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:
Not even a fair competition, if you ask me. After another flurry of votes a definite 'winner' has emerged. Congratulations to:
The Watara/QuickShot SuperVision! Despite the general ire toward the Game Gear or the Lynx it wasn't enough to distract people from what was really bothering them in the late 80s, early 90s: The Watara SuperVision. Maybe it's because it looks like supervision, which is a dumb name for a system (believe me, there are worse ones!), maybe it's because it offended the sensibilities of those who actually owned a Game Boy, of which the SuperVision was a pale comparison. Whatever the reason it has been selected as GBATemp's least favourite handheld of the fourth generation.
For more information on how the voting went, you can check out last week's thread here.
Intro:
As we ease out of the handhelds of the fourth generation we throw you toward the consoles. And thus we enter the great Console Wars of the early 90s. You might recognize a few of these but this generation was all about just two competitors in the Western market: The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Both had their flaws, and both had a dearth of amazing games. It's going to be very hard to say negative things about them, but then again I don't expect they'll make it to the next round.
My predictions: there's one obvious eyesore of a console that stands out this generation. And unlike previous generations where people would (most likely) blindly vote for the system they had never heard of, I think everyone here knows what it is and may have heard a thing or two about it. As always I encourage you to head out to YouTube and watch a few reviews on these consoles. You just might learn something.
But before we get to that, let's recap the rules no know ever reads!
Rules:
Enough of that crap, time to get started!
This Week's Challengers:
The NEC PC Engine/Turbo GrafX-16/TurboGrafX
This machine with the a million names was released way back in 1987 in Japan as the PC Engine, in 1989 in North America as the TurboGrafX-16, and in 1990 in Europe as simply the TurboGrafX.
While it performed quite well in Japan, it never quite made a foothold anywhere else… You’d be very hard pressed to find anyone in the West who owned one growing up.
I’ve had very little experience with this console and am left with the impression that it’s a system only for Bonk and shmups.
NEC would end up releasing a bunch of peripherals, add-ons, and so many different versions of this console (mostly in Japan where people actually played the thing) that I'm not going to recount them here.
The Sega Mega Drive/Genesis
Sega just couldn’t get a break. The NES rustled their Master System jimmies and when Sega released its Genesis in Japan it was in direct competition with the PC Engine, which it never really fared well against. The release of the Super FAMICOM just made things worse and relegated the Genesis to third place there.
Sega managed to eke out a portion of the North American and European (called the Mega Drive there) markets with their aggressive ad campaigns but could never quite catch up with the Super Nintendo. Sega would go on to released a dearth of versions of the console and add-ons for the system, none of which are worth getting into, IMHO.
I have always been kind of fascinated by the sound synthesizer on this machine. It sounds really odd. Kind of in a grating way. I’m sure that sound means nostalgia for some, but for me it was too heavy in the saw waves.
The SNK Neo Geo AES
Arcade games? At home?! On your TV?! How can you lose?? Well… when you launch the system at $650US you can kind of go wrong there.
The quality of the software was never in question - Neo Geo machines were some of the best machines at the local arcade. But the buy-in was just too much. The individual games and extra controllers weren’t cheap either. You really have to wonder what they were thinking.
The Super FAMICOM/Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Despite being 4 years late to the next gen party the SNES managed to outsell… well… everyone. Building off the raucous success of the NES, the SNES seemed to have been released at the right time.
Unlike Atari, Nintendo didn’t really suffer from the release of their second major console and was not stigmatized by lack of backwards compatibility and no one was really complaining about the system being released too soon after the NES. If anything people were clamouring for an update by 1991.
Nintendo’s adherence to a self imposed code of not wanting to offend anyone left the public with the impression that Nintendo was a very ‘kiddy’ company, in addition to video games being considered a 'childs' market at the time. This mentality rose to the surface at the height of the ‘console wars’ that Sega spurred in North America when Mortal Kombat was released on both the SNES and the Genesis. The SNES version lacked blood and gore, while the Genesis relished in what it spun as a more faithful port of the arcade hit. In the end it didn’t matter which game had blood and which didn’t - the game was violent no matter what. The ensuing parental rage led to the creation of a ESRB in North America - a system that parents would either ignore or be wholly ignorant of for decades.
Last time around the SNES made it to the semi-finals as GBATemp’s most preferred console, so I’d be very surprised to see it garner too many votes this time.
The Phillips CDi
Spawned from a failed deal between Nintendo and Sony, the Phillips CDi was supposed to be the Super Nintendo’s CD add-on to compete with the Sega CD. I guess Nintendo figured that they didn’t need it (they didn’t) and cut Phillips loose.
The CDi is fondly/notoriously remembered for its Mario and Zelda games whose licences they were awarded as part of their deal with Nintendo.
Now… those of you who weren’t really around for this generation might not be able to appreciate the horror that was CD-based console games, a large portion of which fell into the ‘edutainment’ category (it bothers me that edutainment is a word that isn’t being picked up by my spellcheck). CDs meant that the use of Full Motion Video (FVM, usually in MPEG-1) was now possible in video games. And a lot of people who would not normally have made video games decided to start. The CDi, as the only CD-based console I’m going to talk about this generation, will be a herald of the things to come: when the market became flooded once again by mediocre titles.
Outro:
So there you have it. For your consideration, GBATemp, the fourth generation of consoles. I have nothing else to say on the matter. Happy voting!
Current Standings:
Recap:
Not even a fair competition, if you ask me. After another flurry of votes a definite 'winner' has emerged. Congratulations to:
The Watara/QuickShot SuperVision! Despite the general ire toward the Game Gear or the Lynx it wasn't enough to distract people from what was really bothering them in the late 80s, early 90s: The Watara SuperVision. Maybe it's because it looks like supervision, which is a dumb name for a system (believe me, there are worse ones!), maybe it's because it offended the sensibilities of those who actually owned a Game Boy, of which the SuperVision was a pale comparison. Whatever the reason it has been selected as GBATemp's least favourite handheld of the fourth generation.
For more information on how the voting went, you can check out last week's thread here.
Intro:
As we ease out of the handhelds of the fourth generation we throw you toward the consoles. And thus we enter the great Console Wars of the early 90s. You might recognize a few of these but this generation was all about just two competitors in the Western market: The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Both had their flaws, and both had a dearth of amazing games. It's going to be very hard to say negative things about them, but then again I don't expect they'll make it to the next round.
My predictions: there's one obvious eyesore of a console that stands out this generation. And unlike previous generations where people would (most likely) blindly vote for the system they had never heard of, I think everyone here knows what it is and may have heard a thing or two about it. As always I encourage you to head out to YouTube and watch a few reviews on these consoles. You just might learn something.
But before we get to that, let's recap the rules no know ever reads!
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 Miss 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...
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 Miss 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...
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?
This Week's Challengers:
The NEC PC Engine/Turbo GrafX-16/TurboGrafX
This machine with the a million names was released way back in 1987 in Japan as the PC Engine, in 1989 in North America as the TurboGrafX-16, and in 1990 in Europe as simply the TurboGrafX.
While it performed quite well in Japan, it never quite made a foothold anywhere else… You’d be very hard pressed to find anyone in the West who owned one growing up.
I’ve had very little experience with this console and am left with the impression that it’s a system only for Bonk and shmups.
NEC would end up releasing a bunch of peripherals, add-ons, and so many different versions of this console (mostly in Japan where people actually played the thing) that I'm not going to recount them here.
The Sega Mega Drive/Genesis
Sega just couldn’t get a break. The NES rustled their Master System jimmies and when Sega released its Genesis in Japan it was in direct competition with the PC Engine, which it never really fared well against. The release of the Super FAMICOM just made things worse and relegated the Genesis to third place there.
Sega managed to eke out a portion of the North American and European (called the Mega Drive there) markets with their aggressive ad campaigns but could never quite catch up with the Super Nintendo. Sega would go on to released a dearth of versions of the console and add-ons for the system, none of which are worth getting into, IMHO.
I have always been kind of fascinated by the sound synthesizer on this machine. It sounds really odd. Kind of in a grating way. I’m sure that sound means nostalgia for some, but for me it was too heavy in the saw waves.
The SNK Neo Geo AES
Arcade games? At home?! On your TV?! How can you lose?? Well… when you launch the system at $650US you can kind of go wrong there.
The quality of the software was never in question - Neo Geo machines were some of the best machines at the local arcade. But the buy-in was just too much. The individual games and extra controllers weren’t cheap either. You really have to wonder what they were thinking.
The Super FAMICOM/Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Despite being 4 years late to the next gen party the SNES managed to outsell… well… everyone. Building off the raucous success of the NES, the SNES seemed to have been released at the right time.
Unlike Atari, Nintendo didn’t really suffer from the release of their second major console and was not stigmatized by lack of backwards compatibility and no one was really complaining about the system being released too soon after the NES. If anything people were clamouring for an update by 1991.
Nintendo’s adherence to a self imposed code of not wanting to offend anyone left the public with the impression that Nintendo was a very ‘kiddy’ company, in addition to video games being considered a 'childs' market at the time. This mentality rose to the surface at the height of the ‘console wars’ that Sega spurred in North America when Mortal Kombat was released on both the SNES and the Genesis. The SNES version lacked blood and gore, while the Genesis relished in what it spun as a more faithful port of the arcade hit. In the end it didn’t matter which game had blood and which didn’t - the game was violent no matter what. The ensuing parental rage led to the creation of a ESRB in North America - a system that parents would either ignore or be wholly ignorant of for decades.
Last time around the SNES made it to the semi-finals as GBATemp’s most preferred console, so I’d be very surprised to see it garner too many votes this time.
The Phillips CDi
Spawned from a failed deal between Nintendo and Sony, the Phillips CDi was supposed to be the Super Nintendo’s CD add-on to compete with the Sega CD. I guess Nintendo figured that they didn’t need it (they didn’t) and cut Phillips loose.
The CDi is fondly/notoriously remembered for its Mario and Zelda games whose licences they were awarded as part of their deal with Nintendo.
Now… those of you who weren’t really around for this generation might not be able to appreciate the horror that was CD-based console games, a large portion of which fell into the ‘edutainment’ category (it bothers me that edutainment is a word that isn’t being picked up by my spellcheck). CDs meant that the use of Full Motion Video (FVM, usually in MPEG-1) was now possible in video games. And a lot of people who would not normally have made video games decided to start. The CDi, as the only CD-based console I’m going to talk about this generation, will be a herald of the things to come: when the market became flooded once again by mediocre titles.
Outro:
So there you have it. For your consideration, GBATemp, the fourth generation of consoles. I have nothing else to say on the matter. Happy voting!
Current Standings:
