Original Desmond

FEEL Free to add contestants and winners !

editing after people's responses

ok

Round 1

we had

Atari 2600, Colecovision, Vectrex, Intellivision by Mattel
Winner - Atari 2600

Round 2

Nintendo 8 bit (NES), Sega Master system, Atari 7800
Winner - NES

Round 3

Super Nintendo (SNES), Sega Genesis, TurboGrafx
Winner - SNES

Round 4

Playstation, Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64, Atari Jaguar
Winner - Playstation

Round 5

Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, Gamecube
Winner - ???



[Edited by Desmondp on 05-23-01 at 05:12 PM]

Mezzanine

Uhh, you must mean the Atari 7800, not the Jaguar. The Jaguar didn't come out until much later (early in "round 4"). And the NES was the winner of "Round 2" by a large margin.

Grimfarrow

"large margin" is an understatement. The NES still remains the most successful console in gaming history. The Sega Master System didn't even come close to 5% of NES' market share.

Round 3 is a closer call, especially since they were both neck-and-neck for a long time. However, in terms of longevity, the SNES ultimately outlived the Genesis by 1 to 2 years. I'd personally give Round 3 to Nintendo. Oh, and you should include the TurboGrafx in Round 3 as well, although it went nowhere.

Round 5, I believe, will ultimately be between the Gamecube and PS2. After E3, I personally have little hope for the X-Box. Microsoft had plenty of opportunity to really knock out Nintendo and Sony, but instead what they showed couldn't even compete with the weakening PC games lineup.

BubbaX

Intellivision for Round 1. Think it was made by Mattel.

Aghama

Well, that of course depends on whether or not you count the Game Boy. I'd have to give Round 3 to the SNES too, just out of personal bias.

Chris_D

> "large margin" is an understatement. The NES still remains the most successful console in gaming history. The Sega Master System didn't even come close to 5% of NES' market share.

5% is probably right for the US and Japanese markets, but the SMS was actually alot more popular than the NES in Europe, South America, and Australia. In fact there was a release of Street Fighter 2 for the SMS in Brazil I think (you can find the rom on the net) which demonstrates the longevity the SMS had in some countries. The SMS hardware was actually quite a bit more powerful than the NES.

As for Genesis vs SNES, well the Genesis came out atleast a year earlier so you would expect that the SNES would last longer, especially since it was more powerful hardware overall. Overall I would call the SNES vs Genesis a tie although in the end the SNES had a bigger game library.

Chris

DVDKrayzie

o man was that a Horrible version There was a NES one too, but i think i was a bootleg.

einTier

I think history shows us that there is room two very dominant systems in the marketplace -- no more.

Early 80's: Atari 2600 and Intellivision. Sure, there were others, but it was the rare kid that didn't have one of these two and had something different.

Mid 80's: Sega Master System and Nintendo Entertainment System. I don't remember there being any serious competition for these two systems -- and they both sold a long time.

Late 80's/Early 90's: Super NES, Sega Genesis. Sure, there were many players during this time, but none ever acheived even a fraction of the success of these two systems.

Mid 90's: Playstation, Sega Saturn. This battle lasted until:

Late 90's: Playstation, Nintendo 64. After the 64 came out, sales of the Saturn plummeted.

Future? We've got four major players, Dreamcast, Playstation 2, X-Box, Gamecube. Dreamcast is already discontinued, leaving three. I'm placing my money on PS2 and Gamecube. I think it's going to be hard for MS to crack this market, and I have a hard time seeing what makes the X-Box much different from a high-end PC. I'd expect to see some kind of emulator and controller hookup for PCs within a year, which should effectively kill the X-Box. Nintendo consistently makes good consoles, and they always appeal to the kids. Now that they are starting (Conker) to realize that the real money is made on grown up "kids", I think they have a good chance. Sony is banking on the prior success of PS1, and the new system is already backward compatible, and is a albeit clunky, DVD player. I think the PS2 has a lot of oppourtunity, plus they know how to sell something the older kids want to buy.

Fanboy

I dunno, history has taught us two things about the videogame industry:

1) There has never been a repeat champeen in the video game wars. The closest battle would probably be the SNES/Genesis wars, but the SNES really closed the gap after the Genesis life-cycle was winding down. It was only after Sega went crazy and killed the Genny with the CD-ROM add-on and the 32-sux. They had basically already abandoned the system in favour of the Saturn by that point.

So a timeline of the video game console winners would read 1 - Atari 2600, 2- Nintendo Entertainment System, 3- Sega Genesis, 4- Sony Playstation, 5- ?

Demonstrated again and again in the wars is the penchant for the company with the lead in one generation for resting upon their laurels. We are seeing this now with Sony and the PS2. Many of their developers are abandoning development for the system in favour of developing for Microsoft. Why? Because MS is hungry for a piece of the video game pie, but Sony already has their slice. They are apparently bending over backwards to help developers get the most out of the system. Now, as long as the traditional MS ego can stay out of the way, the X-Box will be a very successful machine.

Sony has shown its ass towards developers, forgetting who 'brung 'em to the dance' as it were. This hasn't really affected sales (at least not in this country, yet) but they were kept artificially strong by the (false?) system shortages. Supply and demand and all that. Video games are a HUGE business, eclipsing many other forms of entertainment on a dollar spent basis. I really hope that both MS and Sony can pull it together and both be perceived as strong contenders, much like the SNES and Genny back in their day.

Oh, and point #2?

2) Nintendo will be a force. They always are. They don't follow the market, but create their own. They can probably be considered the #1 development house in the world. Some might say that Electronic Arts sells more software, but think of it this way: EA Sports NHL 2002 might cost $49.99, but to play Mario64 you had to spend about $300.00. EA's software sells units, Nintendo's sells systems.

ps. I hope that developers haven't yet totally abandoned the Dreamcast. I love that system!

Grimfarrow

Ummm....no.

Frankly, after E3, most people now agree that the X-Box is the weakest of the three. And precedence proves it to be so.

1) Within the last three generations of consoles, not a *single* one of the winning consoles (be they NES, Sega Genesis, SNES, or Playstation) won without a presense and support in Japan. And this is where the X-Box will fail. According to the highly regarded Weekly Famitsu magazine, a large majority of Japanese publishers are simply *not* interested in the X-Box. Sure, some of the larger players, like Konami, Tecmo, and Capcom, are supporting the X-Box with a few titles, but they all have also stated that they believe the PS2 will be the winner. As such, most of their titles (except for Tecmo's Dead of Alive 3 and Capcom's Dino Crisis 3, which are X-Box exclusive) will be done for PS2 first.

Moreover, in a survey conducted on the Japanese public, it was revealed that very, very few people were even *aware* of what an X-Box is, or that Microsoft were making a game console. Whereas nearly everyone knows about the PS2, and a large portion were aware of Nintendo coming with a new console.

Without Japanese support the X-Box is doomed. And the fact that most games shown at E3 were either
a) once-PC titles (Halo, Obi-wan, NFL Fever, etc)
b) mostly designed by US developers
show that it just won't take off in Japan, where gamers are pretty resistant toward US-made games anyway.

2) Both the UK's Financial Times and CNNfn have reported that
a) they expect X-Box will finish third due to "uncompetitive pricing". They stated that by the time the X-Box arrives, the Gamecube will be $199, and Sony will have made the expected announcement on the PS2 pricecut. The X-Box, however, will be $299 *without* DVD playback (DVD playback requires an additional $50 DVD decoder).
b) Microsoft *still* has not shipped out the finalized version of the X-Box development kit to 3rd-party publishers yet. This, despite the fact that there is only 6 months left until the X-Box launch.
c) they both rumored that the X-Box may not make its scheduled launch date, due to the delayed of the development kit as well as the delay in manufacturing.
On the other hand, Nintendo's final development kit is done, and they even have finalized hardware (ie, a WORKING Gamecube machine) running at E3. Microsoft didn't have a running X-Box anywhere.

I'll try to find the two articles for you. But they came out during E3, and I didn't bother to save the links.