Gaming Platform History - 2025 Edition

[The_Liquid_Laser]

BasilZero said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

Here are the platforms I owned during each generation and my preferences from best to worst.  I'm also including the arcade, even though I didn't own one, because it was a primary platform for a significant time period.

Generation 2 (early 80's)
1) Arcade;  2) Atari 2600 

Mid 80's
Arcade

Generation 3 (Late 80's)
1) NES (slightly over)  2) Arcade  (Both platforms were amazing!)

Generation 4
1) PC;  2) SNES (slightly over)  3) Genesis;  4) Arcade  (all 4 platforms were great, but there was still a clear hierarchy)

Generation 5
1) PC;  2) Playstation

Generation 6
1) PC;  2) PS2;  3) GBA;  4) GameCube

Generation 7
1) Wii (slightly over) 2) PS3; 3) DS (slightly over) 4) PSP  

Generation 8
1) Wii U;  2) PS4;  3) 3DS;  4) XBox 1  (worst period of gaming yet)

Generation 9
Switch

You mean you spent a lot of quarters at the arcade? Damn that must have been a lot of money lol

I DID spend a lot of quarters (and tokens) at the arcade depending on what the machines took.  It was so much that it was hard to measure.  I can tell you that for the mid to late 80's my favorite platform was definitely the arcade.    I even preferred it a lot over the various computers my friends had.  This was before I could drive though, so the Atari 2600 was nice when I couldn't make it to the arcade.  It felt weird in the late 80's that I would often ignore the arcade if a huge game released on the NES like a Mario or Zelda.  In between major releases I would go to the arcade when I could.  Sega had some great arcade games then, and yet the NES was such a fantastic console that I ended up going less and less compared to the early and mid 80's.