Most consoles sold != best console

[Bodhesatva]

Poseidon said:
Hey, Neo-Geo had a few great games. Probably the first true console to bring that arcade feel to homes, even though a game cost $100 a pop.

Yeah, I agree. However, I'd say most -- if not all -- were made by SNK themselves. I'm not suggesting it was COMPLETELY devoid of good games, but I think both of us can agree that it didn't come close to matching the library of the SNES/Genesis. In comparison, something like the N64 really DID have a library that could stand up to the PS1s in quality. I'd say the edge goes to the PS1 if for no other reason than the sheer number of games released, but one could argue that the best games released during that generation were Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64. In other words: the N64 system was dominated pretty seriously, and may have had slightly worse games, but not nearly in proportion to its place on the totem pole. The system itself was outsold almost five to one compared to the PS1 -- and even if we can agree the PS1 had better games overall, would anyone reasonably argue that the PS1 really had FIVE TIMES the number of good games as the N64? I doubt it.

The same could be said of the Genesis, or the Gamecube, or the Xbox. They may or may not have had as many great games as their dominant competitors, but they were all reasonably close. Their libraries were FAR from terrible. Only on the very fringes -- say, systems that had less than 5 percent of the total systems sold during a generation -- do we really see a HUGE disparity in the number of quality titles. Otherwise, the number of quality titles doesn't directly correlate with the system sales very well at all. Again, do MOST of the dominant consoles in history have superior libraries? Probably, but the disparity isn't huge. I'd expect the dominant console to have, oh, 25% more quality games (yes, I pulled that number out of my butt).

Given my pulled-out-of-my-butt numbers, would anyone feel that their system of choice has completely and utterly lost, been humiliated and defeated, if it had 80 great games, while the super-duper-ultra winner had 100?