It's kind of amazing that people have bought the "Nintendo saved gaming" thing when what they actually did was lock Sega and others out of the US market by requiring developers to sign exclusivity contracts. They didn't save gaming, they just made it look that way.

Really, Sega needs to be mentioned here because they were the first to fight against some of Nintendo's anti-consumer practices and pave the way for the rise of third party publishers and developers, which then helped to create the perfect storm of the original PlayStation. Yes, Sega laid the groundwork that Sony took advantage of much more successfully. Ironically, EA was very instrumental in that and had a positive influence on the future of gaming.

The most important thing Nintendo did was to require that code be submitted and approved for any game that appeared on their hardware. It didn't have to be GOOD but it did have to WORK. A lot of the other stuff was so that they could keep a monopoly but the code approval part solved the problem of completely broken games that plagued many of the early systems.

Sony's biggest contribution was much more simple but it also changed the industry. They went to the publishers and developers and listened to what they had to say. At the time, Nintendo dictated everything and ruled over third-parties with an iron fist. Sony went in the opposite direction, which is why they received so much support.

Microsoft's biggest contribution is that they completely embraced DLC. I doubt the entire scene of expansions, cosmetics, or even patches would be nearly as robust now without their inclusion in the industry.

Playstation - Awesome game library

Nintendo - Awesome game library

Xbox - More game library

Nintendo basically invented the modern industry, so there's that. Sony took Sega's blueprints about how to get teenagers and college-aged people into the hobby, then realized it fully by making it so adults would want to game. Microsoft brought internal storage and the internet to the masses.

While I usually prefer a more hands off approach, the market *needed* Nintendo's iron fist in the 80's. The very reason why it crashed in the first place wasn't bad consoles, it was bad, extremely bad software, and Nintendo came in to fix that. Hell, one of the policies that software partners had to follow was that they could only release X games per year (it was like 5 or 10, really not a big number), and you can't tell me they did that to create a monopoly, they did that because they wanted their partners to focus on quality over flooding the market with shovelware, leading to another crash.

The only monopolistic thing they did was the exclusivity contracts, prohibiting their partners to release games on other consoles, which of course was monopolistic af, but it's not like that was keeping other companies out of the market. Truth is, back in the 80's, no one could compete with Nintendo anyway, it was like Steam versus other PC game stores nowadays.

And what anti-consumer practices were Nintendo doing in the 80's and even in the 90's exactly? Are you confusing anti-consumer with anti-competition?

The Wii didn't have spatial tracking nor one to one movement either. Wii motion controls are completely useless for VR.

PS Move was not the first positional tracking system either but did build on Eye Toy and paved the way for PSVR1.


For the question:

Nintendo made handheld gaming popular. Sure there was game & watch before Game Boy, yet Game Boy changed handheld gaming from a school yard novelty to outdoing console gaming. And now the Switch has put TV gaming secondary to handheld gaming.

Sony got older kids into gaming, removed the stigma that gaming was only for little kids. The PS1 marketing was brilliant:
"The PS1 was actively marketed in nightclubs as part of a strategy to tap into youth culture and make the console a desirable, cool product for adults. Sony created "chill-out" rooms in clubs featuring the PlayStation, aiming to expose it to clubbers and capture their attention. This unconventional approach helped the PS1 gain popularity and became a key part of its marketing campaign."
And that's where I first played Gran Turismo, in a night club. And of course Sony promoted/allowed more mature games on their system.

Microsoft brought indie gaming to consoles with XBLA. Indie gaming started booming thanks to XBox and is now bigger than ever.

NES: D-Pad
GB: Handheld gaming boom (Twice)
Mega Drive - Parallax graphical awesomeness and 16-bit popularized
SNES: Diamond Face Buttons, Trigger Buttons, RPG boom.
Sega CD: CD-Rom console
PSX: 4 Triggers, successfully adopted the RPG boom from an unhealthy household.
N64: Analogt Sticks
PSX Dual Shock: Dual Analog Sticks, cheap games.
Dreamcast: First modern feeling console, online established.
PS2: Expanding the market
DS: Touch Screen Gaming popularized, brought back several dormant genres.
Wii: Motion Gaming popularized, IR pointer, made party gaming for parties, Virtual Console and WiiWare (evolved to EShop)
3DS: Glasses Free 3D, still the best looking parallax graphics (except maybe VR)
Switch: Hybrid popularized, Indie gaming heaven, finally brought back the RPG boom to their birth parents

Sony - The PS2, the peak of 3D gaming.

Microsoft - Their biggest contribution is competing with Sony, which keeps Sony striving to improve.

Nintendo - Satoru Iwata.  The man is responsible for 5 systems: DS, Wii, 3DS, Wii U, and Switch.  Three of those systems are legendary and greatly advanced gaming in new and innovative ways.  Gaming needs more leaders like Iwata.  He will be missed.

Never came out. Wasn't really VR. 3D. Like Virtual Boy was 3D not VR. There was a 3D headset for Sega Master System. What I was talking about was a company called Virtuality.  They had a game you could play Dacytl somethig I forget the full name. Set up VR Cafes. 10 bucks for 10 minutes. I played on one. Virtuality was the inspiration for the movie Lawnmore Man.

Huh, I suppose it is an evolutionary thing but I'm sure if Wii hadn't been a success PS would never have done the PS moves and... perhaps not trued the PSVR or we'd ve using PSVR with a controller. If not, the initial VR little boom would have been very niche, no headsets out during Christmas and parties early on to sell people for when Quest came around which I'm sure Quest have Sony to thank for a good chunk of their casuals and fitness customers.