My friend got an ouya, I think he mostly got it as a bit of a curiosity since he was a game dev student (and now does it professionally)
It absolutely didn't do anything particularly different or better than any other gadget we could have hooked up to the TV to game on, but we did have a lot of fun with it for a while. It was kind of nice that it was so small so he could carry it around easily if he wanted to take it somewhere for a party or something.
And a few of the games we first discovered on the ouya are still mainstays of our parties when we manage to get together as busy adults.
Through a series of moves, roommate swaps, and marriage, that ouya (though not the controller) has actually now ended up in my possession
It's on the left with my small collection of retro consoles and handhelds. Couple other cool bits of geeky paraphernalia scattered in there too. Disregard the mess on the coffee table and such, this was taken in the middle of some renovations, turns out I don't take many pictures of my entertainment center.
The real shame is that the coffee table isn't really visible because it's pretty cool itself, it's a hatch from a ship (I believe a WWII Liberty ship)
Bit of family history with it too. My dad originally had it, but my mom hated it, so eventually it went to live with my grandfather. He died, and it ended up back in our basement. My sister and I both really liked it, and we had a bit of an agreement that whoever moved out first got the table, and I won.
EDIT: Also for anyone else who likes my setup, the entertainment center and shelves in the wall are IKEA Fjallbo, no pretty affordable. The shelf of the far right is just an IKEA Kallax.
And I have the TV synced up to Phillips hue lights behind it and in the ceiling
I'm not totally sure where the bottles came from, we don't really drink chianti, and they've just kind of been hanging around on a shelf somewhere, but they ultimately ended up on this chandelier
Every so often I get reminded of the Ouya. I still have mine from the Kickstarter somewhere. It was good in concept, and I even saw posts of it being sold in major retailers like Target, but it just fizzled out far too fast.
I owned Ouya. The games weren't great but OK. Some were fun. At least console wasn't too expensive. Then I tried to change my email for my Ouya account and learned that the company behind Ouya disappeared. I was frustrated and sold my Ouya :(
It was sooo bad. We had such a bad time with it. The controller buttons stick, the software was super buggy, and they required a credit card to log in (I dont know if that changed after the first couple of months, but I remember being pissed).
Xbox One. Everytime I booted it up to feed the Halo crave, there’d be an update that took like an hour. Finally get on… Halo needs to update. 1 hour later, I’ve lost interest.
I quit getting consoles after the PS3 and Xbox 360 and I made the right decision. The PS4 and XBone were painfully slow, had horrid load times, and everything was expensive. Watching my friend play Monster Hunter drove me insane, like five minutes of loading per hunt!
Probably the Sega 32X. The messaging around it was kind of confusing, and still being fairly young when it came out, I was expecting it to be the gateway to 32 bit gaming that I would be enjoying for years to come.
I ended up getting virtua racing on it, which was better than the Genesis version, but nothing spectacular really. I also got virtua fighter, which was a genuinely good game. Almost everything else was ports of mediocre games that had already come out on the Genesis. A couple of original games like knuckles chaotix just... Kinda sucked. Then when I found out that all of the support was going behind the Saturn, and that's where all of the new and original games were going, well I just felt swindled.
Xbox. I wanted a gamecube but my parents didn't like nintendo for some reason. Now im old and i don't like nintendo for some reason, and I still don't like xbox
Also, they don’t really do proper adult games like Elden Ring. If you love Zelda I understand but it’s time to move on.
In the context of the first sentence, the second sentence seems to imply that Zelda isn't for "proper adults". Even if it wasn't meant like that (I can't see how else it can be meant), who is OP to tell people to "move on".
Fair, my phrasing was probably too saucy there. Drunk post, my bad. I would still call myself a Zelda fan, even though the last one I played was Twilight Princess. It's one of the all-time greatest series and the titles nearly always score 9/10 everywhere for a reason.
But I'm still going to say to "move on". Not because of Zelda, no. There's no real substitute. Rather, move on because Nintendo is scummy and doesn't deserve your money when plenty of other publishers are making fun and creative games and working hard for it instead of suing their own customers.
That's true. I wouldn't expect someone to play games that aren't fun to them.
But you're not exactly helping the gaming industry improve if you're regularly giving money to douchey companies rather than more open-minded publishers. I think it's pretty simple to argue that you're endorsing the scumbag behavior if you help finance it.
That's a very good point. But they're even more of a corporate behemoth now.
I was a Nintendo Power subscriber until the GameCube era, and I feel like they used to share a little bit of behind-the-scenes fun (e.g. making-of Donkey Kong Country VHS) and promote 3rd-party titles even on the magazine cover. But it seems like even that kind of stuff is long gone.
Red Steel was a release title, meant to showcase the Wii as a serious console for adults as well as a family friendly console for kids, but I'm pretty sure it, MadWorld, and No More Heroes were the only remotely gorey games for it.
Damn thing was fragile af, and they wanted to rent everything to us, no more Virtual Console no more solid hardware, they spend more money suing people for fixing it then they do on it like blocking local backup of saves so they can force a cloud sub and them still not having fixed the drifting JoyCons then charging you more than they are worth for repairs.
This is my answer too. As soon as I read the question it just hit me. I only had a lite. Never the big one. The thing was fragile. It always felt like I was gonna break it even just holding it in my hands. I babied the fuck out of that system. I really enjoyed the games I had for it. I played it quite a bit. It's just that the system itself was kinda jank. The lifeless interface, the slow store, the slow games that pushed the hardware too far. Just bleh. Then Steam Deck came out and it blew it out of the water in every way possible.
It's like comparing different leagues, classes or whatever and then additionally apples and oranges.
Yes, first off, of course the steam deck is far more powerful than the switch. For the price and used hardware it better be! That's a moot point basically, I could also argue that a >2k€ mobile should be more powerful than a <200€ one. Also, the switch literally is a mobile while the steam deck more of a PC anyhow, which again is a more powerful platform. I'm not going into energy usage though.
The other point is that the steam deck is a pc with a console frontend and that the switch is a console. One is a locked down system (with hard specs) and the other - Well, a pc.
That makes neither better or worse but it depends on your requirements. I love my PCs but sometimes I just want stuff to work and be one packaged experience. And thats where consoles shine. Example: I've played steredenn on switch but never got the controls to work on steam deck, although it's a Linux version even.
The point being. It's fine to like the steam deck over the switch. But it's not comparable however crappy the switch might be.
I fully agree with you. The experiences are very different. I think it’s a disservice to point people especially first time gamers to a Steam deck and say “oh look it’s a console”
For me the definition of a console is plug and play with a dedicated UI. Anything you can see in the store you can run ! Anything marked it can play you put the medium in and it runs …
The online discourse on here and on gaming channels have little if any understanding of people who have never picked up a game controller before. Or is under the age of 12.
And even if there was a “war” between the two the Switch most certainly won I believe 120 million to 6 Million ?
There most certainly still is a mainstream market to take advantage of
I get what you're trying to say but I really disagree. You can compare the two because they're offering the same basic premise. The ability to play video games in a handheld form. Of course the price is different. Of course the capabilities are different. Of course the power of the two machines are different. That's a given. They're two different pieces of technology. We compare technology based off of what they're offering. These two machines are offering the same thing. The ability to play video games in a handheld form. In what world is anything that's offering the same thing as another thing not up for comparison?
For me the Steam Deck made the Switch a redundant device. You can compare them apples to apples. Store experience? Steam Deck wipes the floor with the Switch. We all know the Switch has a horrible store experience. Online capabilities? Steam Deck. Don't have to pay $20 a year to use online capabilities with my Deck. Form factor? Steam Deck is a big bulky machine but it's more ergonomically better suited for me because I'm not as scrunched up like I was holding the Switch lite. OG Switch may have a better experience there. Games they offer? The only thing a Switch offers that separates the two in favor of the Switch is the ability to play Nintendo games natively without jumping through hoops.
You can say the Switch is a console and the Steam Deck is a PC all you want. That's factually true. You can even compare that. They're both computers with a processor, a fan, some form of gpu. One offers a closed off user experience bound to the rules and end user license agreement of a single company. The other is an open full blown PC experience where the makers of the machine say do whatever you want to it. Because you can do whatever you want to a Steam Deck you may run into problems with it that you wouldn't otherwise experience on a console. That's a fine and fair comparison.
To say they aren't comparable is shielding the Switch from criticism. It's doing a disservice to anybody who is looking for a handheld device to play video games because you're hiding information from a perspective buyer who may have a certain set of requirements pertaining to purchasing such a device.
Thanks for the great discussion. I am fine with everything but the last paragraph.
But first, let's respectfully still disagree in general. However I think we're just expressing it differently.
So, from a pc perspective the steam deck is obsolete, since my 14" notebook is a far better device to me. And it's highly mobile too. Thing is, this point is basically going nowhere since with price and over all sectors there will always be a (technologically objective) better device. Why don't we all buy pro tools? Well price for one. It's always about the ratio.
Anyhow, just for clarity, I'm really fine with disagreeing here.
Regarding the last paragraph: just recently I had a talk with someone interested and she was looking for a mobile device. I told her about switch and also steam deck, showed both and highlighted the experience differences but as the main point I told her she at the single most important thing needs to look into the game libraries which suits her otherwise she will have a paperweight. It is always and has always been the software that sells the systems.
The perspective buyer wants to play a game and deserves the best experience. On whatever current or future system that might be, and has to weigh in on the price he wants to spend. And that's what I would recommend.
Yeah no problem. I think I know where the disagreement is stemming from. I may be wrong so you can correct me, but you look at the Steam Deck as a handheld PC competing with other PCs. I look at the Steam Deck as a handheld PC competing with other handhelds in general. That's the disagreement. It's a fine line because neither one is really right or wrong. We fall on the opposite sides. I have a PC that is much more powerful than the Steam Deck. That didn't make the Steam Deck obsolete to me. I wasn't looking at the Steam Deck as a PC replacement.
My last paragraph and your actions with your friend prove my point. If they weren't comparable you wouldn't bring them up together. I do agree with you that software sells the system. That's why I bought a Switch to begin with.
Yeah my PC is part of the reason the Switch was so disappointing too. I really wanted a handheld so I didn't have to sit at my desk. Turns out I sat at my PC way more than I ever turned on the Switch. Outside of the exclusives it was a really redundant system.
Sadly Xenoblade doesn't play well on emulation, the only exclusives I lost, I was kinda miffed about losing my Animal Crossing island after having spent hundreds of hours building it and raiding forums for island visit codes of people with rare items in the shop but it is what it is when the greey company locks your saves on internal memory and sues the guy who dropped the code to copy them.
That and surprisingly Breath of the Wild always crashes my PC after a while. I don't know what is causing the crash other than possibly a spike in memory that freaks the GPU out. Luckily Unicorn Overlord doesn't do that and that game looks a million times better on my PC. It upscales really nice.
The weird one I get is DQ XIS, if I launch it in 2D mode it plays perfectly, but if I swap to 3D it crashes hard, like my whole computer has frozen up and I run Linux so that's not normal.
I miss Xenoblade, and I'm mad I bought special editions of the whole series only to be unable to play them now, but that's a few hundred bucks lost vs all the money spent buying three Switches only to have them fail and losing saves because you can;t back them up yourself and Nintendon't sued the guy who wrote the code that let you to push their shitty cloud nobody asked for.
I've been off Sony for a while, as well, because getting ads on the home screen was a big "Nope!" for me, but when I left they had a better cloud system, but you could still plug in a USB device and backup your saves to it without PS+. No idea if they broke it as well, but Nintendo has always been at the forefront ot greedy corporate fuckery, it's just now that enshittification has seeped into everything pushing the boundaries of an already bad ecosystem isn't just kinda annoying like it used to be.
I mean the emulation, their online service as a sub with it all included, rather than letting us buy like they did from the time they implemented it up through the 3DS. There's issues with digital copies, but my 3DS has a permanent license when they closed the eShop, so all of the games I have on it will work until the system dies and I can;t downalod them again. The Switch, if I am not subscribed to Online, all of them are gone.
I just hate them not letting you pay for it, their greed forces piracy, but then I've not downloaded a game because I was too broke to buy it for decades. It's all been being unable to buy, or having terrible DRM that broke the game, or a shitty launcher that you were forced to use.
PS3. Coming from the PS2, the library was bland in comparison. And later on, when I got interested in console modding, the PS3 was the slowest and most cumbersome to do anything and with barely any variety of homebrew stuff. And also, I'm dreading having to replace the controller (due to the 3rd party PS button situation) and replacing the HD (due to how entangled pieces apparently are).
Later on, it'd become an overpowered PS2 console for me.
I wouldn't call any console I own a disappointment, even the Wii U had several games I loved and put too many hours into. But the system I ended up playing the least was the Steam Deck. It's just too bulky to feel like a proper portable, not nearly as cozy as the Nintendo handhelds I grew up on. I get some use taking it to FGC events as a monitorless setup (and I will be bringing it to Combo Breaker 2026 next week), but that's kinda all I ended up using it for.
I still don't regret buying it as the most important thing to happen to Linux gaming, but it was a system I bought to have more than to use. I later bought a Miyoo Mini Plus and ended up putting far more hours into that than I ever did the Deck. If anyone ever gets SteamOS running on a device in that size form factor, they'll get my entire bank account.
I acknowledge the Steam Deck is an important step forward for PC gaming, but I just didn't get enough use out of it to justify the purchase. I ended up giving mine to my friend whose only gaming option prior to that was a shitty old laptop. At least now we can play stuff together that's been made in the last decade.
Honestly, my gaming laptop. Bought a few years ago, 3050. It was good and I could play games on it - but I live in a situation where all my electricity is solar generated and limited, charges 12v batteries and runs mains appliances via inverter. And the laptop was just too power hungry for long gaming sessions.
It was more a failure of me to properly research than a problem with the product, but was a let down. Bought a steam deck and never looked back.
Yeah right, especially with handheld devices becoming increasingly popular. The steam deck was by best purchase by far, in terms of fun per pound spent. And there's much more powerful alternatives out there now.
The Sega Game Gear. That sucker could drain six AA batteries in about three hours. Do you know how hard it was to find a place to buy AA batteries on Christmas day?
While a rechargeable battery pack fixed that problem, most of the games were garbage compared to the GameBoy. The first party games were the best, but most everything else was 'meh.'
You might be thinking of the Sega Nomad, which was made explicitly to pay the full size cartridges. My dad had one for a while and it was the Game Gear turned to 11, flaws and all. Huge, hot, heavy, and devoured batteries. It was a cool concept on paper but nobody wanted to spend hundreds on it to play Sonic the Hedgehog on a tiny screen with a giant warm brick as a controller.
Probably the virtual boy. It was so cool at the time, I got Red Alert(?) and it was fantastic. Then there was like, a bowling game, and maybe a wario game? And nobody made anything else for it, and it sat in a drawer for years before my parents made me get rid of it. It could have been so good.
Yup came here to say this. Had Mario tennis and I’m sure some other game but yeah not a lot of games. However it did cause a lot of headaches.
But otherwise I mean, I’ve not bought anything I would say is disappointing but also I haven’t bought any current gen bullshit.
WiiU was maybe a little closer to a disappointment? But more so because it wasn’t as popular. I absolutely loved the 2nd screen for shit like shoving the UI for MH3U on there so I could look at it while keeping the main screen clear.
Aw I came for this answer. I was fortunate to see through the BS because I was very immersed in the tech at the time, but the VB genuinely had cool potential and I wanted it to succeed so it could lead to new generations of full-color VR (which took like another 2+ decades).
Mario Odyssey was fine, but I didn't really see the use for a portable slab compared to a pocket-size device like my phone or the 3DS. Also, this was the first Nintendo device that felt completely soulless. At least the Wii U had some charm to it.
Nintendo Switch, I should have known better. Nintendo consoles are great for kids who are new to playing games, not so much for people who have been gaming for generations.
I've got more than a thousand hours on my Switch, easily among the best consoles I've ever played on since my start on the Game Boy and Genesis. What do you feel brings it down for adults?
Nintendo titles are, essentially, very good introductory video games. If you've played, well, pretty much any RPG, there's no point playing Zelda or Pokemon. Same for fighting games and Smash Brothers or racing games and Mario Kart.
Everyone has to get started gaming somewhere, but beyond nostalgia? The rest of gaming has moved in from Nintendo.
Weird. Smash, Mario kart, and even Splatoon are very unique games within their respective genres and not really "beginner," because there are some people who are really, insanely good.
If you've played, well, pretty much any RPG, there's no point playing Zelda or Pokemon.
Oh, there's a point, and it's a pretty big one that people tend to forget:
Games like Zelda and Pokemon are fun. They might not have the best graphics, but they're fun. They may not have the best story, but they are fun. The hardware may not be powerful, the gameplay might be repetitive, the scenery might be bland, the NPC's might not be engaging, it may not be particularly challenging, it may have questionable design choices; but the games are fun to play.
I feel that as gamers get older they forget that, at its core, games are supposed to be fun. They look at Nintendo and then at other big companies and go "what the hell? Nintendo looks like CRAP! Every other AAA company has WAY more impressive games!" without realizing that Nintendo isn't really trying to make impressive games. They make fun games that are fun to play. Games anyone can start having fun with less than a minute after picking up the controller.
They were fun, the first time. But how many iterations does someone need of the same game?
People complain about the latest game in a series like Tomb Raider or Assassin's Creed going "OMG, IT'S JUST THE SAME THING AGAIN!" It's literally a joke with Madden or Call of Duty, but for some reason Nintendo gets a pass.
It's cool if you're a kid and Breath of the Wild is the first Zelda game you ever played... For anyone else? Unless you have on the nostalgia goggles, there are better things out there.
The Switch was a slow burn for me. Initially I bought it and hated it. I bought BOTW (had it on Wii U as well) and I felt underwhelmed. Fast forward to end of year and games like Mario Odyssey came out. Not to mention I had a lot of travel and the system just felt perfect for me. Loving the Switch 2 now.
Ironically I bought a Wii U and loved it at first. Only to look back now and see it’s a system I never bought more the 3 games for …
Same with Switch. I got it for MHGenU so it was still worth it—I put hundreds of hours into GenU, it’s one of my favorite MH games ever.
Every other game though, I’ve just played on my computer. My friend lent me BotW to try and as soon as I stepped outside and the framerate dropped, I shut it down and looked into how to play it on my computer. A little while later, I had it running at 1440p/120+ FPS with shaders and mods and stuff. Since then, I’ve just been playing everything on my computer.
I was pretty disappointed after getting a Switch 2 when I found out that Nintendo had blocked all video streaming apps on it. Even apps like Pokemon TV, which had transferred from my Switch 1 during account migration, were blocked from opening despite being downloaded on the device.
Probably the Switch. It's ... fine, I guess? NES? Awsome. SNES? fantastic. GB? amazing for its time. Genesis was killer. Atari 2600 was huge in its day. The switch? Meh.
It doesn't help that I'm generally unhappy with nintendo being a bunch of greedy fucks as I see it.
I've never really clicked with the Switch and we've had one since launch. It's not all bad, handheld and home console in-one is a pretty cool concept, but it underwhelms in all ways. Also browsing the eShop is painfully slow too.
PSP. I know now people are raving about it, but the games basically all sucked except a few and it was a pretty good emulator handheld though. But it mostly collected dust.
PS Vita. It had so much promise, but the games weren’t really there and Sony kinda just forgot about it.
I remember it was the first time you could stream a PS4 game to a handheld, which was novel at the time. But it never felt “good enough” and most games didn’t support it or were too finicky.
If I look at my Steam Deck now, I think that’s more or less what Sony had in mind for the Vita as well
I was a bit conservative myself (or maybe lucky that neighbor kids had a 3DO and Sega CD I could try) but I did own a Sega Game Gear. That thing drank 6x AA batteries like there was no tomorrow. And the game library was very lackluster after the Sonic titles.
It's been a looong time. But I think it drank those too? Engineers in those days maybe didn't know how to optimize a full color screen with good brightness like that device sported.
It's not that they lasted longer, but that it was considerably less expensive to recharge them than to buy and throw out a new set of batteries for each session.
PS5: No games I want to play except Demons Souls Remake. Its the only PS5 game I own. Every other game I wanted to play I just play on PC instead.
Switch: Weak, underpowered "console." Never left the dock, ever. Still had performance problems in first party titles, like Breath of the Wild chugging to 15fps or less in the Korok Forest when facing East for some reason. After I was disappointed with Breath of the Wild, I haven't touched the 2014 midrange tablet "console" since. Only emulated the games for an immensely better experience.
IIRC that Tegra X1 chip was launched in 2015 so the Switch launched with an obsolete SoC. It's surprising to see how much performance they've been able to wring out of that old tech for nearly a decade. Color me impressed.
Unpopular opinion, but Xbox 360. The first ones didn't have hdmi, didn't have a hard drive, the giant power brick was unsightly, the controller has the worst dpad I have ever touched and playing any fighting game on it was a pain, the paid multiplayer cancer grew there, the ads in the main menu of the console... And I didn't get to see the red ring of death since I've switched to PS3 as soon as I could afford one.
I know a lot of people have fond memories of it, but for me the 360 represented the worst of the console manufacturers' greed, milking the consumer to the bone while cheaping out on everything that was possible to cheap out on.
Mine was also the 360, but simply because of when I got it. I was a young teen when it originally came out, and I begged my parents for one. They were concerned that my kid brother (several years younger than me) would inevitably end up playing the games I had for it. The 360 was marketed more as a mature console, compared to the family friendly Wii. So I had to wait until my brother was old enough to play games like COD and Halo.
This meant that by the time I finally got the 360, the XBO was nearing release. And the 360’s multiplayer heyday had largely passed by that point, as everyone had largely moved on from games like Halo 3, Modern Warfare 2, Assassins Creed Brotherhood, etc… So matchmaking lobbies for all of the games I wanted to experience were basically only full of the diehard fans who had absolutely no sympathy for new/learning players. It meant I ended up using it primarily as a single player console. I enjoyed lots of single-player games like Final Fantasy 13/13-2, Lost Odyssey, Mass Effect Trilogy, Dark Souls, etc… But that’s pretty much all I used it for. I’d chat with friends while I played if they were online, but it quickly became clear that my friends were moving on from the console.
All of the big multiplayer experiences for the 360 were largely lost on me, because none of my friends were interested in playing those old games by that point. And multiplayer is unfortunately a large part of what the console was designed for. I think the only multiplayer game that really held our attention was Destiny, and even that turned out to be a pretty big disappointment after a while. We only really kept playing it as an excuse to hang out in voice chat.
I was also largely moving towards PC gaming by that point. I had already experimented with installing games like Oblivion and Skyrim on my (really shitty) laptop, and got them running at potato quality. I saw the potential, and shifted towards PC gaming after getting the 360. I saved up my money from my first job, and built my first PC a year or two after getting the 360. So I only really kept the 360 around for the exclusives that weren’t on PC.
Nowadays, I just emulate the 360 exclusives for single player. Currently working my way through Lost Odyssey, because I never actually got around to finishing it on the 360. I think because I built my PC before I beat the game.
They offered the HDD as optional if you paid for the “pro” package. The HDMI was a bummer but being honest I needed to buy a special adapter to use on my TV because I didn’t even have component out ! So slightly understandable at the time.
It wasn’t a well built system none of that generation was. I went through three Xbox 360s. I bought my fourth 2 years ago !
The PS4. My wife and I played a lot of PS3, so we were excited for the 4, but it just didn't hit right. We ended up barely using it. At some point we let someone borrow it and never asked for it back.
I don't even remember what we didn't like, except that we were both pumped for the latest sack boy game, which ended up not anywhere near as fun as the first one.
The other consoles were pushing for more, but instead the Gamecube only cared about being small?
I was fresh off Nintendo 64 so I was expecting Banjo-threeie (STOP N SWAP had been so hyped), other awesome Rare games, a new Mario, the new Zelda, and finally a Pokemon game on a modern console!
Hahaha
Mario Sunshine was such a bad game that had none of Mario 64's soul I never touched another Mario game after that. I hated the art of Zelda Windwaker and that it had lost all the dark vibes, and obviously none of the other games I was expecting never happened. I felt completely scammed for being loyal to Nintendo. I taught me to never be loyal to a brand.
The one and only game I enjoyed on that system was Metroid Prime, but as a child I was only allowed one new console like every 5 years and I deeply regretted not getting a PS2 instead like my friends.
Fair enough. I liked that the maps felt lived in and connected, so exploration was actually more compelling for me in Sunshine, and I tend to lean away from darker games in general. Different tastes.
As someone that didn't play sunshine as a kid but did recently, sunshine is my least favorite. The controls are clunkier than the other mario games because of the water , there was way more repetition with the bosses (the stupid goo piranha plants). Super Mario 64 was great and I feel like Super Mario Galaxy was an insane leap from Sunshine
Just curious, did you play the original or the All Stars version? The water mechanics were designed for the GameCube's analog triggers, so the Switch's digital triggers forced All Stars to use a workaround. I never played the All Stars version, so I don't actually know if that made much of a difference.
Agreed on boss repetition. I was definitely less sensitive to that as a kid. (Maybe I still am?)
Xnone. I bought it on, and for, the Fallout 4 release. They both sucked so bad I haven't bought a console, or Bethesda game since.
I still want the console experience though. Couch gaming, mostly all set up. I don't have the inclination to research a build, buy all the individual parts and build the thing.
I was thinking about a Beelink SER8, but the Steam Machine announced. When the steam machine releases I'll compare it to equal price point minis. Steam gets a valve bonus, plus a bonus to knowing that's the target Devs will be trying to hit.
Man alive, that's gutting. I also haven't bought a Bethesda game since F4. Was hoping they might have doubled-down on the improvements between F3 and F:NV, but what they came out with was no kind of RPG at all, a shocking disappointment.
Means I missed out on F76 and Starfield, which is no kind of hardship at all. And I'm whatever the opposite of "hyped" is for ES6 - looking forward more to booting up Morrowind again.
Atari Lynx. Don't get me wrong, I loved the thing and spent many an hour playing on it. But just like most Atari systems it never got its claws into the market and ended up playing second (at least) fiddle to the Gameboy, even though it was way more advanced.
Like so many, I fell to the marketing hype. Was completely bored of the thing after like a week. Where it was definitely some peoples cup of tea, it was most certainly not mine
Meta Quest 3s. It was an initially a cool way of playing games but the novelty soon wore off and most games are not that good with VR. Up until then I iterated through Nintendo systems and was always satisfied.
Xbox Series X. I sold it right when Starfield early access hit and it wasn't an Internet darling. Knew it was downhill from there. Before that by the end to 2020, they Bought Obsidian, Inxile, Bethesda/Zenimax, iD, Ninja Theory, and studios I thought would make a major quality jump like Compulsion games. I thought they'd be releasing awesome RPG games every year by 2021. That didn't pan out
Before that, Xbox and GameCube had so little compared to the PS2 but still had great games unique to themselves. PSP was fun but definitely was happier when I switched to the DS
Switch is easily my least played console. Its library was nearly entirely made up of games I already played on the Wii U. On top of that they had the cheek to require a subscription to play online. No thanks.
Tiger GameCom. I really think it had a lot of potential and was ahead of its time. They didn't make a lot of games for it and it was underpowered. Some really cool ideas though, it was the first touch-screen anything I had. It had 2 game cartridge slots. It had built in utilities, tools, and games.
The thing is before the steamdeck the last one I had was ps2 and xbox. I can't say any were a disappointment even going back to pong, atari, and odyssy. They were all nice at their time. I kinda just stopped getting them because my money went toward pc's. I even justified the steamdeck to possibly use as a laptop replacement although that did not happen.
Switch was what made me realize golden era of gaming was over, but it took about a year to set in because of the disconnect between the NX presentation and the actual product.
Seriously, go take a look at the original NX Switch presentation and it would almost seem that Nintendo was selling a completely different product.
All of the Wii era inspired hardware went mostly unused because the Switch couldn't play Wii games, and Nintendo didn't bother to even port their own titles outside of recycled Wii U content that didn't sell well on the original console.
The software similarly was a joke. I have more functionality on a Nintendo DS than a Switch, and that isn't even including "unofficial" homebrew. You can't even voice chat with your friends without using an external app, which is insane considering the DS, DSi, 3DS, Wii, and Wii U that preceded this.
Major features that gave Nintendo the edge were gone. DS Downlaod Play, Streetpass, included minigames & apps, themes, free online, eshop points, wifi events, etc.
On top of that, the library was just not interesting enough to warrant paying $60 a pop for single player games, and the multiplayer selection was sparse, despite the main feature of the console being joycon controllers.
I got bored of it after only a year, and ended up having to change the joycon c-sticks a couple years later because of the drift issues.
IMO it was a massive success just because of the portable format allowing you to play big name games on the go, but it absolutely fails as a handheld console when compared to the DS line, which did so much more for so much less.
Now that other handhelds like the Steam Deck, AYN stuff, Legion, etc exist, there's really no need to buy a Switch (2) for third party titles, which makes it a complete Nintendo only buy in.
The kicker is that Nintendo made absolute bank which is now why the Switch 2 is going for $450 (soon to be $500) and bumped their game prices to a whopping $70-80 because they know people were fine with it.
If I had more time on my hands, I would legitimately go make a modern version of Streetpass and download play for modern handhelds because that stuff was so cool and useful.
For me it was Xbox One. From day one (no pun intended) it just didn’t feel good to me. The UI experience never got away from being awful. The system itself was a sluggish awful mess. It should never take more than 3 seconds to load your options menu . On top of that Everytime I turned on my console it would take a half hour or more to update. The must have games just never came. The games they did come played worse than nearly anywhere else. If I was a teenage when I bought this system and played everyday some of these short comings could have been avoided. But as an adult it just felt terrible . From here I went back to Pc gaming made a rig that would destroy any console at the time. It was so bad to me I canceled my Xbox Live Subscription I had for 15 years ! That killed my love to Xbox entirely.
Probably second place was the PS3 but I bought it at the end of the generation and never got the exclusives I should have ..
Can’t think of one now but I almost bought an OUYA. You know you screwed up when Homestar Runner makes fun of you.
edit:
Not disappointing as in bad but disappointing I couldn't make it work for me. I bought a 3DS XL on two separate occasions. I got horrible headaches after playing, even with the 3D completely off. I think it was the low DPI coupled with the fact I had to have my nose almsot touching the screen. I'm not sure what possessed me to try again. It wasn't even a different model.
But I missed so many good games. I'm tempted to try emulating them, DS as well as I missed that too, but I'd hate to resort to piracy, even though there aren't any other ways to play DS and 3DS games on a big screen.
I owned a Virtual Boy back in the day and... yeah. It sucked. I bring it up every time people think Nintendo are infallible - they do have shit ideas from time to time.
I also owned a PSP and I just didn't use it much. I know it's a well beloved console but I didn't really like anything that I played on it.
The Wii was just okay, I just got tired of the gimmick too quickly, and the library was just atrocious. If you don't like movie tie-in games, you miss out on like 3/4ths of the entire catalogue of titles.
I think I'm just tired of console gaming at this point. The only reason I would buy a console is if it were a mobile console that I can take with me when I want to game away from my PC, and so far the only companies that are interested in developing mobile consoles are Nintendo and Steam.
That might be the favorite. Great size, battery, controls, games, peripherals... I kinda think I remember it got internet hate for some reason? But I LOVED this thing. Ultimate evolution of GameBoy.
I think it's the Wii for me. I always felt like the controls were too limiting have games that played well. Sure there are some good games I played, like Mario Kart Wii and Mario Galaxy, but overall I remember being disappointed with both the game selection and how bad the controls were.
(dis)honorable mention: the Switch 2, because there's nothing to play on it that I can't play better on pc+deck.
By default it's the Xbox 360 because it's the only console I owned. Apart from the RROD it was actually pretty great. I mostly played oblivion on it. One time I was in a very cold city with minimal blankets and no heater. I fired up the Xbox and warmed my fingers on the fan air. It was good times.
The OG Xbox. I'm sure it's actually a fine console with great games on it, but my own personal experience with it was frustrating. I had already owned a GameCube and a PS2, both modified to play games from a SD card/hard drive and output an HDMI signal for modern tvs. I figured I'd might as well own the main 3 consoles from that generation and get the Xbox. I bought one that came with some cheap third party controllers and the first thing I did was replace the old capacitors on the circuit board. No problem there. Now there were 3 modifications I wanted to install, a mod chip with a new OS, replace the HDD with an SSD to install games on, and the HDMI converter. First up is the mod chip, and the install went fine. Except that after installing it with the new OS, the controller doesn't work. From here, I'd tinker with it for a day or two and then get pissed and shelf it for a couple of weeks before going back to it. I even bought extra controllers which didn't work, and a fucking oscilloscope to trace the controller signals through the motherboard to see if I accidentally de-soldered something installing the mod chip. Turns out the problem was the guy who made the OS didn't put any tolerances in for the controller signals, so the third party controllers I had just didn't work. Got some original Xbox controllers, and everything was fine and fucking dandy. The SSD install actually went in no problem. The HDMI converter was a pain in the ass because I had to solder in this ribbon cable with tiny contacts, but I got it in. And it just didn't work. Apparently the two mods, mod chip and HDMI converter, were supposed to work together but sometimes they just didn't since they are made by two different people. Only remedy is get another mod chip or converter and maybe those work. But I got lucky and one guy made a dual mod chip and converter. So I got that. Installed it. It fucking worked. I spent some time downloading and installing a bunch of games to the SSD. When I was happy with my newly acquired library of Xbox games, I unplugged it from the setup on my work bench and moved it to my living room, and when I turned it on the TV showed no signal. Fuck. When I cracked it back open, the mod chip had an LCD display with a fault code that should mean a bad solder joint or firmware needs to be reinstalled. I did both, but no luck. Checked the forums and found good news and bad news. The good news was that at least a dozen of other people are having the same problem, so there should be a fix, right? Well... Bad news was that the creator was responding to everyone with a, "I've never had that problem, you must have done something wrong. Buy a new kit and install it correctly this time." ... This bitch... I put that Xbox right in my closet and haven't touch it since 2023. I spent 2 and a half years and a lot more money than I want to admit on that console and I'm just fucking done. I might go back and get it working some day, but I still want to vomit whenever I glance at the damn thing
I felt like I begrudgingly bought it, out of spite. Like I HAD to buy it, or I was no longer a modern gamer.
And then it just fell flat for me. I played GTA, and maybe a handfull of other games, but mostly GTA.
I guess the PS4 is actually the same story, except I just never played it. To this day I have a PS4 that I never really used. But I also had no excitement for it.
And I guess the same for PS5. I bought it to play GTA 6, thinking it was coming soon. That was 4 years ago. I've watched dvds more than I've played games on it.
But with PS3, I actually had excitement brewing. I expected big things. It just never materialized.
I've already decided I'm not buying a PS6, and I'm not buying GTA6.
I bought the Retroid Pocket Flip 2, which is exactly the same everything as a Retroid Pocket 5, with the exception of form factor. With apps like game native, I can play older PC games.
But like.....have you ever played Super Mario Bros 2 at 2am, while smoking weed? The game holds up.
I guess I'm not a fan of the greyscale realistic graphics of a dystopian future, and everybody is shooting guns.
Yaaaaaaaaaawn.
But Stardew Valley?
The Survivalists?
Those games are amazing! Colorful graphics. I don't need realism. I need escapism. I need worlds that make me feel SOMETHING positive in my life.
But ever since PS2, it's been guns guns guns, rainy grey skies, post apocaliptic worlds. I don't need that, and it's been industry standard for 25 years it feels like.
Looking back… none of them. I had an OG Gameboy, GBA, PS2, Wii, 3DS, and now a Switch 2. My favorite was probably either the first Gameboy or the 3DS. I loved all of the weird streetpass stuff when I was traveling for work. But I have great memories of all of them, and the S2 has been a lot of fun with my kids.
OnLive micro console was great while it lasted, I'm glad I just did a subscription and not buy stuff though because when Sony bought them to convert it to playstation now they shut down the old servers and the console became useless
For perspective, I've owned a lot of systems from the NES on.
The first year of the Nintendo DS. The (first, Grey) system was quite ugly and there really wasn't much great software coming out. That all changed after the first year, oh boy. My favorite system ever now.
The Wii. Too much gimmick stuff distracting from the experience (eg metroid wiimote shooting and wiimote sideways). So much shovelware!. It's still a nice system (especially considering backwards compatibility too) but still.
I also had the 32X and virtual boy at some point of time but did not regret them as I knew what I was getting. After burner, star wars and virtua racing or (then) cheap stereoscopic red games.
The Wii. Too much gimmick stuff distracting from the experience (eg metroid wiimote shooting and wiimote sideways). So much shovelware!. It’s still a nice system (especially considering backwards compatibility too) but still.
It's funny you say the controls distract from the experience, when I'd argue they add to the experience.
You ask me, the Wii is great and just keeps getting better, even now, with active homebrew communities. Many games allow you to choose what controller type you want, and there is a lot of creativity in the different games for using the Wiimote (though you may find those gimmicky). The biggest downside is trying to play if your TV is near a window and the sun is out. You have to close the blinds or it messes with the IR sensor.
Everything you said is correct. My gripe is mainly in the on the fly changes (as said, metroid other m -> made for the Wii) which tear me out of the experience.
If a game has good controls and sticks to it or switches at useful points, fine.
But anything that makes me refocus on outside of the game itself during the game is a distraction.
The same mistake is also made by some switch games (Wario ware, m&l brothership - Luigi b button).
And while the issue itself is known and also can add to bad review scores (other M) it seems to hit some people more and others less. For various reasons I get very immersed in games and hence I figure the disruption is even worse - it's a personal thing.
I can't say xbox series x disappointed me, but compared to playstation it felt meh - probably due to as unenthusiastic UI as a gaming console can get. I guess I was lucky with consoles if this is the biggest issue.
Master System 2
Super Nintendo
Game Boy
PlayStation
PlayStation 2
GameBoy Advance SP
PlayStation Portable
PlayStation 3
New 3DS
Steam Deck
I honestly think the 3DS was probably the most disappointing; I bought it on a whim 2nd hand from EB Games along with a copy of a Pokémon game (I don’t remember which). Mechanics hadn’t evolved much since Pokémon Blue, and the experience was kinda “meh” overall.
I also dabbled with a few other games, but nothing gripped me. The only saving grace for that console was that it rapidly appreciated in value since my purchase (like 5x?) due to the relative rarity of that particular colorway.
PS4 - no games. Worse multimedia experience compared to PS3. No longer matters to me but did at launch.
Xbone - no games
Didn't buy PS5 or another Xbox myself but my roommate did get a PS5. No games. He's not buying another Sony console either.
Artificial value of exclusives lost combined with drastically less output from AAA and oddball titles like Sony had on PSN during PS3 era renders consoles completely pointless to me now. Since I was always PC gaming while also owning consoles in the past, I built a PC for the living room too.
Upcoming disappointment:
Probably Switch 2. I think Nintendo has lost their way ever since Iwata died. Certainly their style has evaporated. You will like your black/white barren GUI or else Mario's getting shot. Switch 1 was already borderline.
I guess I'm lucky this never happened to me. I tend to do a lot of research on a console before I get it, and wait until mid-generation when it's matured with some good games. The closest thing might be the Oculus Rift, since I never did find an addictive VR game I loved. If I hadn't bought it, I might've never tried out Half-Life: Alyx, and would've been forever curious. But...it definitely wasn't a killer app.
I am one of the few lucky ones to actually get an Ouya... It wasn't great.
My friend got an ouya, I think he mostly got it as a bit of a curiosity since he was a game dev student (and now does it professionally)
It absolutely didn't do anything particularly different or better than any other gadget we could have hooked up to the TV to game on, but we did have a lot of fun with it for a while. It was kind of nice that it was so small so he could carry it around easily if he wanted to take it somewhere for a party or something.
And a few of the games we first discovered on the ouya are still mainstays of our parties when we manage to get together as busy adults.
Through a series of moves, roommate swaps, and marriage, that ouya (though not the controller) has actually now ended up in my possession
It's on the left with my small collection of retro consoles and handhelds. Couple other cool bits of geeky paraphernalia scattered in there too. Disregard the mess on the coffee table and such, this was taken in the middle of some renovations, turns out I don't take many pictures of my entertainment center.
Your entertainment center is so cool I didn't even notice the so called "mess".
The real shame is that the coffee table isn't really visible because it's pretty cool itself, it's a hatch from a ship (I believe a WWII Liberty ship)
Bit of family history with it too. My dad originally had it, but my mom hated it, so eventually it went to live with my grandfather. He died, and it ended up back in our basement. My sister and I both really liked it, and we had a bit of an agreement that whoever moved out first got the table, and I won.
EDIT: Also for anyone else who likes my setup, the entertainment center and shelves in the wall are IKEA Fjallbo, no pretty affordable. The shelf of the far right is just an IKEA Kallax.
And I have the TV synced up to Phillips hue lights behind it and in the ceiling
That’s a lotta Chianti
I'm not totally sure where the bottles came from, we don't really drink chianti, and they've just kind of been hanging around on a shelf somewhere, but they ultimately ended up on this chandelier
Hahaha nice. I’ve tried it once, it was nice. Very distinctive bottle, though!
Nice portal gun hiding up on a shelf.
Every so often I get reminded of the Ouya. I still have mine from the Kickstarter somewhere. It was good in concept, and I even saw posts of it being sold in major retailers like Target, but it just fizzled out far too fast.
I came to say this. Some good games on there, but Julie Uhrman is the worst. and to think, she just failed upward.
I owned Ouya. The games weren't great but OK. Some were fun. At least console wasn't too expensive. Then I tried to change my email for my Ouya account and learned that the company behind Ouya disappeared. I was frustrated and sold my Ouya :(
It was sooo bad. We had such a bad time with it. The controller buttons stick, the software was super buggy, and they required a credit card to log in (I dont know if that changed after the first couple of months, but I remember being pissed).
Xbox One. Everytime I booted it up to feed the Halo crave, there’d be an update that took like an hour. Finally get on… Halo needs to update. 1 hour later, I’ve lost interest.
Repeat 6+ months later.
I quit getting consoles after the PS3 and Xbox 360 and I made the right decision. The PS4 and XBone were painfully slow, had horrid load times, and everything was expensive. Watching my friend play Monster Hunter drove me insane, like five minutes of loading per hunt!
An hour progress in Morrowind, so caught up I forgot to save. Red ring.
Probably the Sega 32X. The messaging around it was kind of confusing, and still being fairly young when it came out, I was expecting it to be the gateway to 32 bit gaming that I would be enjoying for years to come. I ended up getting virtua racing on it, which was better than the Genesis version, but nothing spectacular really. I also got virtua fighter, which was a genuinely good game. Almost everything else was ports of mediocre games that had already come out on the Genesis. A couple of original games like knuckles chaotix just... Kinda sucked. Then when I found out that all of the support was going behind the Saturn, and that's where all of the new and original games were going, well I just felt swindled.
Xbox. I wanted a gamecube but my parents didn't like nintendo for some reason. Now im old and i don't like nintendo for some reason, and I still don't like xbox
My friend, there are lots of reasons not to like the litigious corporate monstrosity that Nintendo has become.
Also, they don't really do proper adult games like Elden Ring.
If you love Zelda I understand but it's time to move on.
[edit: Added a line break for two separate thoughts. Sloppy writing remains for the sake of responses.]
"Proper adults" play whatever the fuck they like, including Zelda.
not proper adults, ops saying games catered towards adults
In the context of the first sentence, the second sentence seems to imply that Zelda isn't for "proper adults". Even if it wasn't meant like that (I can't see how else it can be meant), who is OP to tell people to "move on".
Fair, my phrasing was probably too saucy there. Drunk post, my bad. I would still call myself a Zelda fan, even though the last one I played was Twilight Princess. It's one of the all-time greatest series and the titles nearly always score 9/10 everywhere for a reason.
But I'm still going to say to "move on". Not because of Zelda, no. There's no real substitute. Rather, move on because Nintendo is scummy and doesn't deserve your money when plenty of other publishers are making fun and creative games and working hard for it instead of suing their own customers.
So you're saying move on to the high seas? Yarr
What's the GabeN quote? Piracy is a customer service problem? That seems applicable here.
I downvoted your rough draft but upvoted your final version.
Yes this was what I actually meant.
That's true. I wouldn't expect someone to play games that aren't fun to them.
But you're not exactly helping the gaming industry improve if you're regularly giving money to douchey companies rather than more open-minded publishers. I think it's pretty simple to argue that you're endorsing the scumbag behavior if you help finance it.
Nintendo has always been litigious. I don’t understand this myth that they used to be wholesome and friendly in the good old days.
They sued Atari for making NES games. They sued Galoob for making the Game Genie. They sued Blockbuster for renting their games.
Kirby the character is literally named after Nintendo’s lawyer John Kirby.
That's a very good point. But they're even more of a corporate behemoth now.
I was a Nintendo Power subscriber until the GameCube era, and I feel like they used to share a little bit of behind-the-scenes fun (e.g. making-of Donkey Kong Country VHS) and promote 3rd-party titles even on the magazine cover. But it seems like even that kind of stuff is long gone.
minus that one comic book looking gorey slasher game for the wii
That was pretty fun, very clever too. They could spend more on the graphics because it was greyscale.
Red Steel or MadWorld?
i think it was madworld, didnt know there were 2 games like that for the wii
Red Steel was a release title, meant to showcase the Wii as a serious console for adults as well as a family friendly console for kids, but I'm pretty sure it, MadWorld, and No More Heroes were the only remotely gorey games for it.
Shitty take.
I owned a fucking Virtual Boy. Do I really need to explain why I was disappointed?
I tried one in the local shop and couldn't see why anyone would want that shit.
And I bought one cheap while on a trip to the US (being European). Was happy I got this curiosity cheap. Worth it for me.
Yeah I can see buying it as a curiosity, but did any kid ever actually ask to go home so they can play their Virtual Boy?
And, holy shit, they're going for a decent price on eBay.
Nah, of course.
The Switch.
Damn thing was fragile af, and they wanted to rent everything to us, no more Virtual Console no more solid hardware, they spend more money suing people for fixing it then they do on it like blocking local backup of saves so they can force a cloud sub and them still not having fixed the drifting JoyCons then charging you more than they are worth for repairs.
This is my answer too. As soon as I read the question it just hit me. I only had a lite. Never the big one. The thing was fragile. It always felt like I was gonna break it even just holding it in my hands. I babied the fuck out of that system. I really enjoyed the games I had for it. I played it quite a bit. It's just that the system itself was kinda jank. The lifeless interface, the slow store, the slow games that pushed the hardware too far. Just bleh. Then Steam Deck came out and it blew it out of the water in every way possible.
I never got the steam deck comparison.
It's like comparing different leagues, classes or whatever and then additionally apples and oranges.
Yes, first off, of course the steam deck is far more powerful than the switch. For the price and used hardware it better be! That's a moot point basically, I could also argue that a >2k€ mobile should be more powerful than a <200€ one. Also, the switch literally is a mobile while the steam deck more of a PC anyhow, which again is a more powerful platform. I'm not going into energy usage though.
The other point is that the steam deck is a pc with a console frontend and that the switch is a console. One is a locked down system (with hard specs) and the other - Well, a pc.
That makes neither better or worse but it depends on your requirements. I love my PCs but sometimes I just want stuff to work and be one packaged experience. And thats where consoles shine. Example: I've played steredenn on switch but never got the controls to work on steam deck, although it's a Linux version even.
The point being. It's fine to like the steam deck over the switch. But it's not comparable however crappy the switch might be.
I fully agree with you. The experiences are very different. I think it’s a disservice to point people especially first time gamers to a Steam deck and say “oh look it’s a console”
For me the definition of a console is plug and play with a dedicated UI. Anything you can see in the store you can run ! Anything marked it can play you put the medium in and it runs …
The online discourse on here and on gaming channels have little if any understanding of people who have never picked up a game controller before. Or is under the age of 12.
And even if there was a “war” between the two the Switch most certainly won I believe 120 million to 6 Million ?
There most certainly still is a mainstream market to take advantage of
Exactly. We're in a bubble. People outside just want things to work and buy stuff you can get everywhere.
Nevertheless I try to give interested people a balanced view.
I get what you're trying to say but I really disagree. You can compare the two because they're offering the same basic premise. The ability to play video games in a handheld form. Of course the price is different. Of course the capabilities are different. Of course the power of the two machines are different. That's a given. They're two different pieces of technology. We compare technology based off of what they're offering. These two machines are offering the same thing. The ability to play video games in a handheld form. In what world is anything that's offering the same thing as another thing not up for comparison?
For me the Steam Deck made the Switch a redundant device. You can compare them apples to apples. Store experience? Steam Deck wipes the floor with the Switch. We all know the Switch has a horrible store experience. Online capabilities? Steam Deck. Don't have to pay $20 a year to use online capabilities with my Deck. Form factor? Steam Deck is a big bulky machine but it's more ergonomically better suited for me because I'm not as scrunched up like I was holding the Switch lite. OG Switch may have a better experience there. Games they offer? The only thing a Switch offers that separates the two in favor of the Switch is the ability to play Nintendo games natively without jumping through hoops.
You can say the Switch is a console and the Steam Deck is a PC all you want. That's factually true. You can even compare that. They're both computers with a processor, a fan, some form of gpu. One offers a closed off user experience bound to the rules and end user license agreement of a single company. The other is an open full blown PC experience where the makers of the machine say do whatever you want to it. Because you can do whatever you want to a Steam Deck you may run into problems with it that you wouldn't otherwise experience on a console. That's a fine and fair comparison.
To say they aren't comparable is shielding the Switch from criticism. It's doing a disservice to anybody who is looking for a handheld device to play video games because you're hiding information from a perspective buyer who may have a certain set of requirements pertaining to purchasing such a device.
Thanks for the great discussion. I am fine with everything but the last paragraph.
But first, let's respectfully still disagree in general. However I think we're just expressing it differently.
So, from a pc perspective the steam deck is obsolete, since my 14" notebook is a far better device to me. And it's highly mobile too. Thing is, this point is basically going nowhere since with price and over all sectors there will always be a (technologically objective) better device. Why don't we all buy pro tools? Well price for one. It's always about the ratio. Anyhow, just for clarity, I'm really fine with disagreeing here.
Regarding the last paragraph: just recently I had a talk with someone interested and she was looking for a mobile device. I told her about switch and also steam deck, showed both and highlighted the experience differences but as the main point I told her she at the single most important thing needs to look into the game libraries which suits her otherwise she will have a paperweight. It is always and has always been the software that sells the systems.
The perspective buyer wants to play a game and deserves the best experience. On whatever current or future system that might be, and has to weigh in on the price he wants to spend. And that's what I would recommend.
Yeah no problem. I think I know where the disagreement is stemming from. I may be wrong so you can correct me, but you look at the Steam Deck as a handheld PC competing with other PCs. I look at the Steam Deck as a handheld PC competing with other handhelds in general. That's the disagreement. It's a fine line because neither one is really right or wrong. We fall on the opposite sides. I have a PC that is much more powerful than the Steam Deck. That didn't make the Steam Deck obsolete to me. I wasn't looking at the Steam Deck as a PC replacement.
My last paragraph and your actions with your friend prove my point. If they weren't comparable you wouldn't bring them up together. I do agree with you that software sells the system. That's why I bought a Switch to begin with.
The Steam Deck with Eden on it plays Switch games better than my Switch, move up to a more powerful Ally X or a full computer...
Yeah my PC is part of the reason the Switch was so disappointing too. I really wanted a handheld so I didn't have to sit at my desk. Turns out I sat at my PC way more than I ever turned on the Switch. Outside of the exclusives it was a really redundant system.
Sadly Xenoblade doesn't play well on emulation, the only exclusives I lost, I was kinda miffed about losing my Animal Crossing island after having spent hundreds of hours building it and raiding forums for island visit codes of people with rare items in the shop but it is what it is when the greey company locks your saves on internal memory and sues the guy who dropped the code to copy them.
That and surprisingly Breath of the Wild always crashes my PC after a while. I don't know what is causing the crash other than possibly a spike in memory that freaks the GPU out. Luckily Unicorn Overlord doesn't do that and that game looks a million times better on my PC. It upscales really nice.
The weird one I get is DQ XIS, if I launch it in 2D mode it plays perfectly, but if I swap to 3D it crashes hard, like my whole computer has frozen up and I run Linux so that's not normal.
I miss Xenoblade, and I'm mad I bought special editions of the whole series only to be unable to play them now, but that's a few hundred bucks lost vs all the money spent buying three Switches only to have them fail and losing saves because you can;t back them up yourself and Nintendon't sued the guy who wrote the code that let you to push their shitty cloud nobody asked for.
I've been off Sony for a while, as well, because getting ads on the home screen was a big "Nope!" for me, but when I left they had a better cloud system, but you could still plug in a USB device and backup your saves to it without PS+. No idea if they broke it as well, but Nintendo has always been at the forefront ot greedy corporate fuckery, it's just now that enshittification has seeped into everything pushing the boundaries of an already bad ecosystem isn't just kinda annoying like it used to be.
I'm on Linux too. AMD or Nvidia?
I... I have to ask. I really like the switch as the last console there ever was or possibly might be. But I see lots of issues too.
By rent everything to us, you mean game downloads? If so, the switch has a huge physical media collection but yes they might not be in your stores.
I mean the emulation, their online service as a sub with it all included, rather than letting us buy like they did from the time they implemented it up through the 3DS. There's issues with digital copies, but my 3DS has a permanent license when they closed the eShop, so all of the games I have on it will work until the system dies and I can;t downalod them again. The Switch, if I am not subscribed to Online, all of them are gone.
I wholeheartedly agree, the classic games in Nintendo online as a subscription is a shit concept.
If I didn't have better ways of playing these (and more) retro games I wouldn't have any morality issues using a hacked switch to play these.
Oh, they're all on RetroArch, now.
I just hate them not letting you pay for it, their greed forces piracy, but then I've not downloaded a game because I was too broke to buy it for decades. It's all been being unable to buy, or having terrible DRM that broke the game, or a shitty launcher that you were forced to use.
PS3. Coming from the PS2, the library was bland in comparison. And later on, when I got interested in console modding, the PS3 was the slowest and most cumbersome to do anything and with barely any variety of homebrew stuff. And also, I'm dreading having to replace the controller (due to the 3rd party PS button situation) and replacing the HD (due to how entangled pieces apparently are).
Later on, it'd become an overpowered PS2 console for me.
PS3 was on one the best consoles ever released tho
Maybe the library was meh (I didn’t really notice it) but from a hw it was peak. It was famously sold at a loss based on how much power it had
For a while, it was the cheapest Blu-ray player you could get
I've replaced the HDD with an SSD a few years ago. It's very easy. Just make sure you backup your savegames and settings first.
I wouldn't call any console I own a disappointment, even the Wii U had several games I loved and put too many hours into. But the system I ended up playing the least was the Steam Deck. It's just too bulky to feel like a proper portable, not nearly as cozy as the Nintendo handhelds I grew up on. I get some use taking it to FGC events as a monitorless setup (and I will be bringing it to Combo Breaker 2026 next week), but that's kinda all I ended up using it for.
I still don't regret buying it as the most important thing to happen to Linux gaming, but it was a system I bought to have more than to use. I later bought a Miyoo Mini Plus and ended up putting far more hours into that than I ever did the Deck. If anyone ever gets SteamOS running on a device in that size form factor, they'll get my entire bank account.
I acknowledge the Steam Deck is an important step forward for PC gaming, but I just didn't get enough use out of it to justify the purchase. I ended up giving mine to my friend whose only gaming option prior to that was a shitty old laptop. At least now we can play stuff together that's been made in the last decade.
Honestly, my gaming laptop. Bought a few years ago, 3050. It was good and I could play games on it - but I live in a situation where all my electricity is solar generated and limited, charges 12v batteries and runs mains appliances via inverter. And the laptop was just too power hungry for long gaming sessions.
It was more a failure of me to properly research than a problem with the product, but was a let down. Bought a steam deck and never looked back.
I get a nervous inhalation each time an acquaintance asks me for advice in buying a gaming laptop.
Their computing world started with laptops, and they want to extend the idea. It’s so hard to express to them it’s generally not a good one.
Yeah right, especially with handheld devices becoming increasingly popular. The steam deck was by best purchase by far, in terms of fun per pound spent. And there's much more powerful alternatives out there now.
I bought a gaming laptop around 2005. You could anchor a ship and melt the polar ice caps with it. I don't think I ever installed a single game on it.
The Sega Game Gear. That sucker could drain six AA batteries in about three hours. Do you know how hard it was to find a place to buy AA batteries on Christmas day?
While a rechargeable battery pack fixed that problem, most of the games were garbage compared to the GameBoy. The first party games were the best, but most everything else was 'meh.'
I never did get that TV tuner add-on either.
I think one saving grace for the Game Gear was that you could also play Master System games using an adapter, if I remember correctly?
You might be thinking of the Sega Nomad, which was made explicitly to pay the full size cartridges. My dad had one for a while and it was the Game Gear turned to 11, flaws and all. Huge, hot, heavy, and devoured batteries. It was a cool concept on paper but nobody wanted to spend hundreds on it to play Sonic the Hedgehog on a tiny screen with a giant warm brick as a controller.
I was in primary school when the Game Gear was a thing, so my memory was foggy - but the adapter was definitely a thing:
Instant flashback to my childhood. At some point i finally got a used game gear somewhere and the games were just awfull.
Probably the virtual boy. It was so cool at the time, I got Red Alert(?) and it was fantastic. Then there was like, a bowling game, and maybe a wario game? And nobody made anything else for it, and it sat in a drawer for years before my parents made me get rid of it. It could have been so good.
there were only 14 titles released in the US
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Virtual_Boy_games
Shit it was red alarm, dang it.
Also, that number sounds about right lmao, it was so bad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO8jCls8F24
Yup came here to say this. Had Mario tennis and I’m sure some other game but yeah not a lot of games. However it did cause a lot of headaches.
But otherwise I mean, I’ve not bought anything I would say is disappointing but also I haven’t bought any current gen bullshit.
WiiU was maybe a little closer to a disappointment? But more so because it wasn’t as popular. I absolutely loved the 2nd screen for shit like shoving the UI for MH3U on there so I could look at it while keeping the main screen clear.
Aw I came for this answer. I was fortunate to see through the BS because I was very immersed in the tech at the time, but the VB genuinely had cool potential and I wanted it to succeed so it could lead to new generations of full-color VR (which took like another 2+ decades).
Nintendo Switch
Mario Odyssey was fine, but I didn't really see the use for a portable slab compared to a pocket-size device like my phone or the 3DS. Also, this was the first Nintendo device that felt completely soulless. At least the Wii U had some charm to it.
yep, switch sucks balls.
Nintendo Switch, I should have known better. Nintendo consoles are great for kids who are new to playing games, not so much for people who have been gaming for generations.
I've got more than a thousand hours on my Switch, easily among the best consoles I've ever played on since my start on the Game Boy and Genesis. What do you feel brings it down for adults?
Nintendo titles are, essentially, very good introductory video games. If you've played, well, pretty much any RPG, there's no point playing Zelda or Pokemon. Same for fighting games and Smash Brothers or racing games and Mario Kart.
Everyone has to get started gaming somewhere, but beyond nostalgia? The rest of gaming has moved in from Nintendo.
Weird. Smash, Mario kart, and even Splatoon are very unique games within their respective genres and not really "beginner," because there are some people who are really, insanely good.
Oh, there's a point, and it's a pretty big one that people tend to forget:
Games like Zelda and Pokemon are fun. They might not have the best graphics, but they're fun. They may not have the best story, but they are fun. The hardware may not be powerful, the gameplay might be repetitive, the scenery might be bland, the NPC's might not be engaging, it may not be particularly challenging, it may have questionable design choices; but the games are fun to play.
I feel that as gamers get older they forget that, at its core, games are supposed to be fun. They look at Nintendo and then at other big companies and go "what the hell? Nintendo looks like CRAP! Every other AAA company has WAY more impressive games!" without realizing that Nintendo isn't really trying to make impressive games. They make fun games that are fun to play. Games anyone can start having fun with less than a minute after picking up the controller.
They were fun, the first time. But how many iterations does someone need of the same game?
People complain about the latest game in a series like Tomb Raider or Assassin's Creed going "OMG, IT'S JUST THE SAME THING AGAIN!" It's literally a joke with Madden or Call of Duty, but for some reason Nintendo gets a pass.
It's cool if you're a kid and Breath of the Wild is the first Zelda game you ever played... For anyone else? Unless you have on the nostalgia goggles, there are better things out there.
That is an interesting opinion, thank you for sharing.
The Switch was a slow burn for me. Initially I bought it and hated it. I bought BOTW (had it on Wii U as well) and I felt underwhelmed. Fast forward to end of year and games like Mario Odyssey came out. Not to mention I had a lot of travel and the system just felt perfect for me. Loving the Switch 2 now.
Ironically I bought a Wii U and loved it at first. Only to look back now and see it’s a system I never bought more the 3 games for …
I feel ya. I was a diehard Nintendo Power subscriber for probably longer than appropriate (thanks, parents) but they didn't keep up with me.
Same with Switch. I got it for MHGenU so it was still worth it—I put hundreds of hours into GenU, it’s one of my favorite MH games ever.
Every other game though, I’ve just played on my computer. My friend lent me BotW to try and as soon as I stepped outside and the framerate dropped, I shut it down and looked into how to play it on my computer. A little while later, I had it running at 1440p/120+ FPS with shaders and mods and stuff. Since then, I’ve just been playing everything on my computer.
I was pretty disappointed after getting a Switch 2 when I found out that Nintendo had blocked all video streaming apps on it. Even apps like Pokemon TV, which had transferred from my Switch 1 during account migration, were blocked from opening despite being downloaded on the device.
even youtube?
Yes. I couldn't get any video streaming app to play. I don't think you could even download them from the Nintendo Store, but I'd have to double check.
I would have got a switch if it was allowed to do the things it can do.
PS5. Minimal games
Probably the Switch. It's ... fine, I guess? NES? Awsome. SNES? fantastic. GB? amazing for its time. Genesis was killer. Atari 2600 was huge in its day. The switch? Meh.
It doesn't help that I'm generally unhappy with nintendo being a bunch of greedy fucks as I see it.
That’s unfortunate. Hopefully you’ve made up for lost time
Nintendo Switch
I've never really clicked with the Switch and we've had one since launch. It's not all bad, handheld and home console in-one is a pretty cool concept, but it underwhelms in all ways. Also browsing the eShop is painfully slow too.
PSP. I know now people are raving about it, but the games basically all sucked except a few and it was a pretty good emulator handheld though. But it mostly collected dust.
The PSP was both amazing and awful. So much squandered potential. So few developers did anything cool with it.
PS Vita. It had so much promise, but the games weren’t really there and Sony kinda just forgot about it. I remember it was the first time you could stream a PS4 game to a handheld, which was novel at the time. But it never felt “good enough” and most games didn’t support it or were too finicky. If I look at my Steam Deck now, I think that’s more or less what Sony had in mind for the Vita as well
I was a bit conservative myself (or maybe lucky that neighbor kids had a 3DO and Sega CD I could try) but I did own a Sega Game Gear. That thing drank 6x AA batteries like there was no tomorrow. And the game library was very lackluster after the Sonic titles.
There were NiCad rechargeables. I didn't own a Game Gear, but a friend did, and I remember him using NiCads for that and RC vehicles.
It's been a looong time. But I think it drank those too? Engineers in those days maybe didn't know how to optimize a full color screen with good brightness like that device sported.
The Game Gear has an entire CFL bulb behind the screen. A popular mod is to swap it out for some LEDs, which consume an order of magnitude less power.
It's not that they lasted longer, but that it was considerably less expensive to recharge them than to buy and throw out a new set of batteries for each session.
It drank everything. I had a screw on battery pack that attached to the back of it and I still remember it didn't last very long.
Switch Lite. Great console, but limited in stupid ways. Why no video out?
Yeah it’s not that much cheaper than a normal Switch. I’d love a smaller switch 2 with an option to video out to TV
PS5 or Nintendo Switch.
PS5: No games I want to play except Demons Souls Remake. Its the only PS5 game I own. Every other game I wanted to play I just play on PC instead.
Switch: Weak, underpowered "console." Never left the dock, ever. Still had performance problems in first party titles, like Breath of the Wild chugging to 15fps or less in the Korok Forest when facing East for some reason. After I was disappointed with Breath of the Wild, I haven't touched the 2014 midrange tablet "console" since. Only emulated the games for an immensely better experience.
IIRC that Tegra X1 chip was launched in 2015 so the Switch launched with an obsolete SoC. It's surprising to see how much performance they've been able to wring out of that old tech for nearly a decade. Color me impressed.
That's kinda, at least historically, been Nintendo's whole thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi#Design_philosophy
Unpopular opinion, but Xbox 360. The first ones didn't have hdmi, didn't have a hard drive, the giant power brick was unsightly, the controller has the worst dpad I have ever touched and playing any fighting game on it was a pain, the paid multiplayer cancer grew there, the ads in the main menu of the console... And I didn't get to see the red ring of death since I've switched to PS3 as soon as I could afford one.
I know a lot of people have fond memories of it, but for me the 360 represented the worst of the console manufacturers' greed, milking the consumer to the bone while cheaping out on everything that was possible to cheap out on.
Mine was also the 360, but simply because of when I got it. I was a young teen when it originally came out, and I begged my parents for one. They were concerned that my kid brother (several years younger than me) would inevitably end up playing the games I had for it. The 360 was marketed more as a mature console, compared to the family friendly Wii. So I had to wait until my brother was old enough to play games like COD and Halo.
This meant that by the time I finally got the 360, the XBO was nearing release. And the 360’s multiplayer heyday had largely passed by that point, as everyone had largely moved on from games like Halo 3, Modern Warfare 2, Assassins Creed Brotherhood, etc… So matchmaking lobbies for all of the games I wanted to experience were basically only full of the diehard fans who had absolutely no sympathy for new/learning players. It meant I ended up using it primarily as a single player console. I enjoyed lots of single-player games like Final Fantasy 13/13-2, Lost Odyssey, Mass Effect Trilogy, Dark Souls, etc… But that’s pretty much all I used it for. I’d chat with friends while I played if they were online, but it quickly became clear that my friends were moving on from the console.
All of the big multiplayer experiences for the 360 were largely lost on me, because none of my friends were interested in playing those old games by that point. And multiplayer is unfortunately a large part of what the console was designed for. I think the only multiplayer game that really held our attention was Destiny, and even that turned out to be a pretty big disappointment after a while. We only really kept playing it as an excuse to hang out in voice chat.
I was also largely moving towards PC gaming by that point. I had already experimented with installing games like Oblivion and Skyrim on my (really shitty) laptop, and got them running at potato quality. I saw the potential, and shifted towards PC gaming after getting the 360. I saved up my money from my first job, and built my first PC a year or two after getting the 360. So I only really kept the 360 around for the exclusives that weren’t on PC.
Nowadays, I just emulate the 360 exclusives for single player. Currently working my way through Lost Odyssey, because I never actually got around to finishing it on the 360. I think because I built my PC before I beat the game.
I still want to play some of the rpgs of that era: Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Eternal Sonata
Just need to find the time somewhere 😅
My Xbox 360 RRoD'ed on me twice.
It also had its disc drive die THE DAY I got Skyrim on release after waiting in line for it.
I spent the next several hours learning how to flash the firmware of a broken RRoD'ed Xbox 360 so that I could replace my drive with its parts.
It was simultaneously the best and worst console I ever owned:
Best because I have a lot of fond memories playing Halo 3 multiplayer, Skyrim, etc. with my friends in my college apartment we all shared.
Worst because it was an unreliable piece of shit.
They offered the HDD as optional if you paid for the “pro” package. The HDMI was a bummer but being honest I needed to buy a special adapter to use on my TV because I didn’t even have component out ! So slightly understandable at the time.
It wasn’t a well built system none of that generation was. I went through three Xbox 360s. I bought my fourth 2 years ago !
Lot of fond memories though
The PS4. My wife and I played a lot of PS3, so we were excited for the 4, but it just didn't hit right. We ended up barely using it. At some point we let someone borrow it and never asked for it back.
I don't even remember what we didn't like, except that we were both pumped for the latest sack boy game, which ended up not anywhere near as fun as the first one.
Gamecube.
The other consoles were pushing for more, but instead the Gamecube only cared about being small?
I was fresh off Nintendo 64 so I was expecting Banjo-threeie (STOP N SWAP had been so hyped), other awesome Rare games, a new Mario, the new Zelda, and finally a Pokemon game on a modern console!
Hahaha
Mario Sunshine was such a bad game that had none of Mario 64's soul I never touched another Mario game after that. I hated the art of Zelda Windwaker and that it had lost all the dark vibes, and obviously none of the other games I was expecting never happened. I felt completely scammed for being loyal to Nintendo. I taught me to never be loyal to a brand.
The one and only game I enjoyed on that system was Metroid Prime, but as a child I was only allowed one new console like every 5 years and I deeply regretted not getting a PS2 instead like my friends.
I loved Sunshine and only learned later it was one of the more divisive 3D Mario games. What didn't you like about it?
It was such a long time ago I just remember more of the vibes than the solid reasons I didn't like it.
*The levels weren't as open as 64. It felt more guardrailed. There was a lot less exploration.
*My favourite thing in 64 was getting flying caps and flying around which wasn't a thing in Sunshine.
*64 had a darker, more mysterious tone that felt a lot more meaningful and Sunshine felt very frivolous
*cleaning up the sludge wasn't a very fun minigame for me, it was a weird villain
By itself it was probably a good game but it shouldn't have been a Mario game.
Fair enough. I liked that the maps felt lived in and connected, so exploration was actually more compelling for me in Sunshine, and I tend to lean away from darker games in general. Different tastes.
As someone that didn't play sunshine as a kid but did recently, sunshine is my least favorite. The controls are clunkier than the other mario games because of the water , there was way more repetition with the bosses (the stupid goo piranha plants). Super Mario 64 was great and I feel like Super Mario Galaxy was an insane leap from Sunshine
Just curious, did you play the original or the All Stars version? The water mechanics were designed for the GameCube's analog triggers, so the Switch's digital triggers forced All Stars to use a workaround. I never played the All Stars version, so I don't actually know if that made much of a difference.
Agreed on boss repetition. I was definitely less sensitive to that as a kid. (Maybe I still am?)
my dad got a 3do and it was a piece of shit he never got a console for himself again lol
The Atari 2600. I was expecting a NES.
PS5, ever since I stopped with PS Plus, there's basically no games.
The only way they can get me back is dropping the PS Plus requirement for online play.
Xnone. I bought it on, and for, the Fallout 4 release. They both sucked so bad I haven't bought a console, or Bethesda game since.
I still want the console experience though. Couch gaming, mostly all set up. I don't have the inclination to research a build, buy all the individual parts and build the thing.
I was thinking about a Beelink SER8, but the Steam Machine announced. When the steam machine releases I'll compare it to equal price point minis. Steam gets a valve bonus, plus a bonus to knowing that's the target Devs will be trying to hit.
Man alive, that's gutting. I also haven't bought a Bethesda game since F4. Was hoping they might have doubled-down on the improvements between F3 and F:NV, but what they came out with was no kind of RPG at all, a shocking disappointment.
Means I missed out on F76 and Starfield, which is no kind of hardship at all. And I'm whatever the opposite of "hyped" is for ES6 - looking forward more to booting up Morrowind again.
What games do you play?
I bought a WiiU for Bayonetta 2.
Not only was the WiiU itself little more than a paperweight beyond running it, the game itself was extremely lackluster and simplified.
I didn't even bother emulating bayo 3.
Atari Lynx. Don't get me wrong, I loved the thing and spent many an hour playing on it. But just like most Atari systems it never got its claws into the market and ended up playing second (at least) fiddle to the Gameboy, even though it was way more advanced.
The Nintendo Wii.
Like so many, I fell to the marketing hype. Was completely bored of the thing after like a week. Where it was definitely some peoples cup of tea, it was most certainly not mine
I had got it solely for Twilight Princess but that game was a huge letdown for me too.
Meta Quest 3s. It was an initially a cool way of playing games but the novelty soon wore off and most games are not that good with VR. Up until then I iterated through Nintendo systems and was always satisfied.
Xbox Series X. I sold it right when Starfield early access hit and it wasn't an Internet darling. Knew it was downhill from there. Before that by the end to 2020, they Bought Obsidian, Inxile, Bethesda/Zenimax, iD, Ninja Theory, and studios I thought would make a major quality jump like Compulsion games. I thought they'd be releasing awesome RPG games every year by 2021. That didn't pan out
Before that, Xbox and GameCube had so little compared to the PS2 but still had great games unique to themselves. PSP was fun but definitely was happier when I switched to the DS
In my case, there were two:
Switch is easily my least played console. Its library was nearly entirely made up of games I already played on the Wii U. On top of that they had the cheek to require a subscription to play online. No thanks.
Tiger GameCom. I really think it had a lot of potential and was ahead of its time. They didn't make a lot of games for it and it was underpowered. Some really cool ideas though, it was the first touch-screen anything I had. It had 2 game cartridge slots. It had built in utilities, tools, and games.
Probably the Ouya....
The thing is before the steamdeck the last one I had was ps2 and xbox. I can't say any were a disappointment even going back to pong, atari, and odyssy. They were all nice at their time. I kinda just stopped getting them because my money went toward pc's. I even justified the steamdeck to possibly use as a laptop replacement although that did not happen.
Switch was what made me realize golden era of gaming was over, but it took about a year to set in because of the disconnect between the NX presentation and the actual product.
Seriously, go take a look at the original NX Switch presentation and it would almost seem that Nintendo was selling a completely different product.
All of the Wii era inspired hardware went mostly unused because the Switch couldn't play Wii games, and Nintendo didn't bother to even port their own titles outside of recycled Wii U content that didn't sell well on the original console.
The software similarly was a joke. I have more functionality on a Nintendo DS than a Switch, and that isn't even including "unofficial" homebrew. You can't even voice chat with your friends without using an external app, which is insane considering the DS, DSi, 3DS, Wii, and Wii U that preceded this.
Major features that gave Nintendo the edge were gone. DS Downlaod Play, Streetpass, included minigames & apps, themes, free online, eshop points, wifi events, etc.
On top of that, the library was just not interesting enough to warrant paying $60 a pop for single player games, and the multiplayer selection was sparse, despite the main feature of the console being joycon controllers.
I got bored of it after only a year, and ended up having to change the joycon c-sticks a couple years later because of the drift issues.
IMO it was a massive success just because of the portable format allowing you to play big name games on the go, but it absolutely fails as a handheld console when compared to the DS line, which did so much more for so much less.
Now that other handhelds like the Steam Deck, AYN stuff, Legion, etc exist, there's really no need to buy a Switch (2) for third party titles, which makes it a complete Nintendo only buy in.
The kicker is that Nintendo made absolute bank which is now why the Switch 2 is going for $450 (soon to be $500) and bumped their game prices to a whopping $70-80 because they know people were fine with it.
If I had more time on my hands, I would legitimately go make a modern version of Streetpass and download play for modern handhelds because that stuff was so cool and useful.
Yeah, I loved Streetpass so much.
For me it was Xbox One. From day one (no pun intended) it just didn’t feel good to me. The UI experience never got away from being awful. The system itself was a sluggish awful mess. It should never take more than 3 seconds to load your options menu . On top of that Everytime I turned on my console it would take a half hour or more to update. The must have games just never came. The games they did come played worse than nearly anywhere else. If I was a teenage when I bought this system and played everyday some of these short comings could have been avoided. But as an adult it just felt terrible . From here I went back to Pc gaming made a rig that would destroy any console at the time. It was so bad to me I canceled my Xbox Live Subscription I had for 15 years ! That killed my love to Xbox entirely.
Probably second place was the PS3 but I bought it at the end of the generation and never got the exclusives I should have ..
Can’t think of one now but I almost bought an OUYA. You know you screwed up when Homestar Runner makes fun of you.
edit:
Not disappointing as in bad but disappointing I couldn't make it work for me. I bought a 3DS XL on two separate occasions. I got horrible headaches after playing, even with the 3D completely off. I think it was the low DPI coupled with the fact I had to have my nose almsot touching the screen. I'm not sure what possessed me to try again. It wasn't even a different model.
But I missed so many good games. I'm tempted to try emulating them, DS as well as I missed that too, but I'd hate to resort to piracy, even though there aren't any other ways to play DS and 3DS games on a big screen.
The Switch, because it removed all the cool features the DS had.
I owned a Virtual Boy back in the day and... yeah. It sucked. I bring it up every time people think Nintendo are infallible - they do have shit ideas from time to time.
I also owned a PSP and I just didn't use it much. I know it's a well beloved console but I didn't really like anything that I played on it.
The Wii was just okay, I just got tired of the gimmick too quickly, and the library was just atrocious. If you don't like movie tie-in games, you miss out on like 3/4ths of the entire catalogue of titles.
I think I'm just tired of console gaming at this point. The only reason I would buy a console is if it were a mobile console that I can take with me when I want to game away from my PC, and so far the only companies that are interested in developing mobile consoles are Nintendo and Steam.
My Switch 1 broke after just a few months. That gets it the worst spot for me.
They all have flaws, but I've had a lot of consoles over a lot of years and don't have any I'd call "bad" all around. Each did its job masterfully.
Thinking about the question made me remember this bad boy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Advance_SP
That might be the favorite. Great size, battery, controls, games, peripherals... I kinda think I remember it got internet hate for some reason? But I LOVED this thing. Ultimate evolution of GameBoy.
I think it's the Wii for me. I always felt like the controls were too limiting have games that played well. Sure there are some good games I played, like Mario Kart Wii and Mario Galaxy, but overall I remember being disappointed with both the game selection and how bad the controls were.
(dis)honorable mention: the Switch 2, because there's nothing to play on it that I can't play better on pc+deck.
Nintendo has ironically made my favorite and most disappointing consoles.
Most disappointing:
Virtual Boy WiiU Wii Switch
Best:
NES SNES Game Boy GBA
By default it's the Xbox 360 because it's the only console I owned. Apart from the RROD it was actually pretty great. I mostly played oblivion on it. One time I was in a very cold city with minimal blankets and no heater. I fired up the Xbox and warmed my fingers on the fan air. It was
goodtimes.The OG Xbox. I'm sure it's actually a fine console with great games on it, but my own personal experience with it was frustrating. I had already owned a GameCube and a PS2, both modified to play games from a SD card/hard drive and output an HDMI signal for modern tvs. I figured I'd might as well own the main 3 consoles from that generation and get the Xbox. I bought one that came with some cheap third party controllers and the first thing I did was replace the old capacitors on the circuit board. No problem there. Now there were 3 modifications I wanted to install, a mod chip with a new OS, replace the HDD with an SSD to install games on, and the HDMI converter. First up is the mod chip, and the install went fine. Except that after installing it with the new OS, the controller doesn't work. From here, I'd tinker with it for a day or two and then get pissed and shelf it for a couple of weeks before going back to it. I even bought extra controllers which didn't work, and a fucking oscilloscope to trace the controller signals through the motherboard to see if I accidentally de-soldered something installing the mod chip. Turns out the problem was the guy who made the OS didn't put any tolerances in for the controller signals, so the third party controllers I had just didn't work. Got some original Xbox controllers, and everything was fine and fucking dandy. The SSD install actually went in no problem. The HDMI converter was a pain in the ass because I had to solder in this ribbon cable with tiny contacts, but I got it in. And it just didn't work. Apparently the two mods, mod chip and HDMI converter, were supposed to work together but sometimes they just didn't since they are made by two different people. Only remedy is get another mod chip or converter and maybe those work. But I got lucky and one guy made a dual mod chip and converter. So I got that. Installed it. It fucking worked. I spent some time downloading and installing a bunch of games to the SSD. When I was happy with my newly acquired library of Xbox games, I unplugged it from the setup on my work bench and moved it to my living room, and when I turned it on the TV showed no signal. Fuck. When I cracked it back open, the mod chip had an LCD display with a fault code that should mean a bad solder joint or firmware needs to be reinstalled. I did both, but no luck. Checked the forums and found good news and bad news. The good news was that at least a dozen of other people are having the same problem, so there should be a fix, right? Well... Bad news was that the creator was responding to everyone with a, "I've never had that problem, you must have done something wrong. Buy a new kit and install it correctly this time." ... This bitch... I put that Xbox right in my closet and haven't touch it since 2023. I spent 2 and a half years and a lot more money than I want to admit on that console and I'm just fucking done. I might go back and get it working some day, but I still want to vomit whenever I glance at the damn thing
None of the things you complained about were the fault of the console though.
Also, should have bought any other revision of the console than a 1.6 if you wanted to modify it.
I guess the PS3?
I felt like I begrudgingly bought it, out of spite. Like I HAD to buy it, or I was no longer a modern gamer.
And then it just fell flat for me. I played GTA, and maybe a handfull of other games, but mostly GTA.
I guess the PS4 is actually the same story, except I just never played it. To this day I have a PS4 that I never really used. But I also had no excitement for it.
And I guess the same for PS5. I bought it to play GTA 6, thinking it was coming soon. That was 4 years ago. I've watched dvds more than I've played games on it.
But with PS3, I actually had excitement brewing. I expected big things. It just never materialized.
I've already decided I'm not buying a PS6, and I'm not buying GTA6.
Well that just sounds unfortunate do you play a lot of PC or just don’t game much ?
I find myself playing more retro stuff.
I bought the Retroid Pocket Flip 2, which is exactly the same everything as a Retroid Pocket 5, with the exception of form factor. With apps like game native, I can play older PC games.
But like.....have you ever played Super Mario Bros 2 at 2am, while smoking weed? The game holds up.
I guess I'm not a fan of the greyscale realistic graphics of a dystopian future, and everybody is shooting guns.
Yaaaaaaaaaawn.
But Stardew Valley?
The Survivalists?
Those games are amazing! Colorful graphics. I don't need realism. I need escapism. I need worlds that make me feel SOMETHING positive in my life.
But ever since PS2, it's been guns guns guns, rainy grey skies, post apocaliptic worlds. I don't need that, and it's been industry standard for 25 years it feels like.
I'm loving my Flip2 though.
Looking back… none of them. I had an OG Gameboy, GBA, PS2, Wii, 3DS, and now a Switch 2. My favorite was probably either the first Gameboy or the 3DS. I loved all of the weird streetpass stuff when I was traveling for work. But I have great memories of all of them, and the S2 has been a lot of fun with my kids.
OnLive micro console was great while it lasted, I'm glad I just did a subscription and not buy stuff though because when Sony bought them to convert it to playstation now they shut down the old servers and the console became useless
TurboGrafx 16
Game selection was garbage and then the Super NES came out soon after and completely outclassed it.
Bonk's Revenge was so much fun, though.
Wow I had completely forgotten about that game! Thanks for the memories.
I guess the Wii U is the one I used the least. But I got it on sale and had some decent fun with it.
Hm, that's tough.
For perspective, I've owned a lot of systems from the NES on.
The first year of the Nintendo DS. The (first, Grey) system was quite ugly and there really wasn't much great software coming out. That all changed after the first year, oh boy. My favorite system ever now.
The Wii. Too much gimmick stuff distracting from the experience (eg metroid wiimote shooting and wiimote sideways). So much shovelware!. It's still a nice system (especially considering backwards compatibility too) but still.
I also had the 32X and virtual boy at some point of time but did not regret them as I knew what I was getting. After burner, star wars and virtua racing or (then) cheap stereoscopic red games.
It's funny you say the controls distract from the experience, when I'd argue they add to the experience.
You ask me, the Wii is great and just keeps getting better, even now, with active homebrew communities. Many games allow you to choose what controller type you want, and there is a lot of creativity in the different games for using the Wiimote (though you may find those gimmicky). The biggest downside is trying to play if your TV is near a window and the sun is out. You have to close the blinds or it messes with the IR sensor.
Everything you said is correct. My gripe is mainly in the on the fly changes (as said, metroid other m -> made for the Wii) which tear me out of the experience.
If a game has good controls and sticks to it or switches at useful points, fine.
But anything that makes me refocus on outside of the game itself during the game is a distraction.
The same mistake is also made by some switch games (Wario ware, m&l brothership - Luigi b button).
And while the issue itself is known and also can add to bad review scores (other M) it seems to hit some people more and others less. For various reasons I get very immersed in games and hence I figure the disruption is even worse - it's a personal thing.
I can't say xbox series x disappointed me, but compared to playstation it felt meh - probably due to as unenthusiastic UI as a gaming console can get. I guess I was lucky with consoles if this is the biggest issue.
Master System 2
Super Nintendo
Game Boy
PlayStation
PlayStation 2
GameBoy Advance SP
PlayStation Portable
PlayStation 3
New 3DS
Steam Deck
I honestly think the 3DS was probably the most disappointing; I bought it on a whim 2nd hand from EB Games along with a copy of a Pokémon game (I don’t remember which). Mechanics hadn’t evolved much since Pokémon Blue, and the experience was kinda “meh” overall.
I also dabbled with a few other games, but nothing gripped me. The only saving grace for that console was that it rapidly appreciated in value since my purchase (like 5x?) due to the relative rarity of that particular colorway.
PS4 - no games. Worse multimedia experience compared to PS3. No longer matters to me but did at launch.
Xbone - no games
Didn't buy PS5 or another Xbox myself but my roommate did get a PS5. No games. He's not buying another Sony console either.
Artificial value of exclusives lost combined with drastically less output from AAA and oddball titles like Sony had on PSN during PS3 era renders consoles completely pointless to me now. Since I was always PC gaming while also owning consoles in the past, I built a PC for the living room too.
Upcoming disappointment:
Probably Switch 2. I think Nintendo has lost their way ever since Iwata died. Certainly their style has evaporated. You will like your black/white barren GUI or else Mario's getting shot. Switch 1 was already borderline.
Xbox One disappointed me too! Switched to browser games after that. Much more relaxed gaming experience.
Xbox One S. The library was crappy and the games are more expensive than on steam for some reason I can't fathom.
I guess I'm lucky this never happened to me. I tend to do a lot of research on a console before I get it, and wait until mid-generation when it's matured with some good games. The closest thing might be the Oculus Rift, since I never did find an addictive VR game I loved. If I hadn't bought it, I might've never tried out Half-Life: Alyx, and would've been forever curious. But...it definitely wasn't a killer app.