best gaming console(s)

D

Dude#1279435

Audioholic Spartan
Just curious in terms of culture impact, re-play value and ease of use etc you think is the best console(s) ever?
 
slipperybidness

slipperybidness

Audioholic Warlord
By FAR, NES! You also must give credit to the Game Boy, where everybody wanted one, not just gamers! Including Tetris as the pack in was genius.

My personal favorite, SNES.

PS2 is hard to ignore as well, it was the very first DVD player that many people owned! And, it had a spectacular gaming library.

For what it's worth, I am pretty deep into arcade and console emulators and DIY builds. I want to start working towards getting my hands on some authentic vintage arcade and pinball machines too!
 
S

snakeeyes

Audioholic Ninja
I’ll say NES just a little ahead of Gameboy. Even though the cartridges got finicky. Gameboy was really great too. I still play NES and SNES titles on my Nintendo Switch. My WII still gets regular use as well.

I really liked PS2 but lost interest in PS3. I did do a ton of hours playing PS2 though. I always liked those controllers better than Xbox :)
 
slipperybidness

slipperybidness

Audioholic Warlord
I’ll say NES just a little ahead of Gameboy. Even though the cartridges got finicky. Gameboy was really great too. I still play NES and SNES titles on my Nintendo Switch. My WII still gets regular use as well.

I really liked PS2 but lost interest in PS3. I did do a ton of hours playing PS2 though. I always liked those controllers better than Xbox :)
I very much like the XBox 360 and XBONE controllers!

The 360 had a poor D-Pad, I ended up swapping in a mod from Evil Controllers that corrected that. The XBONE ELITE controllers is by far the best (stock) controller I have ever used. The weak point on the XBONE controllers is the shoulder buttons, they break every few years dependent on the games you play (KI and GOW tend to kill those buttons). I have repaired several of those that have broken.

I have done MANY controller mods! I have not really used a PS controller extensively since the PS3, and have never modded a PS controller.

For what it is worth, my company manufactures the microcontroller chip inside the XBONE controllers.
 
slipperybidness

slipperybidness

Audioholic Warlord
I’ll say NES just a little ahead of Gameboy. Even though the cartridges got finicky. Gameboy was really great too. I still play NES and SNES titles on my Nintendo Switch. My WII still gets regular use as well.

I really liked PS2 but lost interest in PS3. I did do a ton of hours playing PS2 though. I always liked those controllers better than Xbox :)
I think you also have to give the Wii a LOT of credit! Non-gamers, casual gamers, grandmas, EVERYBODY wanted a Wii.

I had a hacked Wii for a few years, gave it to the nephews, and I should have kept it!

It was AWESOME. Bought it and hacked it the same day (i.e immediately voided the warranty :cool: ). You could play games from an attached HDD, and even place a disk in the drive and rip it to the HDD.
 
WookieGR

WookieGR

Full Audioholic
I'd have to say Xbox 360 broke up my band so... that's something I suppose.
 
D

Dude#1279435

Audioholic Spartan
I owned the NES and played the sh-t out of Blades of Steel. Duck Hunt came free with it. Also Mario was played a ton. I wanna say that there was a Friday the 13th game on there too but can't remember which console that was now???

For cultural impact I'll add in the Atari from the 80s. Kinda landmark if I have that right. Pacman was released but terrible. Obviously Ms Pacman on the arcade was the deal. Frogger was a constant. I think probably Space Invaders or Asteroids is what launched it. Even though the graphics are terrible by todays standards I really like the latter because its simplicity is what was so effective about it. Intellivision was probably better though.

Pitfall was another huge one for the Atari.
 
jliedeka

jliedeka

Audioholic General
I remember playing Pitfall and the crappy Pacman and Donkey Kong ports on the Atari. Consoles have come a long way in almost 40 years.
 
D

Dude#1279435

Audioholic Spartan
I remember playing Pitfall and the crappy Pacman and Donkey Kong ports on the Atari. Consoles have come a long way in almost 40 years.
The joystick for Atari was terrrrrrrrrrible! I liked Breakout too.
 
Cos

Cos

Audioholic Samurai
I am old:

Intellivison - Astrosmash, Utopia, AD&D, Tron games
Sega Genesys - Streets of Rage, Lots of RPGS
Sega Saturn - all 2K sports series Virtual Fighter 2, excellent RPGS, virtua Cop series, Guardian Heros (Best side scroller ever made)
Sega Dreamcast - Too many games to mention, innovator of online gamming, unique controllers
Xbox - Halo - The only game I seriously could not put down after I bought the system, played 7 straight hours lol
Playstation 3 - Last of Us, Uncharted, etc
Xbox 360, Gears, Halo, many games, Left for Dead series, many other games
Playstation 4 Pro Last of Us 2, Uncharted etc, Ghosts of T(cant spell it), Horizon 0 Down, Days Gone
Xbox 1X - Dead Rising 3 (favorite of the series) - State of Decay
PS5 - Spiderman currently
Xbox 1SX - AC Valhalla and Medium
 
K

Kevi9590

Enthusiast
Personally the Gameboy and PS2 were the most transformational for me as a gamer in my childhood. I had other consoles but outside of sleepovers and moments here and there, these two consoles created a life away from life for me. Hundreds of hours in GTA Vice City/San Andreas, Final Fantasy X, Gran Turismo 3, Need for Speed Underground 2, Burnout 3 Takedown, Dark Cloud 1 and 2, Rogue Galaxy, Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3, Medal of Honor Frontline, Tony Hawks, Fifa (before it was a gambling simulator) etc etc. Gameboy had all the Pokemons. And the PS2 had the DVD player so it was never NOT on between watching Scrubs and movies like Talledega Nights and Step Brothers and playing games.

My PS3 and PS4 have seen thousands of hours of use, but the impact doesnt come close, with many throw away experiences. Too soon to tell if PS5 will come close either. The PS1 was great but the PS2 was magical.

I think for modern consoles the Switch will be the most important console. That thing is pure unadulterated fun.
 
Last edited:
davidscott

davidscott

Audioholic Ninja
I remember playing Pitfall and the crappy Pacman and Donkey Kong ports on the Atari. Consoles have come a long way in almost 40 years.
Pitfall was my favorite game on the Atari 2600. I had to go underground and skip some frames to actually finish it. :)
 
M

Mr._Clark

Audioholic Samurai
I can't say it was the best ever, but my parents bought us kids a Magnavox Odyssey for Christmas one year. It was the best (only) console I'd seen at the time.

Sega Dreamcast was the first one I played very much. I was more of an arcade player before that.

I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I wasted a fair amount of time in grad school and in law school playing arcade games. What do you do if you have bachelors and masters degrees in engineering and you're in law school? You waste time playing Street Fighter, playing pool, and drinking beer of course!
 
sweetness34

sweetness34

Enthusiast
Nintendo 64 because of GoldenEye 007. Completely changed the multiplayer gaming landscape. Spent way too much time in college playing that instead of studying.
 
S

snakeeyes

Audioholic Ninja
I have to agree that Goldeneye 007 was one amazing game for multiplayer.
 
slipperybidness

slipperybidness

Audioholic Warlord
Pitfall was my favorite game on the Atari 2600. I had to go underground and skip some frames to actually finish it. :)
Moon Patrol and Yar's Revenge were my all time favorite 2600 games!

I still play them somewhat regularly.
 
slipperybidness

slipperybidness

Audioholic Warlord
I can't say it was the best ever, but my parents bought us kids a Magnavox Odyssey for Christmas one year. It was the best (only) console I'd seen at the time.

Sega Dreamcast was the first one I played very much. I was more of an arcade player before that.

I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I wasted a fair amount of time in grad school and in law school playing arcade games. What do you do if you have bachelors and masters degrees in engineering and you're in law school? You waste time playing Street Fighter, playing pool, and drinking beer of course!
We had an arcade right across the street from campus. During finals week, it went 24/7 :)
 
Eppie

Eppie

Audioholic Ninja
The Atari 2600 was great because it could accept game cartridges but also load from floppy disks. I actually still have mine with the external floppy drive and daisy wheel printer. I added a trackball to play Missile Command and Centipede, just like on floor standing consoles. Joust was loads of fun too. More than just a gaming console. I had the U-Call modem and with Kermit installed I could telnet into the university. I used it for gaming and computing until I got my first PC (a PC XT with an Intel 8088!). Not enough of them out there to say that they had a huge cultural impact but it was the forerunner of some great consoles that followed.

The PS2 saw a lot of use. While I tried to get multiplayer games to engage the kids with the PS3, the PS2 and Wii had better multiplayer titles in our household. The PS2 also got me started on my love for Final Fantasy titles. I was more into adventure games than shooters. I'd say the PS2 got me and my kids into console gaming, so probably the biggest cultural impact. The PS3 was a huge leap in quality sound and images, but it was more transformative, expanding on existing titles. It did add some stand out series, though, like Uncharted, Assassin's Creed and Little Big Planet (fun in both single and multi-player).

Hard to argue against the Wii for ease of use. It's the console that got a lot of non-gamers into gaming. (My wife still uses Wi-Fit and I like the yoga programs). It was the most engaging for multiplayer and a lot of titles encouraged multiplayer play as opposed to single player. What kid does not love Mario titles? My niece and nephew might argue for the Xbox because for on-line multiplayer shooters I think it tops the list. I just never got into Xbox because the Playstation titles were more to my taste. (Bayonetta anyone? :D)
 
jliedeka

jliedeka

Audioholic General
Other than a Pong clone, I never had a proper game console until I bought a NES in college. We did have a TI computer that had some fun game cartridges like Parsec. I also had a Commodore 64 with tons of games, mostly pirated.
 

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