No matter who tries to tell you it was the fan favorite of it's day (and doesn't know what they are talking about) Sega was the beloved underdog of the home video game console world of the early 90's, the company that stood up to
Nintendo and for a few years, did well enough that it was either Sega or
Nintendo for a lot of kids of the 90's. Sega wasn't known for games quite as cartoonish or
child oriented as Nintendo, Sega had blood, guts,
gore, and realism in it's games (which people didn't see much before the early 90's in video games) which was appreciated by the people or kids that didn't want every one of their games Disneyfied or G-rated, even if it wasn't as profitable or
popular with the masses to sterilize the games. It's a shame Sega didn't figure out a way to remain in the video game console market into the 2000's and beyond.
Nintendo seems kind of like
anything Disney, cartoonish and fantasy up
front, cuthhroat with a hidden dagger behind the scenes. At least with Sega many of the more vicious things about their business took place in the games themselves.