After reading yet another article saying how the SNES eventually won the 16-bit war, I was thinking about how it went down at the time. Here's the wiki summary-
Now, the SNES might've gotten a lead at one point, but I don't remember the market drastically shifting one way enough to be considered a real victory, as in forcing the Genesis to go under or die off at all. Sega cut the Genesis off before it was done to move onto the Saturn, even counting the 32X. I also don't consider the Saturn a response to the SNES, so it doesn't count (to me) that way either.
If the SNES pummeled the Genesis like the PlayStation did the Saturn, I'd consider it a true victory even though the Saturn also got yanked in favor of a successor. Even before the Saturn launched, development had already shifted towards it since publishers knew it was coming and at that point Genesis development began to dwindle. It's not like everyone abandoned the Genesis in favor of the SNES.
The only reason the SNES continued to do well into the 32-bit generation is because it was
all that Nintendo was doing. Same deal as the NES until the SNES finally showed up late. If the 32X never happened, the Saturn and N64 swapped launch dates and Sega strongly pushed the Genesis the way Nintendo actually did the SNES, it likely would have also done well during the 32-bit generation until it was replaced late. Especially if Sega continued to experiment with accelerator chips like the SNES did. Hell, even if the 32X and Saturn still went the way they did, the Genesis still would've gone on strong if Sega fully backed it.
Anyways, what I'm asking on a neutral forum is did the SNES
truly claim victory, or did Sega simply bow out to move on to bigger things?