The SNES is not underpowered compared to the genesis if you compare them as a whole and not just spec for spec like comparing mhz on a CPU. Console hardware is made for running games and are not general computing devices.
The snes hardware had many hardware supported graphical modes that allowed it to push the envelope without relying on a beefier CPU, the most famous of which is Mode 7 which allowed the pseudo 3d you see in games like F-Zero, the FF world maps, Mario Kart, Secret of Mana, Super Mario RPG and so on. And then there was this very common practice on SNES to embed coprocessors and DSP on the game cartridge, which is what allowed the graphical effects of Star Fox and Yoshi's Island notably. There was no such practice on the Genesis.
> The list of Super NES enhancement chips demonstrates the overall design plan for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, whereby the console's hardware designers had made it easy to interface special coprocessor chips to the console. This standardized selection of chips was available to increase system performance and features for each game cartridge. As increasingly superior chips became available throughout the SNES's vintage market years, this strategy originally provided a cheaper and more versatile way of maintaining the system's market lifespan when compared to Nintendo's option of having included a much more expensive CPU or a more obsolete stock chipset.
As far as graphical capabilities were concerned, the SNES ecosystem was definitely more powerful. By the time Sega considered the idea of extending the Genesis with the 32X it was already too late into the console lifecycle to matter and flopped (very close to the release of the Sega Saturn and 1 to 2 years before the Nintendo 64, depending on your region [NA, EU, JP]).
There was also the Sega CD but all it did is enable a library of not-games pseudo-interactive movies.
I didn't want to state the obvious and be too detailed but yes that's exactly what I meant. And is what people were trying to assess above too: what are the reasons behind Nintendo hardware. And to phrase it again differently, Nintendo tries to be vertical for "entertainment", doesn't really matter how, as long as they achieve quality fun.
Yes, but the Genesis came one year before and had quite a more beefy CPU (even two IIRC). This makes the SNES "processing" power a bit tame in a way. Otherwise I agree, visual and musical capabilities were vastly more important for gamers. Lots of games looked magical on a SNES but rusty on a Genesis.
Define underpowered. It had a slower clock, but supported much more feature wise. You can't just compare clock speed when comparing different architectures. It's more appropriate to compare the entire system. By that account, the SNES was the most advanced console out. Same for the NES. Same for the 64 (which was a joint development with SGI of all things). Even the gamecube had some grunt but was hampered by it's silly disc format and poor development environment.
No, Nintendo didn't decide to go with underpowered hardware until the Wii. Prior to that they were certainly competing with the top tier systems.
But more importantly than the specs war between those two consoles, the Genesis had vastly superior games and catalogue. I had both and the only people I've met who think the SNES > Genesis were people who only had the SNES.
It's similar to Apple lesser RAM numbers compared to the market, yet iPhone are still smoother globally.