Probably the Sega 32X. The messaging around it was kind of confusing, and still being fairly young when it came out, I was expecting it to be the gateway to 32 bit gaming that I would be enjoying for years to come. I ended up getting virtua racing on it, which was better than the Genesis version, but nothing spectacular really. I also got virtua fighter, which was a genuinely good game. Almost everything else was ports of mediocre games that had already come out on the Genesis. A couple of original games like knuckles chaotix just… Kinda sucked. Then when I found out that all of the support was going behind the Saturn, and that’s where all of the new and original games were going, well I just felt swindled.
Nintendo Switch, I should have known better. Nintendo consoles are great for kids who are new to playing games, not so much for people who have been gaming for generations.
The Switch was a slow burn for me. Initially I bought it and hated it. I bought BOTW (had it on Wii U as well) and I felt underwhelmed. Fast forward to end of year and games like Mario Odyssey came out. Not to mention I had a lot of travel and the system just felt perfect for me. Loving the Switch 2 now.
Ironically I bought a Wii U and loved it at first. Only to look back now and see it’s a system I never bought more the 3 games for …
I’ve got more than a thousand hours on my Switch, easily among the best consoles I’ve ever played on since my start on the Game Boy and Genesis. What do you feel brings it down for adults?
Nintendo titles are, essentially, very good introductory video games. If you’ve played, well, pretty much any RPG, there’s no point playing Zelda or Pokemon. Same for fighting games and Smash Brothers or racing games and Mario Kart.
Everyone has to get started gaming somewhere, but beyond nostalgia? The rest of gaming has moved in from Nintendo.
That is an interesting opinion, thank you for sharing.
Weird. Smash, Mario kart, and even Splatoon are very unique games within their respective genres and not really “beginner,” because there are some people who are really, insanely good.
If you’ve played, well, pretty much any RPG, there’s no point playing Zelda or Pokemon.
Oh, there’s a point, and it’s a pretty big one that people tend to forget:
Games like Zelda and Pokemon are fun. They might not have the best graphics, but they’re fun. They may not have the best story, but they are fun. The hardware may not be powerful, the gameplay might be repetitive, the scenery might be bland, the NPC’s might not be engaging, it may not be particularly challenging, it may have questionable design choices; but the games are fun to play.
I feel that as gamers get older they forget that, at its core, games are supposed to be fun. They look at Nintendo and then at other big companies and go “what the hell? Nintendo looks like CRAP! Every other AAA company has WAY more impressive games!” without realizing that Nintendo isn’t really trying to make impressive games. They make fun games that are fun to play. Games anyone can start having fun with less than a minute after picking up the controller.
They were fun, the first time. But how many iterations does someone need of the same game?
People complain about the latest game in a series like Tomb Raider or Assassin’s Creed going “OMG, IT’S JUST THE SAME THING AGAIN!” It’s literally a joke with Madden or Call of Duty, but for some reason Nintendo gets a pass.
It’s cool if you’re a kid and Breath of the Wild is the first Zelda game you ever played… For anyone else? Unless you have on the nostalgia goggles, there are better things out there.
I feel ya. I was a diehard Nintendo Power subscriber for probably longer than appropriate (thanks, parents) but they didn’t keep up with me.
Same with Switch. I got it for MHGenU so it was still worth it—I put hundreds of hours into GenU, it’s one of my favorite MH games ever.
Every other game though, I’ve just played on my computer. My friend lent me BotW to try and as soon as I stepped outside and the framerate dropped, I shut it down and looked into how to play it on my computer. A little while later, I had it running at 1440p/120+ FPS with shaders and mods and stuff. Since then, I’ve just been playing everything on my computer.
I loved my Switch. My WiiU…not so much.
My Atari 2600 that i got for xmas from my grandparents when i was 11. I loved it, but my stepdad monopolized it and rarely let me play it. Him and my mom made a rule in our house that we weren’t ever allowed to play videogames, so they basically took it away from me, and only let me play for a few minutes a month. I didn’t really play videogames until i bought an N64 when i was in my 20s.
That’s unfortunate. Hopefully you’ve made up for lost time
When i got my N64, i got Zelda OoT…and then it was my GF who kept harping at me to turn it off.
I don’t think i really got into gaming until i stumbled upon Subnautica in my 40s. Wow. The creative mode in that game is like a SCUBA vacation.
I am one of the few lucky ones to actually get an Ouya… It wasn’t great.
My friend got an ouya, I think he mostly got it as a bit of a curiosity since he was a game dev student (and now does it professionally)
It absolutely didn’t do anything particularly different or better than any other gadget we could have hooked up to the TV to game on, but we did have a lot of fun with it for a while. It was kind of nice that it was so small so he could carry it around easily if he wanted to take it somewhere for a party or something.
And a few of the games we first discovered on the ouya are still mainstays of our parties when we manage to get together as busy adults.
Through a series of moves, roommate swaps, and marriage, that ouya (though not the controller) has actually now ended up in my possession
It’s on the left with my small collection of retro consoles and handhelds. Couple other cool bits of geeky paraphernalia scattered in there too. Disregard the mess on the coffee table and such, this was taken in the middle of some renovations, turns out I don’t take many pictures of my entertainment center.
Your entertainment center is so cool I didn’t even notice the so called “mess”.
The real shame is that the coffee table isn’t really visible because it’s pretty cool itself, it’s a hatch from a ship (I believe a WWII Liberty ship)
Bit of family history with it too. My dad originally had it, but my mom hated it, so eventually it went to live with my grandfather. He died, and it ended up back in our basement. My sister and I both really liked it, and we had a bit of an agreement that whoever moved out first got the table, and I won.
EDIT: Also for anyone else who likes my setup, the entertainment center and shelves in the wall are IKEA Fjallbo, no pretty affordable. The shelf of the far right is just an IKEA Kallax.
And I have the TV synced up to Phillips hue lights behind it and in the ceiling
That’s a lotta Chianti
I’m not totally sure where the bottles came from, we don’t really drink chianti, and they’ve just kind of been hanging around on a shelf somewhere, but they ultimately ended up on this chandelier
I came to say this. Some good games on there, but Julie Uhrman is the worst. and to think, she just failed upward.
Every so often I get reminded of the Ouya. I still have mine from the Kickstarter somewhere. It was good in concept, and I even saw posts of it being sold in major retailers like Target, but it just fizzled out far too fast.
Xbox Series X. I sold it right when Starfield early access hit and it wasn’t an Internet darling. Knew it was downhill from there. Before that by the end to 2020, they Bought Obsidian, Inxile, Bethesda/Zenimax, iD, Ninja Theory, and studios I thought would make a major quality jump like Compulsion games. I thought they’d be releasing awesome RPG games every year by 2021. That didn’t pan out
PS3. Coming from the PS2, the library was bland in comparison. And later on, when I got interested in console modding, the PS3 was the slowest and most cumbersome to do anything and with barely any variety of homebrew stuff. And also, I’m dreading having to replace the controller (due to the 3rd party PS button situation) and replacing the HD (due to how entangled pieces apparently are).
Later on, it’d become an overpowered PS2 console for me.
PS3 was on one the best consoles ever released tho
Maybe the library was meh (I didn’t really notice it) but from a hw it was peak. It was famously sold at a loss based on how much power it had
For a while, it was the cheapest Blu-ray player you could get
Probably the virtual boy. It was so cool at the time, I got Red Alert(?) and it was fantastic. Then there was like, a bowling game, and maybe a wario game? And nobody made anything else for it, and it sat in a drawer for years before my parents made me get rid of it. It could have been so good.
there were only 14 titles released in the US
Shit it was red alarm, dang it.
Also, that number sounds about right lmao, it was so bad
Yup came here to say this. Had Mario tennis and I’m sure some other game but yeah not a lot of games. However it did cause a lot of headaches.
But otherwise I mean, I’ve not bought anything I would say is disappointing but also I haven’t bought any current gen bullshit.
WiiU was maybe a little closer to a disappointment? But more so because it wasn’t as popular. I absolutely loved the 2nd screen for shit like shoving the UI for MH3U on there so I could look at it while keeping the main screen clear.
Aw I came for this answer. I was fortunate to see through the BS because I was very immersed in the tech at the time, but the VB genuinely had cool potential and I wanted it to succeed so it could lead to new generations of full-color VR (which took like another 2+ decades).
Xbox. I wanted a gamecube but my parents didn’t like nintendo for some reason. Now im old and i don’t like nintendo for some reason, and I still don’t like xbox
My friend, there are lots of reasons not to like the litigious corporate monstrosity that Nintendo has become.
Also, they don’t really do proper adult games like Elden Ring. If you love Zelda I understand but it’s time to move on.
“Proper adults” play whatever the fuck they like, including Zelda.
That’s true. I wouldn’t expect someone to play games that aren’t fun to them.
But you’re not exactly helping the gaming industry improve if you’re regularly giving money to douchey companies rather than more open-minded publishers. I think it’s pretty simple to argue that you’re endorsing the scumbag behavior if you help finance it.
not proper adults, ops saying games catered towards adults
Also, they don’t really do proper adult games like Elden Ring. If you love Zelda I understand but it’s time to move on.
In the context of the first sentence, the second sentence seems to imply that Zelda isn’t for “proper adults”. Even if it wasn’t meant like that (I can’t see how else it can be meant), who is OP to tell people to “move on”.
Fair, my phrasing was probably too saucy there. Drunk post, my bad. I would still call myself a Zelda fan, even though the last one I played was Twilight Princess. It’s one of the all-time greatest series and the titles nearly always score 9/10 everywhere for a reason.
But I’m still going to say to “move on”. Not because of Zelda, no. There’s no real substitute. Rather, move on because Nintendo is scummy and doesn’t deserve your money when plenty of other publishers are making fun and creative games and working hard for it instead of suing their own customers.
Rather, move on because Nintendo is scummy and doesn’t deserve your money
So you’re saying move on to the high seas? Yarr
Yes this was what I actually meant.
Nintendo has always been litigious. I don’t understand this myth that they used to be wholesome and friendly in the good old days.
They sued Atari for making NES games. They sued Galoob for making the Game Genie. They sued Blockbuster for renting their games.
Kirby the character is literally named after Nintendo’s lawyer John Kirby.
That’s a very good point. But they’re even more of a corporate behemoth now.
I was a Nintendo Power subscriber until the GameCube era, and I feel like they used to share a little bit of behind-the-scenes fun (e.g. making-of Donkey Kong Country VHS) and promote 3rd-party titles even on the magazine cover. But it seems like even that kind of stuff is long gone.
Shitty take.
minus that one comic book looking gorey slasher game for the wii
That was pretty fun, very clever too. They could spend more on the graphics because it was greyscale.
Red Steel or MadWorld?
i think it was madworld, didnt know there were 2 games like that for the wii
Red Steel was a release title, meant to showcase the Wii as a serious console for adults as well as a family friendly console for kids, but I’m pretty sure it, MadWorld, and No More Heroes were the only remotely gorey games for it.
I was pretty disappointed after getting a Switch 2 when I found out that Nintendo had blocked all video streaming apps on it. Even apps like Pokemon TV, which had transferred from my Switch 1 during account migration, were blocked from opening despite being downloaded on the device.
I would have got a switch if it was allowed to do the things it can do.
even youtube?
Yes. I couldn’t get any video streaming app to play. I don’t think you could even download them from the Nintendo Store, but I’d have to double check.
I guess the PS3?
I felt like I begrudgingly bought it, out of spite. Like I HAD to buy it, or I was no longer a modern gamer.
And then it just fell flat for me. I played GTA, and maybe a handfull of other games, but mostly GTA.
I guess the PS4 is actually the same story, except I just never played it. To this day I have a PS4 that I never really used. But I also had no excitement for it.
And I guess the same for PS5. I bought it to play GTA 6, thinking it was coming soon. That was 4 years ago. I’ve watched dvds more than I’ve played games on it.
But with PS3, I actually had excitement brewing. I expected big things. It just never materialized.
I’ve already decided I’m not buying a PS6, and I’m not buying GTA6.
Well that just sounds unfortunate do you play a lot of PC or just don’t game much ?
I find myself playing more retro stuff.
I bought the Retroid Pocket Flip 2, which is exactly the same everything as a Retroid Pocket 5, with the exception of form factor. With apps like game native, I can play older PC games.
But like…have you ever played Super Mario Bros 2 at 2am, while smoking weed? The game holds up.
I guess I’m not a fan of the greyscale realistic graphics of a dystopian future, and everybody is shooting guns.
Yaaaaaaaaaawn.
But Stardew Valley?
The Survivalists?
Those games are amazing! Colorful graphics. I don’t need realism. I need escapism. I need worlds that make me feel SOMETHING positive in my life.
But ever since PS2, it’s been guns guns guns, rainy grey skies, post apocaliptic worlds. I don’t need that, and it’s been industry standard for 25 years it feels like.
I’m loving my Flip2 though.
I was a bit conservative myself (or maybe lucky that neighbor kids had a 3DO and Sega CD I could try) but I did own a Sega Game Gear. That thing drank 6x AA batteries like there was no tomorrow. And the game library was very looser lackluster after the Sonic titles.
That thing drank 6x AA batteries like there was no tomorrow.
There were NiCad rechargeables. I didn’t own a Game Gear, but a friend did, and I remember him using NiCads for that and RC vehicles.
It’s been a looong time. But I think it drank those too? Engineers in those days maybe didn’t know how to optimize a full color screen with good brightness like that device sported.
It’s not that they lasted longer, but that it was considerably less expensive to recharge them than to buy and throw out a new set of batteries for each session.
The Game Gear has an entire CFL bulb behind the screen. A popular mod is to swap it out for some LEDs, which consume an order of magnitude less power.
It drank everything. I had a screw on battery pack that attached to the back of it and I still remember it didn’t last very long.
PS Vita. It had so much promise, but the games weren’t really there and Sony kinda just forgot about it. I remember it was the first time you could stream a PS4 game to a handheld, which was novel at the time. But it never felt “good enough” and most games didn’t support it or were too finicky. If I look at my Steam Deck now, I think that’s more or less what Sony had in mind for the Vita as well
Atari Lynx. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the thing and spent many an hour playing on it. But just like most Atari systems it never got its claws into the market and ended up playing second (at least) fiddle to the Gameboy, even though it was way more advanced.
I wouldn’t call any console I own a disappointment, even the Wii U had several games I loved and put too many hours into. But the system I ended up playing the least was the Steam Deck. It’s just too bulky to feel like a proper portable, not nearly as cozy as the Nintendo handhelds I grew up on. I get some use taking it to FGC events as a monitorless setup (and I will be bringing it to Combo Breaker 2026 next week), but that’s kinda all I ended up using it for.
I still don’t regret buying it as the most important thing to happen to Linux gaming, but it was a system I bought to have more than to use. I later bought a Miyoo Mini Plus and ended up putting far more hours into that than I ever did the Deck. If anyone ever gets SteamOS running on a device in that size form factor, they’ll get my entire bank account.
I acknowledge the Steam Deck is an important step forward for PC gaming, but I just didn’t get enough use out of it to justify the purchase. I ended up giving mine to my friend whose only gaming option prior to that was a shitty old laptop. At least now we can play stuff together that’s been made in the last decade.
Switch Lite. Great console, but limited in stupid ways. Why no video out?
Yeah it’s not that much cheaper than a normal Switch. I’d love a smaller switch 2 with an option to video out to TV
