Still Super After All These (10) Years
I came across this article reflecting on 10 years of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in September 2001 issue of EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly). I was initially humored by the title — Still Super After All These Years. “All These Years” being ten. Surely, ten years is not that long in video game parlance. It’s not a far cry from the spread of proper Zelda or Mario games (5-11+ years).
But then I got to thinking… what happened between the release of the SNES and ten years later? Here’s a timeline:
- SNES (1990/1991)
- Atari Jaguar (1993)
- Sega CD/Saturn (1994)
- Sony PlayStation 1 (1994)
- Nintendo 64 (1996)
- Sega Dreamcast (1998)
- Sony PlayStation 2 (2000)
- Microsoft Xbox (2001)
Compare that with the last ten:
- Nintendo Switch (2017)
- Microsoft Xbox Series (2020)
- Sony PlayStation 5 (2020)
- Nintendo Switch 2 (2025)
I wouldn’t rush to call this the greatest decade in gaming (though, it very may well be). But I’d argue it was the most magical time in video game history. A breakneck pace of console releases. We were witnessing gargantuan leaps in fidelity, design, and input every year or so — from the perfection of 2D side-scrolling and top-down adventures to the birth of 3D and its evolution into arguably what we know it by today.
While it definitely feels like consoles now have diminishing returns —hence Microsoft and Sony’s pivot into subscription services, publishing, and porting — I don’t think anything has illustrated it more than the ‘91–‘01 decade.