Man it feels like I forgot what innovation was when I read this thread. I thought things like 4 player gaming, a start button, and z-targeting were considered innovations, but man this thread surely showed me. You totally forgot about UMD dude, the media format of the future.

Ape Escape.

seriously.

A PS4 Ape escape is all I want. Just don't see it happening though :(

Firs first party J-RPG too i think

Isn't it the case ? Most of the "innovations" are incremental update, copy, improvement. An "innovation" is a subjective concept based on the impact we estimate. For example, you give one more button to the genesis compared to the previous gen, a 3rd button, and the gameplay is mostly unchanged. You add a second stick to the PS1, and that's not clearly brighter than adding a 3rd button, but it changes everything,  it gives the possibility to controle 3D games, FPS games, that's innovation. Or not ?

You give a CD-ROM drive to the genesis, and that's a shitty add-on with no games, you add a CD-ROM drive to the Neo Geo, you call it the Neo Geo CD, and it's not even a better product, you just added a slow loading, there is nothing new. Then you give the CD-ROM to the PS1, and you enter a completely new world, 3D world, rich content, excellent music, etc., you get FF7 and GT. That's where the line is hard to draw.

cool features, dunno how some of them are innovations

Its been the same old story since day 1 on here.

The innovation is in application to gaming.  2 analog sticks enable continuous movement + camera control.  Something the N64 and the Wii lacked (except Pro controller?), but GC & Wii U have.

CDs could be played on every CD consoles since the NEC PC engine CD back in 1989 in Japan (88 maybe...) so no, if you absolutely want a console with CD built-in, it would probably have to be the TurboDuo.

The gameboy color was backward compatible to the original gameboy.

The fun thing with these lists of "innovations" is that they make me realise every time that this is rarely why we buy a console, not the only thing...

NES

 - Modern controller format(no analog stick, that was an advance back then)

- Business model of locking third party in and charging them to release games on your hardware

Genesis, TG-16, SNES

 - CD format (TG-16)

 - RAM upgrades (TG CD System cards)

 - Bumper buttons (SNES)

3DO

 - Licensed hardware design to third parties (that did not stick.. unless you count the Steam machines that were not released, or are they?)

 - Hardware accelerated 3D

Sega Saturn

Sega Dreamcast

 - VMU (2nd screen gaming)

 - Emphasis on online gaming, first console "MMO" in Phantasy Star online

PS1

 - The controller was pretty neat for the time

 - Later they introduced the dualshock with dual analog sticks (you literally cannot release a console that does not have two of those today, the only arguments are how they should be placed)

n64

 - funky controller

The PS2's main advances were:

 - DVD (however counting this as innovation is pushing it, bigger storage it really the result of technology development)

 - The first device to have video hardware that permitted something similar to modern shaders! (even before 3D video cards on PCs enabled that kind of thing)

The OG xbox

 - it had a single big pool of relatively fast memory (for the target SD displays 64MB was amazing at the time)

 - Built-in hard drive (all, or at least most games benefited from it

 - It introduced a unified online service with one central account (yay they invented pay to play online!) no need to login into each games separately

gamecube

Wii

 - system wide avatars

  - Motion sensor based controls

xb360

ps3

 - Blue-Ray drive (you can say what you want, those 25+GB games will not happen on DVD)

Most everything is continuations from what happened before, depending how you classify things, some points may be added or taken out...  I did not put down the aspects that were just more of the same, etc. or did not put too much emphasis on peripherals (eyetoy, voice command, kinect, etc.) in the end they become irrelevant, unless they catch on, like the original dualchock.

Yeah, I had to resist yelling at the monitor every time I saw an ignorant comment based on nothing but fantasy and falseness.