What is your favourite gaming console you have played?
Personally, the PS3 is my favourite. The OG backwards compatible one. And the emulation capabilities are still awesome to me.
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Personally, the PS3 is my favourite. The OG backwards compatible one. And the emulation capabilities are still awesome to me.
Probably either the NES or the SNES. The NES felt the most "magical" at the time. Before the NES, consoles had games that were general clunky and not particularly fun and controllers that were all over the place. There was a good reason that the NES revived the console industry. The SNES just happens to be the home of many of my favorite games of all time. If we're going newer, then I suppose the PS1 or PS3 (before Sony ruined it) would be my choices.
I wasted many hours on my PS2. So much ratchet and clank.
PS3 was the last revolutionary console imo. It's my favorite as well. It was focused on gaming but I could watch porn on it too! Plus it had blue ray!
Do handhelds count? 3DS.
The Wii.
It is such an underpowered console, with only a handful of must have titles if that.
But man those titles hold up. Even my little gen alphers love it and get into it. Its mostly just a wii sports machine but its still going strong even in this era of mobile and AAA gaming.
I have a bunch of old consoles but the Wii is the only one that gets regular play without needing convincing.
Very fond of the PS1 as it was my primary console during childhood, especially the many JRPGs of the era but also other games like Ape Escape, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Syphon Filter, Soul Reaver 1, I go back to these every now and then.
The OG Playstation had, by far, the biggest collection of games that I consider my favourites.
Probably GBA or PS2. I was a teenager and started working part time jobs, so I had money to buy the games I wanted. I was also getting a bit older, so my parents were relaxing my restrictions a bit. I couldn't play RPGs as a kid since apparently anything having to do with demons or magic would turn me into a cultist.
Special mention for the N64 as well. I have countless memories of playing 4-player games with friends, primarily Goldeneye (though Perfect Dark was better and I will die on that hill).
My PC.
But if it has to be a console console, N64. Easy.
3DS, no contest. Even factoring in PCs, Steam Deck is a bit behind.
I'm past the phase of daily playing it, but still don't usually leave home without it, and I feel I'm only halfway through games I might be interested in after almost a decade. I just found Professor Layton this year.
September 1997, my dad gets us a second hand Sega Megadrive from who knows where, with Sonic and a couple other games. My mind is blown. All these gorgeous, rapidly-moving images... some time later we get a stack of games at the flea market : Sonic 2, Coolspot, Rocket Knight Adventures (gorgeous platformers), Hellfire (a horizontal scrolling space shmup), D&D, an F1 game (maybe Senna?), Last Battle (impossible to beat), Streets of Rage 1&2, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat... I have most of these installed on my computer with Romstation today
For me it's the N64. I know it's a slightly dubious pick, but there's something alluring about those early 3D graphics. No one knew what they were doing yet and it produced some of the most lovable jank.
A friend had it, I remember controlling Mario around the castle and being unable to make sense of where I was. The 3D camera was baffling
All of them, they had their draw backs and benefits but allowed me to enjoy a hobby I loved.
Without factoring in nostalgia I think I'll have to go with the Switch. Its library including rerelease of older systems' titles is hard to match. I played so many cool games on it that I still think about a lot years later.
Xenoblade 1, 2, 3, X
Dragon Quest XI
Shin Megami Tensei V
Monster Hunter Rise
Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate
Smash Ultimate
Breath of the Wilds
Mario Odyssey
Mario Kart 8
New Horizons
and countless others. Then there's the whole handheld/console hybrid aspect of it. For years I would exclusively play it handheld because I didn't even have a TV. Crazy good system, just a shame it marked the beginning of Nintendo leaning heavy into their anti-consumer and profit maximization BS. Not planning on getting a Switch 2 for a long time.
Mega Drive. Home of Sonic, Streets of Rage, Toe Jam & Earl and many other great games
Have you replayed those since? I managed to find all my old games using Romstation, it's a trip. I think Streets of Rage is the only one I ever (almost) finished as a kid, in co-op with my friend
SNES (Super Famicom?) is the one I think of when I think "console".
N64 gave me the best Xmas ever playing Goldeneye with my 2 brothers. 4 controller ports! No more fighting eachother with "winner stops on" rules.
Xbox 360 takes it overall i think. Shipped with a headset and Xbox Live started mass adoption with internet speeds actually making it playable and not a complete laggy mess. There was a sense of, not community, but shared wonder and optimism that I've not encountered since.
I was going to go Dreamcast or Xbox 360 but I think you're bang on in your assessment.
Dreamcast nearly made the list for Shenmue and the VMU-powered Chao Olympics, but OP had asked for one and I was already up to 3
Yea the 360 was a special time, a golden time. A friend had a NES and we played a lot of Ninja Turtles and.... I think it was Mickey Mouse? and a game my friend called "a Sonic knockoff" 😂 no idea what it might have been
For me, I think it's the Megadrive/Genesis.
I was a Nintendo kid, originally. We had a NES and a Gameboy in our house, and I loved them. But during a visit to the US in the summer of 1993, I got to spend pretty much the whole of the 4th of July at a family friend's house in Massachusetts, playing Genesis games with a bunch of American kids. That cemented it in a special place in my mind.
I have to give it to the Nintendo DS. Absolutely incredible library, much of it too unique to play anywhere else.
A third of my vote for 3DS is just because of DS games, really. Almost cheating, but my favourites are the 3DS ones anyway.
PC.
PC
N64. Such a solid lineup of games.
This one is just objectively false. The N64 has an exceptionally small, weak library. Weaker than the Sega Saturn, on par with the Atari Jaguar and 3DO tbh
I know it's all a matter of taste but do you really think there's a Sega Saturn game that's even half as good as Super Mario 64 or Ocarina of Time?
The SNES will always be my favorite console. It's got some stinkers in the library, but the best games of the console still frequently rank among the best games ever made
16-bit pixel art is basically the standard that all modern “retro” games use and the SNES was one of the best for it. Neo geo also was amazing for that art style.
I got the SNES Classic just for Donkey Kong Country. The other games were a nice bonus. I have some novelty electronics that I never use anymore but that one gets pulled out on the regular.
Poor N64 and its fucked up joystick get no love
Mari Kart 64 and 007 was my love.
The OG Xbox was so good.
Modding it was surprisingly easy, all you needed was a memory card (or a DIY adapter for plugging in a USB drive into a controller port) and a copy of Splinter Cell.
Not only would this allow you to rip games and play them directly from your hard drive, but it also opened up the world of emulators and homebrew apps & games. Shoutout to the xbins IRC channel.
XBMC was amazing, it allowed me to watch all my legally obtained media without having to burn DVDs. Crazy to think that would eventually lead to Plex, which I still use to this day.
I also played around with Damn Small Linux on the Xbox, which is what got me interested in Linux in the first place.
Now that I think about it, tinkering around with that console ultimately led to my love of homelabbing and Linux - I now run 9 servers in my utility room, and only use Linux on all my machines.
Thanks Microslop!
The Dreamcast and Wii are what comes to my mind.
The DC was ahead of its time and has a kick ass library. It also had a sweet gimmick with the VMUs. If SEGA had supported the fuckin' thing, it could have been even better. Perhaps even gotten further iterations. And if the VMUs came with it, they possibly could have figured out a console/handheld hybrid like the WiiU and Switch before Nintendo.
The Wii is really just for its gimmick and Miis and the music. The motion controls were super well done, especially after Wii Motion Plus. Even tho the only games these days I would go back and play are all the Wii Sports games and maybe uh... Forgot the name, but the samurai FPS game. Just the first one tho. The second one kinda sucked.
By the time the Dreamcast came out the writing was already on the wall. The Sega CD and 32x were both expensive and had little support while still looking barely as good as what the SNES could do with the Super FX chip and similar. Then the Saturn was basically forgotten despite being stupid powerful for its day and given the Osborne effect by the CEO of Sega of America. When the Dreamcast came out mid-cycle in 1998 nobody who had bought a PlayStation or N64 in the previous couple of years was in the market for a new machine and a lot of Sega fans weren’t willing to jump in before seeing how serious Sega was. Sega on the other hand was on the heels of low sales and relative failure and so keen to wait for the Dreamcast to be a hit. That chicken and egg paradox was the death knell. They also weren’t helped by Microsoft who had been their partner on the Dreamcast and who basically threw them under the bus to develop the Xbox based on what they learned (not for the first time, MS also did the same thing to IBM by developing Windows while working on OS/2 with IBM). This is why ‘The Duke’ controller looked so much like a Dreamcast controller and why, according to some reports, the Xbox could play Dreamcast games earlier in its development.
TL;DR Sega killed the Dreamcast before it even came out and Microsoft happily looted the corpse.
Loved my Dreamcast. The multiplayer games were fantastic, and you could pirate games pretty easily. So many good memories of Soul Calibur parties
Oh yea, the Wii was bae when it came out. I played Wii bowling so much.
I regret not bringing mine when I moved just because the motion bar got busted. I could have replaced it hella easy and be playing Wii Tennis rn. 😩
It's on the Switch, now, too but it's pricey.
What's funny is you don't even really need the bar. It was officially called the sensor bar, but it's a misnomer because the sensors are in the Wiimotes. The bar is just a pair of IR emitters.
Anything that emits light on the infrared spectrum can be used instead. One "hack" is to use two lit candles spaced a bit apart. Around the holidays, you can just use a Christmas tree. Or on a good day, you can even sometimes use this magical thing called the sun (though its position won't be static).
You could also buy two IR LEDs and stick them in a 3D printed frame for a DIY solution (or just tape them to a stick). It's definitely the least critical component of a Wii to have to replace.
Good thing now, I think they are cheap and easily moddable.
The SNES. Hands down.
Gameboy Advance is a close second. Third is a far off Nintendo DS, Fourth is Wii.
This is the only correct answer.
Steam deck. Does it count? Plays everything you see here and more.
Consoles are kinda meh. Can't do much with them.
That said I think the ps2 with network and hardrive, then the ps3, then the wii. I like them all for what they could be made to do and have one of each.
But really: all superceded by the steam deck. (Ended up selling my PSP, no need for it anymore).
Yeah I agree with this 100%
I grew up with consoles. The PS1, N64, GBC, GameCube, PS2, GBA. As an adult I played the PS3 a lot and I ownd a Wii for parties, and went through a DS and 3DS for Pokémon. I was a late owner of a PS4, Switch, and eventually a PS5. I dabbled in PC gaming, both on a desktop with M+KB , with a controller, eventually streaming to my living room for couch gaming.
The Steam Deck blows it all out of the water. It can do everything, anywhere, usually more ergonomically than the original. The only real drawback is the resolution, but that's a perfectly fine trade-off most of the time.
Looking at it just purely because of the console capabilities itself, the Wii was the best console.
Most of what the Wii did, no other system console or PC replicates well even to this day. They did this while undercutting other consoles on price, still putting out solid entries to their core IPs, and broadening gaming to new gamers.
All of the other consoles I would want to put at number 1 really are only great because of the library of games they had. Most of those libraries would have been better off if they were not forced to be on proprietary hardware.
I would have to go with either the Steam Deck or the Oculus Quest. But realistically I've spent orders of magnitude more time on the Steam Deck so I'll go with that. But both were revolutionary in a way that no other console approached. Sure, the PS2 was great, but it was just a PlayStation with better graphics, and the PlayStation was AMAZING, but in my mind it was a Nintendo with better graphics.
Gamecube probably holds the most special place in my heart. More for the games that released for it than for the console itself.
I love the design of the console. It’s fun, which was miles away from the testosterone teenage boy styling of the ps2 ( no shade still a good design)
But. The controllers weren’t the most comfortable.
It was definitely the most portable console. Made it very easy to just throw it in a backpack and bring to friends' places for Smash Bros nights.
Came here to say this. N64's a close second, but the re-releases of N64 games on the Gamecube helped a lot with that too.
Yeah, I think Gamecube would win for me if just for all the time spent playing Smash Bros in college.
PS2. Due to it's game library.
ps2.
I loved the ps3 don't take me wrong, but the ps2 just had that nostolgia and legacy aspects of it. The splash screen, the menu design, the simplicity. It was so nice.
Playstation 2
Playstation 1
Over 4000 games, many of which are weirdly experimental because "how to make 3D games" wasn't codified yet, and CDs gave developers about 200 times more space than they had on the biggest cartridges from the previous gen - not to mention the lower cost of production.
Also, most of the soundtracks are absolute bangers.
Edit: another point - growing up poor, I still got to experience a lot of the PS1's library because of the abundance of demo discs.
PS1 was truly an amazing console
N64 for me partially nostalgia but I still love the cartridges even though i know they are sub optimal and the controller and the games in general are still top tier to me.
Not a console but the psp, it was so hackable and customizable and one of the first handhelds that did 3d and emulation well.
As a console, probably the n64, mostly cause the game changing factor compared to its predecessors and sick ass titles. Nintendo sucks balls now and I dont buy any of their shit but it was cool back then.
Oh yea, the PSP is still a must have.
Steam Deck?
Nintendo DS
That era was so good that Nintendo didn't even know what they had until they screwed it up and lost to modern smartphones.
Other than PC, the SNES probably had my most favorite games, but the breadth of the library on the DS was fantastic. Once I got an R4 card and was able to stop carrying a dozen carts around, I was on it all the time.
Real hard to beat the Sega in my book. Not only was it an amazing console on its own, but you could attach other consoles to it. Slap that 32x on top. Slide the Sega CD on the side. Who could beat that? Plus the Sega Channel? I mean come on.
Sega Saturn and PlayStation Vita are honestly my favorites
PS Vita or PS2.
PS2 mainly for the games, so many fantastic ones I still play and replay decades later. Keeping track per platform the owned-played ratio and how many liked games in absolute numbers each has for me, the PS2 is still king in both. Even lesser known games I generally have a blast with.
On the Vita, its library isn't as strong as the PS2's, even if many of my favorite games were found through the Vita. But it compensates at being a fantastic console to mod. While I know people modding consoles do it for playing ilegitimate copies of games, if you ignore that, its mods still give you a lot to use the console for, possibly risking seeing the console dying in your hands while you read an ebook on it, try some homebrew ROM from Itchio, play with PSP homebrews, etc. Also it's a bit of a learning curve and technical information on it is sparse, but learning how it ticks makes tinkering second nature (...unlike the PS3 =.=").
I recently modded a Wii and I must say it's starting to become one of my favorite.
I have a heavily modded wii and I love it. You can play anything on it, it's got everything. The only downside, no hd support. I've been considering looking into some other consoles for that reason.
Honestly, my biggest issue is that Rock Band works so much better in HD. But... I have the giant plastic peripherals that I have, so I'm kinda stuck in this ecosystem now.
Wii isn't meant for hd you should consider WiiU for that. I have my Wii for my CRT and the 240p output is very good.
The PS3 is also a very good one to mod, Oh! And the PSP! Also the PSP GO's still cost a bit of money.
I have a PS3, great console, I still have to find a reason to mod it since blurays are very cheap. PSP looks interesting! I'm prioritizing to mod a PS2 these days.
I haven't played many, more of PC gamer. But, of the Atari 2600, Radio Shack TV Scoreboard, Atari 5200, Sega Genesis, GameCube, and Wii, I'll pick the Sega Genesis. Yes, I was around for the launch of all of these, including the original Pong, which was the first video game I played. I'm fucking old.
My first console was a sega mega drive. My favourite was the PlayStation 2
The original Xbox was my absolute favorite. Still old enough to have the classic memory cards and weird console ports, but new enough that its all actually just reskinned pc hardware. The UI was simple but easy and had this fantastic early 2k style. I didn't even care that it was disgustingly green.
On top of all that, it was an era where basically everything could get greenlit. Shrek sequel game? Do it. Bounty hunter in a batshit crazy world using bigs as bullets? Knock yourself out. Love letter to golden eye, even if we can't get the rights? You bet! What if I wanna watch softcore porn with the bros but justify it by saying we're gaming? That's fucking weird, but have at it. Literally anything could get a game.
Definitely a tie between xbox360 and PS2.
Definitly not biased because they're the 2 consoles I played the most growing up. No. There's a totally reasonable explanation. And would you look at the time! Gotta blast!
I played the absolute crap out of my Genesis more than anything else, i was obsessed with SF:2 CE and the six button controller was a game changer. But for every other genre the SNES has more of my favorite games compared to any system I have. There’s just a charm and feeling of care put into some its games that is just leaps and bounds above everything. Hard to describe.
For pure slickness of the hardware and user experience—the Gamecube, NeoGeo Pocket Color and Dreamcast mesmerized me upon purchase from that alone. Of course they all have some bangers. Also the joystick on the NGPC is amazing.
My favorite is SNES, very closely followed by the Playstation. I never owned a Gamecube and Playstation 2 and missed some of the greatest games ever made of its time.
Dreamcast.
That would get my vote, too! A pity the hardware potential was limited by the drive type ... if only they'd done a revised version with DVD or something
I really enjoyed Soul Caliber and Metropolis Street Racer :-)
360 for me. All my friends had one and spent soooo much time playing halo 3 and GoW online. Good times
Ranked:
SNES or PS1
PS2 or PS1. I played the PS2 more than the PS1 but the PS1 is more nostalgic for some reason. I don't think the games were better per say but I have fonder memories on SO2 than eg. Til the End of Time. Really wish they'd remake Tales of the Abyss tho
In no particular order: and NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, PS3.
This is a surprisingly hard question.
I’d have to say either snes or n64.
I probably played n64 more. There were so many good games on it.
Mario 64 Banjo Kazoie Golden eye Perfect dark Shadows of the empire Ocarina of time Pod racing Star Fox Mario party Bondsman hero
I just wrote up, so I know I’m forgetting some stuff, help me out
I honestly don't know how I could pick one favourite. I have super fond memories of the Sega Genesis, SNES, N64, Gamecube, PS1, PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360, I really could not say which one is a favourite.
I couldn’t possibly choose. To this day I still get a lot of mileage out of the SNES, Genesis, PS1, PS2, GBA, and Nintendo DS libraries.
The Wii was the only system me and my husband bought. It was delightful because it was the only system he could play with his cerebral palsy! (Some older systems like pong worked, but I'm only mentioning slightly modern) He was really good at the bowling! I wish ours still worked. Alas!
Sega, just because of the "Sega Scream"
https://segaretro.org/Sega_Scream
I’ll always have a 360 laying around ready to be played, so probably that if I had to choose. Every other console has come and gone, and now I don’t have time for games anymore, though I do have a pc and a ps5 (ps5 is mostly for BD/DVD these days), but I still have my 360 plugged in and off, just needs to be turned on and hdmi connected.
I recently found out that you can soft hack them really easily, literally drag and drop onto a flashdrive and plug it in. If you ever find the time you should definitely try.
My wife still has her 360 too, so we’ve got two at home, just one is put away but I know exactly where it is. Maybe I’ll give it a go one of these days.
The original Xbox is so good it has earned a permanent spot hooked up to my TV. The PS3 has that honor too, but the Xbox is my favorite.
xbox 360 in its prime
then ps2
then wii
I'm too young for it, but I found it in my dads stuff and fell in love with it, but the dreamcast haha
The Dreamcast is probably the most underrated console of all time. Soul Calibur, Dead or Alive 2, Sonic Adventure, Shenmue 1&2 (I'm European), the fantastic VMU, first console with Internet (first game I played on Internet was Chu Chu Rocket), Crazy Taxi... man this console was a banger. And I just learned the joysticks on the Dreamcast gamepad use magnetic system to prevent joystick drift. Not quiet the same as Hall-Effect as I understand, but still way ahead of its time!
SNES or GameCube. Both were fantastic systems with tons of great games.
I mean. in some ways its the odyssey because it has games that were so much better than other systems at the time despite it being black and white
Wii hands down! I had twilight princess on release so it was soft modded early. I got to play super Nintendo super scope games on an lcd, and any Wii game I wanted. Dreamcast being a close second.
Console-wise it's the PS1.
I grew up a Nintendo kid but the PS1 was the first console I bought with my own money, bought and installed a mod chip myself, and played everything I could get my smelly teen hands on. That library of burned discs was a huge influence on my gaming tastes and is packed full of nostalgia for me.
::: spoiler spoiler SNES ALttP is still the best game ever made though. :::
PS1 or Gameboy
Probably because they were the ones I had as a kid, but they both have great libraries of games from an era when it seemed like anything goes. Also the hardware limitations of each give the games a charming character
I think I liked all the ones I owned but switch was my fav since it had so much and 3rd party classics and everything and it was power efficient, compact, portable. Steam deck has taken over for me though. Way more of a swiss army knife.
Steam Deck. 100%. That thing rocks.
As for retro consoles. My Dreamcast was always my favorite. That thing was way ahead of its time.
I love the Steam Deck, but wouldn't count it as a console.
It’s not a console in the traditional sense, where it has its own way of making games and has exclusive games, but it’s definitely meant to be a console like experience. In that regard, I would say it’s a non-traditional console.
I am aware of the issues categorizing these devices and I actually agree with you. I like saying its a Console like Handheld PC. It is a PC in handheld form factor, with an operating system optimized and build for Console like experience. This gets even more complicated if we put a Linux operating system on the Playstation 5 and just play Steam games on it, as the hardware itself is basically a PC.
I just don't think the Steam Deck (and Steam Machine even more) belongs to a discussion about favorite game console in example. This is purely my personal opinion and don't mean that everyone has to believe and think I what I do, so don't get me wrong.
Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and Playstation 1
I still have fond memories with my old family Wii growing up. It got given to charity but will always remember raging on MK.
I grew up with gamecube and xbox 360. Im partial to the wii because it can do both gamecube/wii nintendo games but there are very few wii games that i like that much that arent available on xbox
PS1, I had the original gray box and later the small white boy. Both modded to accept any CD from the get go (yay for Brazilian piracy!), which brought me great joy once broadband internet reached my home in late 2003.
I feel like my steamdeck would be a cop out a bit but it is my favorite at the moment. It has all the consoles and my steam library of more than a decade. Plus I can switch between my laptop and my steamdeck without issues.
But if I were to guess off the top, it would probably be a toss up between Gameboy or GBA. So many good games and distractions from my early childhood.