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#17: Best Gaming Platforms |
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Written by Jesse Thompson
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Monday, 10 December 2001 |
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Page 1 of 2  When I was young, I had a rich neighbor who got a Colecovision gaming system for the holidays. I went over one day after school, and we spent the whole afternoon playing Donkey Kong and QBert. He told me that since he had gotten the system, he didn't go to the arcade anymore. Now, this was in the days of Tron and Joysticks, where arcades were becoming a part of American culture. This was a crazy idea to me at the time, that a home system could replace standing in front of the arcade machine with its sticks and buttons.
Everything has changed since then. Thanks to breakthroughs like the Sony Playstation, most homes have at least one system now. Arcades are almost an afterthought... But keep in mind, it took many, many systems to get us to the point where we accepted these systems in our homes. There were lots of failures, like the Turbo Grafx and the Vectrex. Let's look at what were the best means of playing video games in the home, in the Top 7 Video Game Platforms.
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| Pong
The granddaddy of home entertainment, Pong was really the first system to hit the home. It was so simple, and yet so engaging. As simplistic as it is by today's standards, people would spend the entire day playing it. This got quite a few votes from the Chaser readers.
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| Intellivision
The old Intellivision was probably the biggest leap between generations of systems. The graphics were revolutionary, and the games were much more developed than anything else coming out then. What keeps the system out of contention for the top were its pathetic controllers, easily the worst ever made.
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| Sony Playstation
The graphics were okay, the controllers were alright...but oh man, were there a lot of games! No system had ever put out so many titles in such a short time, and the gamble paid off, as the Sony replaced the Sega and Nintendo systems. Not only did it oust them, but it came out of nowhere to do it. The PS1 also officially killed off the cartridge (but don't tell Nintendo that).
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| Sega Genesis
Building on the successes of the first Nintendo and the C64, the Genesis was one of the best combinations of playability, expandability and selection. While the NES was aimed at a younger audience Sega took a chance on making titles for all ages, and it worked, especially with their answer to Mario, Sonic. The sports titles from the mid-90's are still the finest sports sims out there.
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| Amiga
It was all there: innovation, great games, great graphics and stereo sound, lots of options for controllers. The Amiga was made to be a multimedia system that would do away with the IBM and perhaps even the Mac, but somewhere along the way, it grew as a gaming platform. The problem with the Amiga was that there was no marketing, so the system lingered in obscurity, where it still sits today.
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| PC (IBM)
The greatest advantage of the PC is also its greatest weakness, that it's so expandable. The fact that you can improve your video or sound card means that you will have to. For most people, it isn't feasible to upgrade the system every month. The advantages are innumerable: unlimited storage, online connectivity, the best sound and graphics, the most titles, any kind of controller... Still, it's not the same as sitting in front of the tube and banging on PS controllers, is it?
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