have you ever hated a console?

[gdement]

Well if we're talking companies, Microsoft really doesn't bother me. The company that IMO wrecked the game industry (to my own personal taste) is Sony. Starting from the Sega CD days, you could chart a direct relationship between Sony's takeover of the game market and my own loss of interest.

 

Not only did they deal the finishing blows to Atari and Sega, but they're also a movie company, and are most responsible for pushing the design traits I most dislike about modern games. They've done nothing for the industry that I really like.

But I know they're a long ways from leaving the industry given that they dominate it. No matter, there's plenty of pre-Sony stuff to last me a lifetime.

I do have some games on PS2, but if I can get them on Gamecube I prefer that system. More reliable, slightly better hardware and less clunky IMO.

[BDW]

Do I hate any consoles? No. Consoles are made for the sole purpose of enjoyment. Some just excell more that others.

 

 

What I really hate is people. And I hate all of them. Including YOU.

[gdement]

so how did sony kill sega? maybe it was just smarter businessmen playing hardball, you know, capitalism.

I never owned a Dreamcast, and wouldn't have bought one because of the reasons you stated. I had no confidence in their systems after seeing so many hardware releases. So I agree that Sega had their own problems.

 

However, Sony's dumping tactics were a factor as well. They were a behemoth against much smaller companies, so when it comes to selling consoles at a loss, a company like Sony or Microsoft will always win against Nintendo, Sega, or Atari.

 

Of those, only Nintendo is still in hardware, and they had to back down from the high end market to remain competitive.

[Reaperman]

I don't know if I 'hate' any systems, but there are enough that I don't especially care for.

 

3do, cdi, jaguar, 5200, lynx, gamecube, n64 and gamegear come to mind as systems that just don't jive with my style. Not that there isn't some fun associated with them, just that it never seems to be enough to bother hooking them up. Like I say, I don't 'hate them,' or I certainly wouldn't have them. actually I can't imagine a console ever being worth enough of my energy to hate.

Edited October 2, 2009 by Reaperman

[Rev. Rob]

Microsoft hatred is retarded and is not justified in any instance.

[BDW]

Microsoft hatred is retarded and is not justified in any instance.

True! Bill Gates happens to represent what I want to be when I'm adult.

 

 

 

All together now! Go away antitrust! Go away! *clap* *clap*

[chrisbid]

so how did sony kill sega? maybe it was just smarter businessmen playing hardball, you know, capitalism.

 

 

 

 

 

capitalism, like poker, gives tremendous advantages to players with bigger stacks. an average poker player with a big stack has a better chance of success than a great poker player with a short stack. the dreamcast was great, the playstation 2 was average, and sony used the leverage of its deep pockets to push the dreamcast off the market.

 

i dont worship capitalism, i accept it for its advantages and its flaws. the dreamcast was a superlattive video game platform that was beaten into submission by an inferior platform. at least ive taken comfort in seeing sony's arrogance backfire with the ps3

[godslabrat]

i like the NES, but i hated how nintendo killed the idea of a home arcade machine.

I dunno, I think it was an idea that was due to be killed.

[chrisbid]

 

I dunno, I think it was an idea that was due to be killed.

 

 

 

perhaps now, but not in the mid-late 80's

 

in fact, a home arcade port, street fighter ii, was the killer app that put the snes on the map

[godslabrat]

 

I dunno, I think it was an idea that was due to be killed.

 

perhaps now, but not in the mid-late 80's

 

in fact, a home arcade port, street fighter ii, was the killer app that put the snes on the map

 

When gaming started, arcade hardware and console hardware were vastly different. Over the course of time, they've gotten closer together, and today there's ALMOST nothing to separate them (provided you have the interest and money). During that "converging" period, I'd say the NES was the point at which it first seemed possible that the arcade could be replicated in the home. Granted, that wouldn't REALLY happen for another 10 years, but NES games were much closer to their arcade counterparts than ports on the Atari or INTV. More and more, arcade games stopped being the draw, and game companies were pushed to make games that would make the most of the home experience. The "arcade at home" dream was a thrill when there was just no way it could ever happen... but when technology got within the ballpark, it ended up not being enough.

 

As for SFII, don't forget that arcades had begin their decline by that point, and SFII was the game that "saved" them for a while. Sure, fighter games moved a lot of systems in the early 90s, but so did Super Mario World, F-Zero, etc.

 

Take the NES out of the picture for a moment, and let's imagine the late 80s was only a competition between the SMS and the 7800. Both systems had a stronger emphasis on arcade ports. Even without Mario, wouldn't the market have STILL been hungry for new gaming experiences, and deferred to the system that started providing more unique content?

[BydoEmpire]

I've never met a game system I couldn't like.

Agreed 100%. There are good games on every system I've played and yes, even the Game.com (Tiger Casino wasn't terrible). There are certainly systems I don't play much, or system that don't have lots of games I like, or systems that have awful controllers, but all those systems still have something worth playing.

 

I really wanted to hate the original Xbox, but Panzer Dragoon Orta and other great Sega titles, followed by stuff like Knights of the Old Republic turned me around.

[gdement]

so how did sony kill sega? maybe it was just smarter businessmen playing hardball, you know, capitalism.

 

 

 

 

 

capitalism, like poker, gives tremendous advantages to players with bigger stacks. an average poker player with a big stack has a better chance of success than a great poker player with a short stack. the dreamcast was great, the playstation 2 was average, and sony used the leverage of its deep pockets to push the dreamcast off the market.

 

i dont worship capitalism, i accept it for its advantages and its flaws. the dreamcast was a superlattive video game platform that was beaten into submission by an inferior platform. at least ive taken comfort in seeing sony's arrogance backfire with the ps3

I pretty much do worship capitalism, but I agree product dumping can be a problem in David vs Goliath cases. That tactic is supposedly illegal, but I'm not sure it's really enforced. It's generally accepted that console manufacturers lose money on hardware, but since Sony/Microsoft can afford it much more than Sega/Nintendo, it became a problem for the latter.

I'm not sure how much a role that played in PS2 vs Dreamcast, but I do believe it was a factor. Sega didn't have enough money left after all their failures to go head to head against Sony. I think Dreamcast's failure was about 80% Sega's own fault, but Sony's deep pockets sealed their fate.

 

However, if Sega had a better track record, they should have been able to raise needed money from investors. I don't know the details of their financial history but I'm sure not many banks/people were willing to hand them more money after all their screwups.

The weakness for big companies though, is that they grow stupid and inefficient. That's where the smaller competitor can run circles around them. But they need investors to make that happen.

 

 

Just to clarify my attitude, I don't really blame Sony for playing hardball. I just think they suck.

[ntavio]

One word: Intellivision

I did not like those controllers at all.

 

Exactly. Too complicated.

[Video]

Dreamcast did good the first year. But by the time the PS2 released, it had simply stalled out. And it wasn't Sony's deep pockets either. People seem to forget, as a game console, the PS2 pretty much stalled out the gate too. What sold the PS2 most the first year, was NOT a game....but a movie. I think Matrix was the hottest home movie of the time, and guess what? PS2 happened to be a cheap end DVD player, as well as a game machine. For the price of a DC year one, you could buy a PS2 and watch movies, as well as play games.

 

It a lot of ways, the PS2 launch, is a lot like the PS3 launch, except...well...people don't seem nearly impressed by a meer resolution increase (remember, DVD gave you a LOT of advantages over the previous formats. (including several resolution increases, as it was better than VHS, then when you upgraded to ED or HD you got another increase ) So well, PS3 is selling largely as a movie player that happens to play games, but it's just not enough, especially when all the competition does too, and released earlier to boot

 

Personally, had the DC had a DVD in it day one, it would have been a quiet a bit more expensive that first year, but, it may have held out when the PS2 came out. We'll never know either way.

[Segataritensoftii]

N64 (only because of the 3D rage where you're tiny, but the world around you was HUGE)

3D rage? I don't think you know what you're talking about.

 

Now that right there is what true 3D rage looks like.

[Seob]

N64 (only because of the 3D rage where you're tiny, but the world around you was HUGE)

3D rage? I don't think you know what you're talking about.

 

Now that right there is what true 3D rage looks like.

I liked the dual voodoo2 12mb setup better. I only had one 12mb voodoo2 but i would have liked to see a dual 12mb voodoo2 in action, back in the days.

[CV Gus]

Having been around since the first "Pong" game hit the arcades, and thus having seen the home systems from Day One, there are a few observations to be made:

 

1) Arcade-To-Home. One of the BIG reasons to own a home console was to play home versions of arcade games. Since the arcade lifespan of the vast majority of arcade games was measured in mere months, once it was gone, then unless you could travel the world to find an arcade machine (on-line emulation did not exist in any modern sense of the word), the home version was IT. Period.

The problem was, and maybe still is, the fact that home versions had the game rigged against them from the start. A home console had to be able to do many things; an arcade game could be geared to do just one, especially with unusual controls (steering wheels, guns, etc.). You could rarely expect a console that ran about $200.00 to truly match the most recent arcade machines that weighed hundreds of pounds and cost a few thousand. The simple fact was that arcade technology, especially from about 1978 through 1984, was evolving at a fantastic pace, while home consoles could not, except via chips in the cartridges, and this could not overcome the difference, just lessen it somewhat.

Therefore, it would be unfair to hate any system for failing to match an arcade game, unless it was obviously a cheap effort (why a 3-screen NES version? Why not a 4-screen CV version of DKJr., when such did exist after a time, in the first place?). Even then, budgets were a problem, as were schedules. If a home console did a good job overall of arcade games, and had a good variety of non-arcade titles as well, what more could one expect, really?

 

 

2) Capitalism does not always yield the best. As mentioned earlier, a company with an inferior system but a huge budget can overwhelm a superior system by sheer mass. For one thing, they can buy up more arcade (and other) titles, especially the most popular. So a better system may not have as many games as one would like, through no fault of "its" own. You just have to make the best choices you can, that's all.

[Seob]

the system that had the best home arcade experience was the neo geo aes. It was THE home arcade system back then. Only an adapter is needed to play a mvs neogeo arcade game.

[JamesD]

After further thought... I didn't really hate the 2600. The 2600 fanatics that went on and on about it drove me nuts though.

[BDW]

After further thought... I didn't really hate the 2600. The 2600 fanatics that went on and on about it drove me nuts though.

Get over it. When you're on Atariage you're surrounded by them.

[Eltigro]

Turbo Graffix 16

 

Nuff said.

 

hey!

[Rev. Rob]

I was no fan of PS2 for the first year or so.

 

[mos6507]

I hated the NES because of what it represented. It represented a cultural shift from american consoles to Japanese. I was really too old to be enthralled by Super Mario Brothers. So the whole side scroller fascination was kind of lost on me. All I knew was the consoles I associated with the home gaming universe were being swept aside and the NES and SMS were taking their place. The NES much more than the SMS felt Japanese, and I mean Japanese in a 1970s Datsun sort of way. And I just didn't go for it. I didn't like the color palette or the cutesiness or the joypads that emphasized the left thumb over the right hand. And I resented the fact that the Generation Y was falling for this stuff hook line and sinker. Nintendo Power magazine, The Glove, the emphasis on "megabits" and all the stuff that really signified the switch between classic gaming and the modern era of disposable, sequelitis gaming.

 

So the NES to me was like rap/hip-hop in the music world, the dividing line on the generation gap.

Edited October 26, 2009 by mos6507

[Classic Pac]

The NES and for this very reason I could never get any games to work in any one of them. Except this one time when I practically took one apart.

[Herbarius]

I hated the NES because of what it represented.

 

For a similar reason I hated the Playstation, it stood for the shift from classic, precise 2D games to the new 3D games. Games that are supposed to be better than the old ones, but really aren't. Games that lots of people liked, while leaving me baffled how you could like games like that. Those genereation of 3D games didn't even look good, in my eyes, it took several more years until it was bearable, especially on the consoles (PC 3D games tended to looked better because of the higher resolution). The controls are imprecise, the graphics are hard to make out. Also it started the trend of more and more games looking and playing very much alike. (I'm aware that much of those statements are highly subjective, but I'd think here are people who feel the same.)

 

Well, "hate" is perhaps too strong a word, but I really never really cared about the Playstation. I saw and played it once - I still remember the occasion, it was a buddy's birthday, who got it as a present - and thought "well, it's fine, I guess..." and that was it.

Edited October 26, 2009 by Herbarius