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

[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.

[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.