Which is the most significant (important) console in history?

[potato_hamster]

nuckles87 said:

potato_hamster said:
This thread turned out exactly like I guessed it would just by reading the title. Your biases are showing, VGC. Nintendo getting way more credit than they deserve, Atari getting way less than they clearly deserve, Sony and MS's contributions are largely dismissed, ignored or credited to Nintendo or surprisingly Sega.

It's pretty clear in this thread there's many users to appear to believe that the games industry only really exists in the USA. Do some more reading folks!

Fact of the matter is, the video game industry's history is a complex web of contributions from a multitude of different companies, many of which never even made a console. I mean, in both Japan and Europe, computers, NOT consoles, were the major gaming devices. Japan had the MSX, the U.K. had Amstrad, ZX Spectrum, and the BBC Microcomputer. Even during, before, and AFTER the video game crash, US gamers were playing on Commodore 64s and various Atari 8-bit computers, among other machines. 

To even credit the 2600 as "the most important console" is a bit of a stretch. Sure, it was the first successful gaming device that utilized cartridges, but it didn't build that success on its own. Its foundations were the Pong home console and arcade machine, which were the first gaming devices to Introduce digital gaming to the mass market successfully. It built off the success of these machines. And Pong itself was inspired by the Magnavox Odysssey, which was a commercial failure but pioneered a lot of basic concepts like game controllers, light guns games, and the Pong game itself. 

Even when you go this far back, you need to consider whether commercial success or innovation is more important when answering a question like this. Generally, I consider commercial success to be more important, which is why I essentially "voted" for Pong.

Atari actually created the a market for console gaming. Atari actually made console video gaming main-stream. The Atari 2600 was how they did that. Atari created the market that Nintnedo apparently saved by creating, marketing and supporting a console that was over ten times more popular than any "console" (however you may define it) before it.

If we're going to start talking about "innovation", and claim that Atari shouldn't get credit because they really only "popularized" certain things, then you have to dock a huge amount of credit from Nintendo, as the vast majority of things that people claim Nintendo innovated was actually the popularization of other company's innovations, just like Atari did.

P.S. Also, it's amazing how the Magnavox Odyssey inspired Pong, when it was released 3 years after Pong. Seems odd to me, but hey, this thread is completely lacking in reasonable thinking, so why should I be surrpised?