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.

[Informationator]

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.
Well, I don't think genre matters. There are good and bad RPGs. ...well-executed and poorly-executed puzzle games. Tight and clunky platformers... Fun and mundane sports games... Addictive and boring fighters...

Within every genre are fantastic and miserable games, so I think when we consider good and bad games, genre preference shouldn't really enter into the equation (in as much as one can eliminate personal bias).

[Dangerboy]

The biggest problem is that sometimes good games may not be good enough for the individual. By no means can there ever be a true answer, but some of my personal feeling will most likely not agree with others.

As for the highest ratio of great games:
Neo Geo / Neo Geo CD
Turbo Duo / Grafx
Laseractive
PlayStation 1**

As for the lowest ratio
PlayStation 2****
Wii
Game Boy Color (way, way too many licensed throwaway titles)
3DO and Jaguar (most games worth playing were available on the PSX or Saturn, not enough exclusives to justify the decks).

Now the firewalls:
** PlayStation
At 1240+ plus games, there are a LOT of overlapping genres, especially in the sports department. However, this was prime rivalry turf - it's where the dividing lines began to separate and EA began to lose ground on the sports market. Game Day and NBA Shoot Out were now over-selling Madden and Live in certain years. There may have been a lot of sports titles, but there were a lot of GREAT sports titles. There's really not that many truly "bad" PSone games. On the other hand...

****PlayStation 2
Is where things started to fall apart. Suddenly JRPGs started to all look alike. Legendary series were suddenly going in weird directions (Final Fantasy X's straight line travel, 3DO's horribly over-use of game assets and sequels, EA begins the exclusive assault and removes competitive game series rivalries after ESPN 2K5 sells amazingly well, etc), and there were too many companies trying to cash in on the wonder machine.

In effect, the PS2 was the original Wii - you need only look at the amount of budget title releases and flood of licensed games near the end of it's life cycle to see the same pattern. The only difference is the Imagine Series wasn't brought to the table.

I was going for a complete PS2 set at one point, and after taking a step back, realized I could just play the better versions with lesser graphics on the PSX.

[bunnybum]

Within every genre are fantastic and miserable games, so I think when we consider good and bad games, genre preference shouldn't really enter into the equation (in as much as one can eliminate personal bias).

If we try that out and as a rule of thumb say that 1 out of every 2 or 3 games in any given genre is bad, the winner would be the system with the largest amount of games, which kind of makes sense ;)

Personally I'd say the system with the absolutely highest concentration of good games would be the Commodore 64, with the Amiga coming in as a close second. The sports titles on these two systems are fun and enjoyable, there is an enormous amount of platformers and close to zero franchise-milking games.

You were asking about consoles though, so I'd say that the PS1 has the highest concentration. Yes, there are some absolutely god-awful titles out there but the chance of plucking one of those while reaching into a pile of random games is pretty slim. Also, genre-wise the PS1 library has a decent amount of games within every genre so you're almost certain to pick something you'll enjoy. Besides that, the NES (As in, no Famicom) has a pretty good concentration as well.

As for the low concentration, I'd say 3DO, CD-i and Wii.

[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.

[Rickstilwell1]

Basically anyone who doesn't like a certain genre automatically calls it crap. If you are not into flight combat sim for example, you might call Air Combat/Ace Combat series on PS1 crap while other gamers gave it the reason why it's included in the Greatest Hits releases. Hate FPS games? The first Medal of Honor was good but not everyone will think the same.

There's only one way to do it for sure.

Get a list and total the number of games. Go down the list and count how many on the list you like (after trying them all with emulation, or as many as you can). Then use a calculator to find your personal percentage.

Look how many games I want for the following systems. It's not a good/bad list but rather simply how many games I know I will like in addition to what I already have. only CIB is counted as part of my collection:

Atari 2600 - want 34 have 8 = 42
Atari 5200 - want 16 have 5 = 21
Atari 7800 - want 10 have 2 = 12
Colecovision - want 15 have 0 = 15
Intellivision - want 18 have 9 = 27
Astrocade - want 5 have 2 = 7
Odyssey 2 - want 8 have 6 = 14
VIC-20 - want 22 have 3 = 25
Commodore 64 - want 14 cartridges, have 6 catridges = 20
Atari 8-bit Computer - want 27 have 1 - 28
NES - want 70 have 33 = 103
Sega Master System - want 39 have 7 = 46
Game Boy - want 67 have 15 = 82
TurboGrafx-16 - want 20 have 4 = 24
Atari Lynx - want 19 have 0 = 19
Sega Genesis - want 81 have 24 - 105

generally the systems that have more games for them are the ones that I have higher totals for. You can find out out many games each of these systems has and calculate if you want to, but in the end it kind of flattens out depending on how many games were available for the systems in the first place.

The only system that I think will end up breaking my trend here is the Neo Geo consoles - where I know I'll like any game I throw at it.

[kupomogli]

Highest-

PSP. Not counting PSN Minis which are digital only, plus they were originally working as PS3 only, the PSP has an amazingly high ratio of good/bad games. While the DS was getting all the shovelware, the PSP was pretty much left alone except for games that were actually good or decent being released on the system.

TurboGrafxCD. US releases only.

PSX. I think Dangerboy described it best, and obviously if you were to ask anyone about the PSX, it'd be him. I've played a lot of games on the PSX and there aren't too many PSX games I've played that I thought were terrible.

Lowest-

Wii
DS
GBA
PS2

The Wii and DS are the winners in this category, but there's also a ton of crap on the GBA and PS2.

[Snapple]

I'm surprised to hear people say NES, N64, and PS2. I think they have good ratios, and NES maybe a great ratio.

Yeah, you can probably name 20 forgettable sports and racing games on the NES (not including Tecmo Bowl and Tecmo Super Bowl, which are awesome, but the system has how many games? Like 800?

And to rattle off the number of games on the NES that are considered classic would take forever.


The Wii is full of shovelware. I love the DS (lots of good games for it), but the DS has shovelware for sure. GBA had shovelware.

PS1 I think is not... aging well, compared to PS2 and others. The RPGs for PS1 are some of the best of all time, and they stand up to this day. So does Metal Gear Solid. But the other 98% of the library doesn't always stand up so well by today's standards. There was a ton of 3D crap that was just... well, crap. RPGs were a very small percentage of the total library.

When I think high ratio, I think NES, SNES, Dreamcast.

[T2KFreeker]

Man, where is the Dreamcast for Ratios of good games? I understand there are a few stinkers here, but Damn, looks at how much on the system is gold?

[Tupin]

Man, where is the Dreamcast for Ratios of good games? I understand there are a few stinkers here, but Damn, looks at how much on the system is gold?
I was about to say this, I've been going back its library of games and haven't played a really horrible one yet.

Most Virtual Boy games were pretty fun, there's maybe one or two bad ones. The bigger the library gets, the more crap games there are. It was bad with the PS1/PS2 and GBA, but really got bad with the Wii, to the point where maybe twenty or thirty games are worth playing out of however many were released.

Technically, the PC is the absolute worst, but we're talking about consoles.

[Aussie2B]

For best, I'd pick the Neo Geo Pocket Color. Pretty much every single US release is at least pretty good if not great.

For worst, probably something stupid like the R-Zone. Anybody that would pick something like NES, which has boatloads of amazing games, in lieu of something like that must just be biased.

[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.

[Atarileaf]

Well, I don't think genre matters. There are good and bad RPGs. ...well-executed and poorly-executed puzzle games. Tight and clunky platformers... Fun and mundane sports games... Addictive and boring fighters...

Within every genre are fantastic and miserable games, so I think when we consider good and bad games, genre preference shouldn't really enter into the equation (in as much as one can eliminate personal bias).

Hard to do since personal bias drives game purchases, not what others perceive as a good or bad game.

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

Good discussion so far. Obviously, what's considered a "good" game is going to be different for everyone so just go by what YOU like.

The CDi has got to be in the running for worst percentage. It's very hard to find a good game for it without doing some research. It's a little unfair, since many of the games for it were supposed to educational, but oh well.

I gotta think the Wii has the second highest "bad" game percentage. It's hard to believe there are over 1,200 games. Of course, I wouldn't know unless I played them all. It's just a hunch I get when I walk into a Target and look at the Wii section. Even if it's not the lowest percentage yet, that percentage of bad games are bound to go up more since the Wii is entering its sunset, a time when discount games surface the most. Plus, Nintendo has moved its first party development to the WiiU.

The GBA and DS both have shovelware out the ears, probably more so than the DS due to it's larger install base.

I have to think that the PS1 is right in the middle. Most of the damage came after PS2 came out, when discount developers and publishers continued to stamp out games for it (PS1), like the Mary Kate and Ashely Olsen series.

I'm thinking the PS2, X-box, and Gamecube are all around the middle as well.

The Dreamcast was suddenly shut down before it could go through a "discount game" period. As a result, you have a solid library of high budget, arcade-like games. It's premature death may have actually saved it from a future of crap games.

[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.. ROFL

[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.

[ButtonMasher123]

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

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.

[Rickstilwell1]

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.

If you want to see repetitive level design, look no further than Adventure Island and Bignose the Caveman for NES. Both are very fun games to play, but both have reused level shapes and everything. Heck even Super Mario Bros. reused a few levels. 1-3 and 5-3, 1-4 and 6-4, 2-2 and 7-2, 2-3, and 7-3, 2-4 and 5-4. All reused levels

[theclaw]

Highest-
SNES. Sure tons of forgettable sports games, but I can't think of many actually that bad

Neo Geo. More or less designed to be epic enough to get colossal amounts of quarters from among the richest and most hardcore gamers in all existence. Those with a serious interest in Neo Geo could be expected to put massive amounts of cash into good games, the potential reward was too great for most devs to waste time making crap.

Dreamcast. Support was pulled so rapidly little shovelware had any hope to release.

Lowest:
Wii/PS1/PS2. Loads of casual fads. I'd never begin to bother plumbing the depths of their libraries to try naming titles standing out for true awfulness. THAT much got dumped on these systems.

Neo Geo Pocket Color. Ignore too much of the ports/remakes, side-stories, and gambling, you'll be left with few quality original titles in an already small library.

I agree it isn't really fair to rate computers. Stuff like PC and C64 border on anarchy at best when looking at the fringes of what classifies as a proper "game release". Anyone's able to sell the most inane **** one can ever dream.

[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.

[InsaneDavid]

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.

I'm still convinced people hate that game (both on the NES as well as the arcade) because they don't know how to play it.


Now the firewalls:
** PlayStation
At 1240+ plus games, there are a LOT of overlapping genres, especially in the sports department. However, this was prime rivalry turf - it's where the dividing lines began to separate and EA began to lose ground on the sports market. Game Day and NBA Shoot Out were now over-selling Madden and Live in certain years. There may have been a lot of sports titles, but there were a lot of GREAT sports titles. There's really not that many truly "bad" PSone games. On the other hand...

****PlayStation 2
Is where things started to fall apart. Suddenly JRPGs started to all look alike. Legendary series were suddenly going in weird directions (Final Fantasy X's straight line travel, 3DO's horribly over-use of game assets and sequels, EA begins the exclusive assault and removes competitive game series rivalries after ESPN 2K5 sells amazingly well, etc), and there were too many companies trying to cash in on the wonder machine.

In effect, the PS2 was the original Wii - you need only look at the amount of budget title releases and flood of licensed games near the end of it's life cycle to see the same pattern. The only difference is the Imagine Series wasn't brought to the table.

I completely agree with this and was just talking about it with a co-worker yesterday. I really haven't been as enthusiastic about a gaming era since during the time of the original PlayStation. Don't know what it is exactly, maybe everything is just starting to look the same to me.

[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. LOL 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.

[Steven]

We're all bias, I'm clearly super bias, but I say SNES for me has highest concentration of "good" games. If you want to stretch good to "playable/enjoyable" (which is highly subjective)... for me that's literally HUNDREDS of titles on the SNES.

I could pick out a Super Nintendo title at random, and chances are, I could at least spend a (relatively) happy hour playing that random title.

Can't say that personally for many other systems. Yes, SNES did have a lot of average, cookie cutter games, but for me at least, they're definitely not "broken" by any means; they're quite playable and enjoyable in their own right.

[Edmond Dantes]

Chalk me up as being another Keith Courage fan.

Ummm... to be honest, I think the NES, SNES, Genesis, PS1 and PC Engine all have pretty awesome libraries of games. Yeah there's probably a ton of crap, but the amount of quality titles outweighs them.

I think the worst system I ever owned was the Nintendo 64, followed by the Game Gear. In both cases I had a hard time finding quality games and even most of the popular titles didn't really do much for me. Right now, I keep my N64 strictly for Doom and Wave Race, and its been awhile since I played either one. I sold my Game Gear and so far haven't found a convincing reason to buy a new one.

[Sunnyvale]

As has been said many times, personal taste is key here. I like my old games, and it's hard for me to find a Colecovision game I don't enjoy for a bit. As for worst, the RCA Studio ii just barely falls into the standards set by the OP at 10 games, unless you count Bingo. I can't think of one of them I'd ever want to play again.

[j_factor]

Best: NGPC, hands down. Every non-casino game for the system is worth playing. Even the casino games aren't really "bad" per se; they do what they're supposed to.

Saturn is pretty high. I would say half of its US library is at least somewhat worthwhile. I would even rank Saturn above Dreamcast in this regard.

I'm not sure how I'd rank something like Game Gear. If you look at the system's library alone, it has a very good ratio. But a lot of those games are ports, and while they're mostly "good" ports, they're just redundant if you have other systems. For example, Streets of Rage for GG was done pretty well, but there's just no reason to play it over the Genesis version.

Worst is easily Game Boy Color, along with PS2.

[BetaWolf47]

Best: NGPC, hands down. Every non-casino game for the system is worth playing. Even the casino games aren't really "bad" per se; they do what they're supposed to.

I agree at NGPC. Even though 90% of the games are ports of Neo-Geo games, they are very well-done ports. They are above what you'd expect from handheld ports of Arcade-quality games. Capcom would've done well if its GB/GBC ports were as good as this.

[BydoEmpire]

For my money the 5200 and Dreamcast have the best ratios. Each has a couple of terrible games, but not many, and lots of good-to-great stuff.

Not sure about worst ratio. I don't have a big Sega CD collection, but I rarely have a reason to play it and I've been pretty unimpressed with most of the titles I've played. Might be because I didn't acquire one until a few years ago. I would guess the biggest-selling systems (NES, PS1, PS2, Wii, etc) probably have the biggest ratio of bad-to-good games, but they also have the most good games in terms of quantity.

[The Dord]

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.
Well yeah, but the music was great. :monkey:

[shinobimusashi]

The Vectrex only has about 30 games, and 20 or so of them are excellent, especially for their time.

All of the Nintendo systems are at the bottom of this list. Each of their systems are chock full of shovelware's. The NES not so much, considering how many games were released for it, but damn, the SNES, 64, Gamecube, and Wii only have about 30% or less good games in thier entire libraries.

Gameboy Color too, as previously mentioned. Probobly at 5% or less.

[NerdXCrewWill]

Myself and some friends played through a ton of Sega CD games two summers ago. After that, I determined that it had the best good-to-bad game ratio of any system. The only truly bad game is Marko's Magical Football, and then there's a small handful of average games made by European developers (like Three Ninjas Kick Back). Of course, one of the main genres pursued by the Sega CD are FMV games. You have to appreciate games based on the Dragon's Lair, Make My Video, rail shooter, and Night Trap formulas to really enjoy it.

Since then, I've played a LOT more video games. I think the two systems that come closest to the good-bad game ratio are the Saturn and the Turbo CD. Those systems are absolutely chocked full of good stuff. I haven't played the NeoGeo Pocket Color or the Vectrex, but I think those two have potential to be the best.

As far as the worst goes, I can't imagine anyone picking a system outside the bottom tier. I was thinking the Game.com, but Game.com has a 1:3 good-to-bad game ratio when you actually look at the library. I'm not quite sure, because we often don't play all the bad games on old video game systems. Out of the top tier systems, I think it's a very very safe assumption that the Playstation has the absolute worst ratio. So many games were released, and most of them were utter crap. At least by the time the Playstation 2 came out, even the worst efforts were generic clones that managed to be playable.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Systems seem to follow a set of groves when it comes to this stuff. I'd think it gets a little deeper than a mere gem-to-crap ratio, if you want to draw anything of meaning from the examination. Anyone can see that a direct comparison of the NGPC library to that of the DS is more than a little absurd. That said...

Elaborating on these 'groves';

-Systems/games that are so inherently flawed, software could rarely be made playable, let alone highly regarded as such.

-Systems/games that functioned, if marginally well, yet suffered some sort of other impediment in process. Abysmal sales, company gone under, sued out of existence, "$599 US Dollars" etc.

-Systems/games that were prime successes to some degree, that the fly-by-night cash-ins flock to time and again. In any ratio war, these are the USAs. The dominant super-power, and everyone else is stuck wondering how the hell that happened with it full of so much crap. LOL

[tom]

Exactly, for example the CDi was never intended to be a gaming console (source: Philips, Netherlands), so any game on it is a bonus.

Combining NES/ Famicom, it absolutly takes the crown for a top ratio of crappy games

[buzz_n64]

N64- Highest

Cd-I - Lowest

[Aussie2B]

Exactly, for example the CDi was never intended to be a gaming console (source: Philips, Netherlands), so any game on it is a bonus.

Combining NES/ Famicom, it absolutly takes the crown for a top ratio of crappy games

I don't know how you can argue that the NES is the worst, when you put VCS as one of the best when it was so flooded with bad games that it CRASHED the entire video game industry. NES, on the other hand, had so many good games that it SAVED the industry and completely dominated its generation.

They both had plenty of good and both had plenty of bad, but c'mon, calling one the worst and one the best in this topic is absurd. They're really quite similar, and given the history I just pointed out, the VCS should get the nod for a worse ratio.

You can give the CDi an excuse, if you want, because it wasn't intended to be a game console, but what about the completely awful systems that were? You can't claim the NES is the worst when there's stuff like the R-Zone out there.

[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.

[tom]

I don't know how you can argue that the NES is the worst, when you put VCS as one of the best when it was so flooded with bad games that it CRASHED the entire video game industry. NES, on the other hand, had so many good games that it SAVED the industry and completely dominated its generation.

They both had plenty of good and both had plenty of bad, but c'mon, calling one the worst and one the best in this topic is absurd. They're really quite similar, and given the history I just pointed out, the VCS should get the nod for a worse ratio.

You can give the CDi an excuse, if you want, because it wasn't intended to be a game console, but what about the completely awful systems that were? You can't claim the NES is the worst when there's stuff like the R-Zone out there.

Was talking to a NES kid (which he was way back), and he said that he loved his NES, had the usual games, (Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Duck Hunt etc...), and he mentioned that mom used to rent games for NES from Blockbusters, stuff like Godzilla, Taboo, To the earth, Bugs Bunny etc...., they were just played for five minutes, quickly lost interest, most of the rented NES games were crap, only to be put back on the kitchen table to be returned....and back we went playing Mario, Zelda etc....
This obviously happened to many of the NES games back then.

As for VCS crashed the whole industry because of bad games, it's a myth anyway, but the good games ratio on VCS is way better than on NES.
2000+ games on NES/Famicom, which do you play? Mario, Zelda, Metroid etc...

As for determinating a good games/bad games ratio, has anyone played ALL games on, for example, PlayStation to come to any conclusion? I think not, so it is very irrelevant anyway.
On small libraries like Sega CD, Lynx, ok it's possible, but with consoles which had a huge Japan library, no way.

(Had a guy in UK, I asked him if he liked the soap (We're talking TV), he said it's crap, I asked him how many episodes he seen to come to this conclusion, he answered he never seen any episodes because it's crap). <---Just an example on how people rant on about games in general, just insert 'game' instad of 'TV show', eg the CDi Zelda games, ET on VCS (which is a good game, just too difficult for most), and you get the idea...



.

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

Lots of good posts here. Everything's been civil too.

The one thing I disagree with is that the Sega CD had a high percent of good games. I don't see that as the case. The library is watered down by a lot of experimental FMV games (e.g., Make My Video trilogy).

[j_factor]

FMV games are only a fraction of the library and there was a lot of good non-FMV stuff for the system. I personally find a couple of FMV games to be pretty decent as well -- namely Night Trap, Sewer Shark, and Time Gal. Sega CD easily has around 50 good games IMO, and that's about a third of its library, which I'd say is an unusually good percentage for a console (although it's not really a console, but that's beside the point). A lot of them are ports, but usually the Sega CD version was best.

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

I certainly enjoyed Wirehead and I collect Sega CD. I would just rather play a random Genesis game than a random Sega CD game though.

[Platinum]

This is all based on opinion however. Good games/bad games are decided by the individual, not the population in general. But since I have an opinion as well I might as well contribute.

GOOD
N64
TG-16
Neo-Geo AES/CD

BAD
Jaguar
CD-i
Playstation

And this is coming from someone who owns these consoles. Every system has its gems.

[TurboGenesis]

I have found the Atari 5200 to be an example of games which are great to play, where few are of poor quaility (out of the 50 or so games I've played, Gorf is the only one I can say is truly terrible, and its a control issue)

I have also been finding quality titles in Vectrex, though I've only played a few games, but every game I've played is ace! I have never before poped in any game and had enjoyment with what ever was being played…

In regards to the Turbo Grafx 16, I find that most any game is enjoyable and quality, but it does also come to having an interest in the types of games found on the console… If one is not a fan of the kinds of games and genres found on the Turbo Grafx 16, then there enjoyment will vary…

its difficult for me to place which console has a higher percentage of poor games… maybe the Channel F VES, I haven't really enjoyed the games I have for it (8 videocarts) - I have the most fun with the built in Tennis and Hockey…

This topic is filled with subjective feelings, and mine are too, I have odd tastes and enjoy many games that are generally disliked… I really enjoy games like Chubby Chereb, Total Recall, Platoon, M.U.S.C.L.E… to name a few…
AND I REALLY enjoy most of the games on the Atari Jaguar… Until I recently discovered the 5200, it was my favorite Atari console… games that are disliked, I really enjoy from titles like Trevor McFur, I-War, Defender 2k, Skiing & Snowboarding, Club Drive, Checkered Flag, Cybermorph… I could list most of the library and I genuinally enjoy it…

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

Everyone has different tastes. There's no problem using your own subjective feelings for this thread.

I haven't tallied anything, but Turbografx seems to be getting a lot of mentions.