The differences between the old and new were explicit in the marketing of 16-bit consoles. They were essential. Better graphics? Check. Better sound? Check. Bigger games? Check. More interestingly, however, was how the similarities of the systems were marketed — an implicit nod to the lineage. Remember, this was the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. This wasn't the first time something had been a replacement for an older version, but it was the first time it felt like part of an ongoing process: the process of technological innovation in the realm of the consumer, clearly visible and clearly marketed to the average buyer. The upgrade was officially for sale. The Age of the Upgrade had started in earnest.

I believe it was this moment — the moment of the Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, and eventually the SNES — that changed consumer attitudes about technology in our lives forever. This was the moment that the consumer learned that the thing you already owned was going to be replaced, and the replacement was going to be awesome. A more awesome version of the same thing. And there would be something after that, too. Consumer objects like cars had been aggressively sold on a similar pattern of updates, but the differences between model years was nearly nonexistent. Cars were expensive, bought on decade-long cycles, and offered bombast in marketing but almost no discernible differences to a driver. Game consoles were cheap, widely available to everyone, and could easily demonstrate exactly how new and different they were.

Apple came to understand the power of the upgrade once it began making wide-market consumer products like the iPod. Before the gadget-as-accessory era, Apple was excellent at making and selling products to a relatively niche audience, but it hadn't really perfected its ability to capture the want-need upgrade cycle — mostly because the computers it sold were far too expensive to be bought on a regular basis. The iPod and iTunes provided Apple with an entry point into the consumer market at large, and started the march towards the consumer technology product launch as a public, front-page event. It perfected the cycle of the upgrade with the iPhone, and everyone else followed suit. Now the entire industry accepts that consumers will want the "new" every 12 months. The major carriers have remade their subscription cycles around it, the tech press rallies around it, the upstarts fear and avoid it.