Which consoles have the highest/lowest concentrations of good games?

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

There are good games on every console and handheld, but as a percentage, which consoles/handhelds do you believe have the highest and lowest concentrations?

A better way to think of it is, if you had a complete collection of every console/handheld and every game, and you were to draw a random game from each of the system's libraries, which ones would most likely net you a good (or bad) game?

Rule: The console/handheld must have at least 10 game releases.

Here's my thinking, in no particular order:

Highest:
SNES
Dreamcast
Colecovision

Lowest:
Jaguar
CD-i
Wii

[tom]

Highest:
VCS
game.com (21 games, 11 bad games, 10 good games (the puzzle games))
N-Gage (overall an excellent library of games)
Lynx (99% of Lynx games rock)

Lowest:
NES
N64


.

[savageone]

Highest:
Neo Geo

Lowest:
Wii

[ButtonMasher123]

I think the Turbografx-16 has a pretty good ratio of good to bad games. Their library has lots of action games which usually age well and hardly any sports games which usually age poorly.

[Leo_A]

The Jaguar's percentages aren't so bad.

The problem was the amount of software, not the ratio of good vs bad games. There's easily 8 or 9 A titles in just the 60 or so titles licensed by Atari and released commerically. And quite a few titles that most would rate in the B range. Only perhaps a dozen or so of the releases are disasters.

And most of the cancelled projects resurrected by publishers like Telegames and Songbird were solid releases. And there are several nice homebrews like Battlesphere/Battlesphere Gold and Gorf.

The percentages are good or perhaps even better than average for consoles that saw far more support. There are far worse offenders out there that were far larger successes. The Atari 2600, the NES, the Wii all come to mind as easy examples where I'd say the ratio was far worse.

[Informationator]

Man... Normally I'd say NES or SNES, but concentration-wise... There are a LOT of horrible sports games on SNES. So many friggin basketball, football, soccer, hockey, racing, etc. etc. games that are so mediocre. Probably the same for NES.

I do feel that the Gamecube and Wii have a significantly lower percentage of good games as compared to the N64, and that the N64 has a lower number of quality games as compared to the SNES. The SNES probably has more high-quality games than NES, as much as I love NES.

[bunnybum]

It really depends on what qualifies as a "good game". As an example, I like puzzles and adventure games, so of all the 2nd grade shovelware on the DS a random pick would have a ~50% (To be honest, I have lost count) chance of being a "hidden objects" game, which in my book are good, while, say, the SNES and Neo-Geo have a big honking zero.

[The Dord]

I think the Turbografx-16 has a pretty good ratio of good to bad games. Their library has lots of action games which usually age well and hardly any sports games which usually age poorly.

I'm a big fan of the Turbografx-16. I even admit I'm a fan of Keith Courage in Alpha Zones..

[ButtonMasher123]

I'm a big fan of the Turbografx-16. I even admit I'm a fan of Keith Courage in Alpha Zones..

Keith Courage certainly has its charm to it eventhough its flawed. It's a shame because there was some serious potential there, but the repetitve level design just killed it in the end.

[treismac]

I think the Turbografx-16 has a pretty good ratio of good to bad games. Their library has lots of action games which usually age well and hardly any sports games which usually age poorly.

I second that. For its limited library, there are a bunch of great games and only a few games I personally ran afoul of. China Warrior is abysmal to the point of being indistinguishable from a Simpsons-esqu parody of a crappy game and Battle Royale, while pretty to look at, was a choppy waste of potential fun. Other than those, I was damn near impressed with every other Turbografx-16 game I played.

[ubersaurus]

Vectrex, Colecovision, 5200, Dreamcast, N64, Neo Geo, and the Neo Geo Pocket all immediately spring to mind as systems with a ton of good games over bad. I absolutely love the NES, and Genesis, and SNES, but man, there's a lot of shit out there on those platforms that sort of drag down the overall numbers. Gamecube is right up there as well.

On the flip side you've got the CD-i, or maybe the CDTV, the VIS, Studio II, as systems that are 90% or more garbage.

[Rob2600]

Lowest:
NES
N64

Statistically, the N64 has one of the *highest* ratio of good-to-bad games. Out of 300 games, around 60 have received an overall rating of 8.0 or higher.

[Atarileaf]

There are good games on every console and handheld, but as a percentage, which consoles/handhelds do you believe have the highest and lowest concentrations?

A better way to think of it is, if you had a complete collection of every console/handheld and every game, and you were to draw a random game from each of the system's libraries, which ones would most likely net you a good (or bad) game?

Rule: The console/handheld must have at least 10 game releases.

Here's my thinking, in no particular order:

Highest:
SNES
Dreamcast
Colecovision

Lowest:
Jaguar
CD-i
Wii

I think a lot of this comes down to the type of game you play. For instance I don't like FPS's or RPG,s but I do like smaller more family friendly pick-up-and-play type games so I'd say the Wii has a higher ratio of good to bad titles that interest me whereas I'd put the PS3 and Xbox360 as having a fairly low ratio of good games, for me.

As far as older systems go I'd say I agree with what you posted above.

[Atariguy]

Probably the best ratio is the Vectrex. I have most of the library, and everything I've played is at least decent. The runner up would have to be the Neo Geo Pocket Color. If it weren't for the gambling games, it would have tied with the Vectrex. The Neo Geo and Neo Geo CD are a close third.

As for worst, I'd have to say that just about any dominant system could qualify for this, from the 2600 to the NES to the Playstation. We tend not to notice, since we tend to only think about the good stuff, but even in their heyday, the libraries of these systems were mostly made up of half-assed crap. For those who don't believe me, try watching Chrontendo. For the most part, out of the 16 or so games an episode, only 1 or 2 are noteworthy and at least half are just shit. I still love the thing, but that's a terrible good to bad game ratio.

[Natty Bumppo]

I would argue for the Sega CD as up among the highest. For a library of 150 games or so, it had a lot of outstanding games let alone good or very good ones.

Consider the rpg lineup alone - out of a dozen or so rpgs there were:


Both Lunars
Shining Force CD
Dark Wizard
Popful Mail

And Vay was not far behind these.

[Rob2600]

As for worst, I'd have to say that just about any dominant system could qualify for this, from the 2600 to the NES to the Playstation. We tend not to notice, since we tend to only think about the good stuff, but even in their heyday, the libraries of these systems were mostly made up of half-assed crap

Yeah, some people forget about some of the horrid feces released on the PlayStation, like Spice World, Teletubbies, Flintstones Bowling, Tail of the Sun, Spec Ops, Mortal Kombat Special Forces, etc.

Same goes for the NES: Winter Games, Dash Galaxy, Wayne's World, Karate Champ, Tag Team Wrestling, Hatris, Ghostbusters, Total Recall, Ikari Warriors II, etc.

The more popular a game console is, the more junk is released for it.

[Dangerboy]

Yeah, some people forget about some of the horrid feces released on the PlayStation, like Spice World, Teletubbies, Flintstones Bowling, Tail of the Sun, Spec Ops, Mortal Kombat Special Forces, etc

No, I took those into account. PS1 is still higher percentage.

[kupomogli]

Spec Ops

I actually enjoyed Spec Ops Stealth Patrol. Sure it might be one of the hardest games on the console, but the game had good decent control, great graphics, etc. If you can actually get into the game it's pretty fun.

It might not have been a great game, and that's mainly due to the difficulty, but it certainly wasn't a bad game.

Covert Assault wasn't bad either, but when everyone says "Spec Ops" it's safe to assume they're talking about Stealth Patrol. Usually the only one people have played.

[Aussie2B]

I have much, much love for the PlayStation, but even I wouldn't say it has a particularly good crap to quality ratio. It was the first system to have a metric shit ton of games, which equals, well, a ton of shit. It's like, take the NES, SNES, or Genesis library, which already have a fair number of stinkers, and then add on another 500 games, most of which being shovelware. There's a huge wealth of great games, no doubt, but so much trash too. Like, look at the long boxes, fun to collect and interesting historically, but not a whole lot of games in there worth playing these days, now that hype is no longer a factor. And that set is, what, over 100 games?

[InsaneDavid]

Like, look at the long boxes, fun to collect and interesting historically, but not a whole of games in there worth playing these days, now that hype is longer a factor. And that set is, what, over 100 games?

It has StarBlade in there, so that instantly makes it worthwhile. Ridge Racer, Descent, Krazy Ivan... but StarBlade Alpha would be enough for me.

For best ratio though, I have to agree with Atariguy, it's gotta be the Vectrex. Everything on that system is fun and at least functional enough to get some enjoyment out of. The only games I haven't cared for on the hardware were all homebrews.

Lowest concentration I'd go with Game Boy Color, just so much crap against a handful of great games, in which a handful of those were remakes.