What's the Worst Console You Ever Played?

[Hwlngmad]

2 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

Most CD-based consoles could be argued to be that, though. At minimum you could play audio CDs and often CD-Gs, and some, you could play Video CDs. Over time, that evolved to DVDs, HD-DVDs, Blu-Rays, 3D Blu-Rays, and Ultra HD Blu-Rays. As such, I'd argue it was just a natural evolution of the game console.

Of course, both CD-i and 3DO pushed their systems as multimedia platforms to more or less of a degree, as did Commodore with the CDTV and Tandy/Memorex with the VIS, and others, and pushed games either as a primary or secondary function, but again, I'd say by pretty much any definition, they're game consoles. It only arguably gets really difficult to properly classify something as a game console when it's something like a Roku, Apple TV, or Android TV. I personally wouldn't call those game consoles, but they can certainly play games, some quite proficiently. But then another argument can be made that past systems like the CD-i, 3DO, CDTV, VIS, etc., were designed with games in mind, either as a primary or secondary function, so they really are game consoles. Something like a Roku, Apple TV, or Android TV, were not expressly designed with games in mind, but can certainly play games - and again, sometimes high-level stuff - because their hardware is so powerful (it of course gets fuzzier when you have something like an Nvidia Shield TV).

Yeah, very true Bill.  For instance, my co-worker has used an Xbox (360 I think) as his multi-media device for years and is looking to upgrade.  However, with the CD-i (as well as the 3DO, CDTV, VIS specifically), I know they tried to play up the multi-media aspect the most, hence my description of it.  Still, I would agree most gaming consoles are multi-media devices too as they can stream from services like Netflix, play 4k Blu Ray discs (like the Xbox One S), and play games.  Rokus, Apple TV, and Android TV boxes I wouldn't call them gaming consoles really.  They are definitely more in the streaming/mulit-media device area imo.  However, I do have a Nvidia Shield TV and that can do some pretty great gaming, although I mainly use it as my streaming/mulit-media device.

[Leeroy ST]

5 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I owned a PC-FX at one time as part of my collection. The FMV was good, but I still feel like the MPEG-equipped CD-i had better video. There was a slight softness and jagginess to the FMV on the PC-FX. But yeah, that library probably had among the highest percentage of FMV-based versus raster-based stuff. 

What happened to it? Sold it and wasn't interested? As I recall there weren't a lot of real games for it unlike the predecessor.

[Leeroy ST]

6 minutes ago, Hwlngmad said:

Yeah, very true Bill.  For instance, my co-worker has used an Xbox (360 I think) as his multi-media device for years and is looking to upgrade.  However, with the CD-i (as well as the 3DO, CDTV, VIS specifically), I know they tried to play up the multi-media aspect the most, hence my description of it.  Still, I would agree most gaming consoles are multi-media devices too as they can stream from services like Netflix, play 4k Blu Ray discs (like the Xbox One S), and play games.  Rokus, Apple TV, and Android TV boxes I wouldn't call them gaming consoles really.  They are definitely more in the streaming/mulit-media device area imo.  However, I do have a Nvidia Shield TV and that can do some pretty great gaming, although I mainly use it as my streaming/mulit-media device.

PSP did as well, I still remember seeing 50-60 year old men with PSP's and headphones for movies, internet, and music and not a single game (as far as I'm aware) outside a couple people and they were playing GTA or simulators like GT. 

 

Also, while 3DO did try to present itself as a media machine the promises never came to fruition outside the MPEG cartridge. It seems 3DO started as a game console first and wanted to become a multimedia device based on all their promises, unlike other which put themselves out as a media powerhouse first than as a gaming console. But it always remained a gaming consoles which is fine by me. 

Edited September 18, 2020 by Leeroy ST

[Bill Loguidice]

3 minutes ago, Hwlngmad said:

Rokus, Apple TV, and Android TV boxes I wouldn't call them gaming consoles really.  They are definitely more in the streaming/mulit-media device area imo.  However, I do have a Nvidia Shield TV and that can do some pretty great gaming, although I mainly use it as my streaming/mulit-media device.

Yeah, it's only gotten fuzzier. I still feel strongly about classifying something like the CD-i, CDTV, and even VIS as game consoles (I think something like the 3DO is not even in question by any reasonable argument), but certainly would never call an Apple TV or Roku game consoles. An Nvidia Shield TV, I could be convinced to call it a game console. Mine came with a game controller and that's one of its main selling points.

In regards to the VIS, I'd place it amongst the worst consoles (assuming you allow it to be called a console, natch) I've ever played along with the RCA Studio II. The VIS is so painfully slow it amazes me they bothered releasing it in that state. 

[Bill Loguidice]

3 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

What happened to it? Sold it and wasn't interested? As I recall there weren't a lot of real games for it unlike the predecessor.

I purged the 1.0 version of most of my collection several years back. It was one of many platforms that just didn't make the cut and one I wouldn't have an interest in re-acquiring. 

[Leeroy ST]

2 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I purged the 1.0 version of most of my collection several years back. It was one of many platforms that just didn't make the cut and one I wouldn't have an interest in re-acquiring. 

There doesn't seem to be much for its library either from what I experienced unless I'm missing some hidden gems. I never had a single game that made use of the switches for example. 

[Bill Loguidice]

3 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Also, while 3DO did try to present itself as a media machine the promises never came to fruition outside the MPEG cartridge. It seems 3DO started as a game console first and wanted to become a multimedia device based on all their promises, unlike other which put themselves out as a media powerhouse first than as a gaming console. But it always remained a gaming consoles which is fine by me. 

There were several video-only releases prior to the MPEG cartridge on the 3DO. Native video quality was definitely sufficient for certain content and I think their plan was to always support that possibility. Like with the educational content, I think the pure video content was put to the wayside when they doubled-down on the gaming stuff (and dropped the pricing as well). I do distinctly remember when it was first released the Woody Woodpecker video discs that would wrap the video around polygonal objects should you so choose for some insane reason (I can't seem to find any YouTube videos on it).

[Hwlngmad]

9 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

Yeah, it's only gotten fuzzier. I still feel strongly about classifying something like the CD-i, CDTV, and even VIS as game consoles (I think something like the 3DO is not even in question by any reasonable argument), but certainly would never call an Apple TV or Roku game consoles. An Nvidia Shield TV, I could be convinced to call it a game console. Mine came with a game controller and that's one of its main selling points.

In regards to the VIS, I'd place it amongst the worst consoles (assuming you allow it to be called a console, natch) I've ever played along with the RCA Studio II. The VIS is so painfully slow it amazes me they bothered releasing it in that state. 

I believe the VIS had the moniker 'Virtually Impossible to Sell' by Radio Shack sales people.  Still, perhaps Radio Shack did a lot of R&D and decided to release it because of machines like the CD-i, CDTV, and 3DO on the market, not to mention the Microsoft connection on the machine.  Also, I think John Hancock not too long ago stated that were was a company selling new old stock a la the Dragon Tano situation in the early 2010s.  Not sure if that is still the case of not, but you want to talk about one heckavu curiosity at this point in time.

[Bill Loguidice]

16 minutes ago, Hwlngmad said:

I believe the VIS had the moniker 'Virtually Impossible to Sell' by Radio Shack sales people.  Still, perhaps Radio Shack did a lot of R&D and decided to release it because of machines like the CD-i, CDTV, and 3DO on the market, not to mention the Microsoft connection on the machine.  Also, I think John Hancock not too long ago stated that were was a company selling new old stock a la the Dragon Tano situation in the early 2010s.  Not sure if that is still the case of not, but you want to talk about one heckavu curiosity at this point in time.

I probably got in on at that at the time. Mine was definitely new.

[Leeroy ST]

21 minutes ago, Hwlngmad said:

I believe the VIS had the moniker 'Virtually Impossible to Sell' by Radio Shack sales people.  

Wikipedia says that but has been at odds with what other staff has said.

 

Regardless the VIS was released mostly because of the CDTV, the VIS was a computer in a console shell just like the CDTV but I think Tandy was nervous about the chance of it falling flat and decided to only sell it in Radio Shacks to see if there was any real interest before going on a mass marketing and logistics campaign, which likely would have made them head toward bankruptcy.

 

VIS did have a wireless controller out of the box though that was nifty. Until you used it.

 

27 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

There were several video-only releases prior to the MPEG cartridge on the 3DO. Native video quality was definitely sufficient for certain content and I think their plan was to always support that possibility. Like with the educational content, I think the pure video content was put to the wayside when they doubled-down on the gaming stuff (and dropped the pricing as well). I do distinctly remember when it was first released the Woody Woodpecker video discs that would wrap the video around polygonal objects should you so choose for some insane reason (I can't seem to find any YouTube videos on it).

It's not just video, they promised keyboard expansions and other things to be a multimedia device which seemed kept being delayed and died off around the time Gex came out when any such rumors or reports all but vanished.

 

 

 

Edited September 18, 2020 by Leeroy ST

[CatPix]

It's not impossible that those expansions where shelved when faced with the low sales of the 3DO, knowing that it wouldn't really make the sales bounce back. Especially with the CDi showing that "multimedia" stuff was not a selling point - despite Philips managing to sell CD-i to museums, driving schools and other interactive-heavy applications.

[Leeroy ST]

As for the CD-i, while the best games machine you still could tell it was a next generation system. FMV games excluded, you still had large sprites, bright colors, standard low-end PC FPS visuals with games like Ram Raid, and it could use FMV to create some nice backgrounds as seen in Mutant Rampage.

 

But it does seem that the CD-i, while maybe a bit more capable than what we've seen, is a pretty weak gaming device even compared to the PC Engine. 

 

Flashback for example was gutted. The sprites are jaggied and have less frames of animation, sprite backgrounds or objects are blurry and pixelated, no music it, few if any voice samples, screen transitions are amazingly slow, borders around the screen, random slowdown in later areas, long load times, lower color count, and some missing enemies in later parts of the game. You may as well have put the game on a cartridge. 

 

I would say that's an outlier but when you look at other attempts to create a stunning 2D title on the CD-i they all seem to have the similar limitations, and since unlike the 3DO, CD-i players need to be in lockstep with Phillips spec guidance, no manufacturer could have launched a slightly more powerful player in an attempt at fixing some of these issues as it would be outside the "rules". 

When you look at games like Laser Lords, the Apprentice, or Ram Raid/Atlantis Last Resort, you are seeing colorful and large sprites but with stilted animation, and when you want to create more details on sprites and environments within larger games, you end up with graphics as seen in Laser Lords. FPS games like Atlantis are very plain with jaggied walls and inconsistent speeds with changing frame rates and that's sometimes without any enemies on the sceen, but just an empty room that has a detailed wall or object. When you do add an enemy sometimes nothing happens until it shoots or you shoot it causing chaos. Anything more than one enemy is a slide show.

 

On further inspection it does seem like the CD-i devices were made like they were supposed to be open-ended computers but forced shut with artificial restrictions. While it's memory and processors would still be a major issue for creating complex games, I do wonder if you could create games that are slightly better in performance if you were to lower how much the OS puts aside for various tasks. 

 

One mistake Phillips made with CD-i is that even after moving to take gaming a bit more seriously, they were still aiming to be the jack of all trades until about 1995 or so when they stopped trying to support software and hardware for the many industries they failed to gain footing in. If they had just moved forward on gaming as a primary goal, maybe keeping the movies as well since CD-i was much better than VHS/LD/VCD at the time, then they may have had more developers involved who could help unlock the potential of the system earlier rather than later, and more online games when they released their internet adapter. 

 

Of all the multimedia machines it was the only one that has a chance at potential. They waited too long to make the right decisions because they were trying really hard to become a cross between a PC and a VHS/LD player. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for the first couple years but after that Phillips made boneheaded mistakes and messed up big. They even lost many of their original partners.

 

I mean Phillips had Sony who was already dealing with multiple game developers BEFORE the PSX, but that didn't matter. They took on a deal with Nintendo backstabbing Sony, and later didn't bother helping promote their discman systems because they wanted to try and gain a ton of music and movie deals with several companies which would only happen by kicking Sony (a competitor) to the curb. Philips had created many of their own wounds.

 

BUT AT THE SAME TIME, I would have been fearful if that business model succeeded. If Phillips goal worked and 10's of millions of CD-i devices were sold and it ate a chunk out of the home video market, video game market, and PC market, than every gaming console from then on may have just been a new Phillips machine with maybe a few features exclusive to certain players made by specific companies. Since they would all still have to mostly follow the new CD-i standard every generation, there wouldn't be much in the way of competition, or even a push for innovation. Everything would basically be stagnant as the gaming world would be locked in an ecosystem that would quickly become stale.

 

So I suppose its failure was for the best. 

 

[Leeroy ST]

42 minutes ago, CatPix said:

It's not impossible that those expansions where shelved when faced with the low sales of the 3DO, knowing that it wouldn't really make the sales bounce back.

That would have been hard to tell. 3DO sales were picking up in 1994 with more big titles and price drops, that's when many of those reports were picking up traction and one of the theories for those promises was that becoming a multimedia machine would make the 3DO more appealing to the mass market, and would cause said market to put 3DO's under their TV in mass. 

 

Remember 3DO freaked out at a $299 PlayStation a year later in 1995. So you have to think from the perspective of the 3DO company in 1994. The 3DO was $499-$399, the Sony and Sega consoles were releasing at the end of the year in japan without having announced any pricing yet, 3DO basically had the  next gen gaming market all to itself, and they had all the new next generation games, some of which couldn't even run stronger PC's of the time.

 

Another thing to remember is the skepticism toward gaming devices until 1996. When the Saturn and PSX did eventually come over seas the sales were still considered "problematic" with Sony's lead being contributed to its deep pockets producing a memorable marketing campaign, but still overall the industry called slow growth. 1996 was when PSX sales became unstoppable and when 3DO was forced to participate in price wars to sell a ton of consoles which killed 3DO's interest in home consoles cancelling 3DO M2 and selling the assets to Panasonic. It did sell more consoles though a $100 3DO during the holidays with 3 games was pretty hot stuff, but you can't make money on that. It's also when the N64 had impressed the NA gaming market and produced higher than usual launch sales.

 

So when you combine both of those you can't really think about the cancellation of multimedia plans in that fashion. There was nothing to "bounce back" from for example, the 3DO was number one in next generation gaming and sales were slowly increasing as the price dropped and games came in, if anything they though it would accelerate their sales but I guess they did some interest tests and they decided to cancel it. The Digital video adapter wasn't generating much excitement when they brought that out, and I would say sales of Gex and Need for Speed played a major part in the decision to cancel as well.

 

I also wouldn't use CDI as an influence of any decision making made by a US company, it sold best in Europe and wasn't that well known in the US. It had a gaming and media niche but was mostly an educational software house in the US. Almost everything else about the CDI was extremely niche so staff at the 3DO company likely only heard of the CD-i by name only, likely when it was hyped before release, if they heard of it at all. They didn't really have an example of how a well-tuned multimedia machine would have worked in the US market. If they had heard of the CD-i that may not have stopped their plans anyway, they likely would have tried to see if they could fix what Phillips did wrong.

Edited September 18, 2020 by Leeroy ST

[Tanooki]

Well I'd argue having been a time period owner of the CDi that it isn't a gaming console, but a multimedia console.  Not only that, it most obviously and blatantly IS just what Bill was saying it's not, an equal to the Roku, Fire Stick and the rest.  It was primarily pitched for music, video cd, education, and games too...not games as the first.  The android and ios 'sticks' do just the same.  They mostly are there for the video (movies to clips), audio, (not available then, internet), and games too.

 

So it being in that list of garbage lying sack of crap quotes there is a solid example as most of the others are of the media lies and abuses of those decades to dupe people when they had it in for a company, console, or whatever else the motivation would be to gin up some anger (like one does now for click bait for ad revenue.)  As Bill also pointed out, CDi had top quality (for then) MPEG video for a better clean experience which they tapped both for their VCD library which had hundreds(high hundreds I think) of choices but also the games that ran anything from overlay clips, part, or full screen stuff.  IT was like the system to get the best run of Dragon's Lair 1+2 and Space Ace in that point of time for one example, but also the quality was topping VHS in its various cleaner forms and got pretty in there closer to laserdisc quality while that was pretty much dead at that rate due to the industry killing it off.

[ColecoKing]

Ngage was pretty garbage.

They fixed it later but basically never fixed the horizontal screen and removed most of the features that people liked about the original Ngage making QD pointless.

Ngage only problem was horizontal screen and needing to go through 10 olympic games to replace cartridges and taco phone call. Now we have these weird aspect ratios that are only playbale on an emulator where you can fix the screen size. For actual hardware it's basically a console that could have been good but was made bad because of dumb decisions. Ngage had great graphics and people did want one at first, they never took advantage of it and QD was a smack in the face now we have less? QD could have had square screen with all features or regular Ngage and fixed phone call, Nokia said nope.

Some places in the unites states didnt even have Ngage games on the shelves or active demos for more than 2 or 3 weeks before they were removed. Some papers had found out late that Ngage was a thing but only by a month or 2 afterlaunch, go out to find it to write on it can't find an Ngage, have to wait for online listing.

[Bill Loguidice]

51 minutes ago, ColecoKing said:

Ngage was pretty garbage.

This is a good one. I had a QD in my collection at one time. It's definitely an "of its time" device. It actually has a surprisingly interesting library, including having versions of The Elder Scrolls and Civilization, but the screen, controls, and how it worked definitely were compromised with trying to do too many things too soon. There are still both phones and add-ons that try to replicate the true mobile gaming experience that the N-Gage hinted at with physical controls on modern smartphones, but they're typically done in more elegant ways thanks to the benefits of newer technology. Certainly one thing that would have helped the N-Gage was to have a touchscreen and only have a few action buttons and the d-pad. Of course, those kinds of touchscreens wouldn't be commonplace for a good 6 years after the N-Gage's introduction, so you can't fault it too much.

[ColecoKing]

Buttons weren't the problem the main problem was Horizontal screen, 14 steps to change games, and taco call and that's all everyone talked about and Nokia took too long to address the problem so interest that was there vanished extremely quick, maybe quicker than any other system.

Qd only need square screen and to streamline features of original Ngage and keep call quality, call quality drop, many features removed, no screen fix. Touch screen would be nice, especially since pen touch screen was a thing, but no need for a PDA device, Ngage was supposed to be a mainstream all in one and it was almost there but QD was stripped down.

Maybe stripped down wouldn't have been too bad, they saw gaming was big part of Ngage and focused only on that but in vain since they never gave us a square screen and cut down the sound quality, though for some games with more basic audio you wouldn't have noticed.

[Leeroy ST]

19 hours ago, Tanooki said:

IT was like the system to get the best run of Dragon's Lair 1+2 and Space Ace in that point of time for one example, but also the quality was topping VHS in its various cleaner forms and got pretty in there closer to laserdisc quality while that was pretty much dead at that rate due to the industry killing it off.

CD-i was noticeably superior to Laserdisc imo unless you had outdated CRTs. I also believe Dragons Lair II was exclusive until the Dragons Lair collection on modern consoles not sure how it got that I guess Philips paid for it. 

Edited September 19, 2020 by Leeroy ST

[Tanooki]

Maybe, never really thought to dig into that as I haven't had a CDi in like nearly 20 years.  Sometimes, I do miss it though as I did enjoy the small selection of things I had for it, plus it did nice doing CD audio too.  At the time I didn't have the best of TV really, more or less mostly lost interest once I did get one of those Sony WEGA/Trinitrons.  I was lowballing the video as i didn't want to look it up and say something that wasn't true.  I was thinking it was nicer than laserdisc but didn't want to rile up some technophile/snob.

 

This is a partial list I'm sure but I had Zelda Link Faces of Evil, Hotel Mario, Lords of the Rising Sun, Caears World of Boxing, Chaos Control, Voyeur, Space Ace, Dragon's Lair, Escape From Cyber City, Mutant Rampage Bodyslam(it's like Final Fight/Neo Geo Mutation Nation), Lil Divil, pretty sure there were a few others but I may have just played them quite a bit on some kiosks then too.  I never bought into the VCD format.  I did use it as my CD player for a long time, and also had like Manhole on there, the Encyclopedia, and a few other odds and ends.  It wasn't long before I got the easy flip over for left/right handed play gravis 4 button controller clone as that thumb stick wasn't all that hot.

[CatPix]

On 9/19/2020 at 8:10 PM, Leeroy ST said:

CD-i was noticeably superior to Laserdisc imo unless you had outdated CRTs. I also believe Dragons Lair II was exclusive until the Dragons Lair collection on modern consoles not sure how it got that I guess Philips paid for it. 

It's probably true for earlier Laserdiscs, but later ones have better video quality. Though of course you can also put in balance useability, size, etc... Video-CD though were limited to 30 min video, LD could store either 30 mins or one hour per face. VCD were one face, LD were two, so no matter what, for a movie (which are usually more than one hour long) you need 3 VCD or to have the movie cut in parts, wherehas a LD can hold 2 hours, so one movie on one LD - with a double side player, you don't even need to flip the disc.

But LD are bulky and inherently limited to being read on LD players since they are "unique" and the video is analog; a VCD (Non-CD-i video) can be read today on any computer.

[Bill Loguidice]

I'd say it's generally considered (and I agree) that the CD-i video quality with the MPEG cartridge is more or less equivalent to what you'd get from a new commercially recorded VHS tape, give or take (the take is that depending upon how it was encoded, you can see some jaggies and weaker color saturation, and of course you could only fit so much content on a single CD). It's definitely not latter day laser disc quality, but it does have advantages over VHS in that the picture won't degrade over time as the tape degrades, so the quality tends to be more consistent. 

I suppose like with all things, it's relative. You're really not going to get better full motion video quality from that era than what you get from an MPEG-equipped CD-i, particularly when using its S-VIDEO output, so that still counts for something.

[Leeroy ST]

1 hour ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I'd say it's generally considered (and I agree) that the CD-i video quality with the MPEG cartridge is more or less equivalent to what you'd get from a new commercially recorded VHS tape, give or take (the take is that depending upon how it was encoded, you can see some jaggies and weaker color saturation, and of course you could only fit so much content on a single CD). It's definitely not latter day laser disc quality, but it does have advantages over VHS in that the picture won't degrade over time as the tape degrades, so the quality tends to be more consistent. 

I suppose like with all things, it's relative. You're really not going to get better full motion video quality from that era than what you get from an MPEG-equipped CD-i, particularly when using its S-VIDEO output, so that still counts for something.

I mean we are kind of skipping time periods here, for the time of the CD-i's shelf life It pretty much was the highest standard of video until the late Laserdisc/VHS era during the starting years of DVD domination. 

 

But yeah, and even without the MPEG during the first some years of its life it wasn't much of a slouch either.

[+wongojack]

The most memorable part of this thread is the now buried discussion about the PS3, so when I read this article, I was reminded: The Original PS3 Is The Most Hideous Console Ever Made (thegamer.com)

[+wongojack]

On 1/21/2016 at 5:37 AM, Schizophretard said:

 

But if in their opinion it is the worst console they ever played then couldn't they not get to the point of having an in-depth experience because their early impressions of it were negative enough to not motivate them to go in-depth? For an example, after thinking hard on it I'm going to have to go with the PS3 which I admit I haven't had as in-depth of experience as I did with the first two but that is because it didn't live up to my expectations. Granted, if I did get very in-depth with it I'm sure that I would rank it higher than many consoles including many mentioned here but many of those consoles I would already have a lower standard for going in and going in to one that I have very high standards for like the PS3 but then being disappointed from it not living up to my expectations I would rank worse than consoles that I had lower expectations for.

 

I loved the PS1. It made it very easy to love the PS2 right away without even needing to know a single game for it because the backwards compatibility for the games and accessories was so well done that I could think of it as an upgrade similar to going from the Atari 2600 to the 7800 or the Game Boy to the Game Boy color which is how I thought of it.

 

It was this initial upgraded PS1 that could completely replace my PS1 that made the transition easy and made me love it for that before I loved it for the things that were exclusively PS2.

 

So, that set a standard and definition for me of what a third PlayStation would mean. It meant an upgraded PS2 that could completely replace my PS2 and I could automatically love it for those reasons alone and then love it more later for what is exclusively PS3 about it. To put that another way, it meant not having any worries about being an early adopter because you are just upgrading something you already adopted.

 

It didn't live up to that expectation this time though. When I asked for a PS3 for Christmas I had to make sure it was one of the models that was backwards compatible with both of them. That already left a bad taste in my mouth before even getting it because full backwards compatibility for all models seemed as necessarily as all models using a controller.

 

Then after getting it and thinking it would be all good the wireless controllers, lack of PlayStation's standard controller ports, and lack of memory card slots caused annoying issues that I didn't anticipate.

 

The lack of controller ports made all of my controllers incompatible. This was very annoying with the Guitar Hero guitars because it felt like I just now got done spoiling my wife with the entire Guitar Hero collection and now would have to have both PlayStations hooked up at the same time which defeats the purpose of the upgrade. I just didn't get how prior to the PS3 a wireless controller was always an option that most didn't choose for consoles and then all of a sudden it is mandatory with the wired controllers not even being an option. Most of the issues with wired controllers were already solved. The PS2 controllers already had wires of good length and you could buy extension cables for them if that wasn't enough which it usually was. So, increased distances was no longer much of a selling point for wireless. Then there is people accidentally tripping over and pulling out the cords. PlayStation controller ports have little tubes that make the controller slide out easily in those situations instead of breaking pins or pulling the console on the ground. The only thing the PS3 seems to add to that is if a controller gets unpaired it automatically pauses but I see no reason why they couldn't apply the same function to a cord being pulled out. The PS3 should have included controller ports along with wireless capability instead of trying to fix something that isn't broken by making the solution mandatory.

 

Then I had issues with the wireless controllers in and of themselves. They are proprietary and not exactly designed to easily swap out for others that are already charged. At least with the Wii, which makes sense to have wireless controllers because of motion controls, you had the option of AAA batteries or rechargeable ones. But with the PS3 I always felt like I had to babysit the batteries like with cell phones and most of the time ended up playing with the charging wire plugged in which takes things back to issues that have already been solved with wired controllers by going back to Atari CX-40 length because short is an understatement for how short the included charging cable is. We didn't have USB wall chargers everywhere back then. So, my solution was to buy a charging dock that also had a USB port for the short plug. My plan was to keep it right by where I would play and if the battery died as it often did with many controllers I tried then I could play it plugged in with the short charging wire on that. That solution worked a little better but wasn't ideal. Eventually I found a long USB extension cord at Goodwill and would use that but if I'm using a wireless controller like a wired one then why not just include a controller port?

 

Then there is the issue with it constantly either wanting to do a long check for system errors because apparently going directly to the power switch isn't how it wants to shut down or it is wanting to do an hour long firmware update before I can play anything. WTF is this? A console or Windows?

 

I wouldn't have to make virtual PS1 and 2 memory cards and could use past saved data if they just included memory card slots.

 

PlayStation Plus annoyed me. I thought when I bought the cards it meant that anything with a price cost something and the freebies that come with it are actually free. But it turned out that once the card expired I would lose the freebie games which means I was really paying for a subscription.

 

Within about 3 months my PS3 died. Sony handled it well. They sent a well packaged box relatively fast and returned my repaired one just as quickly. But still, I'm a retro gamer used to consoles taking a beating and this was the first time a brand new console just completely died on me like that. It lowered my consumer confidence in its longevity and motivation to buy a huge collection of games because 30 years from now they may not be playable.

 

Space heater! This sucker puts off major heat. So much so that I'm impressed that it still works today and that I haven't had to send it back for repairs again. During the summer it fights against the AC making it uncomfortably hot in here and during the winter I have turned it on for the sole purpose of using it as a space heater. I'm kind of cold right now but not too bad but if I turned it on then in an hour I'll be sweating. This is scary fire hazard hot and has been since day one. I find it kind of ironic that it has a fan inside and yet they have third party external fans for it. I'm impressed that it hasn't melted itself though.

 

I also have issues with the external design. I don't like the glossy finger print dust and scratch collecting plastic. It makes it look cheap. Even in perfect dust, finger print, and scratch free condition it looks cheap to me. I don't know how to describe it but that kind of plastic looks cheap, flimsy, easily breakable, generic, fragile, etc. to me. The bezel around my TV is the same stuff and looks just as crappy to me. I guess the best way to describe it is the look gives that cheap feeling I get from the plastic of a 5200's controller compartment. It looks like it could fall once and would smash. This is another case of if it isn't broke then don't fix it for me because the textured plastic of the previous PlayStations was perfect. If it feels like an Atari 2600 cart then it is quality plastic and if it feels like a water bottle it is cheap junk. The rounded top doesn't make its standing or laying down positions as convertible as the PS2. The PS2 was flat laying down. I could lay the case of a game I'm playing on it, I could set the controllers on it, I could set a cock on it, etc. But this rounded top seems to serve no purpose other than creating more surface area to see the crappy plastic. If it was flat you could set a PS2 on it since apparently the PS3 wasn't meant to completely replace it.

 

I could probably keep on going but my point is that this very mainstream highly regarded console is the worst I ever played because out of all of them that I have put this high of expectations on I wasn't this disappointed after getting them. Granted, I'm sure it has an excellent library but I didn't buy it for the potential future library as an early adopter but bought based on what the PlayStation brand means to me as a past adopter and fan. Imagine if the Super NES had the exact same cartridge port and controller ports as the NES with full backwards compatibility and then the N64 was named the Mega NES with the same cartridge port, no controller ports, and the backwards compatibility was either not present or wasn't as ideal as the Super NES was. It is a lot like that for me because the Super NES would have established my standards for the Mega NES and any type of future NESes. If the Mega NES was suppose to be something different then they should call it something like the N64 without setting a standard like that with the previous Super NES which is what happened. Or to use another analogy, imagine if the original Nintendo DS was called the Nintendo Game Boy DS. It would have gave the expectation that it would be fully backwards compatible like all of the previous Game Boys and that backwards compatibility would have became part of the definition of what a Game Boy is. In other words, if they called it something different like the Sony Centauri or just something other than a PlayStation then I would have had expectations of something new that couldn't disappoint me of not living up to what a PlayStation means to me. It would have nothing prior to live up to other than the Sony name and I would approach it like the PS2 was the end of the PlayStation line because they are making a console that is something entirely new.

 

I have used it more as a Blu-ray player than a console and that isn't because I like movies more than games but because I was so disappointed that I didn't have the same previous excitement I had with the previous two to give me the motivation to go in-depth with exploring the library to see what it had to offer. It is kind of like if I thought I was getting a PS3 but in the box was an XBOX 360 when I have never had any interested in Microsoft's consoles and therefore I wouldn't have much interest in exploring the library.

 

So, do you take me seriously or am I just trolling?

 

On 1/22/2016 at 6:13 AM, Schizophretard said:

 

I wouldn't admit that. They already did it once and then again when they upgraded the PS1 to the PS2. I didn't see anything difficult about adding controller ports, memory card slots, and wired controllers. Those were PlayStation platform standards that they didn't seem to have difficulty doing before.

 

 

As I already explained that was exactly what I did but it was more because I had to than wanted to. Maybe your experience with them, your controllers, and/or console functioned differently but pretty much every play session ended up with dead controllers and me back to being wired up within touching distance of the console. And this was with a variety controllers. It would happen to me, my wife, and her cousin. He played it the most, would bring his controllers over, and ended up sitting on the edge of the bed playing with that small wire. I asked him if it is just me or if his PS3 behaves the same. He said his did and he thought it was the normal way it worked. So, I had to do the workarounds I explained like buying long USB extension cords and so forth because what came in the box made the system unplayable. All the workarounds just to keep the controllers functioning when I needed them to defeated the purpose of wireless controllers to such an extent that the frustration felt like what I imagine the workarounds to get the Atari 5200 controllers to work would have been when it was new. I wouldn't just put the PS3 but also the wireless controllers pretty high up there with the worst controllers I have used. The least they could have done was include a charging wire of reasonable length and allowed you to change out the batteries. The OUYA controller gets a bad rep but since launch I have only had the "inconvenience" of changing the AA batteries for all my controllers at most three times and have put way more hours of game play in it. I could play my OUYA all day without battery issues. I can't make the same claim for any day that I played my PS3.

 

In short, the wireless controllers felt like a gimmick, like they should have been alternatives like all the other crappy wireless controllers before them, and the babysitting them and workarounds caused more inconveniences and issues than the wired PS2 controllers. The worst "inconvenience" the PS2 controllers caused me was at most maybe getting accidentally unplugged once a month if that. I would take that over the PS3 controllers unplugging themselves constantly. I just think the wireless controllers were addressing non-issues and introducing some.

 

 

There seems to be a variety of them which indicates to me that there is enough demand that there were many people that felt these standard ports were lacking. Anyway, I knew about them before you told me about them but I didn't know about them when they mattered. I shouldn't have to add adapters to make the PS3 live up to its name anyway. That is Sony's job. If they didn't want it to be a PS3 then they should have named it something else.

 

 

But the thing is that the PS1 and PS2 set a standard that took early adoption out of the equation because it was presented as an up-gradable evolving platform instead of a new one like going from the N64 to the Game Cube which have different names to make it clear they are two different platforms. The only information that was absolutely necessary for a PS1 fan is that the PS2 would be backwards compatible and that it would be upgraded from a CD player to also a DVD player. Everything else like new PS2 games was just icing on the cake. In other words, if one already adopted a PS1 and a DVD player then buying a PS2 would be getting what they already adopted in one box. Therefore, I think it would be a reasonable expectation that a console with the name PS3 would upgrade in the same fashion by going from a PS1/PS2/CD/DVD player to a PS1/PS2/CD/DVD/Blu-ray player. To put that another way, if back then Sony just said,"We are making a PS3." with no details what so ever about it then PlayStation fans would take those things coming as a given because it is standard and everything PS3 exclusive about it would be the things they would speculate on. PS3 means that it is a continuation of the PlayStation platform and not just a vague,"Sony is releasing another home console that we know nothing about." because the name already includes standard features of the platform. I didn't have to wait for the PS2 to be perfected. It was an upgraded PlayStation out of the box and I expected the PS3 to be the same.

 

 

 

Clean break and advancing a platform seem like contradictions to me. A clean break is a new platform instead of an advancement of one.

 

 

But they also usually make it clear that the new console is a completely different platform by not naming it after the last console. Nintendo didn't call the DS the Game Boy DS because the previous handhelds were an evolving platform and the DS line of handhelds was a new evolving platform. PS2 sounds like a continuation of the PlayStation platform which it was. PS3 also sounds the same but wasn't.

 

 

It is hard for me to believe that after two PlayStations with very slim versions of each they couldn't figure out how to design the PS3 to have controller ports and memory slots. However, they could have just included those adapters in the box or addressed it in the opposite direction:

 

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51cjcSzCJ5L.jpg

 

 

The shape was designed around the Spider-Man font: http://www.gamesradar.com/kutaragi-insisted-on-spider-man-font-for-ps3/

 

I haven't even played an XBOX 360 but setting speakers very loud is my preference. Besides, if I have to turn on my shop fan to tolerate the heat coming from the PS3 then setting my speakers very loud is already required. And what about Steam machines? Aren't they about putting gaming PC's in your living room?

 

On 1/23/2016 at 7:27 PM, wongojack said:

Epic anti-ps3 rant Schizophretard. That wasn't trolling, it was message board punk rock!

 

[Steven Pendleton]

RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE~

 

~2 years ago I said PS4. I don't know why I didn't think about it at the time, but I have since remembered that I have played the Virtual Boy once for like 30 seconds, so I will once again change my answer, this time to Virtual Boy.

 

I am also upgrading the PS4's status from barely-used Blu-ray player to regularly and frequently used game system thanks entirely to M2 ShotTriggers. PS4 is worth owning just for that.