The console wars was perhaps the best thing to happen to the video game industry. Without fierce competition, the monopoly producer company would likely not take much time to improve the way they make games, or how the games performed. We might have stayed in the 8-bit era if Sega hadn't given Nintendo a run for its money. Once the war for market share began, it became a game of who has the better technological magic. Genesis claimed "Blast Processing" and the unique slopping controls for Sonic the Hedgehog, whereas Nintendo had the Mode 7 marvel that was F-Zero and the pre-rendered computer graphics of Donkey Kong Country.
Each company had to gain the tech advantage over the other, or else their sales would drop quickly. Not long after the SNES - Genesis era came commonplace 3D gaming, games with ten times more powerful processors, and games with cutscenes akin to movie quality. The console wars still rage on today, although for different companies. With the release of a new console, it's almost guaranteed to be more powerful than the consoles currently on the market, or else consumers won't flock to it. We're now starting to see innovative methods of gameplay such as motion controls, massive simultaneous Internet play, and virtual reality. The upcoming Nintendo NX is said to be radically different from any console currently on the market. Even with PC and smartphone gaming on the rise, these hardened console veterans will continue to find ways to capture our interest.
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