One of the funniest things I can think of is the fact that every single hardcore gamer, every last one who pines for the days when mainstream gamers weren't interested in gaming, started out as a mainstream gamer. You cannot avoid it; nobody enters gaming as some sort of paragon of skill and appreciation of gameplay depth. That's pure fantasy. Most people start into gaming by playing stuff like Mario, not stuff like Vagrant Story. Never forget your gaming roots.

SkyRender,if you refer to my post...

"it's downright silly to say that mainstream-appeal games somehow hurt gaming"

I didn´t say that..

"do your favored games somehow lose their quality if you can also get the likes of Barbie's Horse Adventure on the same console as they appear on?"

Nope.

Meh,I just miss the 4th generation,for what it was.

I'm guessing you probably started playing games either in the 8-bit or 16-bit era. Which would mean that your transition from mainstream to core player happened around the 16-bit era. In that case, it would be no surprise at all that you favor the 16-bit era games; nostalgia for your first experiences in a particular market of gaming are quite common. I certainly remember Final Fantasy VI quite fondly (and still enjoy it a lot), as it was the first console RPG that really drew me in.

Sky Render said: One of the funniest things I can think of is the fact that every single hardcore gamer, every last one who pines for the days when mainstream gamers weren't interested in gaming, started out as a mainstream gamer. You cannot avoid it; nobody enters gaming as some sort of paragon of skill and appreciation of gameplay depth. That's pure fantasy. Most people start into gaming by playing stuff like Mario, not stuff like Vagrant Story. Never forget your gaming roots.

yep

that's why I just said that the NES was not less a mainstream or casual console than it was a hardcore console

actually!
the NES is probably the greatest mainstream console of all time

I started in the 8-bit era...yeah man,nostalgia is kinda my 'gaming companion' nowadays....it was just the time my enjoyment with games was at its peak...have fond memories of Mario World,F-Zero,FFVI,Chrono Trigger,Mario RPG,TMNT IV,Castlevania IV,Street Fighter 2,Zelda ALTTP,Mario Kart,Contra 3,StarFox,Battletoads,etc....damn I better stop right here lol....what about you,Sky Render,when did you start playing?

Deviation59 said: The PSX was still a system for hardcore gamers so no, you did not see the same type of bitching about the PSX that you see about the Wii.

Actually, it was a hardcore system only later in it's life, while Saturn and N64 were considered hardcore systems from the start. And when you look at it, they ended up being more hardcore systems than PSX. When PSX came out, it had nothing but shovelware and casual games, while all the "real" games were on either Saturn or N64. There were only a few "hardcore" games, from which PSX is remembered as "hardcore" systems. Me and my brothers had N64 and PSX (we got PSX because of the droughts N64 had), and it was a problem to find decent games for PSX, while you could get games extremely cheap, 1,70€ for some new games from the store. Those were complete crap, but sold well because of their cheap price. The thing is, that Wii is doing exactly like PSX, with the difference that Wii actually has good games too. Or actually the whole gen is going like the fifth. Everyone was waiting for Nintendos super-powered console to come out and wipe the floor with the competitors, while no-one expected PSX to live any longer than the point N64 comes out, but it turned out that the inferior console, with a better deal for developers, was the one to wipe out the competition. @Topic: Some things never change. The difference decade ago was, that today we have internet where we can argue, sales are easier for anyone to find and what's most important, fifth gen started from position, where there weren't a clearly dominant console, so there weren't similar change in dominance for anyone as there is between 6th and 7th gen. But i think mrstickball pointed out one fun thing; no matter what Nintendo does, it's always going to be blamed (although, a sign about the "hardcores" interest). @Ajax: RPG:s on PSX were pretty lame when compared to RPG:s on SNES.

I never really cared much about third party support or console wars back in the n64 days (and i was only kid in the NES days, so i wasn't a part of those 'fights' either) as i surprisingly never wanted/needed more than mario64, kart64, goldeneye, conkers to keep me completely occupied during that whole era, and all the way up to my purchase of the wii (skipped last gen)... but there were some goodies on psx and ps2 which i was content with playing on PC though, like FFVII (favourite FF thus far), GTA series (before it became stale -- cough SA cough) to name a few.. so that would have probably helped

Lufia II is my favorite SNES rpg
and my second favorite rpg of all time

but I still like the PSX library more..

hold on a minute

pretty lame?

so you are calling Xenogears, Final Fantasy Tactics, Suikoden en Final Fantasy VII lame.. compared to like FFVI, Lufia II and Chrono Trigger and FFIV?

you got to be joking man

you can say your taste is more with the SNES rpgs
but those PSX line-up is certainly not lame

Though I got a false start in the late 1980s with the Atari, I started gaming for real in the 8-bit era, around when the big boom in NES popularity hit (around 1990). I still have the whole family NES collection. I remember back then, when we all clamored for our turn to play the Super Mario Brothers games, while mom got thoroughly addicted to Dr. Mario. And how we begged for the Zelda games, with those cool golden cartridges.

The 16-bit era I spent as a PC gamer, unwillingly for the most part. But it did introduce me to the FPS genre, as well as the adventure game genre. And I did get to experience some 16-bit console games at friends' houses (which is how I found out about FF6). Xenogears and FF7 drew me back to console gaming, because by then I was getting tired of the largely inaccessible PC RPGs and wanted an RPG experience that was better suited to my tastes. For most of the 32-bit era, about all I played was RPGs.