Does this Happen for other Generations?

When I was a shorty, a real shorty there was nothing better to do than head down to the arcade and stand around watching kids with backpacks and money to burn playing street fighter II.
Even on a beach holiday in Lorne, there was no sight better to take in than Blanka shocking the Shit out of Ryu. Somebody with the cash and skills playing a new character was a sight to behold you'd hang out hoping they'd down M Bison and see a new end sequence.
The 3&1/2 inch floppy version for pc was like gold and where I eventually learned to play. The kid who's dad scored a pirated copy for PC got invited to everyone's house as often as it took for them to bring the disk along.

Street Fighter II took over the world.

Then there was MJ, these days they say MJ was no Wayne Gretsky of basketball and thus his number shouldn't be universally retired. This is a very American centric view though. The global view is: 'Wayne Gretsky who?'

Jordan was massive, retailers stocked nothing but 23's. Kids didn't just get up to watch basketball on a saturday, they played basketball on a saturday, bought the sneakers, bought the jerseys and collected the cards.

If you had a spare minute a day, you spent it contemplating Jordan. I can recall my primary school teachers, dear little ladies having to field question after question about Michael Jordan.

If this was the case in Ballarat, and judging by my cousins in Gippsland too then it was the case just about everywhere.

Now I'm not sure if there were sensations that took over the world before, maybe Space Invaders and the Beatles are good candidates. And there have been sensations that conquered the world since like 'the Spice Girls' and 'Pokemon' or consumer goods like the Nokia 3-whatever and the iphone.

But these seem sad by comparison to the awesome cosmic power of Street Fighter II and Michael Jordan.

SO I'm I just being an old man not understanding the kids today or is it truly incomparable?