The 5 Greatest Game Systems of All Time

[Mayhem]

In chrono order...

 

1) Atari 2600 - it started the console fad off (and ended it temporarily), one of the most important systems of all time.

 

2) C64 - hey, who said consoles only? The greatest home computer ever with a software library to back it up.

 

3) NES - the kick start of the next generation, so many important games released on it.

 

4) SNES - in my opinion the greatest console of all time, everything for anyone on here.

 

5) PS1 - finally dragged gaming into the masses with some excellent titles to boot.

[darthkur]

As for most "important", meaning ones that were the most innovative and created a significant impact on the industry in general:

 

Atari 2600

Intellivision

NES

Sega Genesis

PS1

 

Now if it's just my favorite's then:

 

Atari 2600

Atari 5200

Intellivision

ColecovVision

NES

 

Plus, if 8bit computers count then the C64 would supplant the NES.

[Gregory DG]

As for most "important", meaning ones that were the most innovative and created a significant impact on the industry in general:

 

Atari 2600

Intellivision

NES

Sega Genesis

PS1

I could almost agree with that except for the Intellivision. How did it have an important impact on the industry?

 

I'd put the Gameboy in it's place.

Edited August 13, 2007 by Gregory DG

[thomasholzer]

As for most "important", meaning ones that were the most innovative and created a significant impact on the industry in general:

 

Atari 2600

Intellivision

NES

Sega Genesis

PS1

I could almost agree with that except for the Intellivision. How did it have an important impact on the industry?

 

 

first 16-bit console

Edited August 13, 2007 by thomasholzer

[Artlover]

As for most "important", meaning ones that were the most innovative and created a significant impact on the industry in general:

 

Atari 2600

Intellivision

NES

Sega Genesis

PS1

I could almost agree with that except for the Intellivision. How did it have an important impact on the industry?

 

 

first 16-bit console

If we're going to consider the Intellivision 16 bit, then we need to consider the Jaguar 32bit for the same reasons.

 

Otherwise, using the same logic that defines the Jag as 64, the intellivision is, infact, 10 bit.

[thomasholzer]

Intellivision was the first 16-bit game console, though some people have mistakenly referred to it as a 10-bit system because the CPU's instruction set and game cartridges are 10 bits wide. A 10-bit chunk of data is called a "decle". The registers in the microprocessor, where the mathematical logic is processed, were 16 bits wide.

 

Here's another important fact while Intellivision was important:

 

The Intellivision was also the first system to feature downloadable games (though without a storage device the games vanished once the machine was turned off). In 1981, General Instrument (manufacturer of the Intellivision's CPU) teamed up with Mattel to roll out the PlayCable, a device that allowed the downloading of Intellivision games via cable TV.

 

 

As for Jaguar 64-bit, please refer to John Mathieson (the father of Jaguar):

Interview with JM, Book 'Jaguar Gamer's Guide', page 231.

Your logic?/query will be answered there.

Edited August 13, 2007 by thomasholzer

[Gregory DG]

How did it have an important impact on the industry?

first 16-bit console

IMO, I don't think that's a significant enough reason considering that the CV, 7800, NES, SMS and other systems until 1989 (Genesis) went "back" to using 8-bit CPUs. Plus, the Inty wasn't popular enough to make people stand up and notice. If you had said the control disc, you might have had me.

Edited August 13, 2007 by Gregory DG

[BydoEmpire]

Hmmm... no particular order:

 

Atari 2600 - long live the King! I was tempted to say 7800 due to backwards compatibility, but I have a bigger soft spot for the 'original'.

 

NES - Tons of classics in almost every genre. Mario 1-3, Zelda, Metroid, Kid Icarus, RC Pro Am. I probably played the SMS a bit more (and still do), but if I had to choose between them I'd still go with the NES due to it's great library.

 

SNES - SF2, Mario Kart, Super Mario World, Super Metroid, tons of RPGs, platformers, shooters. Great system all around, though I personally don't collect for it. It's a really close call for me between this and the Genny, but I like the SNES a bit more. Ask me tomorrow and I might change my mind.

 

Dreamcast - my favorite 'modern era' system, by a wide margin. PSO, Shenmue 1&2, Soul Calibur, etc.

 

Intellivision - my oddball 'personal' pick, since it was my family's first console. The D&D games, great sports games, great unique stuff like Utopia and Night Stalker. I hadn't played mine for a long time, but since CGE I've been back on the bandwagon bigtime. I really love the games for the Inty, and it squeeks by into my top 5.

 

[Edit] If we're not talking consoles only, I'd have to dump the SNES for the c64.

Edited August 13, 2007 by BydoEmpire

[Zonie]

What are your five favorite game systems of all time?

 

Mine are:

 

1. PlayStation2

2. ColecoVision

3. NES

4. Atari 2600

5. Super NES

 

To read my reasons for the inclusion of each system, click on the following:

 

http://brettweisswords.blogspot.com/

 

 

2600

NES

Atari 400 (It's a console with a keyboard)

Jaguar

Commodore 64. (again designed with games in mind)

[thomasholzer]

How did it have an important impact on the industry?

first 16-bit console

IMO, I don't think that's a significant enough reason considering that the CV, 7800, NES, SMS and other systems until 1989 (Genesis) went "back" to using 8-bit CPUs. Plus, the Inty wasn't popular enough to make people stand up and notice. If you had said the control disc, you might have had me.

 

 

You're right, the Control Disc, forerunner of Nintendo's D-Pad (thumb control), forgot about that (see, I never even played Intellivision). Excellent, well remembered, another important fact which speaks for the importance of Intellivision

Edited August 13, 2007 by thomasholzer

[Jess Ragan]

Here's my "parody" of those "Top Ten Consoles Ever!" lists you see on popular websites.

 

Wow, that list HAS to be a parody if you're putting the Atari Jaguar on it!

 

JR

[Artlover]

In a last ditch effort to rescue the Jaguar, Atari tried to play down these two consoles by proclaiming the Jaguar was the only "64-bit" system. Technically-minded gamers debated the merits of Atari's claim: some felt the Jaguar's principal "64-bit coprocessors" were essentially nothing more than graphics accelerators (with limited programmability), requiring external control from the Jaguar's primary processors; the primary GPU executed a 32-bit instruction-set, while the remaining CPU (68000) was already established to be a 32-bit unit. Others countered that the mere presence of 64-bit ALUs for graphics, was sufficient to validate Atari's claim. Design specs for the console allude to the GPU or DSP being capable of acting as a CPU, leaving the Motorola 68000 to read controller inputs. In practice, though, most developers used the Motorola 68000 to drive gameplay logic and AI

 

I can quote Wiki too.

 

As for Jaguar 64-bit, please refer to John Mathieson (the father of Jaguar):

Interview with JM, Book 'Jaguar Gamer's Guide', page 231.

Your logic?/query will be answered there.

A book I don't have nor plan to buy. Care to post a snippit. Besides, I'm not really sure it would tell me anything I don't already know nor refute my point.

 

In the concept of fair comparison, values mean nothing if we're going to pick & choose which measurement scale we're going to use per device for the sake of getting the result one 'wants" vs what would be actually obtained had the same set of rules been applied across the board.

 

To that end, unless we're going to have a double standard, I believe my point remains valid.

[thomasholzer]

In a last ditch effort to rescue the Jaguar, Atari tried to play down these two consoles by proclaiming the Jaguar was the only "64-bit" system. Technically-minded gamers debated the merits of Atari's claim: some felt the Jaguar's principal "64-bit coprocessors" were essentially nothing more than graphics accelerators (with limited programmability), requiring external control from the Jaguar's primary processors; the primary GPU executed a 32-bit instruction-set, while the remaining CPU (68000) was already established to be a 32-bit unit. Others countered that the mere presence of 64-bit ALUs for graphics, was sufficient to validate Atari's claim. Design specs for the console allude to the GPU or DSP being capable of acting as a CPU, leaving the Motorola 68000 to read controller inputs. In practice, though, most developers used the Motorola 68000 to drive gameplay logic and AI

 

I can quote Wiki too.

 

As for Jaguar 64-bit, please refer to John Mathieson (the father of Jaguar):

Interview with JM, Book 'Jaguar Gamer's Guide', page 231.

Your logic?/query will be answered there.

A book I don't have nor plan to buy. Care to post a snippit. Besides, I'm not really sure it would tell me anything I don't already know nor refute my point.

 

In the concept of fair comparison, values mean nothing if we're going to pick & choose which measurement scale we're going to use per device for the sake of getting the result one 'wants" vs what would be actually obtained had the same set of rules been applied across the board.

 

To that end, unless we're going to have a double standard, I believe my point remains valid.

 

well no, i never claimed the Jaguar to be one or the other (John Mathieson knows the specs of Jaguar, that's good enough for me, after all the creator of the Jaguar has more knowledge about his 'baby' than you by a long shot) , as for Intellivision, it still remains 16-bit (if still in doubt, please refer to the book 'Digital Press Collectors Guide 7th edition', or the book 'Encyclopedia of Game.Machines', or even the Intellivisionlives website (That's also where the Wiki Intellivision info comes from, and trust me, the Blue Sky Rangers know their 'baby' best)). So no picking and choosing, no double standards, just plain facts from people in the know.

Edited August 13, 2007 by thomasholzer

[MCHufnagel]

Please take the Jaguar is/isn't 64 bit back the Jaguar forums. We don't need Classic Gaming General to fall to that level.

 

Thomas, can't you ever enter a thread without bashing Nintendo?

 

Anyway, my top five, in no particular order:

 

Genesis w/ Sega CD

Dreamcast

Gamecube w/ GBPlayer

PSX

2600

[darthkur]

As for most "important", meaning ones that were the most innovative and created a significant impact on the industry in general:

 

Atari 2600

Intellivision

NES

Sega Genesis

PS1

I could almost agree with that except for the Intellivision. How did it have an important impact on the industry?

 

I'd put the Gameboy in it's place.

 

 

Besides the points the Tomas made I'll add that besides the disc controller portion being a precursor to the D-Pad the keyboard part of it also was revolutionary. True, the APF M1000 featured a joystick/keyboard combo in the previous year. But where the INTV is well renowned and sold millions of units, the APF was a commercial failure and is relatively unknown, even amongst classic gamers. In addition to the unique controllers the Intellivision showcased characters that moved with fluidity and appeared, at that time, quite realistic. Namely in the sports games this is evident along with others such as Night Stalker and AD&D.

All of these attributes the console possessed along with the INTV's market saturation made my choice to include it in the "most important" top 5 seem entirely logical.

[Artlover]

as for Intellivision, it still remains 16-bit (if still in doubt, please refer to the book 'Digital Press Collectors Guide 7th edition', or the book 'Encyclopedia of Game.Machines', or even the Intellivisionlives website (That's also where the Wiki Intellivision info comes from, and trust me, the Blue Sky Rangers know their 'baby' best)).

I do not doubt the Intellivision classification, as it uses the same standard as most other consoles. My issue is with the other console. See new thread in Jaguar forum.

 

 

Please take the Jaguar is/isn't 64 bit back the Jaguar forums. We don't need Classic Gaming General to fall to that level.

True, sorry.

[Shawn]

The 5 greatest IMO are:

 

PONG

7800

NES

SNES

WII

[thomasholzer]

Taking it back to the Classic Forum:

 

To continue from another thread.

 

well no, i never claimed the Jaguar to be one or the other (John Mathieson knows the specs of Jaguar, that's good enough for me, after all the creator of the Jaguar has more knowledge about his 'baby' than you by a long shot)

And of course the creator of something would never be biased in any way?

 

 

Anywho, I'm still waiting for for snippet from page 231 of 'Jaguar Gamer's Guide' so I can be on the, ehm, same page, as you, excuse the pun.

 

I did find this in surfing around..

Jaguar has a 64-bit memory interface to get a high bandwidth out of cheap DRAM. ... Where the system needs to be 64 bit then it is 64 bit, so the Object Processor, which takes data from DRAM and builds the display is 64 bit; and the blitter, which does all the 3D rendering, screen clearing, and pixel shuffling, is 64 bit. Where the system does not need to be 64 bit, it isn't. There is no point in a 64 bit address space in a games console! 3D calculations and audio processing do not generally use 64-bit numbers, so there would be no advantage to 64 bit processors for this. Jaguar has the data shifting power of a 64 bit system, which is what matters for games, so can reasonably be considered a 64 bit system. But that doesn't mean it has to be 64 bits throughout.

In my view, this is picking and choosing. This is nothing but a creative definition to support a particular point. Where I come from and generally, as in the case of the Intellivision for example, core CPU/addressing determines the classification. 2600, 5200, NES, SNES, Genesis, 800, C64, etc..

 

 

In my view that's flexible, just like the 16-bit Intellivision:

The CPU of the Intellivision is the General Instruments CP1610. This is a general purpose 16-bit microprocessor which has 1024 separate op-codes, and can equally well use 8-bit, 10-bit, 14-bit, and 16-bit RAM or ROM. The CP1610 in the Intellivision uses a machine cycle rate of 894.886 KHz. Individual operations on the 1610 take between 4 and 12 microcycles (Note: the CP1600 is the prototypical or conventional form of the microprocessor; the CP1610 used in the Intellivision is precisely the same in all respects except for a differing clock rate.)

 

Not only that, but this flexibility of the Jaguar was, as a matter of fact, quite groundbreaking for its time. And that was the trouble with the Jaguar, it was to complex for most to understand (Just like Artlover doesn't get it perhaps?)

Edited August 14, 2007 by thomasholzer

[thomasholzer]

Please take the Jaguar is/isn't 64 bit back the Jaguar forums. We don't need Classic Gaming General to fall to that level.

 

 

That is your problem if your posts are not of the highest level, mine are always.

[autumn_drag0n]

1.) GameCube - Ditto on the addition of the Game Boy Player creating an untouchable vast library of games. This is my absolute favorite system.

2.) Sega CDX - This is the system I picked up for $25 complete in box at a thrift store that got me back into video games and collecting. I am a big Sega CD and Sega Genesis fan, I can play both on this slick little system.

3.) Game Boy Color - My wife got me one for Christmas in 2001 and once I picked up Harvest Moon 3 GBC and Lufia The Legend Returns I was hooked. This naturally led to my GBA SP, and Nintendo DS.

4.) Playstation 2 - I actually bought a PS2 with birthday money a few years ago so I could play Final Fantasy X-2, I also picked my wife's recommendation Drakhengard (excellent game). This system makes my list due to it's huge library of PS2 and PS1 games that can be played on it.

5.) A tie between the 2600 and the NES, I cut my teeth on these two systems basically at the same time (and my Tandy 1000 EX Personal Computer), the 2600 first of course.

 

Honorable mentions:

Sega 32X

Sega Saturn

Sega Dreamcast

Nintendo 64

Nintendo Wii

Xbox

 

autumn_drag0n

Edited August 14, 2007 by autumn_drag0n

[MCHufnagel]

Please take the Jaguar is/isn't 64 bit back the Jaguar forums. We don't need Classic Gaming General to fall to that level.

 

 

That is your problem if your posts are not of the highest level, mine are always.

Talk about your strawmen! I wasn't the one bringing up the 64 bit argument. The person you were debating decided to bring this back to the Jag forums. I guess keeping things on topic isn't your thing. Even now I regret answering you because of this, but off topic and trolling posts are not of the "highest level". If people wanted to follow this debate they can follow it at the Jag forum. There is no need to pollute this thread with the bitness of the Jaguar.

[Atarifever]

Here's my "parody" of those "Top Ten Consoles Ever!" lists you see on popular websites.

 

Wow, that list HAS to be a parody if you're putting the Atari Jaguar on it!

 

JR

I've seen your "Neo Geo PC" > Turboduo > Gameboy list, and I wouldn't toss stones until you move out of your glass house.

Edited August 14, 2007 by Atarifever

[Artlover]

Opps, wrong thread.

 

BTW,

There is no need to pollute this thread with the bitness of the Jaguar.

For the record, bitness of the Jaguar has nothing to do with what I'm trying to get across. Some are too thick to "get it" are are trying to make it as such. My point is one that is universal across all consoles, computers and generations.

Edited August 14, 2007 by Artlover

[MCHufnagel]

Opps, wrong thread.

 

BTW,

There is no need to pollute this thread with the bitness of the Jaguar.

For the record, bitness of the Jaguar has nothing to do with what I'm trying to get across. Some are too thick to "get it" are are trying to make it as such. My point is one that is universal across all consoles, computers and generations.

I'm sorry if I come across too harsh. But I've seen too many debates about the Jaguar close many a thread here at AA. That's why I mentioned bringing it over to the Jaguar forums where they're used to it.

[JB]

as for Intellivision, it still remains 16-bit (if still in doubt, please refer to the book 'Digital Press Collectors Guide 7th edition', or the book 'Encyclopedia of Game.Machines', or even the Intellivisionlives website (That's also where the Wiki Intellivision info comes from, and trust me, the Blue Sky Rangers know their 'baby' best)).

I do not doubt the Intellivision classification, as it uses the same standard as most other consoles. My issue is with the other console.

Jag is hardly the only system to use a "non-standard" definition.

 

TurboGrafX 16(the first to make it an issue)? 16-bit color pallet = 16-bit system.

NeoGeo? 16-bit CPU+8-bit sound processor = 24-bit system.

Dreamcast? 128-bit graphics processor = 128-bit system.

 

I'm sure I could come up with another example if I tried.

But thankfully, console manufacturers quit claiming bittages after Dreamcast. So there's a limited number of systems that advertise this utterly meaningless "stat."

 

 

On the computer side.... the IBM PC and XT are commonly considered 8-bit machines. But they used a 16-bit processor with an 8-bit data bus.