Welcome back to thaddius’ Console Roast 2014 Edition. For those of you who are not aware this is a poll where you, the GBATemp user, get to vote on what GBATemp thinks is the worst console ever is. For more information check out the Rules section below.
Recap:
Back again! So who 'won' last week? Well the winner is none other than:
The GamePark Wiz and Caanoo! Congratulations, GamePark! I must say I'm surprised GBATemp. I would have voted for the Pandora, although there are some hard feelings there.
So yeah, the Wiz and the Caanoo were pretty decent systems, but y'all didn't like them for some reason.
At least the brain dead individuals who voted for the DS and PSP weren't voting in larger numbers, right?
For more information check out last week's thread here.
So, before we move on to the next round, how's about some rules?
Rules:
Enough of that crap, time to get started!
Intro:
Do we have to do this? The Seventh Generation on consoles is pretty bare, and I have a feeling I know how it’s going to go. I don’t like it one bit… Well at least it’ll be over soon.
This generation was known for two things: 1) ushering in the supposed HD revolution, and 2) motion controls. Somehow both were a big deal, don’t ask me why.
Yes, the hallmarks of this generation was everyone having to get new TVs and get their lazy asses off of the couch for once.
Say what you will about either trend, they’ve become ubiquitous.
Now let us meet this week’s crew.
This Week's Challengers are:
The Microsoft Xbox 360
Microsoft strutted confidently into the Seventh Generation early with the Xbox 360. Seemingly hot on the heels of the original Xbox, the 360 would integrate online gameplay like no console seen before it.
While this console was capable of playing media off of DVDs, it had an interesting component in that you could now download digital games onto your hard drive (if you had one, that is). But would people willingly forgo physical media for a license that could be revoked from them at any time? I wonder how that will pan out…
The 360 is credited with having one of the most robust controllers ever, and (aside from the d-pad) your humble author might just have to agree.
Now despite all this fancy-dancy stuff a bunch of it was overshadowed by a glaring issue: hardware failures. Early models had a propensity to overheat and cause catastrophic hardware failures that were represented via the 360’s ringed light indication system as three red lights, aka The Red Ring of Death. MS was quick to replace any console suffering from it at no extra cost, but eventually would drop the courteous practise and leave users out twisting in the wind.
Yours truly (and faithfully
) has gone through four 360s so far, three of which had RRODs, the last one occurring mere months after MS stopped the practise of replacing 360s. I had to open the thing myself and repair it; not something I often expect to do with my consoles.
The 360 also ushered in the trend of obnoxious (but useful) updates to the system’s firmware. Primarily a method of deterring piracy MS effectively used it to update the system’s features throughout its lifetime to ensure it would stay relevant.
And of course, what would the internet enabled console age be without DLC and patches, or as I like to call it, “We didn’t bother to try and fix all the bugs or finish the game, so we’ll just release it and fix all that stuff as we go along. Oh, and the DLC will more often than not cost a bit of coin”. I’m not well known for pithy descriptions of things.
And who could forget the HD-DVD thing? An expensive add-on for the 360 that played a rather decent media, but as soon as Disney and the porn industry switched to BluRay HD-DVD was quickly abandoned and the 360 moved on to digital downloads and streaming. Luckily that was enough.
Last but not least we can’t talk about the 360 without talking about MS’ response to the Wii’s runaway success: The Kinect. Slap an array of motion analyzing IR sensors to a microphone with decent voice recognition software and you got yourself a motion gaming revolution that people mostly use to tell Netflix to pause their video.
The Nintendo Wii
This console won the generation last time around when we did the ‘best’ consoles. I was rather surprised but not disappointed.
The infamous ‘two Gamecube’s duct-taped together’, Nintendo released their gaming ‘Revolution’ to the world in 2007 and changed the way we play games. Seriously, it did.
Completely ignoring the HD boom and focussing on what would be panned as gimmicky controls, the Wii used a very interested amalgam of old tech to make the Wii Remote controller - a device that could track arm movement and rotation as well as traditional digital/analogue button presses and control stick movements. This was such a novel idea that Sony and Microsoft, the two companies that seemed poised to absolutely destroy Nintendo, released their own motion control schemes in hopes of cashing in on the craze.
As we keep hearing over and over again every time Nintendo releases anything these days, the rabid ‘haters’ touted the end of Nintendo as we know it, chanting loudly that its demise would resemble that of SEGA. And you know what? It sold very, very well despite being an underpowered, mostly standard definition game box with no BluRay, HD-DVD, or even lowly DVD playback. How the hell did this compete against two media centre game consoles and stay relevant?
Nintendo obviously released some of the better selling games for the system, but its use of old tech in new ways allowed a number of people to experiment. This is the system that churned out titles like Boom Blox and No More Heroes - casual and hardcore games alike that used these wacky new control schemes to their credit. And Metroid Prime 3: Corruption/Metroid Prime Trilogy’s controls scheme? Awesome.
Nintendo did create a lot of confusion with the release of the Wii Motion Plus upgrade to make their motion tracking a little more accurate. Ultimately its release allowed for games like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Being able to actually swing Link’s sword in a relevant way made this game stand out.
And Nintendo’s digital store would bring us the coveted Virtual Console where we could go and experience our favourite NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, ad infentum games, and even try a few we never got to own before. There were some other digital games on their service too but, with a few exceptions, you mostly never hear about anything from there.
With the good comes the bad though, and the Wii was flooded with poor quality games, enough to leave third parties gasping for profit once again on a Nintendo platform.
The Wii would eventually become a homebrewer’s dream and we would see some ingenious hacks and programs for the system.
All in all the Wii is not a terrible system, but its relevance soon dropped off the map. I wonder if it’s enough to make this a paradoxical winner of both the Console Classic and Roast this generation.
The Sony PlayStation 3
Sony released the PS3 in 2007 and leaped into the waiting arms of their rabid fan base only to find that both the steep launch price of $499US (for the cheap model…) and what is probably the worst launch lineup I’ve ever seen sent everyone else into the beds of Microsoft and Nintendo at first.
Sony would try to mirror the success of the PS2 and bank on a new proprietary media (not the first or last time you’ll hear this about a Sony system) for playing movies. This time the BluRay would save them from their launch troubles.
While BluRay eventually trounced HD-DVD it hardly had people running for PS3s as cheap BluRay machines when vanilla BluRay players started to drop in price. Also digital streaming has become much more important somehow.
Sony would have to wait for less shovelware-like titles to be released for the system, a price drop, and the re-inclusion of rumble in their controllers (something that was conspicuously missing from the original SixAxis and we were told was not possible with gyro controls even though the Wii had it) before sales started to pick up to a rate on par with the other two systems.
After panning the Wii’s motion controls as a “lolly pop” Sony would go on to to release their own motion controllers that would strongly resemble lolly pops. The PlayStation Move would be largely ignored by the public as an expensive add-on that would only be necessary for a handful of titles. Personally I believe it to be a kamikaze product that Sony would have embraced if it actually caught on.
One aspect of the PS3 that still bothers me to this day is the PS2 backwards compatibility debacle. Initially PS3 consoles had hardware based backwards compatibility, but as this contributed to the cost of the console, it would eventually opt for software based compatibility, and then ultimately no backwards compatibility. With the PS2 being rebranded as a Wii competitor PS2 BC on the PS3 would only detract from sales. And when Sony started releasing PS2 Classic titles on their PSN digital service I knew that we would never get that patch that allowed for ubiquitous software based BC.
Outro:
Well there you have it. A generation I'm not going to pad with Wii clones. Now that I think of it I could have done the OnLive (although it could be argued it's not really a console) and maybe a few others, but whoever wins this round will probably not make it on to the next one so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. I certainly hope you guys don't either.
So yeah, cast your votes and remember to not take anything said here too personally. Also don't attack people personally. This one got ugly last time.
Peace out!
Current Standings:
Recap:
Back again! So who 'won' last week? Well the winner is none other than:
The GamePark Wiz and Caanoo! Congratulations, GamePark! I must say I'm surprised GBATemp. I would have voted for the Pandora, although there are some hard feelings there.
So yeah, the Wiz and the Caanoo were pretty decent systems, but y'all didn't like them for some reason.
At least the brain dead individuals who voted for the DS and PSP weren't voting in larger numbers, right?
For more information check out last week's thread here.
So, before we move on to the next round, how's about some rules?
Rules:
There can only be one!
Each week I pit each console generation against itself to determine what the worst console of that generation was. Updates will hopefully be up every Thursday from now till the end.
We’re going to work our way up through consoles and handhelds until we reach the current generation. Once that’s all done, we’ll determine the worst console and the worst handheld. From there we choose the definitive GBATemp-approved WORST CONSOLE EVER.
Your only job, Mr. or Ms. GBATemper, is to cast your vote for what you think the worst of the generation is. Please try to do some research, watch some videos, maybe play a few of these games on a (completely legitimate) emulator, and you just might learn a little about the weird amorphous blob that is video game history. But I can't (and won't) keep you from just shooting from the uninformed hip. You're also encouraged to explain your choice in the form of a response to this topic.
In the event of a tie, I (Sir thaddius prigg) will cast the deciding vote. It is my Roast after all...
The Generations are taken from Wikipedia as I've deemed that to be an appropriate neutral third party. I understand if you might have some concerns that I've put things in the wrong generation in your opinion, but I'm not too concerned about that. Generations are murky constructs at best and are based on arbitrary distinctions made by outsiders as post hoc rationalizations that don't mean anything to anyone anyway. Also if I left out even included a certain console/handheld you think does/doesn't belong there I'm probably not going to include/not include them anyway. Basically don't take any of this too seriously. I'm not going to change the polls based on your opinion of them.
Aggressive discussion is allowed, but please try to keep within the rules of the forums. Just try to have fun and don’t be a jerk, k?
Each week I pit each console generation against itself to determine what the worst console of that generation was. Updates will hopefully be up every Thursday from now till the end.
We’re going to work our way up through consoles and handhelds until we reach the current generation. Once that’s all done, we’ll determine the worst console and the worst handheld. From there we choose the definitive GBATemp-approved WORST CONSOLE EVER.
Your only job, Mr. or Ms. GBATemper, is to cast your vote for what you think the worst of the generation is. Please try to do some research, watch some videos, maybe play a few of these games on a (completely legitimate) emulator, and you just might learn a little about the weird amorphous blob that is video game history. But I can't (and won't) keep you from just shooting from the uninformed hip. You're also encouraged to explain your choice in the form of a response to this topic.
In the event of a tie, I (Sir thaddius prigg) will cast the deciding vote. It is my Roast after all...
The Generations are taken from Wikipedia as I've deemed that to be an appropriate neutral third party. I understand if you might have some concerns that I've put things in the wrong generation in your opinion, but I'm not too concerned about that. Generations are murky constructs at best and are based on arbitrary distinctions made by outsiders as post hoc rationalizations that don't mean anything to anyone anyway. Also if I left out even included a certain console/handheld you think does/doesn't belong there I'm probably not going to include/not include them anyway. Basically don't take any of this too seriously. I'm not going to change the polls based on your opinion of them.
Aggressive discussion is allowed, but please try to keep within the rules of the forums. Just try to have fun and don’t be a jerk, k?
Intro:
Do we have to do this? The Seventh Generation on consoles is pretty bare, and I have a feeling I know how it’s going to go. I don’t like it one bit… Well at least it’ll be over soon.
This generation was known for two things: 1) ushering in the supposed HD revolution, and 2) motion controls. Somehow both were a big deal, don’t ask me why.
Yes, the hallmarks of this generation was everyone having to get new TVs and get their lazy asses off of the couch for once.
Say what you will about either trend, they’ve become ubiquitous.
Now let us meet this week’s crew.
This Week's Challengers are:
The Microsoft Xbox 360
Microsoft strutted confidently into the Seventh Generation early with the Xbox 360. Seemingly hot on the heels of the original Xbox, the 360 would integrate online gameplay like no console seen before it.
While this console was capable of playing media off of DVDs, it had an interesting component in that you could now download digital games onto your hard drive (if you had one, that is). But would people willingly forgo physical media for a license that could be revoked from them at any time? I wonder how that will pan out…
The 360 is credited with having one of the most robust controllers ever, and (aside from the d-pad) your humble author might just have to agree.
Now despite all this fancy-dancy stuff a bunch of it was overshadowed by a glaring issue: hardware failures. Early models had a propensity to overheat and cause catastrophic hardware failures that were represented via the 360’s ringed light indication system as three red lights, aka The Red Ring of Death. MS was quick to replace any console suffering from it at no extra cost, but eventually would drop the courteous practise and leave users out twisting in the wind.
Yours truly (and faithfully
) has gone through four 360s so far, three of which had RRODs, the last one occurring mere months after MS stopped the practise of replacing 360s. I had to open the thing myself and repair it; not something I often expect to do with my consoles.The 360 also ushered in the trend of obnoxious (but useful) updates to the system’s firmware. Primarily a method of deterring piracy MS effectively used it to update the system’s features throughout its lifetime to ensure it would stay relevant.
And of course, what would the internet enabled console age be without DLC and patches, or as I like to call it, “We didn’t bother to try and fix all the bugs or finish the game, so we’ll just release it and fix all that stuff as we go along. Oh, and the DLC will more often than not cost a bit of coin”. I’m not well known for pithy descriptions of things.
And who could forget the HD-DVD thing? An expensive add-on for the 360 that played a rather decent media, but as soon as Disney and the porn industry switched to BluRay HD-DVD was quickly abandoned and the 360 moved on to digital downloads and streaming. Luckily that was enough.
Last but not least we can’t talk about the 360 without talking about MS’ response to the Wii’s runaway success: The Kinect. Slap an array of motion analyzing IR sensors to a microphone with decent voice recognition software and you got yourself a motion gaming revolution that people mostly use to tell Netflix to pause their video.
The Nintendo Wii
This console won the generation last time around when we did the ‘best’ consoles. I was rather surprised but not disappointed.
The infamous ‘two Gamecube’s duct-taped together’, Nintendo released their gaming ‘Revolution’ to the world in 2007 and changed the way we play games. Seriously, it did.
Completely ignoring the HD boom and focussing on what would be panned as gimmicky controls, the Wii used a very interested amalgam of old tech to make the Wii Remote controller - a device that could track arm movement and rotation as well as traditional digital/analogue button presses and control stick movements. This was such a novel idea that Sony and Microsoft, the two companies that seemed poised to absolutely destroy Nintendo, released their own motion control schemes in hopes of cashing in on the craze.
As we keep hearing over and over again every time Nintendo releases anything these days, the rabid ‘haters’ touted the end of Nintendo as we know it, chanting loudly that its demise would resemble that of SEGA. And you know what? It sold very, very well despite being an underpowered, mostly standard definition game box with no BluRay, HD-DVD, or even lowly DVD playback. How the hell did this compete against two media centre game consoles and stay relevant?
Nintendo obviously released some of the better selling games for the system, but its use of old tech in new ways allowed a number of people to experiment. This is the system that churned out titles like Boom Blox and No More Heroes - casual and hardcore games alike that used these wacky new control schemes to their credit. And Metroid Prime 3: Corruption/Metroid Prime Trilogy’s controls scheme? Awesome.
Nintendo did create a lot of confusion with the release of the Wii Motion Plus upgrade to make their motion tracking a little more accurate. Ultimately its release allowed for games like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Being able to actually swing Link’s sword in a relevant way made this game stand out.
And Nintendo’s digital store would bring us the coveted Virtual Console where we could go and experience our favourite NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, ad infentum games, and even try a few we never got to own before. There were some other digital games on their service too but, with a few exceptions, you mostly never hear about anything from there.
With the good comes the bad though, and the Wii was flooded with poor quality games, enough to leave third parties gasping for profit once again on a Nintendo platform.
The Wii would eventually become a homebrewer’s dream and we would see some ingenious hacks and programs for the system.
All in all the Wii is not a terrible system, but its relevance soon dropped off the map. I wonder if it’s enough to make this a paradoxical winner of both the Console Classic and Roast this generation.
The Sony PlayStation 3
Sony released the PS3 in 2007 and leaped into the waiting arms of their rabid fan base only to find that both the steep launch price of $499US (for the cheap model…) and what is probably the worst launch lineup I’ve ever seen sent everyone else into the beds of Microsoft and Nintendo at first.
Sony would try to mirror the success of the PS2 and bank on a new proprietary media (not the first or last time you’ll hear this about a Sony system) for playing movies. This time the BluRay would save them from their launch troubles.
While BluRay eventually trounced HD-DVD it hardly had people running for PS3s as cheap BluRay machines when vanilla BluRay players started to drop in price. Also digital streaming has become much more important somehow.
Sony would have to wait for less shovelware-like titles to be released for the system, a price drop, and the re-inclusion of rumble in their controllers (something that was conspicuously missing from the original SixAxis and we were told was not possible with gyro controls even though the Wii had it) before sales started to pick up to a rate on par with the other two systems.
After panning the Wii’s motion controls as a “lolly pop” Sony would go on to to release their own motion controllers that would strongly resemble lolly pops. The PlayStation Move would be largely ignored by the public as an expensive add-on that would only be necessary for a handful of titles. Personally I believe it to be a kamikaze product that Sony would have embraced if it actually caught on.
One aspect of the PS3 that still bothers me to this day is the PS2 backwards compatibility debacle. Initially PS3 consoles had hardware based backwards compatibility, but as this contributed to the cost of the console, it would eventually opt for software based compatibility, and then ultimately no backwards compatibility. With the PS2 being rebranded as a Wii competitor PS2 BC on the PS3 would only detract from sales. And when Sony started releasing PS2 Classic titles on their PSN digital service I knew that we would never get that patch that allowed for ubiquitous software based BC.
Outro:
Well there you have it. A generation I'm not going to pad with Wii clones. Now that I think of it I could have done the OnLive (although it could be argued it's not really a console) and maybe a few others, but whoever wins this round will probably not make it on to the next one so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. I certainly hope you guys don't either.
So yeah, cast your votes and remember to not take anything said here too personally. Also don't attack people personally. This one got ugly last time.
Peace out!
Current Standings:
