General Gaming What is your favorite videogame home console ever?

[Remarkableriots]

For me I have to go with the NES. It was the system that started my love for gaming. It probably is the only system I've had where I beat games multiple times. Playing SMB, Contra, Zelda, Metroid, Ninja Gaiden, RPGs, Fester's Quest, TMNT and many others just felt different compared to gaming now. What system is your favorite?

 

It also had my favorite controller.

 

home consoles I've owned in order

NES

Action Max (anybody else remember this?)

Sega Genesis

32x

PlayStation

Nintendo 64

Dreamcast

PlayStation 2

X-Box

Gamecube

360

PlayStation 3 

Wii U

PlayStation 4

 

I played the Atari at friends houses when I was a kid but never had one. My Brother-in-law owned a  Super NES so I did play it and we would swap systems but never had one. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

SNES. I never had one as a kid, but that thing is just golden. I love the 16-bit graphics and it has some of the best games of all time. So much quality with that system.

 

Runner up would be the PS1. It was the system where I really started getting into games and it's got a ton of stellar titles. SNES began the greatness of JRPGs and the PS1 took it to the next level. 

[gamer.tv]

I've changed my mind three times in writing this post.  Initially thought N64, for the memories, then Gamecube because it was my teenage console.  However, Xbox 360 runs in and steals it like a champ.  First experience of online gaming, a load of great games to enjoy, great controller, great store set up.

[The def star]

Just off nostalgia I would say the N64. There was something special about making the jump from 2D graphics to 3D. I went from Sega Genesis to N64. Mario 64 made my jaw drop. Then when Goldeneye came out it was full on mind blown. 4 player split screen games were all me and my friends played during that summer. 

[crispy4000]

22 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Runner up would be the PS1. It was the system where I really started getting into games and it's got a ton of stellar titles. SNES began the greatness of JRPGs and the PS1 took it to the next level. 

 

No, the NES began the greatness of JRPGs and SNES took it to the next level.   Especially at the end of its lifecycle.

PSX had many amazing JRPGs, of course.  They're just a little less streamlined and more bloated on the whole than FF6, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Terranigma, Secret of Mana 2, etc.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Eh, there's not really much in the way of JRPGs on NES that appeal to me. Yeah, it started the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series, but those didn't get awesome til SNES. Other than those games, I don't even think I own any JRPGs on NES and my collection spans nearly 200 NES/Famicom/FDS games. 

[crispy4000]

1 minute ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Eh, there's not really much in the way of JRPGs on NES that appeal to me. Yeah, it started the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series, but those didn't get awesome til SNES. Other than those games, I don't even think I own any JRPGs on NES and my collection spans nearly 200 NES/Famicom/FDS games. 

Most of the best NES JRPGs never made it here until later.  Final Fantasy IIIj in particular was stellar for its time.  I've never played DQ4 and 3, but I hear they were also great.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

You basically agreed with what I just said. :P 

 

Yeah, JRPGs got their start on NES, with Dragon Quest, then Final Fantasy. But the golden age is generally attributed to the SNES. Those series hit their peak in the 16-bit era, not to mention the genre really expanded then. 

 

It took off and became pretty mainstream with the PS1 and the release of FF7. 

[crispy4000]

30 minutes ago, gamer.tv said:

I've changed my mind three times in writing this post.  Initially thought N64, for the memories, then Gamecube because it was my teenage console.  However, Xbox 360 runs in and steals it like a champ.  First experience of online gaming, a load of great games to enjoy, great controller, great store set up.

That's strange to hear actually.  I forget that not everyone grew up hogging the landline with a 56k modem to play Starcraft and Diablo.

But not even some flash game multiplayer stuff?

[gamer.tv]

Not that I can recall.  We did have Unreal Tournament set up at school, so more LAN than anything...but that would have been maybe 2007.  The 360, if anything was my first true experience (playing Gears, Halo 3 and CoD4).  

 

Prior to that, I never felt the pull as most of my gaming was single player (it seemed at 16/17, most of my friends either played FIFA, or had stopped altogether). 

[Hurdyb1]

Ever would probably be the SNES for me. I can't tell you how much time I put into Street Fighter 2. That system is the reason I love the fighting genre so much to this day.

[Bjomesphat]

Probably the SNES. Has most of my favorite games of all time.

 

Chrono Trigger, Super Metroid, DKC2, SMRPG, Mega Man X, ALttP, SMW

[JosephManderley]

This is a tough question! 

 

Not sure I can choose just one.  For playing with friends, it is the Wii.  Some of my best gaming memories are of beer fuelled Warioware and Wii Sports bowling sessions back in the day... 

 

I owned more PS2 games than I did for any other system, that has to count for something.  Played a ridiculous amount of the SSX games, and GTA games on PS2.  Pro Evo Soccer was great on PS2 as well. 

 

Then there is the Switch... Might be my favorite by the end of it's life, certainly started well. 

 

Decision time...  PS2 wins.  

[JVC920]

SNES was my favorite system for several reasons.  It was the first system I purchased on my own.  The sheer number of great titles for the system would take too long to list.  Was always great at the time to hear the arguments between Genesys and SNES owners on who had the better system. I think the competition between the systems really drove how great the game got.

 

I do have a soft spot for the Atari 5200.  That was our family's first game system and my brothers and I played it so much.  The first Mario Brothers game.

 

I still have both of my original systems (SNES/5200)

[skillzdadirecta]

Hmmm... ranked in order of my personal preference, my top 10.

Xbox 360

Sega Genesis

Xbox One X

Playstation one

Sega Dreamcast

PS4

Sega Saturn

SNES

PS3

O.G. Xbox

 

Honorable mentions:

NES

Colecovision

Atari 2600

Atari 5200

Turbo Grafx 16

Neo Geo C.D.

 

[Slug]

My initial reaction to this question was, "SNES of course".  Then I thought about it and changed my mind.  I'm going with the N64.  While my favorite game of all time is on the NES and the SNES basically owned my childhood, when I really think back I have more great memories of gaming on the 64 than any other console.  Such amazingly fun times.

 

I mean...Mario 64, Ocarina and Majora's Mask, and Starfox 64.  GoldenEye.  Playing Banjo-Kazooie and Perfect Dark with my wife.  Mario Party before Mario Party sucked. Beer and game nights with my friends talking shit over Kart 64 and Smash Bros.  Beetle Adventure Racing.  Letting my toddler son hold an unplugged controller while I played Paper Mario.  It goes on.  I can think of amazing games for every system, but I can't think of a console that I have so many amazing gaming memories of.

[legend]

I think my answer has to be Xbox. It was the first time a console started to bridge the gap between PC-style games and console-style games, with (eventually) high quality online gaming.

 

But more than anything, because it had Halo. Xbox with Halo released my senior year of high school, and myself and my friends took a day off school to get it from a preorder I had and played it all that day. 

 

But where it really took off for me was college the following year.  Halo was the medium by which myself and my best friends from college bonded. We played 4 player split screen on my then tiny 20" TV all the time and got really good. Then we bought a dedicated PC that we sat next to the Xbox just for running Xbox Connect so we could play Halo online against others.

 

So many good memories, and so many noise passes taken.

[crispy4000]

Most of my best memories with the og Xbox centered around modding it.  Being able to stream videos to your TV on it in a time before HDMI cables and Netflix streaming was magical.  And it was the best possible emulation machine for many years too.  I played a lot of Lucas Arts adventure games from the couch with it.
 

My favorite games for the system proper were PD Orta and Ninja Gaiden Black.  Got some fond memories of Halo splitscreen too.

[JohnnyPhatsaqs]

SNES, no doubt. 

 

But always had a soft spot for the Neo Geo AES. 

[ALIEN-gunner]

The Sega Genesis. Anyone saying differently is a dirty commie. 

[dualhunter]

SNES

 

I had the ASCII Super Advantage.

[Littleronin]

SNES. While I can look fondly at each console and think "Remember <insert title here>." I just seem to think that more about what the SNES had to offer. 

[TwinIon]

The N64 will always have been the definitive console for me. It hit a number of sweet spots. Perhaps most important, it came during a time in my life where I started thinking more about the games I was playing and not just playing them. I think the jump from 2D to 3D really did that for me. During the NES and SNES eras I liked games, but young as I was I didn't think too much about it. The N64 made me start to consider the technology and the businesses behind gaming.

 

It had a lot of great single player games that would define my memories of the era, but it also was the system that I spent the most time playing with 3 or 4 local players. My youngest brother was just getting  to the point he would play with me and my other brother, and we even were able to rope in my mom or my sister or a friend to play with us. Endless hours of Mario Kart (battle, never racing), Goldeneye, Smash, and Bomberman.

 

In second place is the Xbox. The Dreamcast could have been that, and it meant a lot to me, but it didn't last. The Xbox really changed a lot for me, and Halo in particular. I was in a fortunate enough position that I was able to host more than a few Halo LAN parties with 12 players going. The Xbox 360 kept me busy in college, but WoW dominated my gaming life at that point.

[TheRealSmallville]

Oh wow...this is like asking to choose your favorite kid lol "My favorite".....fuck. 

 

My favorite childhood memories are tied up with the NES, and if I close myeyes I can still remember the smell of the room I played in with the old hardwood floors and the lilacs that grew right outside the window. 

 

My favorite Christmas of all-time was getting the SNES, with SMW packed in and a copy of Tecmo Super Bowl to go with it. 

 

The PS1 gave me many late nights of Madden 98 games with my best friend, and we still play Madden vs each other to this day. 

 

I also had other consoles (Genesis, Dreamcast, PS2, PS3, PS4, OG Xbox, 360, X1), but...yeah, I'm gonna go with the NES. The first game I ever bought with my own money was TMNT II: The Arcade Game, went to Toys R Us and plopped the money on the counter and said "I'll take that" (I was probably 8 or 9). Super Mario Bros. is the first video game I ever played. I remember having nightmares for weeks after playing Blaster Master (the music snd that damn frog down the well!  ), and my first love of couch co-op with Double Dragon 2. I don't even know how many hours I sunk into NES Batman, or getting lost in the (at the time) seemingly endless overworld of Legend of Zelda. And don't get me started on my fondness for Contra...

 

The games were just so massively replayable. They had to be, with no save options for most games back then. Anyway, yeah - the NES gets my vote. 

[Paperclyp]

Probably PS2. It was my heyday of free time, and it has arguably the best library of any console ever. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

I probably played PS2 more than any other console I've owned. Yet I don't feel much nostalgia for it. It was amazing at the time, but most of the games haven't really held up well, they've had improved sequels or remasters/remakes. 

 

It's actually one of the smaller subsets in my game collection. 

[Nokt]

I'm going to go with the Xbox 360.

 

I've always had gaming in my life as far back as I can remember we've always had a SNES, we got the N64 and the Gamecube, PS2, I somehow convinced my parents to get me Halo and a Xbox for my birthday. Usually these were Christmas type presents and games were always hard to come by, we were always renting at Hollywood Video, Hastings, and Blockbuster.

 

The 360 was all me though. I got a job, saved up for the Halo 3 limited edition Xbox 360 (almost caved a couple times and bought a regular one so I could play Oblivion). It has by far my largest library of games, although not necessarily any of my favorites. It also represented a time when my friends and I were old enough to actual compete in MLG for Halo and though only one of us actually competed, we played A LOT of Halo and had probably more LANs than I can count.  Tons of all nighters staying up playing newly released games. It was just a good time and the Xbox 360 was the console that kept on giving.

[mo1518]

11 hours ago, Slug said:

My initial reaction to this question was, "SNES of course".  Then I thought about it and changed my mind.  I'm going with the N64.  While my favorite game of all time is on the NES and the SNES basically owned my childhood, when I really think back I have more great memories of gaming on the 64 than any other console.  Such amazingly fun times.

 

I mean...Mario 64, Ocarina and Majora's Mask, and Starfox 64.  GoldenEye.  Playing Banjo-Kazooie and Perfect Dark with my wife.  Mario Party before Mario Party sucked. Beer and game nights with my friends talking shit over Kart 64 and Smash Bros.  Beetle Adventure Racing.  Letting my toddler son hold an unplugged controller while I played Paper Mario.  It goes on.  I can think of amazing games for every system, but I can't think of a console that I have so many amazing gaming memories of.

 

I've got the same feelings about the N64. It really was a golden age for gaming, mainly down to the four controller ports and having two brothers - never before had a system supported all three of us playing together so well - previously it was always one watching and two playing. Goldeneye, perfect dark, WWF vs NWO, mario kart - so many of our favourite games supported three or more players by default, and it didn't hurt they were all incredible games. 

 

PS1 is close though. Final Fantasy 7 alone was amazing. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

My favourite console of all time has to either be the PS4 or Xbox1 -- both have the best examples of video games in almost every genre.  If you were to ask me to answer this question 5 years from now, I fully expect to answer PS5 of XboxNext.  Games are just continually getting so much better, year-on-year.

 

If you were to ask me which was the best "in its day" -- the PS2 consistently had the most  and best games.  Because game development has gotten so expensive, I don't think we will ever get that much high quality software coming out on an ongoing basis, ever again.

[DPCyric]

Thanks to a strong list of backwards compatible titles and certainly more on the way the Xbox One is my favorite home console of all time (not to mention it has the best controller of a home console ever with the Elite). Maybe by the end of this generation the PS4 can overtake the XBO if they continue releasing PSVR content I love and put in some backwards compatibility. Most of the other consoles I can throw some shade at.

[crispy4000]

7 hours ago, mikechorney said:

My favorite console of all time has to either be the PS4 or Xbox1 -- both have the best examples of video games in almost every genre.

Unless we're counting backwards compatibility and ports, that's very debatable, IMO. 

 

All the more considering that sevearal of Nintendo's games could be considered best-of's in more than a few genres.  (ie: SMB3, Star Fox 64, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Mario Galaxy 2, F-Zero GX, etc)  Others like Starcraft and Chrono Trigger too, which can't be played on PS4/XB1.

[AbsolutSurgen]

5 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

Unless we're counting backwards compatibility and ports, that's very debatable, IMO. 

 

All the more considering that sevearal of Nintendo's games could be considered best-of's in more than a few genres.  (ie: SMB3, Star Fox 64, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Mario Galaxy 2, F-Zero GX, etc)  Others like Starcraft and Chrono Trigger too, which can't be played on PS4/XB1.

If you decide to create super-specific subgenres that don't have modern AAA games -- you can make the argument that PS4/XboxOne have the best in almost every genre.  While you could make the same argument for some of Switch's games (i.e. Mario, Zelda) , it's library is still too limited for me to put it in the same category.

 

But I'm not sure its valuable to get into a debate in this thread on why I think Forza Horizon 3 is a better racing game than Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and F-Zero.  Or that if Chrono Trigger were to be released in 2018 for $60, exactly as it was on SNES, very few people would put it in the same "echelon" as modern RPGs such as Persona 5, Witcher 3 or Horizon:ZD.

[Mr.Vic20]

Based on library = PS2/360

Based on hardware = Xbox One X (just lovely)

Based on childhood fanboyism = Dreamcast

 

Full disclosure: Though I've owned and enjoyed ever system, I was biased in favor of Sega until the death of the Dreamcast (OK, I still am! )  If not for Sega's IPs I would have bought the OG Xbox later rather than day one. My appreciation for Sony's offerings came in the second half of the 360's life. Now 95% of everything comes to PC so I just keep the consoles for the handful of exclusives that pop up each year. 

[crispy4000]

8 hours ago, mikechorney said:

If you decide to create super-specific subgenres that don't have modern AAA games -- you can make the argument that PS4/XboxOne have the best in almost every genre.  While you could make the same argument for some of Switch's games (i.e. Mario, Zelda) , it's library is still too limited for me to put it in the same category.

 

But I'm not sure its valuable to get into a debate in this thread on why I think Forza Horizon 3 is a better racing game than Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and F-Zero.  Or that if Chrono Trigger were to be released in 2018 for $60, exactly as it was on SNES, very few people would put it in the same "echelon" as modern RPGs such as Persona 5, Witcher 3 or Horizon:ZD.

 

Again, are you counting backwards compatible games?

 

I wouldn't say 2d platformers, arcade racers, etc are super-specific or dead subgenres.

 

As for Chrono Trigger, it is one of the best RPGs of all time.  That game is a timeless classic, and it'd be silly to hold that against it because of when it came out.  The game still holds up wonderfully, as many 16-bit games do.

 

I'd say similar things about Radiant Historia actually.  And that game still looked outdated as a DS game on release.  I think you're putting too much emphasis on modern technology, but that's just me.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

Probably the Xbox 360.

 

So many great games, which can be said about many systems. The big difference maker is that while there were a bunch of great games to play SP the integrated online functionality gave way to a whole bunch of really fun co-op and MP experiences too. 

 

Mass Effect 1-3

Fable 2-3

COD4

Halo 3/ODST/Reach

Forza 4

Oblivion

Borderlands 2

 

Are just a handful of games I and my friends sunk a ton of time into. Overall last gen felt like it had more offerings that did not just entertain me, but had me waking up wanting to play them, and going to bed looking forward to playing them again. More so than this gen. Other systems in older gens may have had even more, but it was connecting with people online that really won me over.