), but can we get a consensus once and for all for this 32-bit thing? My position is still that it is unnecessary (and possibly misleading) to refer to the processor everywhere as 16/32-bit (not to mention sounding a little like "hey, the Mega Drive is 32-bit and therefore better than whatever other systems" - smacks of WP:N / WP:WEIGHT), especially when we're referring to the machine itself as simply 16-bit. The fact that the CPU features "single-instruction 32-bit arithmetic" is a detail fit for the processor's page (and indeed is covered there) but is irrelevant to coverage of the console itself. Since when has "single-instruction 32-bit arithmetic" been a defining characteristic of a console? Again, all manuafacturers who used the Motorola 68000 CPU refer to their machines as 16-bit (even Atari). And again, to all intents and purposes the 68000 is a 16-bit CPU. This is all just pointless detail-mongering. Miremare 22:37, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

It seems unessesary. It WAS a 16 bit console whatever the actual hardware was like. Bits are a bit of a silly way to measure a consoles power so 'bits' end up being more the way of defining the various eras- the MD being one of the two core components of the 16 bit era.
Going into such detail over it too- this isn't a electrical engineering encyclopedia, I don't think the average reader really cares too much about the nitty gritty.--Josquius (talk) 09:07, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that few readers care for the nitty gritty, but there will always be those ready to start a crusade over the issue. Perhaps we should write the microcoded 16-bit data/24-bit address/32-bit register 68000 CPU with 16-bit ALU to have all bases covered, a full instruction listing would help too :)--Anss123 (talk) 09:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Fine with me. Accuracy is more important than inaccuracy. - Theaveng (talk) 15:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

That would be fine with me too (except for the instruction listing!), as long as we only do it once. If we really must mention such details, I don't have a problem with mentioning them properly like this, rather than using meaningless terms like "16/32-bit". Theaveng, to your post below, we've already been through all that, hence the request for consensus here. Miremare 18:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

It's not vague. It's an exact quote from Motorola's Programmers Guide. Quote: "MC68000 — 16-/32-Bit Microprocessor". As compared to further down where it reads "MC68020 — 32-Bit Virtual Memory Microprocessor". Anyone with an engineering background knows what 16/32 or 32/64 means (a 64 bit CPU sitting on a 32-bit wide data bus)(as with the N64). We are quoting directly from the manual.

By the way, how wide the address bus might be, has no relevance to performance. An x86-64 processor might only use 32 bit wide addressing, but that doesn't alter its fundamental nature as a 64-bit processor, or slowdown its processing speed. ----- The true limitation comes from the data bus, such that if an x86-64 CPU was sitting on a 16-bit data bus, that would severely limit its usefulness (effectively slowing it to 25% speed when doing memory fetches). ----- So the number of bits in the address is trivial and non-relevant to performance (Which is why Motorola labels the 68000 as 16/32, not 16/24/32.) - Theaveng (talk) 12:34, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps not, although the 16-bit ALU definitely does impact 32-bit perf. As for x86-64 and a 16-bit data buss, never say never… AMD CPUs already use 16-Bit HT links, not strictly a data buss but pretty much serves the same purpose. The FSB is probably still 64-bit or more though :)--Anss123 (talk) 13:33, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes I know. My point was just that such an AMD device would be a 16/64 CPU (64 bit processor sitting on 16-bit-wide external data pins). It would be incorrect to call it a 16-bit cpu. - Theaveng (talk) 12:59, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

My opinion: There's NO POINT in having an encyclopedia if you're going to report inaccurate information. The 68000 was a 16/32 bit CPU, and to label it as "16" is misleading. (It's basically a lie.) Furthermore it's consistent with how the other Videogame pages are presented. They ALL list the bitness of the CPU for their respective pages. It would be inconsistent and poor encyclopedic practice to make the MD/genesis the only exception, not to list the CPU's bit width. - Theaveng (talk) 15:15, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps make another article on the technical specifications of the MD?--Josquius 23:32, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Genesis rather than Mega Drive

Links to previous discussion on this topic: 1 2 3 4

There are obviously many people who feel this article should be changed to Genesis rather than Mega Drive, and I have laid out more than enough good reasons to do so. To sum up those reasons, the majority of visitors to the English speaking community on WP are from areas where the system was called Genesis, and those who come from areas that call it the Mega Drive know the name Genesis better than their counterparts know the name Mega Drive. This is not about tyranny of the majority, it is about respecting the greater population and trying to cause less confusion. I think this topic merits further discussion, and personally, I feel the name should be changed. freehunter 06:15, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I really disagree with your saying the majority of visitors come from Genesis countries (i.e. North America).
Though yes, there are more native English speakers there then in Mega Drive territories the English wikipedia is also the international wikipedia, you have to consider all the non-native English speaking visitors who its far more likely will outnumber people from the US and Canada.
And saying MD people would know the Genesis name more...I really disagree there too. I only first heard of the 'Genesis' via browsing upon American web sites, its totally unknown apart from that to the majority of non-hardcore gamers (i.e. the same people who in America would also know of the Mega Drive- there's probally more of them over there actually). To use Gensis would not be tyranny of the majority but (if anything) tyranny of those who got into the internet in a big way first.

Regardless though all that was said when this was decided is settled. The main one to me seems to be that the Mega Drive is the original name; it was renamed to the Genesis not vise-versa.--Josquius (talk) 13:24, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Freehunter, I think you should give Americans and Canadians a bit more credit. That North Americans know less the name "Mega Drive" than everyone else knows the name "Genesis" is impossible to know, and not a reason for changing the name of the article anyway. Even less do I think that any of them are likely to be confused, upon entering "Sega Genesis" into the search box, to be presented with an article containing a picture of what is recognisably a Sega Genesis, and an explanation of the names in the first paragraph. Anyway, encyclopedias exist to solve confusion and ignorance, not pander to it. ;) Miremare 19:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

"It's the original name" is not really a valid reason. If it was, the Nintendo articles would be called "Famicom" and "Super Famicom" respectively. But they are not. As for the argument that most Americans/Canadians knowing Megadrive? I disagree. Most HOBBYISTS are familiar with the name, but Joe Smith on the street knows the name Genesis. That's what he grew up hearing/playing and knows nothing about foreign markets. Joe Smith's ignorance is true of ~95% of the non-hobbyist persons trying to find this article. They only know the name "genesis". ----- I agree the name should reflect that name that is MOST familiar amongst the largest number of english-speaking persons. Theaveng (talk) 15:56, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

And typing Genesis into the search will take them to the article on the first chapter of the Bible. Following the disambiguation link from there will take them to a page that has a specific gaming section which states the following "Sega Genesis, the North American name for the Sega Mega Drive console". So are you saying that 95% of your fellow countrymen are so stupid that they would then think "It's got the wrong name, that's not the article I'm looking for" and then NOT click on the link to this article? Same goes for when they are redirected here from Sega Genesis, would they really think "Well the picture looks the same but the title is wrong so I'm not going to read it"? - X201 (talk) 16:20, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Re the original name thing: "Super Famicom" was only used in Japan and some other parts of Asia, not in native English-speaking countries, whereas "Mega Drive" was used in every native English-speaking country other than the US and Canada. You claim that 95% of Joe Smiths don't know the name "Mega Drive", but do the Joe Smiths in those other countries know "Genesis"? Anyway, I would still contend that speculation on who knows what is no way to name articles. Miremare 19:24, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

"So are you saying that 9% of your fellow countrymen are so stupid..." ----- Well Americans are the product of the lousy gov't school system.  ;-) As for foreigners, there's only ~30 million searching from the UK or Australia that would call it megadrive. The other persons would be serving the french, japanese, german, italian, ... wikipedia sites. So English-speaking persons searching for Genesis v. Megadrive is ~300 million to 30 million. - Theaveng (talk) 20:31, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

30 million in the UK and Australia? There are 60 million people in the UK alone! Though perhaps I shouldn't have used the word "native", as it doesn't really matter what the primary language is, but English is an official language of practically all Commonwealth of Nations countries, which have a total population of almost 2 billion. Then there's China, with the second largest number of English-speakers after India - so that's quite a lot English speakers who would know the console by the original name. Miremare 23:39, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Why would somebody use the English wikipedia, rather than their own native French, German, or Chinese? - Theaveng (talk) 20:13, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

For the same reason they speak English at all, I guess. But I don't really know why people do things. Miremare 23:13, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

The English wikipedia is better. More articles and more good articles. Just go click on some of the alternate language versions of the mega drive article to see. --Josquius (talk) 13:44, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't really know why I bothered reading this dabate, as it's full of bias and inaccurate figures (300m to 30m? - i'd pay to see an official source to that), to support the arguement of those who want it changed to a title of their liking. I think bringing the Famicom/Nintendo example into this is completely the wrong move, as the name "Nintendo" was the ONLY name known to nearly every native-speaking English person, whereas in the case of the Mega Drive/Genesis, it's quite largely split against native English-speaking territories. Most comments above are useless if you want a non-bias opinion, and although I always do try and give that whenever I voice my own opinion, sometimes it can come across bias whether you mean to or not.
Regardless, we have to treat this article individually from any other console of that time, and Mega Drive "was" the original name, and it is the name that is most well known across more territories than the Genesis name. The figure of more individual people knowing the Genesis name more may be right; I wouldn't be surprised if that was correct and quite frankly, that shouldn't be used as a valid arguement. Fact is, the Genesis name is known in a minority of territories than the Mega Drive name, and more English speaking territories are more familiar with the latter.
The only arguement in favour of the Genesis name, that I can see, is a larger majority individual people throughout the globe (centered on what largely is 1 country, but definately only 1 part of the world), and in my opinion doesn't stand up strongly enough to the Mega Drive arguement.
For the record, I am British, live in the UK, was a hardcore Mega Drive gamer in it's time, and personally think the MD name is the right decision, but I can see why the Genesis supporters are fighting their own corner, and I respect that. Take it as you will. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:11, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

IMO, all the arguments based on numbers of people of various kinds, numbers of territories, or sales in various regions are useless because the differences in people or sales are not overwhelming enough to matter, which people to count can't even be agreed upon, and "number of territories" just leads to consideration of relative populations and we're back at people. Similarly, chronological order is broken as we can argue over whether Japan counts or not, and NES/SNES is not a valid comparison because all English-speaking areas use the same name. The best argument I've seen is that "Mega Drive" would most likely have been used in the US as in the rest of the world if it hadn't been for the name already being used there. The second-best is that we have to pick one or the other (unless we want the article to be named Sega 16-bit console and redirect both names there, except then some would say it should be Sega 16/32-bit console), we've picked one, and we have a redirect from the other name, so continuing to argue over it doesn't improve anything. Anomie⚔ 19:07, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

re: "numbers of people don't matter" is a ridiculous comment. If 5 people know the name "genesis" and only 1 person knows the name "megadrive", then naturally you go by the name that is most common. And that's the situation we have here. Of those who speak English as their main language (rather than french, german, or japanese), and thus are reading the English wikipedia, approximately 5 to 1 know the name "genesis". - Theaveng (talk) 15:02, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Made-up numbers don't matter either. Anomie⚔ 02:08, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Also don't forget that the English wikipedia is still the international wikipedia.--Josquius (talk) 11:17, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

"If"? "Approximately"? Theaveng, rather than slating other editors as authoring "ridiculous comments", maybe you should recheck your own comments and find that your entire last comment was made up of likely grossly exaggerated fiction and random figures which you thought might best support an arguement which you (and others on the same supporting side as yourself) have yet to provide any substantial citation for. I do respect your opinion of what you would like it called, but given the current name is not what you evidently would like it to be (as per dabate some time back), it is the side you are defending which needs to provide the extensive and credible reasoning (and factual, on that note) to change the title of the article in question.

It is difficult for a debate of this kind not to become bias in some shape or form, but when you're defending a potential action with insufficient referencing and unverified figures (correct if wrong, by all means), then it's hard for others to not be bias when slating such comments. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 11:22, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I know this is an old discussion, but this article should be kept at Mega Drive for the same reason Canis Canem Edit is at Bully (video game), and Dark Cloud 2 is at Dark Chronicle - namely, it is the original name, only renamed to something else in a certain region. Bully is known as Canis Canem Edit only in the United Kingdom, Dark Chronicle is only known as Dark Cloud 2 in North America, and likewise for Sega Mega Drive. The vast majority of English speakers (and we're not just counting native English speakers) know it as the Mega Drive. As pointed out above, the analogy with Famicom is a false analogy, as the SNES is only known as Famicom in its native territory of Japan. The vast majority of English speakers refer to it primarily as the SNES. It's the same reason why Biohazard 2 is located at Resident Evil 2, Shin Sangokumusō is located at Dynasty Warriors, and Chikyuu Boueigun 3 is located at Earth Defense Force 2017. Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 16:19, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Pier Solar link?

Should a link be added somewhere here for Pier Solar information? It's now noteworthy, considering a number of mainstream sites have covered it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pier_Solar_and_the_Great_Architects has a number of links. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.107.97.26 (talk) 03:49, 15 February 2008 (UTC)