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The Best Console War ever?
Posted: May 5th, 2007, 1:47 am
by Bartman
Which console war do you think is the best? I think the 16-bit era was the best one. Sega and Nintendo wanted to have the best exclusives, sports games, platforms, and shooters. There was hardly a console war last generation because Sony butchered everything with too many exclusives. You can even look at the consoles sold. Last time I saw it, it was over 110 million. Probably most are broken.
The Best Console War ever?
Posted: May 5th, 2007, 5:28 am
by Alienblue
To me the classic wars bore the best fruit! Because of Mattel always trying to outdo Atari and vice versa, and what with the Atari 5200 slugging it out with colecovision, we got tons of good CHEAP games when the crash came.
Same thing with the 8-bit computer war. The reason I have most of the early 80's mainstream computers (except Apple 2) is because they are so plentiful and cheap! (I'm still looking for a Tomy Tutor computer with a few games...I saw that in a store in 1984 and while aimed at kids it had incredible graphics and arcade games like SCRAMBLE!)
The Best Console War ever?
Posted: May 5th, 2007, 11:40 am
by Blah
Right now I think the 16-bit war was the most brutal and it was the closest. However, I do think that these current-gen consoles may be the most exciting. Sony's going to try and get out of the hole they dug, Microsoft's going to release many much-anticipated games, and Nintendo's going to try and take back their throne. I think this generation is going to be good.
The Best Console War ever?
Posted: May 5th, 2007, 12:10 pm
by Atarifever1
I'd always said 16 bit, just because I think the best generation was that one. However, looking back over it now, I think the 1977-1984 era was the best just because of how many weird and wonderful things were created to enter the market.
From all the timelines I've seen we'd have (in no particular order):
Fairchild F
Atari 2600
Odyssey 2
Astrocade
Arcadia
Vectrex
Colecovision
Atari 5200
Some of those had keyboards, some had keypads, one had it's own vector monitor. Some had light guns at least one had a light pen, and the controllers were all vastly different. Some of them were 8 bit, some were 16 bit. Some could be turned into computers, some even played Basic pretty much right out of the box. Some had voice synthesis. And, most interesting to me, unlike with current 3rd party games, different versions of 3rd party games on these systems were often entirely different from each other. It must have been a great time to own a videogame system.
The Best Console War ever?
Posted: May 5th, 2007, 12:28 pm
by Bartman
With some your thoughts, I think it is good to express your opinion on the console wars. I say the 16-bit era was the best. The Genesis and SNES had a huge library of games, and versions of the same game were either different or the same. Games were fun to play with their great graphics, good control, and nice gameplay.
The Best Console War ever?
Posted: May 5th, 2007, 12:53 pm
by Alienblue
Atarifever- Yes, it WAS a great time to own a system! Strangely, some of the lesser known systems had the BEST games- Astrocade had the best versions of Wizard of Wor, Space Invaders and Galaxian, Odyssey2's KC Munchkin was better than 2600 Pac Man!
Arcadia had some really obscure coin-ops like Funky Fish, Jungler and Jump Bug that no other system had! What a fun time that was!
BTW you forgot APF, Creativision, Microvision, the WONDERFUL RCA Studio 2 (the worst game system ever made-couldn't even play a decent pong, the only controls were 2 keypads ON the console!) - plus all the dedicated PONG, Pinball, Tank and Invaders dedicated units..oh and the Odyssey one and Coleco Telstar!
The Best Console War ever?
Posted: May 5th, 2007, 1:43 pm
by BanjoPickles1
I agree that the 16-bit era was the best, most interesting, era of the console wars. I believe it was the one era where both big systems had undeniable games for everybody. To me, there really is nothing serious you can criticize either system for. I know about the tired argument regarding MK 1's lack of blood for the snes but it also had the best 16 bit version of MK2. Sega had the sports games but snes had great sports games as well. SNES had the better RPG's but sega had quite a few great ones as well. Both systems excelled at fighting games, platformers, action titles, etc. The past two generations have been sort of lopsided. Really, only the ps1/ps2 represented every genre better than most everybody. It really wasn't uncommon to find people, in 1994, who owned both a snes and genesis.
The Best Console War ever?
Posted: May 5th, 2007, 3:15 pm
by Iain
I guess the console wars are always best when you are a kid and can really get into it (and only afford one machine usually), but even so, I have to go with my biases and say the sixteen bit console war was just brilliant. Both the Mega Drive and SNES were outstanding machines, both producing games that still stand up today.
Also in the 32/64 bit era there was quite a good console war. It was less interesting maybe, because the Playstation so obviously won, but all three consols put out excellent games.
I have to say that more recently things have gotten a little less interesting because while the quality of games has been pretty good, because a lot of them are multi platform, there is little to choose from between the machines (plus I can have more than one anyway so it is a moot point). I don't say that as a complaint, You don't need a console war, just that things are a little less hectic now in some respects (although there are still great exclusives). I guess now that the Wii is a bit different from the other two machines and has different capabilities, we will see some more divergence.
One more console war which I will mention because others might not, is the one between the Master System and Nes. In America that was so one sided many people might not have noticed there was competition, but here there was a pretty good bit of competition. And the European and Australian divisions of Sega and their associates did do their best to make the Master System an interesting machine. Sadly now looking back, there are few Master System games which hold up that well compared to their NES contemporaries. But there were plenty of us who liked the Master System back when it was around.
The Best Console War ever?
Posted: May 5th, 2007, 3:23 pm
by andrew
For me its the first generation of true 3-d gaming meaning n64, PSX, Saturn. Never so anxious to open up the n64 when my brother and I bought it. Best system ever. Was in grade school (grade 6) and we always argued what was better - the playstation or the n64. Of course I won everyone over to the n64 eventually especially in high school with san francisco rush, Ocarina of time and WCW/NWO revenge.
The Best Console War ever?
Posted: May 5th, 2007, 3:35 pm
by Steerforth
Right now, of course.
3 versions of 360 vs 2 (now 1) version of PS3 vs Wii vs the still rolling PS2.
Plus you have DS vs PSP.
Each of the big 3 has distinctly different visions, the stakes are high, and there is true, cutthroat competition. Not every industry is like this.