Poll: Which Console Generation did you feel improved gaming the most?

[Batou667]

Oh goodness, that's a tricky one. If I was being trite I could claim they're all equally important links in a chain, remove a single one and we wouldn't be where we are today.

Being more serious, I'd say either the 8-bit era for rebuilding gaming after the early 80s crash, or 32-bit for the transition to 3D. Another honorable mention would be Gen 6 for bringing broadband multiplayer and online functionality into the mainstream. It's also depressing how relatively stale 7th and 8th Gen have been. The biggest contribution of 7th Gen was achievements/trophies and HD; 8th Gen hasn't even hinted at any genuine innovations yet.

I voted 32-bit, although I would only play most 32-bit games at gunpoint. Early 3D has aged REALLY badly. My favourite eras are 16 bit and gen 6-7.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Well the first was pretty important but really it was the Atari 2600 that had more impact than the Magnavox but then again im speculating just on what I have gleaned as that was a little before my time so from first hand recollection I would say the NES was pretty damn important in getting games back on track it really gave gaming a kick up the arse this happened again when the Playstation came out so those two its a bit weird to group them in console generations because something like the Jaguar was pretty much dead on arrival and not important to gaming at all except as a lost novelty. anyway I would say the Atari 2600, NES and Playstation (PSX) are the three consoles that improved on gaming the most.

The commodore 64 isnt a console btw.

 

[Chester Rabbit]

The Third Gen: Without it who knows where the hell gaming would have ended up

Second

The Seventh Gen: Brought gaming out of the "basement" and into everyone's living room with the Wii, COD and Guitar Hero.

 

[LaoJim]

I wouldn't agree too much on the assessment of the 4th generation. At least to me, it was a gateway with it's ability to hold so much more complex data (Much more space for text in-game, changing depth, etc.), as well as it's addition of the new buttons which, after the addition of the analog sticks for PS1 controllers next generation, became the structure for the control layout we use today.

While I wouldn't say it should change too much on your list, if any at all, since what you are referring to the most in your list is what goes on on-screen and in the world as opposed to what is in your hands changed, I still hold a firm belief the way they the controller is implemented and what is available on them holds as strong an influence in games as gameplay additions.

I see what you're saying. Its a fair point, although I think most generations have added buttons to the controller, 2 to 6 is a pretty big leap though (not including start pause).

I was thinking about your point about more depth in games. Obviously ROM sizes are getting bigger all the time, but remember that the ROM was built into the cartridge. So games were getting bigger all the time, regardless of generation shifts, with early games on the consoles being much smaller than the later ones (especially RPGs). I think part of the reason why I didn't focus on it so much is because I had a Sega Master System rather than an NES and there was less of a jump between its cartridges sizes (since it was released later than the NES) and the next gen. My feeling with the 4th generation is that you have most of the same game types as you did on the 3rd only refined a bit more. I agree that the 4th generation added depth because of the larger cartridge sizes, whereas the 5th had to use the increase on 3D graphics. Anyway I did some digging on the numbers, for a couple of games each console. I'm not claiming they're representative of the generation as a whole.


Atari 2600
Adventure approx 4K

NES
Super Mario Bros approx 30K
Legend of Zelda approx 60K

Master System
Wonderboy 3 approx 140K
Phantasy Star approx 300K

SNES
Super Mario World approx 300K
Final Fantasy 3 approx 2M

Genesis
Sonic the Hedgehog approx 375K
Phantasy Star 4 approx 2M

N64
Super Mario 64 approx 6M
Ocarina of Time approx 25M

Other than that, your list, I find, to be very well thought out and that simple yet helpful chart of what goes on in each makes your ranking reasoning very understandable :3

Thank you

 

[Casual Shinji]

The 6th.

Fucking thumbsticks, man. Finally, 3D gaming became less than fucking awkward. And yes, I know there were 5th gen controllers that had thumbssticks, but they weren't default and hadn't properly discovered the 'left stick = camera/right stick = movement' combo yet.

 

[DirgeNovak]

Of course the 3rd has massive historical importance and the 5th introduced 3D graphics and CD sound, but the 6th perfected 3D controls with the dual analog sticks. So it wins.

 

[stroopwafel]

Every generation innovated in ways you could write entire essays about, but if I had to choose one I'd probably say the fifth. The leap from 2D sprites to 3D polygons is probably the most significant one in gaming, and I doubt we'll see such a groundbreaking innovation anytime soon. Holograms maybe, but that's still so far off. Virtual Reality doesn't count as that has been around since the early '90s. Never had any appeal for me personally.

My favorite gen is the 7th, with the PS3 probably being my most played console of all time. Mind I have been playing games since the 2nd/3rd. I don't know, but the 7th just had a lot of games I always imagined in the early days. I absolutely loved the previous gen. I have even higher hopes for current gen when I see what's in production.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I would say that each new generation has its merits and what was possible on one generation was impossible during the previous gen with an arguable exception to the current generation. The Wii U is an improvement over the Wii but I can't see much difference at all between PS3, PS4 and, Xbone graphics. This problem is compounded by the oversaturation of remastered editions of last gen games on current gen consoles. It's true that the 6th and 7th gen consoles saw their fair share of re-releases and, remasterings but the difference between The Last of Us and the Mega Man X collection is that the later was a collection of 7 full SNES games whereas the former is a prettier version of something that isn't even a year old.

As for which generation made the greatest strives I would think the fifth gen. A lot of games releases during that time aged pretty horribly. Sure future generations perfected what was set up in gen 5 but, you can't deny how huge a leap we made from gens 4 to 5. Not only when it came to how games looked but how those games played.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

glad to see my votes in the majority. everything since 6th gen has been tiny increments

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

It's somewhere between #3 and #6 I think. The first gen didn't "improve" gaming so much as it started the whole thing off. Second gen fucked up beyond measure. Three is where there's any room for improvement - the Nintendo vs. Sega console wars duke it out and fill in the power void left by Atari. After that I think #4 and #5 carried on a trend of improvement in media, connectivity and processing that more or less climaxed on #6.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Discussing consoles specifically, I will say the Playstation/Saturn era (even tho the Saturn and its successor weren't commercially successful). The reason being a simple one...the change from cartridges to CDs.

Games on older consoles were limited by the physical capacity of the memory chips on the cartridge's board. In the era of the N64 the largest size (tho seldom used) a cart could be was 64MB. They're production costs were significantly higher (hence practically no "two-cart games") than optical media and while they were faster to load and could contain battery-back up EEPROMs for game saves, they were a limiting factor.

The leap to CD meant a jump to 650MB capacity, games could span multiple discs for (comparatively) little extra production cost and much more. Music could be genuine, actual music, not just MIDI bips and bops (charming tho those remain!).

The leap to DVD wasn't nearly so profound. While yes, it did mean 6x greater capacity than disc, and excusing that it coincided with another leap in hardware capability, it wasn't as revolutionary as the Playstation and the change from cart to CD. (In a similar way, it's like the huge benefit of DVD over VHS, whereas Blu Ray isn't nearly so profound a difference vs DVD.)

 

[LaoJim]

Gen 6. Its just impossible to argue.

Woah, slow down there fella, did you not see all the post arguing above you?

Before Gen 6, it was EXTREMELY rare for a game to have even decent UI design

And what is bad about the UI design in Pacman?

Aside from that, games tended to be needlessly hard to control.

Again, was Pacman hard to control?

Joking aside, I think you are right that, after having transferred to 3D in the 5th gen, the 6th ironed out a lot of gameplay issues with 3D gaming.

Plus, it was at the point where games had good budgets, but the budgets were not cripplingly high so developer freedom was still allowed.

Fair point.

 

[CaitSeith]

Why are you asking two different questions in the title and in the poll? The greatest console generation wasn't necessarily the one that improved gaming the most. In my opinion the greates console generation was the one who brought us the best console games, and the ones that improved gaming the most are the ones who made possible to bring more gaming experiences and options than the one before.

Improved gaming: 5th generation
- Transition from 2D to 3D graphics
- Optical disc mainstream acceptance (before it was just a gimmick)
- External memory cartridges had a real purpose now
- Playstation happened (a great console with far less censorship than Nintendo's)
- Rumble Pack happened
- Gameboy Color happened (first backwards-compatible portable console)

Greatest console generation: 6th generation
- All 4 consoles had great and unique games.
- Secondary functions (like DVD playing) were great additions, but games were still the most important thing.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Someone already mentioned it, but I have to agree that NES was pretty much the biggest step. It addition to it being an enormous leap forward graphically from the Atari 2600, it basically brought gaming into the mainstream, and it essentially saved the entire industry following the great video game crash of only a few years prior.

 

[krebons12]

Why are you asking two different questions in the title and in the poll? The greatest console generation wasn't necessarily the one that improved gaming the most. In my opinion the greates console generation was the one who brought us the best console games, and the ones that improved gaming the most are the ones who made possible to bring more gaming experiences and options than the one before.

Eh. The way my brain works, the great improvements within a medium, improvements that cause it to be more fun, will normally make for the greatest generation in its timespan. Though I can see how the two are different to everyone else on Earth looking at it again. Oops.

 

[beastro]

5th Gen developed greatly over the previous generation opening up a ton of new genres with platformers no longer dominating before consoles became mere PC-lites which the 6th and all to follow have and will be.

 

[Unspoken_Request]

Two different questions:

1. Greatest generation: The 4th. Not the most innovative, as it mostly perfected what came before.
But, in the end, it's all about the games and on this front the 4th gen is unsurpassed.

This gen gave us genre-defining masterpieces in most of what are today's main game genres (with the notable exception of 3D shooters): Super Mario World, Zelda: A Link to the Past, FF6, Chrono Trigger, Sonic, Super Metroid, F-Zero, Castlevania, Star Fox, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Donkey Kong, Super Mario Kart, Mega Man, NHL (I could go on). Compared to the NES or even the N64 era (early 3d looks horrible today), most of them have stood the test of time very well.

And I could also say that the 4th had the best console war of all time, but everyone knows that... "Genesis does what Nintendon't"

2. Improved gaming: 3rd gen (for obvious reasons)

In case anyone includes handheld devices in its assessment: it is worth noting that while the OP placed Gameboy in the 5th Gen, the device was clearly released during the fourth (in 1990). If you think about it, handheld console is probably the greatest innovation of the 4th generation...

 

[omega 616]

I don't think there is a best generation. For me it's like a house, the first gen was the foundation and every gen after that built on top of it.

That is until the PS3 and 360 hit, the roof got dry rot and termites. Micro-transactions, day one patches, on disk content being put behind a pay wall ... and what pisses me off most (which is actually really trivial) is the social aspect to gaming. Every fucking game has to have a social aspect, each system wants you to give a fuck about what your friends are doing and try to beat them.

God, I hate this social crap that is crowbared into games.