What's the Best Game Console of All Time?

The C|Net Crave blog has up an article exploring the history of console gaming, and wonders aloud about the pecking order of the various systems. "Gaming is so subjective that there is no single "greatest" system ever. It might sound like a cop-out, but it really depends on what standards you're using and what generation you grew up in. I loved the SNES, and would personally call it the greatest system of all time. However, the NES and PlayStation could both easily be called the best, based on the standards they set and the advances they presented to gaming." The Guardian follows up this piece, noting that the article's rose-colored recollections of the SNES days may not be entirely accurate. Subjective or not, it's a good question: which consoles have a valid place in history and which ones should be forgotten?

Comments

Hmmmmm

[Orange Crush]

I grew up with the NES. My parents refused to buy me a SNES when they came out, but I'm not at all bitter (bastards! *cries*). Aside from playing SNES games at friend's houses, I lost interest fairly quickly. I'd occasionally play a brief game at a friend's house on their playstation and i don't think I ever even touched a PS2 beyond using it to play DVDs back when it was the cheapest DVD player on the market. So I basically skipped the past two console generations alltogether.

The NES was the "greatest" system for me, simply because that was the one I interacted with the most, however I can definitely agree with this guy's argument that Sony's embrace of third party developers with the PlayStations made the game industry what it is today.

One minor nitpick, from the article:

Once you've read David Sheff's Game Over, it's almost impossible to play a Super Mario game without imagining the young Miyamoto gamboling through the woodland close to his boyhood home, discovering hidden caves and lakes.

I've always heard that was his inspiration for Zelda, not Mario.

Re:Hmmmmm

[flitty]

You are correct, The article is wrong. Zelda, not mario, was inspired by Miyamoto's exploration.

I do have to say that my old SNES got the most playtime out of a single game for me. I think i've played S.Metroid 6 or 7 times through? Same with Link to the Past. It seemed to be the perfect form for 2d sidescrollers and the kind of games that Nintendo Made. Enough power to allow for Saves and bigger environments, and gameplay that matched; difficult, but not frustrating (the majority of NES games were hard because of controls, not because the games were designed that way, i'm looking at you TMNT). I'll never be able to play the 64 because I couldn't afford one at the time and going back to play it now is almost impossible because the 3d geometry is analogous to the NES:SNES upgrade. However, (this might just be the old man in me) I have no problem going back and playing any SNES game that I missed. I feel the same will hold true for the 360 and ps3, and even the xbox and ps2 (later gen games). The graphics are not intrusive into the enjoyment of the game, even if graphics do get better.

Re:Hmmmmm

[beckerist]

I am a social, casual gamer. I submit the N64 as the greatest console of all time. No such thing as calling online play "multiplayer." I remember the days of me, 3 of my best friends, a bottle of JD, a few packages of Penguin mints and a 2-night bender where all we did for 60 hours straight was eat, drink, stay awake (thank you caffeine!) and throw the controllers at each other in fits of rage.

Goldeneye, Mario Tennis, Smash Brothers, Mario Party 1-3 and Mario Kart...we didn't need anything else.

Re:Hmmmmm

[aplusjimages]

Shouldn't the greatest console of all times be separate from the games? Shouldn't it be a console that offered the gamer innovation as well as fun? If you took away Halo from Xbox would it still be a great console or Mario from any Nintendo generation? Everyone is naming games and what the console offered the gamer.

I would vote for the dreamcast. I never owned one, but it was a hell of a system. If I'm not mistaken it was the first with internet access. Also it had the controllers that would allow these little devices to be added to them that served several functions. One function allowed sports games to show different plays without showing your pick on the TV, others allowed the user to detach it and play it as a mini game.

Coolest

[Reality Master 101]

All platforms had good and bad games, it's useless to compare them. BUT -- in terms of technical coolness and uniqueness, I have to give it to my good ol' Vectrex. Clearly vector graphics don't work for every type of game, but for the games it did work with, it was awesome.

Nintendo DS

[_xeno_]

I was originally going to say it would be the GameBoy Advance SP, but then I remembered that the DS can play GameBoy Advance games too.

It's a nicely-sized portable, which I've found means that I can actually play the game instead of requiring a TV. Many of the great SNES games were re-released for the GBA (like The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, basically all the Final Fantasy games before VII, Super Mario Bros. 3, and Donkey Kong Country 2).

Unfortunately Nintendo took the time to screw with some of them (Link shouldn't be yelling "Ha!" all the time in Link to the Past!), and not all of them translated quite as well as I might like (the music in Final Fantasy VI Advance was screwed up in some places, but on the plus side the bugs were fixed).

Add in original DS games and other original GBA games, and you've got a very nice portable handheld console, which in my mind at least makes it the Best Game Console of All Time, So Far.

Of course, that's probably because I'm getting older and have less free time to play games. It's easier to sneak some game time when you can just drop the console in your pocket or man-purs-- I mean, laptop bag. It's a laptop bag.

Re:Nintendo 64

[Sciros]

For me it would be N64, followed by SNES, followed by NES, but all 3 being close.

IMO the two *best-made games ever* are Ocarina and SM64. They're the games that I judge all others against in all sorts of respects.

The N64 was to me the silver age of gaming. You had the best Zelda/Mario games ever, IMO the best Mario Kart, a revolution in console FPS games with Goldeneye, the first Smash Bros, etc. 3D gaming at its most memorable and finest. Many games on the N64 are yet to be outdone in their respective genres.

The SNES was the golden age. Link to the Past, Super Mario World, DKC and DKC2 setting new standards in side-scrolling platformers, Killer Instinct revolutionizing fighting games, Super Mario Kart popularizing a new genre, Final Fantasy III (VI in Japan), Super Metroid, the Super Star Wars games, the list goes on and on. The SNES had so many good games to play every year it's scary.

NES did so much for console gaming it's hard to put it in scope. With Super Mario Bros. it took things to a whole new level right away. Add the Zelda games, Gradius shootemups, co-op Ninja Turtles games, Metroid, the Castlevanias, the Ninja Gaidens, and you are talking about a system with the predecessors to the majority of franchises anyone cares about.

Sega Dreamcast

[XxtraLarGe]

I'm probably the real odd-man out here, but I think of all the different systems I've owned, the Sega Dreamcast was my favorite. I've owned several different consoles & handhelds. We currently have a PS, PS2 & XBox in my home, and none of them get the same use for gaming as my Dreamcast did. We use the PS2 mainly as a DVD player, the PS isn't even plugged in, and the XBox sits idle. My favorite controller of all time though is the Dual Shock 2.

Right manufacturer, wrong time.

[raehl]

The greatest video games system of all time is the Wii - it has revolutionized the way people interact with the console.

The only difference between all the other game systems is graphics and buttons. Difference between an Atari 2600 and NES/Genesis? More graphics and buttons. NES and SNES/Dreamcast/Playstation? Graphics and buttons. SNES/Playstation/Dreamcast and N64/PS2/XBox? Graphics and buttons. N64/PS2/XBox and PS3/XBox360? Graphics and buttons.

But the Wii is fundamentally different. It's the realization of what the power glove was meant to be. There hasn't been that kind of revolution in gaming since Pong. Maybe the advent of games where you could save your game (with code or battery) from one session to the next. But other than that, it's all graphics and buttons.

Re:Sega Master System

[tmalone]

I recently played Phantasy Star 1 in emulation and I was amazed at how good it was, and how good it looked. It stands the test of time much better than any NES RPG I've ever played. Pity Sega didn't keep it up with RPGs. The past few systems they've made have had one or two really good RPGs, a few crap titles, and not much else. When I finished Skies of Arcade for the Dreamcast I looked around for another good RPG, but all I found was Grandia 2 which is fun but is also the most linear game I've ever played. They don't even disguise it. You literally travel from one place to the next, forced along by the game, never to return to previous locations.

Sega has for me alwasy been a company that had some really great ideas but either bad luck or bad management. The Genesis was pretty popular, but beyond that they've really been a bit player for most of their existence, except in the arcades.

Chrono Trigger

[Rinisari]

Chrono Trigger, hands down the best console RPG of all time, with only FF7 and Earthbound coming anywhere close. I've spent more hours playing and replaying Chrono Trigger than any other video game, including the modern FPSes that I tend to prefer these days. Chrono Trigger's blend of humor, flirtatious characters, intense drama, fantastic graphics for a 16-bit system, but most of all: the most compelling, appropriate music ever in a game. I can listen to the music from the game and feel like I'm playing it.