"Soulless" consoles

[youki]

Without hesitation : Playstation 1 and following Sony consoles...

[Emehr]

I equate "soul" with "character". In that regard, I'd say any console whose games are indistinguishable from other consoles lacks character. If someone showed me two side-by-side screenshots of a PS3 game next to an Xbox360 game, I'll be damned if I could tell which game belonged to which console. NES games have a certain look and sound. 2600 games have a certain look and sound. Same for Lynx, SMS, Genesis, SNES, and pretty much everything before the Gamecube/Xbox/PS2 era. Screen resolutions, number of colors, and the unique non-digitized sound translated to a distinct experience for each of these systems.

 

Seems like during the Gamecube/Xbox/PS2 era video game consoles became more homogenized. They all push countless polygons, have more colors than can be counted, and have digitized sound that can be reproduced equally between all three systems.

 

Consoles are becoming more like appliances. My Toshiba VCR is no different from my Zenith VCR (yes, I still own VCRs, lol). They both play the same movies. The only real difference is the user interface. The video game industry would be better off just agreeing to a certain spec for a console, letting anybody produce it (Magnavox, Philips, Emerson, LG, Zenith, etc.), and just concentrate on the games. When the system runs its course, draft up another unit. I'm not sure how much longer consumers will put up with having three different consoles in their home that play pretty much the same games. In the past it was more excusable because the differences between systems was more profound. Nowadays? Not so much...

[cimerians]

The Atari 2600 has a soul.

 

All others are soulless.

 

I swallowed their souls

 

[The_Laird]

I always thought Sonic was a bit more "cool" and grown up than Mario. He was certainly percieved that way over here but then again Sega was always seen as being more grown up than Nintendo over here anyway.

 

Ok then what about these other SMS games: Pit-Fighter, Streets Of Rage, Shadow Dancer, Golden Axe, Populous, Altered Beast, Alien 3, Chase HQ, Prince Of Persia, G-Loc, Forgotton Worlds, T2: Arcade Game, Xenon 2 and I could go on.

 

I personally have never owned a SMS but prefered the games line up and so did the large majority of people in Europe.

[Underball]

Sega Master System. It was available as an alternative to NES, but the library was relatively boring, and the console labored in anonymity for many years. Nobody I knew had a Sega Master System. NES ruled.

Exact opposite here. I was one of two guys with an SMS, in a neighborhood dominated by the NES. The NES was graphically weaker, The games were mostly boring shovelware, flickery and drab looking, and eventually everyone's NES stopped working and gave you the blinking light "FU" all the time. What a hunk of useless junk.

[mbd30]

Ok then what about these other SMS games: Pit-Fighter, Streets Of Rage, Shadow Dancer, Golden Axe, Populous, Altered Beast, Alien 3, Chase HQ, Prince Of Persia, G-Loc, Forgotton Worlds, T2: Arcade Game, Xenon 2 and I could go on.

 

Altered Beast

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWodzARyo2Q

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmCH9Uv2wNU&feature=related

 

 

That's an interesting comparison of the two systems' graphical capabilities.

 

 

Although it's probably better to play the Genesis version instead of either... other than for the novelty of playing it on an 8-bit console. Same goes for a lot of these high profile SMS titles that you list.

[The_Laird]

WOW!

 

I had never seen the NES version or even knew there was one. Thats certainly a massive one-up for the SMS right there!

[+save2600]

SMS suffered from confused marketing over here. Most all those higher-end titles and others not mentioned, were released in Europe - NOT in the U.S. The SMS is a great little system and the later titles really did shine. Too bad it wasn't marketed a little earlier (year or two) in America and allowed to flourish before the Genesis was released. Sega does have a tendency (understatement) to kill off and not support their systems prematurely. Regardless, I gotta admit I have a lot of love for the SMS and its library.

[Flojomojo]

For me it would be the Sega CD. Very bad games, ever play Bug?

Now it was bleeding edge for it's day, but almost every game was a lame video sprinkled with bad gameing.

Bug was on Saturn, not Sega CD. Saturn had soul. Sega CD did too, if you scratched the surface and found the good stuff (shooters, RPGs, quirky full-motion video games)

 

Here's what I think about the "soulless" idea:

 

a. Obscure/lame/failed consoles that didn't get a lot of support can be seen as lacking "soul" since they never got enough love for people to bond with them. However, machines like Jaguar (Aliens vs Predator, Tempest 2000), or Odyssey 2 (Pick Axe Pete, Turtles) often had few enough games where they could have a style of their own. You can be lame but still have a "soul."

 

b. Mega-popular machines that got hundreds of titles and dozens of major hits can be seen as lacking "soul" since they have no central identity. But such a machine will be different things to different people, and there's something for everyone. Someone might love the Playstation One because he played Madden on it as a kid, but for me it will be the Wipeout XL machine.

 

The question is so ambiguous as to be meaningless, but I suppose that's one way to spark conversation.

[Seob]

I wouldn't consider the CD-i a console... It's a bit like calling the Nuon a console. (it was a medial player with some added games -though I think there was a more console oriented version as well)

The Laseractive was a console (and media player), the 3DO was a console (though promoted with multimedia capabilities as a primary feature), but I don't really think the CD-i was.

The Cd-i is as much as a console as is the laseractive. The laseractive being a laserdisc player that could play console games with the right expension module. The cd-i a multiplayer system, that could play movies when a mpeg decoder was installed.

In fact Philips first intended to sell the system as a multimedia player, that could play games and with a expension module, movies. Later on in it's live it was marketed as a gaming system that could play movies. The console version of the cd-i you refer to is the model 450 or 550. 550 is the one that came with a mpeg module factory installed.

 

And as i said before, i love all my consoles or any device that let's me play games.

[Jess Ragan]

I don't think the question is entirely out of bounds. Some game systems were designed simply to cash in on the market, and not much love was put into their design or their software library. A few examples include:

 

EMERSON ARCADIA 2001: A 1970s-class console, released in the 1980s as competition for the Atari 5200, ColecoVision, and Vectrex. Even if there had been no crash this thing would have been forgotten about in a week. Screechy sound, graphics that look like twitching microbes, painfully derivative (and just plain painful!) controllers, a lack of any compelling games... even the box artwork is a mess, painted in watercolors by a man who was half-blind and completely stupid. This machine had "cash-in" written all over it.

 

ATARI JAGUAR: A sad-sack system fueled solely by nostalgia and the empty promises of the Tramiel family. Their increasingly desperate sales pitches ran the gamut from "It's Atari! Remember Atari? You liked Atari once, right?" to "It's made in America! If you don't buy American, shame on you!" The Jaguar's capabilities were frequently exaggerated by the Tramiels, who claimed that it was as good as the Playstation and better than the Saturn. Wow Jack, you almost said that with a straight face!

 

GIZMONDO: The crown prince of half-baked handhelds, designed as the keystone of a convoluted scam by the Swedish mafia. The machine had some vision, with powerful hardware on the inside and a comfortable shell on the outside (courtesy of early technology fashionista Rick Dickenson) but the software selection was the absolute pits, consisting of old, broken computer games like Point of Destruction and Trailblazer. A super-slow boot-up time and a high price wasn't helping this handheld much either. The best game on the system? Sticky Balls. Yeah...

 

GAME.COM: If the Gizmondo was the crown prince of half-baked handhelds, the game.com will forever rule as the king. Tiger burst out of the starting gate, then tripped and broke its leg, with a commercial telling players that its portable "had more games than you have brain cells." Yes, but are any of them good? That's what I thought. Pathetic performance from the cheap-ass hardware, coupled with a screen so blurry it's barely visible, combine to form what could be the worst game system of all time.

[CGQuarterly]

Jess makes a good point. If we want to talk about consoles that didn't have any love put into them being soulless, then that makes sense. The consoles that he lists definitely don't seem like they were conceived or designed by people who took gaming seriously, and who just wanted to try and cash in.

 

People who somehow think that Sony or Sega is evil while Nintendo is awesome need to do some reading. Their business practices in the NES days were deplorable. And the whole idea that optical discs ruined gaming or that the Playstation wasn't a good console - that's just the silliest thing I've read around here in a while. Are you PSX haters just Nintendo fanboys or something? I'm not trying to be rude in asking that, but I can't understand why else someone would have such negative feelings for the console. It has a ton of great games, along with the requisite shovelware.

 

I really can't think of any mainstream console that doesn't have a ton of great games, so once again I really don't see where most of you are coming from. The only thing I can think is that either there is some fanboyism going on or some of you simply haven't played very many games on some of these consoles. I feel like anyone who could say that the Master System has no soul just doesn't have a general appreciation for games or something. Blows my mind, really.

 

Chris

[The_Laird]

Jess makes a good point. If we want to talk about consoles that didn't have any love put into them being soulless, then that makes sense. The consoles that he lists definitely don't seem like they were conceived or designed by people who took gaming seriously, and who just wanted to try and cash in.

 

If that is the case then in no way possible can you include the Jaguar. Not only was it released by Atari (ok a Tramiel version it can be argued) but was developed by Flare in the UK many of which can trace their routes back to the Sinclair Spectrum which started the computer revolution in the UK and was many a Brits first intoduction to gaming. They designed the Jag as the ultimate games machine for that time and its just a shame tehy never got the chance to iron out the bugs in the hardware and were not supported as well as they should have been by the Tramiels. Either way for me the Jag has tons of soul, not only in some classic games but also as the the last in line of the Atari legacy. RIP Atari we miss you.

[godslabrat]

People who somehow think that Sony or Sega is evil while Nintendo is awesome need to do some reading. Their business practices in the NES days were deplorable. And the whole idea that optical discs ruined gaming or that the Playstation wasn't a good console - that's just the silliest thing I've read around here in a while. Are you PSX haters just Nintendo fanboys or something? I'm not trying to be rude in asking that, but I can't understand why else someone would have such negative feelings for the console. It has a ton of great games, along with the requisite shovelware.

 

 

This is a great point, and I'd like to clarify where I'm coming from. I don't hate the Playstation... I do have one. Actually, I have all three Playstation consoles. No, what I hate is what happened to the industry in the wake of the Playstation. Specifically:

 

1) Making the distinction between "hardcore" and "casual" gamers. I see both labels as inaccurate and condescending. They only serve to divide gamers along artificial lines. Granted, this started with Sega's "Our system has ATTITUDE, theirs doesn't!" mantra, but it seems Sony took that notion and ran with it.

 

2) Defining children's games according to their graphics and themes rather than their difficulty level. This leads to a lot of people missing out on some great games because they're miscategorized.

 

3) Making it attractive for developers to use CD-ROM's massive space for FMV/3D, rather than larger and more complex games. There were lots of genres from previous generations of gaming that were *dying* for a rebirth from the then-new CD-ROM disc. Sony encouraged developers to scrap those ideas in favor of their next-gen models.

 

And also, I'm not saying Nintendo is a perfect company who does no wrong... but I dare say they "left" the industry better than they found it. Compare gaming in the post-crash world to its state when Nintendo lost most of its marketshare (1996, for the sake of argument). I don't need to approve of Nintendo's licensing or distributing policies, but I can say I was impressed with the variety of games I found on their consoles... and how they prompted Sega to compete for my dollars.

[+LS650]

Are you PSX haters just Nintendo fanboys or something?

Dang, can't a guy hate both PSX and Nintendo?

[PsychoKittyNet]

Aren't consoles intristicly souless? :3 Well, aside from waxing philosophic, the question at had is entirely subjective. For instance, I find charm in all retro consoles, even the bad ones, heck even my 360 has a bit of charm to me. Now I like my PS3 as well, the only issue I have with the PSX, as it has been mentioned is the rise of "hardcore" gamers. The title is dumb to me, since I can't seem to get a consitant definition, and just comes down to snobbery. Another issue here seems to be NES vs SMS. I never owned a SMS but I would love to get one for my collection. However, agin the arbitary distinction between the two saying the SMS was more "grown up" thus some how better makes little sense to me. Reminds me of awhile back when I was looking for some of the Capcom Disney cartoon titles, (Duck Tales, Rescue Rangers etc.) and the guy at the store thought it was weird I was asking for games based on "kiddie shows". Clearly the guy never played the actual games, because while I don't watch the shows, the games are solid platformers, some of the best you can find.

[Koopa64]

I think the analogy, "A souless console is one without distinction. A complete feel of generic-ness from it's 1st party support" is the best. Isn't that what soul is in any other medium? Distinction? That uniqueness that makes the subject item (in this case a console) very memorable and recognizable. Somebody's example here was fantastic. If you took a picture of an NES game, you'd know in an instant that the game belonged to the NES. If you took a picture of a 360 game, you probably wouldn't be able to tell whether it was for the 360, PS3 or PC if there weren't any displayed buttons.

 

Going by that reference, I'd have to agree with the many other users here that all the PlayStation consoles lack a "soul" (AKA, distinction from other consoles, most commonly determined through 1st party software). For the longest, I didn't think Sony actually made many (if any) games. I thought the PS1 and PS2 were fueled by third party support. I did know Shadow of the Colossus on PS2 was made by Sony, but definitely not God of War. That came as a total surprise to me.

[DracIsBack]

saying the SMS was more "grown up" thus some how better makes little sense to me. Reminds me of awhile back when I was looking for some of the Capcom Disney cartoon titles, (Duck Tales, Rescue Rangers etc.) and the guy at the store thought it was weird I was asking for games based on "kiddie shows". Clearly the guy never played the actual games, because while I don't watch the shows, the games are solid platformers, some of the best you can find.

 

 

Same. There were more grown up games like Golden Axe, but it also had stuff like MICKEY MOUSE: CASTLE OF ILLUSION, multiple SONIC games and ALEX KIDD IN MIRACLE WORLD

[Emehr]

And just to clarify my post, just because I think a console lacks character (or soul, or whatever) doesn't mean I don't enjoy it. Something can lack soul and still be likable in its own way.

[shadow460]

The two that come closest to being soulless for me are the Watara SuperVision and the M2. The SuperVision, while it did have its own feel to the games, it felt like the games were all carbon copies of someone else's idea. Crystball was a breakout clone, Pacific Battle was a clone of Power Mission.

 

I mention the M2 because what I've read indicates that the system's heart of games was ripped completely out. I don't know for sure, but some things I read say it was changed to a set top box before being discontinued, some say it was sold as an interactive device to be used in various showrooms. I wanted to see World Championship Racing in action, personally, but I don't know if it was ever ported or any of the code was reused.

 

Piece of $#!^ consoles? Read the forums to find out which one I think fits that description. IMO, it's a console that should have been buried in a nuclear waste dump so that its makers could have spent the time and effort on their next console which, according to what's on the Internet, saw mild success. I'm not going to mention what consoles I speak of here, though, other than to say I own them both and the one never gets played.

Edited June 25, 2010 by shadow460

[SRGilbert]

Of the systems I own, I'd have to go with the TG16. Everything about it, from the system shell, the controller, the cart/cards, ect., seems sub-par to me.

[misspent_youth]

Though I love the system, I'd have to mention 3DO just because the 'console' was really a set of specs that 3DO licensed to whatever hardware manufacturer wanted to produce one. I mean, a console with Panasonic, Sanyo and Goldstar's name attached to it? Ugh. On the other hand, it was a novel idea for it's time, and pretty well executed, until Sony came along with the better overall package and the timing that was mentioned earlier.

 

Also, I don't know if it counts as a console, but 32X gets on here. Saturn deserves a dishonorable mention, since it was rushed out with an ill-conceived final design just because they wanted to keep up with the Jonses/Sonys.

[kool kitty89]

Agreed. While there are systems that I am not all that jazzed up about owning or playing (mostly due to them just not having that warm, fuzzy, nostalgic feeling), this idea is ridiculous.

 

Consoles by Sony and Microsoft are soulless because they were made by mega-corporations. But consoles made by Nintendo have souls, because Nintendo is not a mega-corporation. Huh? Last time I checked, Nintendo was still doing pretty well for themselves.

 

I guess I can understand seemingly everyone getting all gooey over Sega. Especially, the cute and cuddley Dreamcast. The little system that couldn't survive the terrible onslaught from the hell demons Sony and Microsoft. Ugh, it's called business, get over it.

 

It's like me with Planters Cheez Balls. I used to enjoy them, but they are no longer in production.

 

DAMN YOU, CHEETOS! DAMN YOU!

 

I think the thing about MS and Sony is that they didn't start as game companies compared to Nintendo (very old company, started with playing cards iirc) and Sega (started with coin-op games, slot machines and such, though it's traced to 2 separate companies from the 40s/50s -Rosen Enterprises and Service Games)

 

But honestly I agree, that's not fair at all. Besides, what makes the console is the software, not the hardware. (obviously you need at least decent hardware -including things like the controller- and marketing is a factor as well -all ties into developer interest)

 

Sony and MS were doing games in-house prior to that (in both cases they expanded upon that by buying up 3rd parties, though in Sony's case Psygnosis remained more of a separate entity with more freedom), and there's other big corporations that were publishing well before that, like JVC (though they never produced the own console unless you count things like the Wondermega).

And, of course, there's NEC, and I don't think anyone with much knowledge of the TG-16 and PCE/CD would claim that console had less soul so to speak. (did a terrible job marketing it in the US though and never released it in Europe or other western regions outside North America -I think it got a Canadian release)

 

 

Now Sony's entrance to the Arena had other impacts on the industry, but that's a separate issue.

 

 

 

Every console made after 1984.

So the Famicom/NES would count?

 

 

 

Jess makes a good point. If we want to talk about consoles that didn't have any love put into them being soulless, then that makes sense. The consoles that he lists definitely don't seem like they were conceived or designed by people who took gaming seriously, and who just wanted to try and cash in.

 

If that is the case then in no way possible can you include the Jaguar. Not only was it released by Atari (ok a Tramiel version it can be argued) but was developed by Flare in the UK many of which can trace their routes back to the Sinclair Spectrum which started the computer revolution in the UK and was many a Brits first intoduction to gaming. They designed the Jag as the ultimate games machine for that time and its just a shame tehy never got the chance to iron out the bugs in the hardware and were not supported as well as they should have been by the Tramiels. Either way for me the Jag has tons of soul, not only in some classic games but also as the the last in line of the Atari legacy. RIP Atari we miss you.

Well the Flare guys did a fair amount of their work on the Jaguar while in California at Atari, not in the UK iirc. (and I think it was down to Martin Brennan and John Mathieson at that point, with Ben Chees busy with other things -various consult work including designing the Super FX chip) Brennan definitely completed Panther (as consult work) while in California.

 

And to European users, Atari had a lot more going for it than just nostalgia and didn't have the same outdated stigma as in the States either with the ST being as popular as it was. (I'd imagine that had a stronger connection with the Atari name than the 2600 in many parts of Europe) The ST was all Tramiel, of course.

Too bad they didn't really capitalize on that fact. (Atari Corp was hard pressed at the time and it seems they opted for a US only test market to appeal to investors -primarily in the US- and continued that trend to some extent thereafter -I've seen comments that there was a fair bit of hype in Europe and the UK in particular that ended up falling flat with late releases and numerous shortages -Bad Influence had a rather prominent preview feature too)

 

Given the amount of developer talent in Europe and the general lack of Japanese interest, that only adds to the advantages.

Edited June 25, 2010 by kool kitty89

[kool kitty89]

People who somehow think that Sony or Sega is evil while Nintendo is awesome need to do some reading. Their business practices in the NES days were deplorable. And the whole idea that optical discs ruined gaming or that the Playstation wasn't a good console - that's just the silliest thing I've read around here in a while. Are you PSX haters just Nintendo fanboys or something? I'm not trying to be rude in asking that, but I can't understand why else someone would have such negative feelings for the console. It has a ton of great games, along with the requisite shovelware.

 

 

This is a great point, and I'd like to clarify where I'm coming from. I don't hate the Playstation... I do have one. Actually, I have all three Playstation consoles. No, what I hate is what happened to the industry in the wake of the Playstation. Specifically:

 

1) Making the distinction between "hardcore" and "casual" gamers. I see both labels as inaccurate and condescending. They only serve to divide gamers along artificial lines. Granted, this started with Sega's "Our system has ATTITUDE, theirs doesn't!" mantra, but it seems Sony took that notion and ran with it.

 

2) Defining children's games according to their graphics and themes rather than their difficulty level. This leads to a lot of people missing out on some great games because they're miscategorized.

 

3) Making it attractive for developers to use CD-ROM's massive space for FMV/3D, rather than larger and more complex games. There were lots of genres from previous generations of gaming that were *dying* for a rebirth from the then-new CD-ROM disc. Sony encouraged developers to scrap those ideas in favor of their next-gen models.

 

And also, I'm not saying Nintendo is a perfect company who does no wrong... but I dare say they "left" the industry better than they found it. Compare gaming in the post-crash world to its state when Nintendo lost most of its marketshare (1996, for the sake of argument). I don't need to approve of Nintendo's licensing or distributing policies, but I can say I was impressed with the variety of games I found on their consoles... and how they prompted Sega to compete for my dollars.

 

Those are some great points too and the thing with Nintendo is their grip was shorter lived, mitigated by NEC in Japan (trailed by Sega) and Sega in the west, but never the less, Nintendo's aggressive monopolistic policies did hurt the competition (both hardware and software) unfairly. (and illegally -at least one suit was won -Atari Corp settled out of court but Tengen eventually won their antitrust suit) I think Sony did that even more so in some areas adding huge marketing budgets, deficit spending well beyond what Sega had done, and price dumping. (though not on the Software side of things Nintendo had done)

 

 

As for using CD space, there were quite a few 2D games, but even with that, you never end up getting close to using the capacity of a whole CD. (normally more like 10-15% at most for the time) RedBook audio did take up a ton of space though, and many games had curtailed sound tracks due to that. (or possibly used lower bit rate PCM or streaming ADPCM to address that -that wasn't all that common though) That even happened on the Sega CD (granted with 550 MB CDs primarily) with games running out of space for the full arranged soundtracks. (and cutting the duration of some tracks and supplementing that with hardware synth -the Sega CD did add a nice 8 channel wavetable chip demonstrated well in Silpheed, Novastorm, and Sonic CD's past levels)

Edited June 25, 2010 by kool kitty89

[Smatchmo]

Anything that reads a disc*.

*with the exception of the Turbo Duo and maybe Sega CD and the 3D0 (maybe).

Agreed.

(maybe)

 

XBox/360? Soulless.

GameCube? Had some potential, but not much.

PSX? Oh yeah. Without-A-SOUL, with a capital W-A-S.

Dreamcast?

 

 

ooooooo, Dreamcast? Soul remnants definitely, but an intact soul?

Nah.

 

When the gaming world made the switch from carts (a superior media format, imo) to discs is when I stopped caring about modern gaming. I have a deep love for video games and was brought up on a steady diet (some say ' an unhealthy amount') of video gaming starting early in the early 80s.

I view games on discs and emulators with the same disdain; both are just unnatural-feeling novelties to me and, sure, they're amusing for a time but ultimately, they're utterly soulless ventures.

 

Look at a cart, any loose cart (except maybe Aquarius carts, ugh), and then look at a cd game, and tell me which one speaks to you. Do that and the answer to the question, "which one has a soul?", becomes self-evident.