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Best Holiday Gaming Seasons Ever?
Thanks to GameSpy for their feature discussing the best videogaming holiday seasons of all time, as they point out: "Most of the biggest and best games, and many of the best game consoles, have all come out during the final months on the calendar." Their nominations include 1982, in which "Ms. Pac-Man ruled the arcades, and the previous arcade king, Donkey Kong, could finally come to our homes, packed in with the snazzy new ColecoVision", and 1996, where: "With the introduction of Mario 64 in September, gamers discovered the joys of games in 3D. With the release of Tomb Raider that same month, gamers discovered their hormones." What was your all-time favorite gaming Christmas?
Well, I'm pretty sure developers try to release their games during the holiday season simply because people already have money to spend, on gifts and games. You might as well make it a new release, so that it can be the new cool thing to buy. Many games for the xbox were delayed this holiday season, ninja Gaiden, Halo 2 was intended for this holiday season, and I'm sure a whole slew of other games. Fact of the matter is, publishing houses and developers wanna push for a holiday release. My 2 cents.
The parent is a troll because it offers nothing constructive and just tries to makes fun of people. On top of that it misses the point entirely.
Also, not everyone has tons of family to fill up all that time. So tell me, when is it acceptable to go play some games? December 27th? Jan 2nd? What if you're Jewish? Are you an anti-social loser if you're playing games on X-mas eve?
I can think back to when I got X-Wing I was so excited, got to install it on X-Mas day and start it up for about 10minutes. It wasn't until after new years that I really got to play it, but I still consider it to be a great GAMING Holiday Season. I believe I got Mario Kart for SNES. So taken together the amount of fun I eventually had playing those games made it a great GAMING Holiday Season.
It's like asking what year do you think was best for pick-up trucks?
-- taking over the world, we are.
SNES centric comments:
1993. Secret of Mana, and the multitap. Makes your friends forget about their families and come over to play it.
Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening came out about this time too for gameboy.
1994. Donkey Kong Country, Super Metroid, FFIII, and Breath of Bire, Megaman X. I was broke as soon as I had saved up my 69.99 each time. Damn that was expensive.
I think it was 1979. Why so great? First 2600. You have no idea how long Combat and Space Invaders could keep you occupied when you're 6 years old.
All the other things you have mentioned were mere set dressing. Evolution, not revolution.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I love how GameSpy continually puts out these best gaming etcetera opinion pieces to simply spark the fanboy debates. The last page even has some useful essential links (scroll to the bottom) that must not be missed. :)
:)
I am not immune, however. So...
Nintendo rules the artificial demand department with the "chip shortage" of 1988 which affected Zelda II more than any other title. Hmmm.... They also seemed to have a low supply of N64 consoles in 1996. One of my fondest Christmas-ish moments was walking into a toy store on Black Friday and asking if they had any N64s. The clerk told me that he had just got off the phone with someone who had to cancel their layaway and asked if I wanted it. I simply said "no thanks."
Sony had the hype/demand machine chugging in 2000 when they launched the PS2 at more than twice the price of the Dreamcast that had a bigger library of quality games. Those lucky enough to get a PS2 that year were treated with marginal titles, a way to play their PS1 games and DVDs and not much else. Majora's Mask came out in 2000. This is one of the most misunderstood games of all time. Most players hated it due to it's manipulation of time, but it is a very fine game.
My personal favorite holiday gaming season would have to be 2002. Some of the finest games of all time came out during this season. GTA: Vice City and Metroid Prime are must have games for any (mature) gamer. Platform lovers who usually stuck with Nintendo systems would be shocked as Super Mario Sunshine proved to be a slightly above average game. The PS2 meanwhile had the incredibly superb Ratchet and Clank. Even the Xbox had a slight edge as Jet Set Radio Future was being shipped with the system, unfortunately, the only other platform game for the Xbox was the terrible Blinx so it didn't have that big of an edge.