Best/Worst Generation of Consoles?

[VG_Maniac]

What do you consider to be the best console generation, and the worst? Don't include the consoles that came out during the video game crash of the early 80's as the worst...as that's too obvious.

For me, I'd say the 16-bit generation of the early to mid 90's was the best (even though some failures such as CD-I and Jaguar came out during those years).

As for my least favorite generation, I'd have to say this one we are currently in. I just haven't found myself as interested in the games that have come out this generation as I was in the generations before it...although I do like the Wii better than the GameCube.

[Pezcore343]

Well although I'm not a big fan of those crash era systems I definitely don't think they're the worst. I find a certain charm about them, and I love the fact that there was a lot of choices back then, between Colecovision, Intellivision, Atari's consoles, all the computers that were around at the time. So I definitely don't think they deserve the title of worst.

I think my least favorite is the early CD days. Not only were load times a hassle, but the jump to early 3D graphics was so ugly. Yeah it was amazing at the time, but unlike the 8-bit 2D graphics, they don't have any charm or appeal today.

My favorite, hmmm. That's a tough one. I'm quite fond of the last generation, and a lot of my favorite releases are on the PS2, Xbox, and Dreamcast. I'm also a huge fan of the 16-bit era since the Genesis was my first console and only console for most of my childhood.

[The Old School Gamer]

I think the 16-bit era was the best, alot of quality games and the war between Sega and Nintendo always kept thing intresting.

Its hard to think of the worst if we are not including the crash of 1983. I guess it would be the "32 bit" era (1993-1998). The PlayStation was great at the time but alot of its games have not aged that well. The N64 was kind of a dissapointment and the Saturn was not well supported in the USA. Then you got the Jaguar which bombed. The 3DO was cool but way too expensive and failed. The CD-I was junk unless you liked watching movies on CD. The 32x and Virtual Boy were also huge failures. Sure there were plenty of great games but the move from 2D to 3D was shakey.

[jacrough]

16-bit is my favorite.

The GCN/PS2/XBOX generation. Nothing really innovative since the previous generation– just better graphics.

[crom]

im going to say snes/genesis era as the best...

gaming mags were abundant, the internet wasnt around to ruin cheat codes and walkthroughs... arcade ports were highly anticipated... the good old days...

I cant say that this gen is bad though, i love my 360, and it gets played probably as much as all the other systems I own when they were in their hayday...

the tail end of the snes/genesis era was the worst, cd-i, 3do, jaguar, 32x, virtual boy... not that I hate those systems, it just seemed like technology was so eager to give us 3d games that they forgot the basic principals that made games fun...

the industry learned pretty quickly though, giving us saturn, n64 and playstation... mostly playstation though, because without sony during that era it would have been pretty mediocore imo

[Nirvana]

SNES/Genesis era was my favorite. Nostalgia heavily affects my choice, though.

Least favorite? That's tough. I'd say the one we are currently in. I find myself only playing Street Fighter IV and Castlevania: Dawn of Ecclesia now.

[otaku]

The 90s were good times gaming and otherwise. Pre 90s is probably my least favorite.

[Baloo]

The 16-bit era was definitely the best era in gaming in my opinion. Genesis and SNES were both really good systems, and there was a lot of variety between the two. Best console war and system era ever.

The weakest for me was by far the 32-bit era. At least in America, there were some really sucky systems released over here at the time. You had the CD-i, Jaguar, the 3D0, the Pippin, the Virtual Boy, the Saturn (in terms of games here, NOT in terms of imports and hardware specs), and the Playstation.

All 6 of those systems were poor to mediocre showings:

Jaguar - All around horrible
3D0 - Overpriced, had no games
Virtual Boy - The red/back screen killed it
CD-i - All around horrible
Pippin - All around horrible
Saturn - Wasted potential, no new Sonic game, disappointing US library.
Playstation - Ruined the market for years to come. Never really had any killer-apps IMO.

[Gameguy]

As everyone already said, the 16-bit era was the best era. Not just for home consoles, but the portables that came out around this time were pretty good too(though these weren't 16-bit).

[crom]

Playstation - Ruined the market for years to come. Never really had any killer-apps IMO.

what? are you kidding?

the playstation probably saved the industry, the libary of games was huge! it marked the first time in a decade that someone other than nintendo or sega could play ball with the big guys...

I thought i read something like it was the most sold system of all time...

it gave birth to the greatest controller of this generation...

hogwash I say...

hogwash

[BHvrd]

Snes/Genesis.

With both systems having unique titles and highly varying degrees of graphics and gameplay with games of the same name, it was interesting.

This generation the differences are so minimal that you need to strain your eyes just to see a pixel or frame outta place, no real difference.

Mode 7 and Blast Processing ftw.

[Chemdawg]

my first system was an NES, but when i really started gaming was my sega gen and snes. 16-bit has my vote for sure!

[CelticJobber]

Best generation: 16 bit (SNES and Genesis) My favorite time to be a gamer.

Worst: 32/64 bit: (PS1, Saturn, and N64) The games on these systems were good for their time, but for whatever reason, but they've aged worse than any since Atari 2600. I find most early 3D games to be nearly unplayable today. I recently tried Perfect Dark for the first time in about 8 years, and was shocked at the amount of slow-down that I never seemed to notice back in the day.

[darkslime]

best last gen
worst the gen before that

[Haoie]

Come on, they're all good in their own way.

[todesengel]

For me the best would have to be the 8-bit and 16-bit era. Worst would have to be this generation for me, just not much has come out to make me interested.

[scooterb23]

Come on, they're all good in their own way.

A lot of truth in this post. Beware...an old guy is going to ramble for a bit here...

Looking strictly as to which consoles I have the most fondness for...I think I have to go with the Atari 2600, Odyssey 2 etc. era as my favorite. I just enjoyed the simplicity. Games didn't have to look amazing, you didn't have to stare at games with a magnifying glass to taunt how amazing your game looked...the great games just played amazingly well. Also, games of that era had an almost infinite amount of replay value.

I guess the era that is most disappointing to me is the current one. Part of it I guess is a general growing feeling of disappointment with the games getting released these days. I don't ever want to play another generic FPS, I couldn't care less about RPGs, almost everything I buy is a game that reminds me of earlier eras in gaming, or more "simple games" like Lego games and the like.

I hear all the talk about the next generation of consoles. I seriously don't see myself supporting a next generation of consoles.

[tom]

Best 1972, Magnavox Odyssey giving birth to the home video conosole gaming industry.
Worst, mid 90s, N64 most horrible console of all time, made you lose the faith in quality video gaming

[Pezcore343]

N64 most horrible console of all time, made you lose the faith in quality video gaming

Made you lose faith in the quality of games you mean.

[VG_Maniac]

I agree with everyone who says the 32 and 64 bit games have aged really bad (although I would say Playstation more so than N64 due its games being so pixelated). I have a hard time looking at even the greatest games of the original Playstation era such as Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Tekken 3, etc. Isn't it ironic that the PS1 games that have aged the best and still look great to this day are the 2D ones like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night? The very games that Sony wanted to distance themselves from so bad back than.