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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?
What disappoints me massively here is that there is no establishment of values. Have you ever done a trade study? Why weren't the performance parameters isolated and discussed between consoles? Instead, all I saw was opinionated statements often tied to nostalgia with little or no scientific basis.
It's not even discussed about what the delivery method is (cartridge or disc) or even whether doing something well in 8-bit is more desired than something bad in 32-bit. Hardware maintenance, sound capabilities, exclusive franchise titles, I could probably come up with 10 or so factors in deciding how to rank my consoles. Then I would define the scales and think of a novel way to weight them (probably by year and technological limitations).
Last but not least, I would need someone with enough time to play through all of them. Most importantly, this subject(s) would need to be non-interested meaning they have no previous gaming experience. And yet, I don't even see an attempt for this article to do the above while trying to forget that Donky Kong Country entertained them for months in their past.
Why will pong always be better than NES Contra for my dad? Because it was his generation's game. Why is NES Contra always better for me than Souped Up Console Gears of War? Because that was my generation's game. Why will Gears of War always beat Super Lucid Brain Implants Choco Serial Murder Hospital Mystery for my
If you want me to be impressed with a comprehensive study, I expect a cold hard naive matrix and not some subjective highly tailored prose laden essay written by an avid gamer.
My work here is dung.
I have yet to play a game on the Phantom that I hated. No other console can boast that claim.
I'd have to say it's pretty much a tie between the NES and the PSX. Why? Because both essentially saved console gaming in their times. The NES pulled gaming out of a hell of utter lack of game production standards, and it introduced one of the greatest controller innovations ever: the D-Pad. The PSX was moderately priced and used CD-ROM media, which let its games be inexpensive and contain more content than cartridge-based games. This combined what would grow to be possibly the largest library of games ever, with many truly wonderful games (Final Fantasy 7, Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, etc.) that brought console gaming into the mainstream. And after the N64 introduced analog sticks on controllers, Sony trumped it with the best-designed controller ever, the Dual Shock. Ever since then, with the exception of the Wii, controllers have primarily tended to be some variation of the Dual Shock, and that's a good thing.
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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.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
That piece of junk's only innovation was the introduction of ridiculous load times and boring cutscenes to gaming, and we've been cursed with them even since.
"The [console name] is the best one, because I played it when I was 12."
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Actually, both are correct. Various aspects of Super Mario came from his trips into the woods (e.g. Miyamoto would daydream about climbing a tree high enough to get above the clouds, finding a magical castle, etc.), while the game of Zelda was more of a direct translation of his exploration of the woods and caves around his home. To tie it all together, Miyamoto basically had a very active imagination that he was able to translate into the games he designed. The latter part is a rare gift that is what made him so successful.
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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.
paintball
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.
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I don't think it's possible to separate the games from the consoles. After all, the games are the reason we purchase, play, and enjoy the consoles in the first place. Note the phrasing of "best" is a particularly ambiguous term. Here's how I'd define the "best" system:
* It should have a reasonable percentage of games that would make it onto any "100 all time best game list". Like I mentioned, games are the reason we buy the hardware.
* It should be reasonably popular (although not necessarily the most). Why? In order to significantly impact the video gaming world, the console should have been enjoyed by a reasonably number of gamers.
* It should have definable qualities which distinguish it from other consoles. As much as I like my 360, it's really not innovative in any way - more of a refinement of existing trends and technologies. Likewise, the PS3 is mostly about bigger and better hardware.
* It should have a cultural impact beyond the gaming world.
If I had to vote now, I think I'd cast my ballot for the NES. It re-invigorated a stagnate market. It launched (or re-ignited) a number of gaming properties that are still going strong to this day. And, the Nintendo became synonymous with home video gaming.
The Dreamcast was an awesome system, but I just don't think it had enough of an impact on the market in general to be considered the best console ever.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
For the greatest console of all time, I have two words:
GAME BOY.
Every other console has had credible rivals that did much the same thing. The NES competed with home computers, early on with Spectrums and C64s and later with Acorns and Amigas. SNES faced the Mega Drive. And so on, and so on. Often there's been a clear leader, but there's never been anything else remotely like the Game Boy's dominance. And as pack-in games go, Tetris was an absolute killer.
The Game Boy lasted a decade and saw off every rival that ever dared try it on. Sega had a good go, they had a colour screen and everything, but the Game Gear sank while Nintendo marched on, and on, and on... I thought it was finally dying off, then Pokemon happened - and suddenly every one of the countless millions of old Game Boys came out of the attic and lit up again, played with by the original owners' younger brothers! And hence a miniaturised Gameboy Pocket made with modern technology, and then colour...
Its contemporary successor is nearly as crazy. Everyone thought the DS was a stopgap. A cheap gimmick produced to slow down the PSP while Nintendo worked on the real next-gen Game Boy. How very, very wrong we were.
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