Most influential system (and why)

[HoloDust]

Chrkeller said:

HoloDust said:

True, N64 was first console to feature all those. It did however launch almost 2 years after PS1 and by that time there were already consumer GPUs with those features.

Yeah, consoles typically borrow heavily from PC.  Which is fine, building on existing ideas is smart.  

Overall Nintendo has had a lot of influence on gaming, same with Sony.  Neither one should be downplayed.

In later era, absolutely, but I'd say N64 was more of inevitability of where graphics were going - Namco, Atari and SEGA were pushing 3D flat shaded and then later textured 3D arcades as the hottest thing, all featuring dedicated 3D hardware. At the time (late 80s, early 90s), PCs had 3D strictly via software CPU rendering, so they were actually a bit late to the party, hardware-wise at least...but as I said, by the time N64 released, several 3D cards were already on the market.