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Forums - Gaming - Which was better, the 2000s or the 2010s?

 

Which was better? (and tell us why!)

The 2000s 32 82.05%
 
The 2010s 7 17.95%
 
Total:39

Did this for Nintendo a few weeks back, ( https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/250479/2000s-nintendo-vs-2010s-nintendo/1/ ) but thought it could also be asked about gaming as a whole: which decade of gaming do you think was better, the 2000s or the 2010s, and why?



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Last edited by Zippy6 - on 17 June 2026

I would say the 2000s. The 2010s had the Switch which I really loved, but the early 7th gen years were just so amazing. My favorite time in gaming ever. Also the most successful gaming generation of all time! Every console felt so distinct: You had the DS with its dual screens and touch screen which produced one of a kind experiences. The Wii with its motion controls. The Xbox 360 which was just an amazing piece of hardware and had a totally different vibe. And the PSP, which was the first handheld that brought console gaming to our fingertips (and the game were so cheap! The PSP Essentials were 7.99€/$ each for a full-fledged game!). The only console that was a bit disappointing for me was the PS3 but it too had many great games.

Also, the 6th generation was the last time we had this absolutely huge jump over a previous gen. Games didn't just look totally different, they also felt completely different. And many 6th gen games still hold up and feel quite modern today.



SSX3 was 2003 so 2000s



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Deus Ex (2000) - a game that pushes the boundaries of what the video game medium is capable of to a degree unmatched to this very day.

The 2000s had the bigger high points but the 2010s probably had better average quality.



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The 2000s had a lot of standout titles. However, Gen 6 was the absolute nadir for my interest in gaming. There were only a literal handful of games from the first half of the 2000s I'd put in my all-time Top 100 favorites. Halo CE is by far my favorite Gen 6 title and one of my favorite video games ever, and Halo 2 was a solid follow-up. One of my favorite games from the 2000-04 period was an N64 game (Perfect Dark). Those three games made up the majority of my play time in the early to mid 00s. The only other games that came to mind from Gen 6 are Rogue Squadron 2, The Wind Waker, Gradius V, and Shadow of the Colossus (for whatever reason, Super Mario Sunshine didn't click with me). My interest in gaming was starting to get rekindled in Gen 7. The portion that occurred in the 00s had Halo 3, ODST, BioShock, Super Mario Galaxy, New Super Mario Bros. Wii., Gears of War 1 & 2, and a successful reboot of Mega Man with MM9.

On the other hand, the later years of Gen 7 had less that kept my long-term interest. There was Gears 3 and Mega Man 10. There was also Halo 4, but that's still one of the weaker entries in the series for me, and probably my least favorite mainline Halo title. I don't think there was a single Wii game from its last couple of years that I ever bought. But Gen 8 may have actually been my peak gaming purchasing period. I bought a Wii U and it had a lot of solid titles, including Mario Kart 8, New Super Mario Bros. U, Pikmin 3, Super Mario 3D World, and DKC: Tropical Freeze. Despite its commercial failure, I though Nintendo made a very good system with the Wii U. Nintendo also released the Switch in 2017, and it had some amazing titles in its first couple of years, especially Super Mario Odyssey and Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Meanwhile, the PS4 & XBO had a lot of amazing titles as well. The PS4 had strong exclusives like Horizon: Zero Dawn, God of War, and Spider-Man, and there were some other games I enjoyed like Driveclub, Infamous: Second Son, and the TLOU games. The XBO had Gears 4 & 5, and Ori and the Blind Forest. Halo 5 was okay as well, and I don't know if it really counts but there was also The Master Chief Collection, which was an outstanding compilation once it finally got fixed (those first months though... ugh), and Halo 2 Anniversary, arguably the centerpiece of the collection, was a solid remaster that still looks great, plus the original multiplayer component associate with H2A was actually solid, even if it lacked in map variety. Standout third-party games for me included Doom 2016, the Resident Evil 2 remake, Hollow Knight, Alien: Isolation, Mega Man 11, Sonic Mania, and Jedi: Fallen Order.

Overall, I'd give the edge to the 2010s in terms of quantity of solid titles, but the 2000s did have more games I'd put higher up on my list of all-time favorite. Halo CE, Mario Galaxy, BioShock, and Perfect Dark are all in my Top 30, while the closest 2010s titles that could be Top 30 contenders are Mario Odyssey, Doom 2016, and RE2 Remake. Then again, when it comes to my all-time favorites, I tend to favor older games that I've spent more time with, and most of them are shorter games. The longer a game is, the bigger the time investment and the less I'm going to replay it, and so there's less familiarity. There's plenty of more recent games that I did enjoy in terms of gameplay and story, but for some of them I got to a point where I felt like saying "Is this game ever going to end? Wrap it up, B!" While many gamers expect games to be longer and longer, but I prefer shorter games ("price divided by hours to complete a single playthrough" is a means of measuring value that I strongly disagree with). Probably why modern Resident Evil is something I've really gotten in to, as they're not overly long, and they play like how I wish RE played 20-30 years ago (God, how I hated tank controls). I need to start looking for more games I can reasonably beat in 8 to 12 hours.



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Imo, the best decades in order are 90's, 80's, 00's, 70's... then take your pick. The 90's are the best because it featured the most ground-breaking advances in both software and hardware. If you started gaming in 1990, by the time it was 2000 (only ten years) you went from NES to PS2. We've never seen anything like that since. Not even close.

Last edited by JackHandy - on 17 June 2026

It's close, they are my two favorite decades of gaming. I'm going to give it the 2010s because my Top 3 games are all from the 2010s, for one.
3. Super Mario Galaxy 2. 2. Super Mario Odyssey 1. Stardew Valley
I'd also take PS4 over PS3, 3DS over DS, The early years of Switch over the early years of Wii, and so on.
And despite some of the scummy online practices that really got big in the 2010s and still exist, I like added online features like playtime tracking, faster syncing achievement systems than Xbox 360 and PS3, and so on.
It's a really close call.



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Xbox Series X/S: 38 million (was 60 million, then 67 million, then 57 million. then 48 million. then 40 million)

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

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2000s no question. 2011 is when something about gaming changed and it just has never been the same since. that is when we started seeing microtransactions, games broken at launch, gigabytes worth of patches, etc. become somewhat of a norm. the wii also lost its luster. i think weve had some good times since then but the first half of the 7th gen is really the last time that gaming had a real magic or excitement to it. there was nothing like the launch of the wii, the feeling of playing a game like gears of war for the first time, unlocking achievements, bioshock, mario galaxy, metroid prime 3 with new control scheme, uncharted (first one is still my favorite, i dont care), guitar hero III, 360 JRPGs, halo 3 and call of duty 4, the revival of street fighter, i could really go on. the last magical time in gaming.



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Ico, SotC, Wind Waker, Okami, HL2, Ratchet & Clank, Jack & Daxter, Portal, DA: Origins, Syberia, Dreamfall Longest Journey, SMG, Valkyria Chronicles, Burnouts, Paper Marios, WoW, GTA: San Andreas, SH2, Wipeout HD, LBP, BG: Dark Alliance, PoP: Sands of Time, Beyond Good and Evil, Mass Effect, Bioshock, Oblivion, SSX 3, Uncharted (2)

2000s for sure. All finished working games.