To throw in my two cents, coming from somebody who’s recently been on an arcade binge from both company’s outputs:
Yeah, SEGA is better in the arcade no question. And their arcade PORTS were typically some magic too! Nintendo’s magic ace in the hole was being able to early on create titles that had the gameplay loop of arcade titles with the depth of home console adventure games. SEGA, during the third generation and the first couple years of the fourth, didn’t have this. And they always struggled to have this for most of their lineup outside of Sonic for a while.
Does that mean their console output was bad or even worse at all? Not at all! I think Nintendo’s lineup was more consistent (nothing like the poor American efforts like Greendog or Fantasia), but SEGA’s highs were some insane stuff. It’s just sad that arcade style games fell out of fashion, and I wish SEGA caught on sooner that home ports should have cool unlockables and secrets as STANDARD, because several of their games even up through Dreamcast were no frills ports. Great for playing some awesome games! Bad when you’re trying to compete with others.
Nintendo may have scuffled with SEGA, but they were ultimately too different to compare. Sony made the systems that took SEGA’s spot in the industry (to most people. Not us.), but they’re a publisher. The real company who battled SEGA was Namco, a company with worse core gameplay across their titles, but they had the vibes, the secrets, and the extras. SEGA’s flashiness was in technological growth, which was cool, but it would always be surpassed. Meanwhile, Namco’s flashiness came from style (art and music), which appealed way more. SEGA’s games tend to play better to me, but I can’t deny the sheer greatness of Namco during the PS1 era, and they took most of SEGA’s thunder during the era that SEGA needed to survive.
