OT: Favorite Gaming Console. 1998-2020

[Shady Machine]

I picked Switch because of major recency bias and the timeliness of Nintendo. I grew up playing many of these games on NES, SNES, and N64 and can now share in that with my 5 year old son. He's wearing Mario Kart and Pokemon shirts. Same shit I was wearing at age 10. Nintendo rules.

 

[Tender Rip]

So...you've never owned a console.

I'll be honest, my knowledge of Amiga ends at it being a Commodore brand that was used by a lot of animators in the early days of computer animation.

Remember any particular games, TR? I'm interested in this stuff. My dad busted out the old Macintosh II when I asked for a computer in 1997. It was a mean joke, but it had Where In the World Is Carmen Sandiego? so I was happy for a couple weeks.

Hehe. It seems I am even less of a gamer than I thought. I exclusively used it to play Sensible Soccer and Speedball 2 with classmates. Ah, some Wings also.
Must have been like 90-92 and having it was like a social requirement in my group. Then it was PC from the IBM 386 onwards.

 

[Son Goku]

All time it’s nintendo 64. So many classics and great games. But of these options ps3 and ps4

 

[Headshot77]

It has got to either be N64 or Gamecube. Those were my childhood consoles that meant a lot to me.

 

[Dacks]

Not counting PC (seems not to be in the spirit?), my ranking of those I played more than once or twice:

1) Xbox One X - it's recent but with work, kids, etc.., the gamepass has been incredible. It's just amazing value, and I've tried a ton of games I'd never otherwise consider. Just re-upped for two years.
2) Wii - I don't have a lot of gamer friends, and this was the console for them. Played Wii Sports golf a ton with my dad. Super Smash Brother tournaments. Endless nights of Rock Band with friends. And of course, exclusives like Mario and Zelda. Just talking about it, I might have to hook it up to my current system to load up Rock Band again.
3) Gamecube - housemate owned one in college. Great controller. Pretty fun but the weakest Nintendo entry in my mind.
4) Dreamcast - Soul Calibur was fun, that's about all I remember! (Roommate had the console.)

If N64 was included, it would top the list. GoldenEye, MarioKart, Ocarina of Time... wow. And I never really had a chance to play any of the playstation consoles extensively, so couldn't include.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

If N64 was on the list:

*throws N64 in trash next to the Wii*

God how I hated that thing and it's 0 games that resonated with me...but how was 10 year-old me to know I would wind up adoring JRPGs more than anything and despising collect-a-thons and 3D platformers just as much? The N64 will always represent childhood disappointment to me.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

What's an N64? Is that some kind of weird official terminology for the GoldenEye Machine?

God how I hated that thing and it's 0 games that resonated with me...but how was 10 year-old me to know I would wind up adoring JRPGs more than anything and despising collect-a-thons and 3D platformers just as much? The N64 will always represent childhood disappointment to me.

@Big McLargehuge - I was a bit older when it came out and already heavily addicted to Chrono Trigger and the Final Fantasy games from the SNES. So there were few disappointments more profound to me that the N64, it's revolutionary but extremely awkward controller and insistence on carts somehow being relevant. FF7 flipping to the PS seemed insane at the time (and also prompted a PS purchase from me and my brother).

It was a heavily used and referenced console among my friend group. And with GoldenEye, Mariocart, Starfox and Perfect Dark I suppose one can see why. But I never really warmed to it personally. I just enjoyed proxy mining the cheap motherf***er who chose Oddjob too much to say I totally hated it. I remember being very much of the opinion at the time that the titles were kind of shit, though. I was just never a big enough platformer guy or a Mario/Link stan to get caught up in all that hype.

 

[Ogrezilla]

What's an N64? Is that some kind of weird official terminology for the GoldenEye Machine?



@Big McLargehuge - I was a bit older when it came out and already heavily addicted to Chrono Trigger and the Final Fantasy games from the SNES. So there were few disappointments more profound to me that the N64, it's revolutionary but extremely awkward controller and insistence on carts somehow being relevant. FF7 flipping to the PS seemed insane at the time (and also prompted a PS purchase from me and my brother).

It was a heavily used and referenced console among my friend group. And with GoldenEye, Mariocart, Starfox and Perfect Dark I suppose one can see why. But I never really warmed to it personally. I just enjoyed proxy mining the cheap motherf***er who chose Oddjob too much to say I totally hated it. I remember being very much of the opinion at the time that the titles were kind of shit, though. I was just never a big enough platformer guy or a Mario/Link stan to get caught up in all that hype.

Oddjob is the worst character unless you're playing license to kill mode. His head is closer to the default aim position.

N64 had no depth, but there were a bunch of legitimately great games in there.

 

[DanielPlainview]

It's tough. The PS2 is near and dear to me. The 360 I had the most games of any system I've had, but it was really the beginning of the big title takeover and the quality stagnation we have now in the Playstation/Xbox realm of gaming. The more time-intensive games become to make, the less fun and interesting they seem to be.

 

[Retrocity]

Out of this list, probably GameCube followed by Xbox, PS3, and Dreamcast. I really enjoy my PS4 and Switch but just don’t play them nearly as much as I used to play the older consoles.

I’ve seen SNES mentioned a few times and maybe this is just for home consoles, but what about GBA? I was playing mine for years after the DS came out, buying used games I had missed out on originally. It has a great library of games and was the first time games like Fire Emblem and The (Advance) Wars series were brought over to the U.S.