By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Most innovative/revolutionary Nintendo console ever

 

Nintendo's most innovative/revolutionary console:

NES 9 12.16%
 
GB 5 6.76%
 
SNES 0 0%
 
N64 8 10.81%
 
GBA 0 0%
 
Gamecube 1 1.35%
 
DS 7 9.46%
 
Wii 22 29.73%
 
Wii U 3 4.05%
 
Switch 19 25.68%
 
Total:74
AngryLittleAlchemist said:
vivster said:

The answer to that is which of those two things is still popular.

I'd say virtual reality is growing and growing, so that's a point for the Wii. 

VR dates back to the 80s. Motion controls on consoles you could get on NES with U-Force/Power Glove. Genesis with SEGA Activator. PS1 and N64 with Pelican add on. Dreamcast with the fishing wand which works with Soul Calibur. GBA had a motion control game. In the mid-1990s VR Cafes existed. Atari was working on a VR Headset with Jaguar. SEGA was working on a VR set for Genesis. VR is bigger now than in the 90s but it's still very niche.



Bite my shiny metal cockpit!

Around the Network

I'm going to have to go with the N64. N64 innovations included interactive camera system (Mario 64), Z-targeting (Zelda: OoT), rumble, expandable memory, four controller ports (instead of the traditional two) and analog sticks. Heck, they even had some games with voice recognition.



I'm gonna say N64 by a very narrow margin. Wii, NES, Game Boy, and DS are all up there too. Switch might be pretty up there as well, but it's too early to say.

The Nintendo 64 was the first Nintendo platform to have a majority of polygon graphic games. They were nonexistent on NES, and very rare on SNES (Super FX chip games, basically). It was also the first platform I can think of that had four player capabilities right out of the box with no multitaps needed. Pair that with a controller with an analog stick (just about the first in history, if not the first), and a port for memory expansion/haptic features/Game Boy compatibility.
There's also the 64DD. Unfortunately, it never released outside of Japan. It was the first piece of Nintendo hardware to use discs, even though they were magnetic disks. RandNet was a superior and more involved piece of online commerce for video games than previous Nintendo hardware. The GameCube unfortunately never even tried anything as involved as this, and only a tiny few GameCube games supported online.
And of course the software. Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time transformed gaming and their respective franchises. Super Smash Bros. and Animal Crossing have become very iconic Nintendo IPs as well. I know the GameCube versions of the OG Animal Crossing were more successful, but it all started here.



Lifetime Sales Predictions 

Switch: 151 million (was 73, then 96, then 113 million, then 125 million, then 144 million)

PS5: 115 million (was 105 million) Xbox Series S/X: 57 million (was 60 million, then 67 million)

PS4: 120 mil (was 100 then 130 million, then 122 million) Xbox One: 51 mil (was 50 then 55 mil)

3DS: 75.5 mil (was 73, then 77 million)

"Let go your earthly tether, enter the void, empty and become wind." - Guru Laghima

Leynos said:
AngryLittleAlchemist said:

I'd say virtual reality is growing and growing, so that's a point for the Wii. 

VR dates back to the 80s. Motion controls on consoles you could get on NES with U-Force/Power Glove. Genesis with SEGA Activator. PS1 and N64 with Pelican add on. Dreamcast with the fishing wand which works with Soul Calibur. GBA had a motion control game. In the mid-1990s VR Cafes existed. Atari was working on a VR Headset with Jaguar. SEGA was working on a VR set for Genesis. VR is bigger now than in the 90s but it's still very niche.

He’s talking about modern motion controls as core interface features in modern VR. That’s quite a bit different than some  obscure fishing game with a motion sensor in it from decades ago. It’s kind of like saying the Wright Brothers and early flight using wings to fly doesn’t really matter because the Australians had flight already, with boomerangs, 10,000 years ago.

Last edited by Jumpin - on 02 December 2020

I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

Jumpin said:
Leynos said:

VR dates back to the 80s. Motion controls on consoles you could get on NES with U-Force/Power Glove. Genesis with SEGA Activator. PS1 and N64 with Pelican add on. Dreamcast with the fishing wand which works with Soul Calibur. GBA had a motion control game. In the mid-1990s VR Cafes existed. Atari was working on a VR Headset with Jaguar. SEGA was working on a VR set for Genesis. VR is bigger now than in the 90s but it's still very niche.

He’s talking about modern motion controls as core interface features in modern VR. Some obscure fishing game with a motion sensor in a fishing rod isn’t the same thing.

Not obscure unless super young. Besides motion was used in VR in VR cafe games in the 90s



Bite my shiny metal cockpit!

Around the Network
vivster said:
AngryLittleAlchemist said:

I'd say virtual reality is growing and growing, so that's a point for the Wii. 

Ah yes, we give the win to the tiny flower of VR next to the redwood tree of mobile gaming.

I mean, my pick would be DS. Not Wii. So I agree with you, there. I'd say DS, Gameboy, and NES are the winners here. 



vivster said:
Darwinianevolution said:

Either the GameBoy, for pretty much creating the handheld space, or the Wii, for popularizing motion controls.

The answer to that is which of those two things is still popular.

They both are.



Gameboy and it isn't even a contest.



The only possible right answer is none of them because everything any of them tried to push already existed in other products or devices in a capacity or another. So none of them is even close to be innovating or revolutionary. They all simply iterated on ideas that already had been thought before elsewhere. Anyone who disagrees is either too young or too ignorant to know any better.

Spoiler!
I hope I’m doing this right...


Switch. Wii was also innovative at the time. But it's ideas didn't last long.