Favorite Console Generation?

Personally, I would normally say Gen 4 when asked, because I freaking loved the SNES and all the games that came out for it as a kid. Yet, the more I think about it, the more and more I've come to respect Gen 5.

Gen 5 had 3 different platforms at respective peaks in different categories. Nintendo put out some of their most innovative and most loved games of all time: Ocarina of Time, Mario 64, Smash Bros., Pokémon, etc. The PC was going through an amazing renaissance and brought us such gems as StarCraft, Deus Ex, Half-Life, Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Age of Empires, Thief, and so on. Then the Playstation nearly doubled the sale of the previous gen's consoles on its own, all while being the focus platform for the golden age of Japanese RPGs. Metal Gear Solid and some other titles on the PS1 weren't exactly bad, either.

Anyway, I look forward to seeing what other people put and their arguments for that gen. All love here, no hate. :)

I usually go with Snes/Genesis era, but the PS2/XBox/Gamecube era is pretty damn good too.

I'm 31 so Gen4 is my wheelhouse. Really just because of the SNES. The Genesis was fine but the SNES was a console superpower.

Much respect to Gen6 though. Changed everything.

Early- to mid-90s PC era...which I suppose equates to 'Gen 4' on your list.

Gen 6. It's the only generation to have 3D games that didn't look and play terribly while still having a ton of super unique full budget games from smaller devs.

Shadow of the Collosus pretty much wins it single handedly anyway.

@mtcantor: Anything in particular about Gen 6? Because I would say all of the generations could be considered to have 'changed everything'...

While previous generations had awesome games, "gen 7" was the generation I became an adult with my own money. Because of this, I was able to buy and play a ton more games, and a lot of them were fantastic!

6

They just had the most games, I remember walking into game stores and not knowing half the games on the shelves. Same could be said about the previous gens too however, most the unknown games were shit.

@beachthunder: Gen6 was the real birth of online console gaming, it also represented A huge graphical jump (Gen5 was the birth of polygonal graphics but they looked like crap even then).

Also the scope of games expanded greatly in Gen 6. We started to get the huge blockbuster AAA titles more regularly.

Of course this is all my opinion and specific perspective.

I feel like the choices here have a lot to do with which Generation we were kids/teenagers in. I know that me picking Gen 6 has a tremendous amount to do with my memories of Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, Sly Cooper, Psychonauts and games like that when I was younger.

I said 4. 3 was huge because that's when it really started for me, but there was something really special about the 16-bit era. Just look at all the games today that throw back to it. The 8- bit era was mind-blowing at the time, but it was rough around the edges, and a lot of the games haven't held up that well. Gen 6 would be in there too. That was kind of a renaissance for me with gaming. Gen 5 was kind of like the 8-bit era in that there were a lot of sea changes going on; the tech was changing fast, there was a lot of experimentation as things transitioned from 2D to 3D, dpads to analog sticks, text to voice over, etc., so it was exciting at the time, but it also meant that a lot of the games seem rough today. Then it came together on the next gen. So 4 and 6 get my votes. SNES and PS2 all day.

4 has "higher highs", but 6 has a vast library of great games. So many good games for the PS2 and the other two systems were hardly slouches.

The kid in me says 5 because that was when I got my first console that wasn't my brothers and fuck the GB crew, the N64 is a great console and not the worst Nintendo console by far. I would rate it higher than the GC and Wii personally.

Besides the point I can't argue that Gen 7 isn't the best. It was long, had amazing games throughout. All three consoles have important and fun games to play. I still have like 30 or 40 PS3 games I want/need to play before I can really invest in this current gen, that says something.

Gen 7 is my favorite gen.

I'm going to take a wild guess and say that for most people, this question amounts to "during which console generation were you a child". Also the PC generation (~1974-present day) is secretly the greatest generation.

Seven. Though I do have nostalgia for the N64, PS2 and the GameCube to a lesser extent, most of my favorite games are on PS3, 360 and PC such as Fallout 3, Skyrim, Saint's Row, Deus Ex Human: Revolution and the Mass Effect trilogy. And even with the new consoles and games on PC needing quad-core CPUs and 8GBs of RAM, I'm still picking up older games that I missed out on like Just Cause 2, Sleeping Dogs and Tomb Raider thanks to Steam sales.

Gen 5 was an amazing time to be a kid, no matter if you had a N64, a PS1 or a PC. All had incredibly inventive games that would set the stage for pretty much everything up until this point. SNES never hooked me the way N64 did, though I still have early and fond memories of that machine. Gen 7 has a lot of my favorite games and was no doubt the time in my life I played the most, but it was also the generation that made me not care about videogames anymore in any serious capacity.

So far I'm loving this one. Indie games are getting bigger, I'm getting a ton of games for cheap between PS+, Live Gold and Steam, and am playing a lot of stuff with my friends over the internet which I haven't gotten to do much of before.

Put myself down for the SNES era. I loved my Atari and NES but the SNES was so good. But if I can pick a second generation I'd say the one that just passed. The Xbox 360 despite the hardware flaws on occasion was a great system and the games on it were a lot of fun be it digital or disc.

Gen 6 for sure. It was the first time I changed over from old PC games to consoles, and it was glorious. Had this tiny CRT TV hooked up in my room, played lots of great PS2 and GC games.

After that generation, consoles lost me, as the convenience of playing PC games (not to mention emulating earlier console games as well) just seemed better overall.

4 just because of the SNES. 6 is pretty close

For the "wide eyed wonder as a kid" factor, it's the Genesis/SNES era. If I'm being realistic with myself though, it's probably the 360/PS3/Wii era, so I voted for that. That generation set the pace for the future after things had been kind of stagnant and complacent since the PS1/Saturn era.

I had an Atari 5200 as my first console and liked it, and I was in that NES target audience (in 5th grade when SMB3 came out), but getting into the 16 bit stuff was the first time I felt blown away by video games.

Unquestionably gen 4. Gen 1-3 games are primitive and ugly. Gen 5+ games began to get convoluted and "cinematic" at the expense of game play. Gen 4 struck just the right balance. Of course there are exceptions across all generations, and average game quality is overall more consistent for gens 6-8. There were a lot of real stinkers released for gens 1-5. Look at the incredibly disparate PS1 line up. Gen 5 has the ignominious distinction of having many of the worst and best games of all time all in one generation. It was transitional I suppose. 2D-3D and rom chips to optical storage. Good and exciting times in video games the 90s.

My feelings exactly. Last gen many of my favourite games were released. Games like:

• Bioshock Infinite;
• Alan Wake;
• Last of Us;
• Uncharted trilogy;
• Fable trilogy;
• Fallout 3;
• Dead Space;
• Bulletstorm;
• Dishonored
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

I won't argue that there have been more creative and diverse generations, but this one we saw those ideas matured and reaching a level of realism never seen before. I could imagine being in the post apocalyptic world of The Last of Us, even believe in Columbia, from Bioshock Infinite. We moved from simple levels (for the most part), to detailed and believable worlds. It was a mind bending experience.

SNES/Genesis era. While I grew up on the original Nintendo, so many of those games were bullshit, padded out with obscene difficulties caused by slow down and horrible game design. Game design got really good late into the NES' life span and into the SNES era. I can still go back and play games like Super Mario 3 and World. Link to the Past and Super Metroid are still awesome. Even Star Fox with its -really- rough polygon count is still tons of fun to play. I used to excitedly bike miles to a friends house to play Streets of Rage and Golden Axe.

Even the arcade scene was bad ass, with all the beat-em-ups and fighting games like The Simpsons, X-Men, Aliens vs. Predator, Dungeons and Dragons, Super Street Fighter 2 Championship CE turbo hyper deluxe, and Mortal Kombat 2.

But for me, it's the PC generation. My PC gaming went well beyond just playing games. 12 year old me was making maps in Wolfenstein, and 13 year old me was taking what I learned in high school CAD class and applying it to making Doom maps. I learned so much pulling apart the contents of WAD files, replacing art assets, and having to go over my recreated art/sound/music assets so that it worked properly.

Day to day my opinion would probably shift between snes and n64 era, nostalgia makes it tough.

I voted gen 4 but it got me thinking about 7 and what it did for pc gaming. Gen 7 was the deconstruction of traditional genres and I think that's what allowed smaller experimental games to exist. Remember when horror games had to also be survival and play exactly like Resident Evil? Now we live in a world where 5 nights at Freddy's exists and isn't seen as "that weird outlier".

I had a Genesis when I was a kid, but I don't remember playing much. And I don't have any nostalgia for PS2 era games as well. I wasn't really interested in games until the past few years actually, so I voted for gen 7. If I am to compile a list of the best games I've played, every single one of them would be a game from last-gen.

(6) because of the Playstation 2, it had an amazing catalogue of games available and unlike PS3 and PS4 it was extremely rare to buy a game and find it was broken beyond belief. I'd swear half of the games I bought in 2014 needed a patch to fix serious issues, granted they were all day one buys but it's still no excuse. Playstation and N64 had their gems too but it was the PS2 that really got me hooked. I could be wrong but I seemed to get more replay value too. Now I could start something like Shadow of Mordor and after a few days never touch it again, it was never like that with the SSX series or the old GTA titles.

I went with Generation 8 because I believe that the current generation is always the best. The technology keeps improving and therefore the things game developers can do advances. Old stuff is great but I'd rather focus not only on the here and now but what is yet to come. Everyday is always a great time to be a gamer.

I'm basically full of unpopular opinions but I'll be damned if the N64 isn't like, my favorite console.

Gen 4 gets the edge... but not sure how much nostalgia is swaying me. I've experienced and loved every console generation since 3 ( saved my allowance for 6 months to get an NES when I was 10. Best purchase ever - led to a lifetime hobby)

Gen 7 deserves honors as well. So much variety. Probably deserved the vote.

I voted Gen 6, but it was real close between that and Gen 4...

I'd probably say PS2 era for best games, and PS1 era for most interesting and varied games.

Gen 7 for the atmosphere of gaming that existed for me at the time

Halo 3 was released in my freshman year of high school, and with it came what I view as the golden age of gaming. Every day after school, it was remarkably easy to just hop online and get a big group of classmates together for custom games, Forge shenanigans, or whatever dumb thing we wanted to do in other games.

Easily Gen 6. <3 Gamecube and GBA

Although I started in gen 2 with an Atari 2600, i pretty much skipped the next three generations, my brother was the game guy back then, so I did play some stuff on those consoles, but not a lot, i have no nostalgia for it, and i paid no attention to the industry at the time. the next console i bought myself was an Xbox, my thing for games revolves around atmospherics more than anything, which are getting better and better, so I'd have to say I'm all set for the current gen to be my fav, and then the next one after that.

Started with Gen 3, but I was just a dumb ignorant kid that had no idea what was really good or not. Well, okay, I do remember loving Super Mario Bros even though I absolutely sucked at it, and was even terrified of the "Bowsers" at the end of every world. Never actually beat it until a couple of years ago!

Real nostalgia has me going for Gen 5 simply because of all the JRPGs and MGS. That's when I truly began seeing games as not just mindless toys, but as increasingly complex systems that also had real stories to tell.

Also, Starcraft.

But in all honesty, I have never been so consumed by video games until Gen 7, and I'm STILL workih through a backlog of games made in that era.

The depth and breadth of all the genres and subgenres each with their own unique mechanics is unparalleled. Games have never been so diverse. You'd have to be extremely shortsighted or ignorant if you can't find ANY game or genre that came out in the time period between 2005 to 2013 that you'd enjoy.

Open it up to games exclusive to PC and mobile platforms released in those years, and there is no contest in terms of diversity.

FPS:

COD4:MW and onwards

Battlefield series

Team Fortress 2

BioShock and Infinite

Borderlands 1 and 2

Left 4 Dead 1 and 2

Halo 4 and spin-offs

Metroid Prime 3

TPS/Action Adventure games:

Gears of War series

Batman: Arkham series

Uncharted series

LoZ: Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword

Spec Ops: The Line

The Last of Us

God of War 3

Vanquish

Bayonetta

Darksiders 1 and 2

Tomb Raider

MGS4

Monster Hunter series

Dead Rising 1 and 2

Puzzle/Platformers:

NSMB Wii

Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2

Portal 1 and 2

Mirror's Edge

Rayman: Legends

Braid

LIMBO

Fez

Journey

Brothers

Catherine

Little Big Planet series

Super Meat Boy

VVVVV

The Swapper

Spelunky

Binding of Isaac

Rogue Legacy

Action/Survival Horror:

Dead Space series

Resident Evil: Revelations

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

Deadly Premonition

Alan Wake

Amnesia series

Condemned

Siren series

Slender

Music/Party:

Guitar Hero 3

Rock Band 1 and 2

DJ Hero

Dance Central series

Just Dance series

Wii Sports

RPG:

Dragon Age: Origins

Mass Effect trilogy

Oblivion

Skyrim

Fallout 3 and New Vegas

The Witcher 2

Fable 2

Souls series

Xenoblade Chronicles

Pokemon D&P/B&W/XY

Diablo 3

Persona 4 Golden

Strategy:

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Valkyria Chronicles

Company of Heroes

Shogun 2: Total War

Medieval 2: Total War

Crusader Kings II

Fire Emblem: Awakening

Sins of a Solar Empire

Starcraft 2

Civ 4 and 5

Open World/Sandbox:

GTA IV and V

Red Dead Redemption

Saints Row 2 and onwards

Assassin's Creed series

Just Cause 2

Infamous 1 and 2

Crackdown

Far Cry 3

Sleeping Dogs

Racing:

Mario Kart Wii

Gran Turismo series

Burnout Paradise

Forza series

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit

Fighting:

Street Fighter 4

Tekken 5 and Tag 2

Soul Calibur 4 and 5

Guilty Gear X/Blazblue series

Mortal Kombat

MK vs DC

Marvel vs Capcom 3

Injustice

KoF XIII

Virtua Fighter 5

DOA 4 and 5

Skullgirls

Persona 4: Arena

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Sports:

Madden series

FIFA series

NBA 2k series

And other stuff like The Walking Dead, Trials, Skylanders, Dota 1 and 2, League of Legends, LEGO Marvel, Minecraft, and even more that I might be missing.

To have that many great games and franchises across so many different platforms and genres and price points shows just how amazing those 8 years were for gaming and its growth.

That's why it just boggle my mind when people say they aren't a fan of modern gaming. Get rid of those rose-tinted nostalgia glasses, and open your eyes!!!

Also, HOTLINE FUCKING MIAMI

I started with gen 2 and have a real soft spot for gen 4, especially, SNES I had a lot of co-op and fighters and good friends to play them with but I have to go with 7. I mean goddamn GTA V, Saints row 2, yakuza 4, fallout new Vegas, rockband, sf4, Wii sports, COD MW4...... And on and on. The only genere I thought was worse than gen 6 was JRPG

I grew up with Gen 6 and have tons of fond memories of it. Playing Sonic Adventure on a Dreamcast was mindblowing as a fan of the megadrive games. I loved my Gamecube with Wind Waker, Sunshine and Double Dash etc. I loved my ps2 and still have it hooked up. Good times.

6

The platformers' generation! also, it was right around when online gaming took a huge leap, so you had a PERFECT mix of local multiplayer and online, in terms of How friends were drawn to play video games together, not games choice themselves. Sure people could play online, but the attitude was still "let's get together and play!"

6 is high tier 4 is God-tier

I'm inclined to say Gen 5, especially if we're including PC stuff in this. Then again that is definitely my nostalgia point. If not that then I'm looking at gen six and realizing that it was the first generation with three home consoles that were really successful or at least left a positive legacy... nah, I'm still voting for gen 5.

It's probably Gen 7, I enjoyed and played so many games in Gen 7 and it contains some of my all time favourites. 4, 6 and 7 are all just so fucking good.

My answer to these kind of questions is always going to be current gen. I like looking to the future of the industry not dwell in the past. So I'm all about what is new. Where are games going and how they can be better than ever.

has to be gen 7.i love the ps2 and n64 etc,but all of the consoles before gen 7 have one thing in common that hold it back for me,which is the amount of games i REALLY love.all the previous consoles had great games,but when i look back i realize i might only have 5 to 10 games i REALLY love for each console.ps3 has over 30 at the least that i REALLY love.when i compare the games i loved from the ps3 vs anything else its not a contest.if i could only have one console forever it would be the ps3,which is the reason it wins.on top of that i can play playstation 1 and 2 games on the ps3,which kinda destroys any hope for those gens for me.so yeah its not a contest and i hope this gen will be able to compete,because if it can that tells me we had a great gen.

I chose gen 7, while I loved some of the N64/PS1/PS2 games I had as a kid/teen, last gen was when gaming became more of an actual hobby for me and its home to some of my favourite games ever.

I have to go with the 5th generation simply because that was when gaming really changed. There was a level and size to the industry that that time in history that will not be matched. The 2nd and 5th were times when gaming was just everywhere and money was recklessly being thrown around....those were gold rush times. You can drag out statistics about sales in terms of units & money, but just the sheer 'gold rush' mentality of those times cannot be matched.

For me it comes down to the spirit of the times. The late-70s and mid-90 were just crazy for games in a way that is hard to talk about if you didn't experience them.

I grew up during Gen 4, played Gen 3 consoles, but I'd have to say Gen 7 was the best one so far.

As much as nostalgia can be a deciding factor of things like this, it's hard to deny the quantity and quality of the games that came out during Gen 7.