first system i ever bought myself and even had it pre-ordered, i was anti sega as a kid, older i knew better and made damn sure i got DC lol. soulcalibur,online games, phantasy star we had it so damn good. somewhere i got whats left of my dreamcast sure for preorder lol
Oh man, me too! Got the keys to my first apt on the 1st, all moved in by the 3rd and picked up my Dreamcast (with Ready2Rumble Boxing, NFL2K and Soul Caliber) the morning of 9/9 ❤
Yep, everything got real samey feeling after the dreamcast died. At that point I just went PC exclusive since it would at least be nearly 100% backwards compatible and I wouldn't have to keep old hardware around to have access to my purchased library. Steam and GOG make it even more seamless. Its It's just not worth farting around with proprietary console platforms and hasn't been worth it for nearly 2 decades.
Yeah the leap is not there anymore for sure. Between the PS3 to PS5 came down to resolution and frames. The fact we have performance “reviews” really shows this.
Looking back, those times during the console wars were simply magical. Every new generation brought with it a wave of excitement, curiosity, and wonder. It was an era of rapid technological advancement, and every release felt like a major event. And as someone who grew up during this era, it was an absolute pleasure to witness and be a part of these monumental shifts in gaming. The nostalgia, memories, and experiences from those days still resonate deeply with many, myself included, and I’m truly grateful for the journey.
With the digital age, we are now in a less human environment of discovery and wonder. Everything these days is instantaneous at your fingertips. There is hardly anything special or wonderous about doing a Google search to immediately find everything out about a new console, game, secrets, etc. In the 8 bit to the 32 bit era with no internet (for the most part), you had to wait for the console with mystery and the hype was enormous, and the chats you would have with your school yard kids or friends only made it more exciting. Seeing pictures in the gaming magazines for a Dreamcast or a SNES back then was so exciting. Unfortunately now it is diminishing returns for video games. Nearly everything has been done. The hardware doesn't jump forward in the same lengths as from the NES to the SNES, kids aren't dazzled anymore. PS4 to PS5 isn't that huge of a difference graphics or gameplay wise. This generation has their faces stuck to their phones with 2 second attention spans. Super fucking sad. I am very happy I got to live through the 80s and 90s when there was an actual human element, these amazing consoles and feelings will never be relived.
Sega lord X knows how to conjur up those nostalgic feel when he talks about retro gaming in a specific era.. we all lived thru it, and this great channel make sure we wont forget about it as time goes on.
Arcades were truly magical places. When I was a kid in the late 80s there was one in every mall no matter how small. Always such a wonder as to what you'd find.
PS3/360 was the last jump that truly felt next gen. Everything since has been incremental with diminishing returns both in visuals and sound. VR's 2016 launch was the last time I got that feeling where massive improvement was made, but the lack of "big" games has been disappointing, along with the new focus on mobile hardware.
I agree completely. Every generation leap prior felt special. I remember getting my PS4 a few months after it released and felt nothing other than 'it's the same but a little fancier'. I haven't even bothered with this generation yet. My wife will sometimes suggest getting a PS5 and we consider it for a few minutes but always end up saying "Nah, we might get the next one though".
I agree with you 100% about vr. The first time I strapped on my psvr1 and played wipeout omega collection for the first time was a revelation. Not since 1989 when I first experienced shadow of the beast on my friend's commodore Amiga had I been so excited about new gaming tech.
Path tracing demos and twch is likely the next huge leap in visuals. Granted, that is still a few years off. I feel ya, though. The jumps from the ps1 to 2 then to the ps3 and x360 were insane
You said it "Diminishing returns" which is to be expected. Personally not even the 360/PS3 wowed me because I was already a PC Gamer, so I had already experienced graphics as good as the 360 launch games. I am quite impressed by the games released towards the end of those consoles however, that they managed to squeeze that much out of the systems is impressive.
I am a few years older than you so share a lot of your nostalgia. The 90s were the best times of my life! Playing college football, Sega Genesis, 3DO, PlayStation, and Dreamcast. My family was also alive and I had my first kid. It’s crazy how the memories come flooding back watching this video. Thank you!
The 16-bit era was my favorite time to be a gamer. During the so-called "Console Wars" was when many gaming standards were established and still hold to this day. Also, I'm surprised you didn't mention Neo Geo here.
The innovation of the neo geo was that it did not innovate. Even in the arcades it was behind capcom, namco, and Sega. Every RUclips about it is so bland.
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldtthe hardware was indeed innovative. It was the 1st and only console that allowed you to take your memory card and put it in the arcade and load your saved game because the arcade hardware was exactly the same... what killed neo-geo was that the console was too expensive for most, not to mention the games alone were $200...the logic behind it trying to make a dent in the gaming market still astounds me to this day.😄
That generation was tarnished. "Things break" and"$599 US dollars" all for a crappy made HDera I love the Wii, but yeah. Wii U was forgotten, but I still love that they went the way for the Switch
I stuck around one more Gen, but the price point and lack of reverse compatibility of the PS4 killed my console purchases. Now I only play retro games.
One thing that seriously hampers the excitement of new hardware these days is the very long development cycle of AAA games. It's commonly well over a year after launch before you begin to see what a new system can do. There's no question that earlier generations saw much more dramatic technical leaps, making brand new experiences possible and keeping things exciting.
The fact that it takes anywhere from 5 to 10 years to produce a game these days, is hauntingly depressing.. I miss the days when games could be produced with a handful of people. Something gets lost when your development team is somewhere in the hundreds.
@@robertharper3114 On top of that, the game they finally produce is often still unfinished at launch, and is very derivative. Just as you say, it's usually a small indie team that comes up with something fresh these days because they make up for a small budget by being innovative with gameplay.
I honestly do get nostalgic for the quirks of 32 bit consoles. The bright colors, warped textures, pre-rendered backgrounds, and especially hybrid visuals with 2D sprites scaling over 3D backgrounds have such a distinct look, and often used very stylized models for characters and scenery to try and overcome the shortcomings of the hardware. There was a lot of care put into those presentations that went beyond just trying to make things look as realistic as possible, and I find it more endearing as the years go by.
But wobble just showed that coders were bad at maths. Compare magic carpet to descent ( on PC ). No warp in any Doom or Quake (Port). No wobble on PC. No warp in F zero
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldtLMAO, it had to do with the amount of mathematical precision used in the geometry code, not that the programmers are “bad at math”. In systems with a geometry processor this happens at hardware level and has nothing to do with the programmer at all. On systems that don’t have a geometry processor like the PS1, the texture precision is done based on the number precision, so if they used only integer math or a rounded up floating point number it would be imprecise. This was usually done to get a higher frame rate. On a system like PS1, you’re basically forced to choose between texture precision and performance.
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldtAlso worth mentioning, Magic Carpet uses a voxel renderer that is very different from normal 3D graphics. F-Zero uses mode 7 for 3D, which is just a single ray cast plane, and Doom’s pseudo-3D engine is basically set between two of these with a vertical column render done the same way to create walls. Descent is the only one that’s rendered in a way similar to “normal” 3D games of that era like Ridge Racer or Mario 64. Clearly it’s precision is high enough for its original 320x200 resolution, but I wouldn’t be surprised to notice warping at higher resolutions.
MagicCarpet was developed as Voxel engine, but switched to affine polygons exactly like Playstation. Descent uses 4px spans similar to the 16px spans on Quake. Descent 2 on SVGA is the same Engine. Quake uses the float co-processor so that MUL und DIV don't block the whole 486 CPU, but the Pixel-shader Code with z-buffer und Gouraud was already bulky on the CPU . So it did not make much of a difference. @@thetechn1que518
I get less excited for each generation, going from a ps2 to a ps3 was a big upgrade, but going from a ps3-ps4-ps5 doesn't seem like much of a difference to me.
The visuals get more polish, but the only new gameplay elements are gimmicks like VR. Sound really doesn't have much room to improve; anything that can be recorded can be put in the game.
To a major extent modern gaming has become reduced, for the most part very calculated "safe" good for business boundries and has increased its motives for maximizing return on profit. Equals cookie cutter games, there are fewer exceptions every year it seems, save for a golden indie and such.
@@josephluppens2562 Why? Because of how easy x86 is to use? Imo there is something special about bespoke architecture like snes, ps1, n64, ps2 and ps3, even though in some cases the architecture was so exotic that it was difficult to make games for, but there was some interesting pros if a studio took the time to make games for them.
Going from PS3 to PS4 indeed didn't feel like big upgrade, not helping the fact that most release games were cross platform between older and newer system. However, in my experience after playing later games exclusively made for PS4 and then turning on my old PS3, I did notice huge gap in graphical quality. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get something like Ghost of Tsushima or Yakuza 6 running on PS3. So yeah while it wasn't really an impressive leap at the start, looking back after the system maturing does make me appreciate newer system more.
I genuinely wish kids today could experience what it was like back in the 80s and 90s. It was so much freaking fun and the experience of seeing arcade quality games coming to your home was something that can't be replicated today. The "Sega vs Nintendo" days were some of the best. The 9/9/99 Dreamcast launch was the last hurrah of Sega, which will always hold a special place in my heart. Power Stone to this day still rules.
A new console launch is one of the coolest experiences in gaming. I enjoy watching news clips from the launch of the Wii/360/etc. I wish I could have experienced some of the major leaps in console power. With diminishing returns, today’s generational leaps can’t come close to the early years.
For many years now i came to the conclusion for me that graphics are not important anymore. Nearly all looks good. The last game I got was TMNT shredders Revenge and I wouldn't say it's an optical milestone 😂
@Nordlicht05 Graphics have definitely plateaued... modern gaming is nowhere near as wonderous as it was back in the 90's to early 2000's. Game companies now only seem to focus on the things that don't really matter. Graphics, ray tracing, franchises, monetization. It makes me long for the days when gameplay was king, and new I.p.'s were plentiful..
Holy cow, I NEVER get in this early on one of your videos. This past generation was the first generation where I felt absolutely nothing about the new consoles. I'm pretty well PC only right now. NES was mind-blowing. SNES/MD gen was the first time I really remembered a generation passing into a new one (Atari to NES was kind of fuzzy to me). Next came 3D and near unlimited 2D with the PS1/Saturn, then the N64....then the Dreamcast....holy cow I almost lost my mind that gen. XBOX/Gamecube/PS2 was a bit less but still exciting, after that things started to wane for me, but still loved the advancements. This time though, PS5 and the XBOX series...er...series....nothing, I barely remember that we are even in a new generation. Got a nice lawn mower last week though.
I agree with you. Don't care for these new consoles at all, everything feels homogenized, safe. I barely cared for the Ps4, Xbox one, Wii u generation. Heck, it's only now that we're starting to see current gen exclusives! Gaming just isn't that exciting anymore... each console seeming more like a locked down P.C. with subscription fees to play online, than a real console. Might as well have a P.C. at that point, at least then you can play your online games without charge!
@@robertharper3114 all that plus i can play all my old consoles with only one machine, 1 inch thick 16x12"-ish footprint, single HDMI cable, including vr games.
I went from Coleco vision to Master System then Genesis then Sega CD add on and completely dropped off gaming at the beginning of polygon focused games and the 32 bit gen. Gaming channels like this have really helped me recapture moments of my youth and also show me what I missed in those 32 bit years.
How old were you at the start of the 32 bits? I dropped off a generation later. I was approaching my 20's and had other interests......although I couldn't resist the lure of the PS2/Xbox generation in the end and jumped back into it all.
You're part of a very rare group: most people skipped over the Colecovision/Atari5200 "mini" generation. In fact, the Coleco only sold 2 million units, and somehow outsold the 5200. Both of those systems were essentially home arcade systems. The leap from generation 1 (Atari 2600 & Intellivision) to generation 2 (Atari 5200 & Colecovision) brought a huge leap in graphics and sound. Sadly, most parents thought these consoles were pointless. You were a lucky one! I stopped gaming from 1983 to 1985, and got a NES in 1986. (I know my classification of the early console generations is unique, but I'm right and everyone else is wrong.)
@@thewingedavenger1007The Atari 5200 was basically the same as the Atari 8bit computers in hardware specs and I went from Atari 2600 to Atari 600xl buying those metal cartridges that were awesome ports at the time. Colecovision I saw in the catalog shops but never played one growing up. I remember the stories of The Colecovision Adam that had the power button on the printer as one of the dumbest design flaws ever. The Vectrex to me was mesmerizing at the time with the vector graphics.
Excellent video. It seems like excitement over a new console generation's visuals is a thing of the past. These days there is nothing quite like witnessing the first Sonic, Ridge Racer, Soul Calibur, or especially Mario 64 when they originally released.
Dreamcast blew my mind that Thursday night of 9.9.99, but the last time a console excited me was PSP. Not only the graphic quality, but that sound quality on a portable was unbelievable back them
I’ve always thought that growing up during this period must have been like getting into cinema during the silent era and witnessing sound and colour film come into being
I totally agree. the dreamcast era was the last time I was genuinely excited about new hardware. the first time I played sonic adventure and powerstone, ready2rumble boxing and then shenmue, my god those days were magical. these days just don't hit like those...
The leap from 16 bit to 32 bit was huge but the leap from the 5th gen to the 6th was the most impressive. Nowadays we see very little difference among different generations and I believe it isn't the cynic in me saying that the magic of witnessing a new console generation is gone.
We don't have whole genres being innovated and developed like then. The tech is still somewhat exciting. Ray tracing will be mainstream in another gen or so, and has a wow factor when cranked. But the games were more creative back then imo. What is the most recent real innovation in game design, Minecraft?
@@BearfootBob I'd say RE4 & Dead Space remakes and Control are the last games that wowed me but yes, developers won't innovate nowadays. That's where the indie scene excels.
For Sega consoles it was the Mega Drive for me, I didn’t play much of the Saturn or Dreamcast as I’d moved on to the PlayStation and by the 6th generation of consoles I had no interest in the Dreamcast as Sega’s reputation was mud thanks to the failure of the Saturn and for me it was a no brainier for me to get a PS2 and I have no regrets as the PS2 is the greatest console of all time and the best selling console of all time.
@@Adamtendo_player_1 it is a question of taste. I was with the Megadrive because I played it in my cousin house’s and then I wanted to stay with Sega. Those who were with the ps1 and ps2 they also went with the next Sony consoles and I don’t blame them, we stay with something that makes us happy
@@segare-trop-vieux3932 I don’t care for PlayStation anymore, I now have a Switch and should have moved on from PlayStation back to Nintendo with the Wii which has games that appeal to me more and that I can keep up with because Nintendo focuses on gameplay more than being an interactive movie with flashy graphics which is what all people seem to care about now. Even if Sega were to come back I still wouldn’t be interested because Sega as much as it pains me to say, are now just a mediocre 3rd party developer and now of the good games come directly from Sega anymore, it’s from studios they own like Atlus. There’s a reason why i didn’t buy another Aega console outside of the Mega Drive (my only Sega console) and have owned mostly Nintendo systems because Nintendo’s games have more longevity snd depth to them, I’ll always love what Sega used to me and the Mega Drive but outside of that, its only Nintendo that will get my money for new games and I’ll only be interested in Sega for their glorious past.
Nothing's matched my excitement of going from SNES to N64. The leap was massive!! After that, then it was N64 to GameCube, which was pretty huge. 3D games were way more detailed and ran smoother overall. Unforgettable times!
The game that really showed me what the Dreamcast could do and how much better the 6th generation was going to be was Jet Set Radio. Expressive faces! Huge levels! Individually-animated fingers on Professor K's hands! It was amazing!
I remember when I first got the Dreamcast and telling my friend. “We finally got true arcade at home”. After Dreamcast, each new generation feels like baby steps.
The Dreamcast was the first console I ever bought on launch day. Had been playing stuff since I was a little kid in the mid '80s but this was a new step for me. Walked into a Best Buy and just grabbed one off the shelf. Guess that should have been an indication it wasn't selling out or whatever, but I didn't care at the time. Went to the mall across the street to an EB and bought Soul Calibur and NFL Blitz 2000.
I just love your videos! I was also born in the late 70’s to a middle class family, so my videogame journey was very similar, from the arcade excitements to the home console experiences. You are so good at expressing your feelings from that era, that there’s no way people like me cannot familiarize with your nostalgic descriptions. Thank you very much for being the connection to our most fond childhood memories, Sega Lord X! 😊🙏❤️
I'm UK-based, where the NES wasn't that popular. Other than that, your experience was very similar to mine, with a love of gaming founded in the arcade, memories of Atari 2600 Combat and Pacman, and being blown away in the 16-bit era. You're slightly older than me - the first time I had had a job and could buy all the machines was the 32-bit era, rather than the 16-bit, but it was a great time. The 32-bit era is also where I moved from just enjoying games generally to appreciating the overall package - the music, audio, special effects, etc One thing you mentioned that I also remember being a revelation, was the draw-in improvements in driving games once we moved to the Dreamcast era. Some were absolutely terrible during the 32-bit era, but the Dreamcast and beyond transformed this and made driving games some of the most stunning at the time. Great video and a nice walk down a very similar memory lane for me.
Fantastic concept for a video and it totally resonated with me. I started gaming as a 6/7 year old in the mid to late 80's with my 8-bit Amstrad CPC and was totally gripped by it. I would go round to my friends to play on his C64, then the Amiga hit the market - huge success in the UK - and I was blown away by that. So much so I would find any excuse to go round to my mates to play on it. Not long after, the Mega Drive then hit the market and I was so excited by this system that I just had to get one. I had to wait a bit and save my own pocket money but boy was I excited to finally bring that little black box of 16-bit magic home with me. I was blown away by Sonic, which was the pack in game at the time. I was suddenly a hooked Sega fan and went on to get the Mega CD, Sega Saturn - still own one and play it to this day - and the Sega Dreamcast. I was so excited to make that leap up with every next generation. There was just something so special about it, and the console wars just added to the whole joy. I loved debating with my mates about which system was the best. The last next gen system I actually purchased for myself was the Xbox 360. It was the last generation which truly captured my excitement and appreciation for the technological leap. The Gears of War games were just amazing to experience. It was like transitioning to interactive movies with such in-depth story lines and great story telling. Alas, I've not bought a new generation system since. I suppose work and parental responsibilities take priority and are primarily responsible for this, although my two boys do have a Switch - which is great - but just doesn't have that same appeal for me. I think it is quite telling that I have shunned the more recent generations and instead opted for the C64 mini, Amiga mini and the Sega Mega Drive 1 & 2 mini's. Retro gaming is truly where it's at.
I remember playing Metroid Prime for the first time and i couldn't believe what I was seeing . Everything from the sound, the way the water would roll off the visor, the lighting effects and just the insane amount of stuff you could do . I marveled at how it was even possible that this massive game could even fit on such a tiny CD and I was lucky enough that I had one of those GameCubes that had the Component out which made things look even more impressive. Yeah it was a magical time and when the video game crash hit I remember seeing bin after bin full of games at rock bottom prices , but I took advantage of it and started my journey on Video Game Collecting. One system however was still making games after the Video Game Crash which did very well in sales so it almost got a follow up console and that was the INTV 3 . So seeing games like Hover Force, Tower of Doom, Diner and many more was awesome.
Just want to say, putting these captures in the order that you chose really did a nice job of relaying the advancements that have come along in video games. Its very easy to dismiss what we had on the atari or nes because of the limitations of the hardware, but seeing the leap in improvements in only on generation is quite eye opening!
I remember being really excited at the Sega Saturn and previews of games like Panzer Dragoon, wishing I had one and believing I'd never get bored of a console like that. Fate determined that I got a Playstation instead though. My favourite gaming nostalgia has to be getting home from school (preferably on a Friday and after McDonalds) with the latest monthly Playstation magazine and its DEMO DISC! I miss them...
The Sega/Nintendo rivalry of the 90s were quite epic and countless gaming gems were spawned from it not to mention, games from NeoGeo and Turbographx were awesome as well then, the portable versions like Game Gear, Gameboy, TurboXpress etc also gave us gaming on the go nonetheless, thanks for this great video btw, any chance you'll cover the TurboDuo system as well as the turboxpress and its history or did i miss it binge watching your content?
Born in '82, my first one was the Game Boy in '90, then I got a Megadrive in '93, we got our first PC in '94, I bought an old C64 in '95, a N64 and SNES in '99, Master System 2 in 2004, GBA, NDS and PSP in ~2015, a SNES classic mini in 2017, and a new gaming PC and PS3 in 2022.
You and I both had pretty much the same gaming journey at ages just 3 years apart. Dad had bought a Commodore Vic-20, but my cousin had an Atari 2600. Both my cousin and I had an NES (best gaming years ever!). I'd gotten my NES for Christmas from my grandmother and a few years later, I'd mow her yard for an entire year at $10 a mow to buy the SNES when it came out at $199.99. Dad took me to to Toys 'R Us and I happily plunked down that $200 only to be told $212 - I'd forgotten to account for sales tax. My cousin had opted for the Genesis. At the 32-bit era, I'd finally gotten an actual job and saved up for the N64. Through all of it's delays though, that Sega Saturn started looking really tempting w/ Sega Rally and VirtuaFighter 2 and my SNES started looking and feeling really dated. Continued delays on the N64, made it harder to hold off on spending $500 on the Saturn (plus two games). When I saw the Atari Jaguar on clearance as a package deal (Jaguar + Rayman, Tempest 2000, Aliens vs Predator, Iron Soldier, Canon Fodder, and Dino Dudes - all for $120) I had to get it to keep me distracted while I continued to wait for the N64. As you could probably tell, I was strictly a Nintendo nerd. When Project Reality finally released, I played the crap out of it. Funny enough, my job continued paying moneys. With the Saturn starting to go down in price, I picked one up. Funny thing. This "Nintendo Nerd" loved every little thing about the Saturn. With me spending most of my time playing DragonForce & Panzer Dragoon Saga - and coming home to find dad playing Saturn Bomberman, the N64 just sat there collecting dust. Soon enough I would find myself calling in sick, standing in line on a Thursday - 9.9.99. I'd moved to Japan in 2001, and bought a PS2 - "My First Sony" lol. I had a few games including Final Fantasy X - but... Let me put it this way: What happened to Black, White & Red Wizard? What happened to Warrior, Thief and so on? ...and who the heck is this guy with a beach ball?! Couldn't imagine going to a weapons shop and asking for the deadliest volley ball they had. I didn't play it for too long. I'd gotten a Nintendo Wii at some point, and it was a nice gimmick - but at some point it felt like more like: 1,001 Ways to play Samba de Amigo. I've recently gotten back into gaming though. A couple Arcade1Up's, basically all of the minis: NES, SNES US&JP, TurboGrafx, Genesis US&JP, Genesis 2, and PS-X (which I've turned on like 3 times), a Dreamcast w/ GDEMU and a Model-1 Sega Saturn w/ Satiator. Oddly enough the system that I find myself playing the most these days - Atari VCS (2021). I don't know why, but I absolutely LOVE that thing. I'm awaiting my Atari 2600+ w/ paddles. Full-Circle. In this house, Atari is once again King. *shrugs - Pretty weird, huh?
11 месяцев назад+1
In Colombia southamerica, I lived your same transitions, I was disoriented when began to purchase magazines that shows Super Mario World and mentioned the X and Y buttons, I didn't know about the SNES, and the NES was all about in home gaming, when I meet the SNES for my first time was with a Super Famicom that my neighborn had, those were the years of awe.
I'm a 26 year-old zoomer that grew up with the Xbox/GameCube/Playstation 2 console war.......as a PC gamer, so not only were the games that me and my brother played very different, but also because I live in a small town in Brazil, newer tech was harder to come by (it has gotten way better since then), a generous donation by my aunt meant we also got a SNES in the early 2000s so we could play some of the classics for that console (like Mario All-Stars and DKC 1 & 2) and after my dad upgraded his PC so it could play games like Doom 3 and F.E.A.R., the technological leap was massive. I haven't even mentioned that during this time, I was introduced to emulation, which changed my gaming tastes forever. My dad also kept his PC gaming magazines from the late 90s so in a way, I was familiar with titles released in that era such as SiN, Half-Life and Deus Ex, all of which I played to completion when I got older. I have a lot of nostalgia for late 90s and early 2000s PC gaming, I personally played and finished a lot of games from that era and still plan on playing more. Back in August this year, I beat two classics back-to-back for the first time: Final Fantasy VII (on DuckStation) and the original Unreal, their art direction blows away the vast majority of games released _today_ and I don't even *need* a CRT monitor to appreciate how those (and older games in general) look, they're already perfect to me. After beating Unreal, I played Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, which was released this year, its cel-shaded, Jet Set Radio Future-inspired environments not only look excellent, but it genuinely made me realize just how much I miss blurry PS2 textures, games nowadays have such a massive focus put into their high polycounts and texture resolution that budgets went wildly out of control and the industry is stagnating more than ever, imagine how much we could push other areas of gaming if developers weren't putting such a massive amount of time and effort on those things when we could instead be iterating on Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom's focus on physics (which they already were iterating upon - Half-Life 2), doing things like more destructible environments, practically infinite draw distance and the best real-time lighting possible. It made me realize just how good the sixth generation of consoles really was, anyone could release a game on a console or PC in that time and even if it didn't sell well, they most likely didn't cost a ton of money to make or anything, nowadays I'm seeing the phrase "testing the waters" more and more, but back in those days you could get away with risky ideas much more often, "safer" games and IPs were less prevalent and like you said, consoles genuinely felt different from one another and PCs were even MORE different than those. I play older games more than newer ones and thanks to emulation, I can do that to a wide variety of older consoles, Saturn emulation has improved massively over the years and it's been a blast digging through that console's library, genuinely one of my most liked consoles because of how much of a Wild West it feels, so many games left to discover. I haven't checked out OG Xbox emulation yet but I hope it keeps making good progress, recently I heard news that a team was able to rescue dead Xbox Live games from the dead and I respect those people so much, preserving games to the best of their ability while all I can do is watch and hope they succeed. And it's not like I'm even a posh gentleman of refined gaming tastes either, my favourite game of 2020 was actually the infamous Cyberpunk 2077 and despite the bugs, I was immensely invested in the world and characters, the combat was fun and I was so happy to see that someone finally picked up where Soldier of Fortune 1 & 2 left off with their dismemberment mechanics, because of that combat felt _satisfying_ and it's something no other recent FPS game was really doing for me, not even Doom Eternal allowed you to blow a demon's arm or leg off, there was visible damage but no actual dismemberment! The music is excellent and walking around Night City on foot I got the same feel I have when I go take a long walk around my town, not because I live in a Cyberpunk city full of skyscrapers, but because it nailed the feeling of just taking in the sights, other people walking around, watching out for traffic before crossing the streets, looking at distant landmarks, it felt more immersive than any other open world game I played before. Anyway, this wall of text has been going on for long enough, it's just that I'm so disappointed in the gaming industry right now, I'm _tired_ of all that bullshit, so I needed to get those feelings off my chest. TL;DR - Gaming was full of wonderful and risky projects, the sixth generation of consoles was the best, more effort was put into art direction in older games (although there are exceptions, I'm aware of that), modern AAA titles cost way too much to make because of shiny hi-poly graphics and that, along with overly greedy publishers, are slowly choking the industry to death. - Signed, Marcello Antony Soares Silva.
41 years old... you are a preacher, honesty telling it how it was, for all of us growing up in the magical analog age... Love you, brother. ❤ Thank you for sharing so authentically. Your channel is priceless. 🙏
We got our first SNES, after having an NES and Atari 2600. The first game we played was Super Mario World, and I will always remember the first time I heard the echo when Mario jumped while inside a cave. It was SOOOO cool!
This channel helps me feel connected to a time I never experienced. You do a really good job of conveying the wonder and excitement of gaming in the early days. I’m glad I got to experience most of the 90s at least!
18:57 and on speaks directly for me as well SLX. We're about the same age and I'm ever so grateful for growing up during those amazing years. I truly consider them the golden years of video games (80's, 90's and early 00's)
I have always felt the same about the 6th gen being the last generation that was truly exciting. Every console of every generation up to that point seemed to have it's own identity. I remember getting the PS3 and once the wow factor of the latest graphics wore off, its primary use was a blu-ray disc player.
I think the last gen that felt like a huge leap was the 7th gen with the introduction of "hd" graphics, the normalization of wide screen and the graphics technology. From the 7th gen forward the it feel like a smooth transition rather than leaps
I got my 2600 in '82. I was 7. I couldn't get an NES till '89. I feel your passion and excitement! We are the same age, we were so lucky to experience it from the beginning.
My first console was the Magnovox odyssey II which was crappy competition to the atari 2600. The jump from 8 bit nintendo to 16 bit was awe inspiring to me. Strider, Thunder Force III, and MUSHA on the Sega Genesis blew my mind at the early days. When the SNES came out, I was yet again awe struck at the fantastic software. Super mario world, super metroid, donkey kong country, secrete of mana, LOZ link to the past, castlevania IV, starfox, contra III, actraiser, street fighter II everything, super mario kart....and so much more. To me the jump to 32 bit was the largest. I agree that the 3D graphics did not age well but good gameplay is good forever. To me, the PS2 (probably my favorite console of all time) was historic and a incredible machine that any self respecting gamer owned at the time. While I do not own any modern current consoles, I do have a powerful PC. Great video friend.
Honestly, the 6th generation really was the last generation I was truly excited for and I actually found to be completely and thoroughly satisfying. In the last two to three generations it's all been downhill. It's not all bad don't get me wrong but it's nothing as groundbreaking or as exceptional as the consoles that launched between late 99 and 2002. That was the last time I truly truly felt blown away.
This wild ride aint over yet. The new generation of Hologram game consoles is coming soon. And we will see entire new genre's of games that utilize the technology. It will be the biggest leap we ever saw.
Man, Pilotwings, I sunk so much time into that game as a schoolkid. Loved it from the beginning. So many games from that era still hold up on multiple systems, it's no accident that the 16 bit era is remembered so fondly. Some very well crafted games came out from that point, more sophisticated than what had come out before.
In the past I commented that I thought you were making the best Sega content on RUclips. I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to take that back. I think you're making the best gaming content on RUclips.
Same here. The Dreamcast was the last console that truly kept that feeling alive. To some extent, the original Xbox did it, too, but much less. It was the 360 where things really started to feel incremental. Nice video
N64. Will never forget it. Got it for Christmas as a young teen and my god I was excited. Then when I got older I bought a PS2. Gran Turismo blew my mind.
You always come up with the most interesting topics. I only had a Master System, Mega Drive and Playstation growing up so this kind of perspective from having the wider range of consoles from each generation is really cool.
Not as quickly as we saw with those that's for sure. Plus most of the kids in gaming nowadays have no concept. Now you can play games on a phone that you never could have dreamed of playing on the go even ten years ago.
Awesome video! Anyone born in the mid-to-late seventies (as I was) knows exactly what you felt in each of these moments. Every few years we had an experience akin to walkiing into Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz. I wasn't even gonna watch this video because the title "The Excitement of a New Console Generation" made me think you were gonna talk about the current "9th" gen, but then I realized it would probably be about the classic ones. The video title misled me at first but I don't know else how you could have titled it.
Well said SLX. Gen 4, 5, and 6 was a magical time for home gaming. Like you, I'm also glad I experienced it 1st hand. I think it will be looked back on as the Golden Era of Gaming. Another great video. Thanks man.
A nearly identical and fantastic walk through of my own past. Don't forget the legendary Neo Geo and the longing of owning one. Always seeing the ads and knowing it was soo out of reach.
The two decades between 1980 and 2000 is basically where all the action took place. Practically every genre, every video game convention, everything that today's games are based on was invented during that time, and we'll never see the likes of it again. The explosion of progress was very exciting to witness, but we are in the mature phase now and that has some advantages too. There was a time when 2D games almost died out for a while, everyone was so focused on staying at the cutting edge of technology. But everything exists side-by-side now, and previously abandoned genres have been revived.
The 16 bit times are fondly remembered today. The fact that the indie game developers are making games with 16-bit and even 8-bit influence is the proof of it.
Great video! I too grew up in this generation. And where as I’m still an avid gamer today (tons of amazing titles still being produced constantly) the 1980’s and early 90’s was my favorite and most influential era to me! It truly was a special time of constantly evolving hardware. Something younger / modern gamers will never experience like we did…
The 90's was a great time to be a gamer. The difference of games from the start of the 1990's to 1998/1999 was *huge* I was genuinely hyped for the dreamcast release, it still makes me sad that sega discontinued it wayyyyy too soon. To think what could've been 😢 Sega do not make it easy to be a fan.
I too was first exposed to the Atari 2600, though technically you can put the blame on my dad's Pinball mania. Dude's been collecting probably since shortly after you were born, he's got a couple thousand of em. And that hobby brings with it lots of exposure to those machines... and access to everything else at the arcade. One of his friends was the owner of a little place that used to be called New England Amusement I believe, maybe it was called New Milford Amusement more likely, easily the biggest thing like it in CT if not some other states nearby. When they were shmoozing after hours making deals I was given free play on whatever machines I wanted. That was so sick, so much SF2, MK2, Time Crisis, Area 51, all the shmups, really anything from the early-mid 90s. Unfortunately that guy passed away maybe like 2 months ago, but he hasn't run NMA in ages. It's been multiple different establishments since the early 00s. And at one point when I was a kid we had a Goonies 2 I think arcade cabinet in the garage. Shame he hasn't got anything like that since.
Gen 6 was the last great jump for console technology. Everything has just been so gradual afterwards. We're all still playing glorified PS4 titles now almost three years into the PS5, ya know? That's an entire decade with only a very fine incremental improvement in graphics and system architecture, but virtually no new gameplay designs or meaningful innovations. After more than four decades of gaming, it's no wonder that despite owning current and last-gen systems, I likewise still spend more time playing on and collecting for 8, 16, and 32-bit games, myself, too. So I totally feel ya, Sega Lord.
Sonic impressed me graphically when it was released on the Genesis. The Dreamcast was what really blew me away. I didn't think anything could top my N64.
I remembered going from Madden 97 to Madden 99-2000, then Madden 2000 to NFL 2K, then NFL 2K to Madden 2001, along with Smash Bros 64 to Melee. Mind was permanently blown.
Born in 1975 this narration was a carbon copy of my experiences. What made that time special is each console had its own identity which has been lacking for the past 20 years. That was especially prominent in the 16 bit gen. What we get now is console PC's. Feel fortunate to have experienced that period in time.
Nintendo Consoles have had their own identities for the past 20 Years. GameCube was a nice compact console with plenty of fun for the whole family. Wii was a Bigger thinner GameCube with motion Controls. Wii U while disappointing had its Gamepad gimmick, & compare Switch to the competitors as well. Sony & Microsoft tend to go in that Powerful PC direction, Nintendo does their own thing with their IPs & experiments the most with hardware. Nintendo & Sega made hardware that hit different remember the VMUs or GameBoy/GBA connection for N64 & GameCube?
I have been playing for 40 years, in my opinion the biggest "jumps" were with the transition from 8 bits to 16 bits (from Commodore 64 to Amiga, for example) and from 16 bits to 32 bits (from Super Famicom/Megadrive to Playstation/Saturn). Huge progress has been seen since then, but I have never again encountered that WOW effect.
My favorite moment playing video games as a kid occured shortly after I got my SNES. I managed to reach the end of Super Mario World, and in the final moments I went toe to toe with Bowser. After a few hits he receded back into the background, and then swept toward the screen. I was shocked, and jumped back from the TV. I had heard about Mode 7 effects on the Super Nintendo, but that was my first time experiencing them. After that I giggled with glee and went on to finish the fight. It was a moment I will never forget.
My condolences to you and your family if they were the ones to buy you the 3DO. My dad paid $700 smackeroonies, a year later I deeply regretted it seeing the Sega Saturn and especially the Sony PlayStation, had to mow so many lawns as an 11 yo for the Saturn and PS1.
@@SegaLordX Truly dedicated gamer thru n thru! I still have mine as well, just that price, adjusted for inflation about $1600 that was the end of my free ride lol, and those Saturn and ps1 games next to mad dog mcree made me a lil regretful, but it does have spot in my heart.
So I have a "Generation regret" I was very young when the 2600 came out, and I went from 2600 to 7800 to NES, and when the NES came out I was 9, so still very young. I didn't appreciate the Atari 5200 until much later in my life in my late 20's, and the jump in quality from the 2600 to the 5200 is just astounding, and I had I been older back then it may have been something I could have witnessed in real time, the 5200 is one of my favorite classic consoles of all time that I would have loved to have experienced back when it was new.
I also started out on the 2600. My cousin got an NES, so he gave his Atari to my mom along with a collection of games. Then my mom one-upped him and got a SNES when it came out. I don't exactly remember when we got a Sega Genesis because we kept switching between the two.
As usual lots of great points SLX. The 6th Generation really was the end of those great leaps. The 90's was really the wild west of gaming, an age we'll never see again. When companies tried exciting new things to carve out a niche
The Dreamcast had a major impact on me and while I’ve been chasing that excitement ever since, and games are better in 2023 than ever before, but it’s never been the same. The DC was magic to me.
I remember seeing the Dreamcast running for the first time in a store display unit. My first thought was, "Developers may not have all the power they want, but they now have all the power they NEED." I bought it on day one without a second thought. I never regret it. Of course, nothing compares to seeing Daytona USA in the arcades. That was jaw dropping. You had to be there to understand how big a deal that was in the day!
That cockpit camera mode. There was just nothing like it. In the full sit-down cabinet with the chair that made you feel like you were banking with the car in the turn, it was magic.
You articulated a statement i’ve had many times. The jumps from console generation stopped being huge for me probably when we moved from PS2 to PS3. Not saying I didn’t notice improvements, but they started being more subtle, less hugely impressive.
I just want to say I’m really digging your channel and quality content. My childhood was so similar to yours it’s extremely nostalgic. Thanks for all your hard work 👍👍
I couldn’t agree more about the excitement between each generation. 6th gen was the last big upgrade before it plateaued. I was still a kid during 4th and 5th gen and though I enjoyed them so much, you had a deeper investment in that world at the time and it’s cool to here about the experiences you had
I am a couple of years older than you and my own gaming journey is similar but coming from UK personal computers were dominant during NES is time. Still my gaming is very much 2nd to 6th Generation and the wonder at the improvements in hardware and gaming over the approximately 23 year period (1980-2003) was just extraordinary and I LOVED reliving it in your video. Thank you;-)
When my brother brought home his first NES, I couldn't see it ('cause I was pretending to be ill and had to keep up the pretense), but I could hear it, and I couldn't believe my ears. It sounded like he had brought home an arcade! I couldn't believe how immersive NES games were as a result
My dad was literally in the hospital and I drove 45 miles to go buy a Dreamcast instead of seeing him. Got marvel vs capcom and sonic adventure!!!! Good call on my part
So feel you in this video. I never forget how blown away i was first playing the master system. Then the massive rush of the megadrive and super Nintendo.
I remember being so excited about the Dreamcast. I literally couldn't believe the graphics! I'll never forget 9/9/99!
Same! From ps1 to Dreamcast was a big generational leap
The leap from Metal Gear Solid on Psone to Metal Gear Solid 2 on PS2 was a definite generational leap for me graphics wise @@bigboy0494
first system i ever bought myself and even had it pre-ordered, i was anti sega as a kid, older i knew better and made damn sure i got DC lol. soulcalibur,online games, phantasy star we had it so damn good. somewhere i got whats left of my dreamcast sure for preorder lol
Oh man, me too! Got the keys to my first apt on the 1st, all moved in by the 3rd and picked up my Dreamcast (with Ready2Rumble Boxing, NFL2K and Soul Caliber) the morning of 9/9 ❤
The kids of today will never understand that feeling.
The magic of this progression will never be duplicated.
True. I have to squint my eyes to tell the graphical difference between a PS4 and PS5 game. It's all about loading time now. lol
Yep, everything got real samey feeling after the dreamcast died. At that point I just went PC exclusive since it would at least be nearly 100% backwards compatible and I wouldn't have to keep old hardware around to have access to my purchased library. Steam and GOG make it even more seamless. Its It's just not worth farting around with proprietary console platforms and hasn't been worth it for nearly 2 decades.
Yeah the leap is not there anymore for sure. Between the PS3 to PS5 came down to resolution and frames.
The fact we have performance “reviews” really shows this.
Agreed
Try going outside, the graphics out there are pretty amazing
Looking back, those times during the console wars were simply magical. Every new generation brought with it a wave of excitement, curiosity, and wonder. It was an era of rapid technological advancement, and every release felt like a major event. And as someone who grew up during this era, it was an absolute pleasure to witness and be a part of these monumental shifts in gaming. The nostalgia, memories, and experiences from those days still resonate deeply with many, myself included, and I’m truly grateful for the journey.
Well said, I’m right with ya and agree completely 👍🏻
Not only that, but it was which friend had which console, so you could get a taste for the systems.
With the digital age, we are now in a less human environment of discovery and wonder. Everything these days is instantaneous at your fingertips. There is hardly anything special or wonderous about doing a Google search to immediately find everything out about a new console, game, secrets, etc. In the 8 bit to the 32 bit era with no internet (for the most part), you had to wait for the console with mystery and the hype was enormous, and the chats you would have with your school yard kids or friends only made it more exciting. Seeing pictures in the gaming magazines for a Dreamcast or a SNES back then was so exciting.
Unfortunately now it is diminishing returns for video games. Nearly everything has been done. The hardware doesn't jump forward in the same lengths as from the NES to the SNES, kids aren't dazzled anymore. PS4 to PS5 isn't that huge of a difference graphics or gameplay wise. This generation has their faces stuck to their phones with 2 second attention spans. Super fucking sad. I am very happy I got to live through the 80s and 90s when there was an actual human element, these amazing consoles and feelings will never be relived.
Sega lord X knows how to conjur up those nostalgic feel when he talks about retro gaming in a specific era.. we all lived thru it, and this great channel make sure we wont forget about it as time goes on.
The Sega Dreamcast is my all time favorite console. Good memories.
Same.
I was so excited, I had to import mine. Such an exciting moment when fedex arrived with it.
It looked and sounded powerful for its time.
ps5 look beter
The original Xbox for me. Kind of like the Dreamcast 2, if you squinted really hard.
Arcades were truly magical places. When I was a kid in the late 80s there was one in every mall no matter how small. Always such a wonder as to what you'd find.
PS3/360 was the last jump that truly felt next gen. Everything since has been incremental with diminishing returns both in visuals and sound. VR's 2016 launch was the last time I got that feeling where massive improvement was made, but the lack of "big" games has been disappointing, along with the new focus on mobile hardware.
I agree completely. Every generation leap prior felt special. I remember getting my PS4 a few months after it released and felt nothing other than 'it's the same but a little fancier'. I haven't even bothered with this generation yet. My wife will sometimes suggest getting a PS5 and we consider it for a few minutes but always end up saying "Nah, we might get the next one though".
I agree with you 100% about vr. The first time I strapped on my psvr1 and played wipeout omega collection for the first time was a revelation. Not since 1989 when I first experienced shadow of the beast on my friend's commodore Amiga had I been so excited about new gaming tech.
One concurs
Path tracing demos and twch is likely the next huge leap in visuals. Granted, that is still a few years off. I feel ya, though. The jumps from the ps1 to 2 then to the ps3 and x360 were insane
You said it "Diminishing returns" which is to be expected.
Personally not even the 360/PS3 wowed me because I was already a PC Gamer, so I had already experienced graphics as good as the 360 launch games. I am quite impressed by the games released towards the end of those consoles however, that they managed to squeeze that much out of the systems is impressive.
I am a few years older than you so share a lot of your nostalgia. The 90s were the best times of my life! Playing college football, Sega Genesis, 3DO, PlayStation, and Dreamcast. My family was also alive and I had my first kid. It’s crazy how the memories come flooding back watching this video. Thank you!
Gen X forever!
The 90s were The best indeed
also Nintendo 64
The 16-bit era was my favorite time to be a gamer. During the so-called "Console Wars" was when many gaming standards were established and still hold to this day. Also, I'm surprised you didn't mention Neo Geo here.
Probably because he couldn't afford it!
The innovation of the neo geo was that it did not innovate. Even in the arcades it was behind capcom, namco, and Sega. Every RUclips about it is so bland.
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldtthe hardware was indeed innovative. It was the 1st and only console that allowed you to take your memory card and put it in the arcade and load your saved game because the arcade hardware was exactly the same...
what killed neo-geo was that the console was too expensive for most, not to mention the games alone were $200...the logic behind it trying to make a dent in the gaming market still astounds me to this day.😄
The console wars never ended. They just evolved.
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldt What? Keith Apacary's NeoGeo video is amazing.
i haven't felt that excitement since 2006
That generation was tarnished. "Things break" and"$599 US dollars" all for a crappy made HDera
I love the Wii, but yeah. Wii U was forgotten, but I still love that they went the way for the Switch
I stuck around one more Gen, but the price point and lack of reverse compatibility of the PS4 killed my console purchases. Now I only play retro games.
@@Guardian978Same. For years now I don't play any games past the seventh generation.
2006 was the year that the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii were launched
One thing that seriously hampers the excitement of new hardware these days is the very long development cycle of AAA games. It's commonly well over a year after launch before you begin to see what a new system can do. There's no question that earlier generations saw much more dramatic technical leaps, making brand new experiences possible and keeping things exciting.
The fact that it takes anywhere from 5 to 10 years to produce a game these days, is hauntingly depressing.. I miss the days when games could be produced with a handful of people. Something gets lost when your development team is somewhere in the hundreds.
@@robertharper3114 On top of that, the game they finally produce is often still unfinished at launch, and is very derivative. Just as you say, it's usually a small indie team that comes up with something fresh these days because they make up for a small budget by being innovative with gameplay.
I honestly do get nostalgic for the quirks of 32 bit consoles. The bright colors, warped textures, pre-rendered backgrounds, and especially hybrid visuals with 2D sprites scaling over 3D backgrounds have such a distinct look, and often used very stylized models for characters and scenery to try and overcome the shortcomings of the hardware. There was a lot of care put into those presentations that went beyond just trying to make things look as realistic as possible, and I find it more endearing as the years go by.
But wobble just showed that coders were bad at maths. Compare magic carpet to descent ( on PC ). No warp in any Doom or Quake (Port). No wobble on PC. No warp in F zero
I also love the 32 bit gfx and games...damn I miss those days
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldtLMAO, it had to do with the amount of mathematical precision used in the geometry code, not that the programmers are “bad at math”. In systems with a geometry processor this happens at hardware level and has nothing to do with the programmer at all. On systems that don’t have a geometry processor like the PS1, the texture precision is done based on the number precision, so if they used only integer math or a rounded up floating point number it would be imprecise. This was usually done to get a higher frame rate. On a system like PS1, you’re basically forced to choose between texture precision and performance.
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldtAlso worth mentioning, Magic Carpet uses a voxel renderer that is very different from normal 3D graphics. F-Zero uses mode 7 for 3D, which is just a single ray cast plane, and Doom’s pseudo-3D engine is basically set between two of these with a vertical column render done the same way to create walls. Descent is the only one that’s rendered in a way similar to “normal” 3D games of that era like Ridge Racer or Mario 64. Clearly it’s precision is high enough for its original 320x200 resolution, but I wouldn’t be surprised to notice warping at higher resolutions.
MagicCarpet was developed as Voxel engine, but switched to affine polygons exactly like Playstation. Descent uses 4px spans similar to the 16px spans on Quake. Descent 2 on SVGA is the same Engine. Quake uses the float co-processor so that MUL und DIV don't block the whole 486 CPU, but the Pixel-shader Code with z-buffer und Gouraud was already bulky on the CPU . So it did not make much of a difference. @@thetechn1que518
I get less excited for each generation, going from a ps2 to a ps3 was a big upgrade, but going from a ps3-ps4-ps5 doesn't seem like much of a difference to me.
The visuals get more polish, but the only new gameplay elements are gimmicks like VR. Sound really doesn't have much room to improve; anything that can be recorded can be put in the game.
To a major extent modern gaming has become reduced, for the most part very calculated "safe" good for business boundries and has increased its motives for maximizing return on profit.
Equals cookie cutter games, there are fewer exceptions every year it seems, save for a golden indie and such.
Same to me...
@@josephluppens2562
Why? Because of how easy x86 is to use?
Imo there is something special about bespoke architecture like snes, ps1, n64, ps2 and ps3, even though in some cases the architecture was so exotic that it was difficult to make games for, but there was some interesting pros if a studio took the time to make games for them.
Going from PS3 to PS4 indeed didn't feel like big upgrade, not helping the fact that most release games were cross platform between older and newer system. However, in my experience after playing later games exclusively made for PS4 and then turning on my old PS3, I did notice huge gap in graphical quality. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get something like Ghost of Tsushima or Yakuza 6 running on PS3. So yeah while it wasn't really an impressive leap at the start, looking back after the system maturing does make me appreciate newer system more.
I genuinely wish kids today could experience what it was like back in the 80s and 90s. It was so much freaking fun and the experience of seeing arcade quality games coming to your home was something that can't be replicated today. The "Sega vs Nintendo" days were some of the best. The 9/9/99 Dreamcast launch was the last hurrah of Sega, which will always hold a special place in my heart. Power Stone to this day still rules.
A new console launch is one of the coolest experiences in gaming. I enjoy watching news clips from the launch of the Wii/360/etc. I wish I could have experienced some of the major leaps in console power. With diminishing returns, today’s generational leaps can’t come close to the early years.
For many years now i came to the conclusion for me that graphics are not important anymore. Nearly all looks good. The last game I got was TMNT shredders Revenge and I wouldn't say it's an optical milestone 😂
@Nordlicht05 Graphics have definitely plateaued... modern gaming is nowhere near as wonderous as it was back in the 90's to early 2000's. Game companies now only seem to focus on the things that don't really matter. Graphics, ray tracing, franchises, monetization. It makes me long for the days when gameplay was king, and new I.p.'s were plentiful..
@@robertharper3114 maybe a hidden videogame crisis but most don't recognise it. Money flows 🤔
Holy cow, I NEVER get in this early on one of your videos.
This past generation was the first generation where I felt absolutely nothing about the new consoles. I'm pretty well PC only right now. NES was mind-blowing. SNES/MD gen was the first time I really remembered a generation passing into a new one (Atari to NES was kind of fuzzy to me). Next came 3D and near unlimited 2D with the PS1/Saturn, then the N64....then the Dreamcast....holy cow I almost lost my mind that gen. XBOX/Gamecube/PS2 was a bit less but still exciting, after that things started to wane for me, but still loved the advancements.
This time though, PS5 and the XBOX series...er...series....nothing, I barely remember that we are even in a new generation.
Got a nice lawn mower last week though.
Why? The PS5 and Series X have been amazing, there have been some truly awesome games this gen.
I agree with you. Don't care for these new consoles at all, everything feels homogenized, safe. I barely cared for the Ps4, Xbox one, Wii u generation. Heck, it's only now that we're starting to see current gen exclusives! Gaming just isn't that exciting anymore... each console seeming more like a locked down P.C. with subscription fees to play online, than a real console. Might as well have a P.C. at that point, at least then you can play your online games without charge!
@blakewillson18 like what?
Love the Ryu avatar by the way?
@@robertharper3114 all that plus i can play all my old consoles with only one machine, 1 inch thick 16x12"-ish footprint, single HDMI cable, including vr games.
Your passion for gaming and your perspective on their progression through the years makes you my hero. Thank you.
I went from Coleco vision to Master System then Genesis then Sega CD add on and completely dropped off gaming at the beginning of polygon focused games and the 32 bit gen. Gaming channels like this have really helped me recapture moments of my youth and also show me what I missed in those 32 bit years.
You missed some of the most epic games ever!!
i would have quitted gaming too if i had a sega cd lol.
How old were you at the start of the 32 bits? I dropped off a generation later. I was approaching my 20's and had other interests......although I couldn't resist the lure of the PS2/Xbox generation in the end and jumped back into it all.
You're part of a very rare group: most people skipped over the Colecovision/Atari5200 "mini" generation. In fact, the Coleco only sold 2 million units, and somehow outsold the 5200. Both of those systems were essentially home arcade systems. The leap from generation 1 (Atari 2600 & Intellivision) to generation 2 (Atari 5200 & Colecovision) brought a huge leap in graphics and sound. Sadly, most parents thought these consoles were pointless. You were a lucky one! I stopped gaming from 1983 to 1985, and got a NES in 1986.
(I know my classification of the early console generations is unique, but I'm right and everyone else is wrong.)
@@thewingedavenger1007The Atari 5200 was basically the same as the Atari 8bit computers in hardware specs and I went from Atari 2600 to Atari 600xl buying those metal cartridges that were awesome ports at the time. Colecovision I saw in the catalog shops but never played one growing up. I remember the stories of The Colecovision Adam that had the power button on the printer as one of the dumbest design flaws ever. The Vectrex to me was mesmerizing at the time with the vector graphics.
Excellent video. It seems like excitement over a new console generation's visuals is a thing of the past. These days there is nothing quite like witnessing the first Sonic, Ridge Racer, Soul Calibur, or especially Mario 64 when they originally released.
Dreamcast blew my mind that Thursday night of 9.9.99, but the last time a console excited me was PSP. Not only the graphic quality, but that sound quality on a portable was unbelievable back them
The PSP and Vita were amazing. I still play my PS-Vita. They had OLED screens. Nintendo just put OLEDs on the switch last year
I’ve always thought that growing up during this period must have been like getting into cinema during the silent era and witnessing sound and colour film come into being
I totally agree. the dreamcast era was the last time I was genuinely excited about new hardware. the first time I played sonic adventure and powerstone, ready2rumble boxing and then shenmue, my god those days were magical. these days just don't hit like those...
The leap from 16 bit to 32 bit was huge but the leap from the 5th gen to the 6th was the most impressive. Nowadays we see very little difference among different generations and I believe it isn't the cynic in me saying that the magic of witnessing a new console generation is gone.
We don't have whole genres being innovated and developed like then. The tech is still somewhat exciting. Ray tracing will be mainstream in another gen or so, and has a wow factor when cranked. But the games were more creative back then imo. What is the most recent real innovation in game design, Minecraft?
@@BearfootBob I'd say RE4 & Dead Space remakes and Control are the last games that wowed me but yes, developers won't innovate nowadays. That's where the indie scene excels.
The Saturn and the Dreamcast were amazing for me
For Sega consoles it was the Mega Drive for me, I didn’t play much of the Saturn or Dreamcast as I’d moved on to the PlayStation and by the 6th generation of consoles I had no interest in the Dreamcast as Sega’s reputation was mud thanks to the failure of the Saturn and for me it was a no brainier for me to get a PS2 and I have no regrets as the PS2 is the greatest console of all time and the best selling console of all time.
@@Adamtendo_player_1 it is a question of taste. I was with the Megadrive because I played it in my cousin house’s and then I wanted to stay with Sega. Those who were with the ps1 and ps2 they also went with the next Sony consoles and I don’t blame them, we stay with something that makes us happy
@@segare-trop-vieux3932 I don’t care for PlayStation anymore, I now have a Switch and should have moved on from PlayStation back to Nintendo with the Wii which has games that appeal to me more and that I can keep up with because Nintendo focuses on gameplay more than being an interactive movie with flashy graphics which is what all people seem to care about now. Even if Sega were to come back I still wouldn’t be interested because Sega as much as it pains me to say, are now just a mediocre 3rd party developer and now of the good games come directly from Sega anymore, it’s from studios they own like Atlus. There’s a reason why i didn’t buy another Aega console outside of the Mega Drive (my only Sega console) and have owned mostly Nintendo systems because Nintendo’s games have more longevity snd depth to them, I’ll always love what Sega used to me and the Mega Drive but outside of that, its only Nintendo that will get my money for new games and I’ll only be interested in Sega for their glorious past.
Nothing's matched my excitement of going from SNES to N64. The leap was massive!! After that, then it was N64 to GameCube, which was pretty huge. 3D games were way more detailed and ran smoother overall. Unforgettable times!
The game that really showed me what the Dreamcast could do and how much better the 6th generation was going to be was Jet Set Radio. Expressive faces! Huge levels! Individually-animated fingers on Professor K's hands! It was amazing!
I remember when I first got the Dreamcast and telling my friend. “We finally got true arcade at home”. After Dreamcast, each new generation feels like baby steps.
The Dreamcast was the first console I ever bought on launch day. Had been playing stuff since I was a little kid in the mid '80s but this was a new step for me. Walked into a Best Buy and just grabbed one off the shelf. Guess that should have been an indication it wasn't selling out or whatever, but I didn't care at the time. Went to the mall across the street to an EB and bought Soul Calibur and NFL Blitz 2000.
I just love your videos! I was also born in the late 70’s to a middle class family, so my videogame journey was very similar, from the arcade excitements to the home console experiences. You are so good at expressing your feelings from that era, that there’s no way people like me cannot familiarize with your nostalgic descriptions. Thank you very much for being the connection to our most fond childhood memories, Sega Lord X! 😊🙏❤️
I'm UK-based, where the NES wasn't that popular. Other than that, your experience was very similar to mine, with a love of gaming founded in the arcade, memories of Atari 2600 Combat and Pacman, and being blown away in the 16-bit era. You're slightly older than me - the first time I had had a job and could buy all the machines was the 32-bit era, rather than the 16-bit, but it was a great time. The 32-bit era is also where I moved from just enjoying games generally to appreciating the overall package - the music, audio, special effects, etc
One thing you mentioned that I also remember being a revelation, was the draw-in improvements in driving games once we moved to the Dreamcast era. Some were absolutely terrible during the 32-bit era, but the Dreamcast and beyond transformed this and made driving games some of the most stunning at the time.
Great video and a nice walk down a very similar memory lane for me.
Fantastic concept for a video and it totally resonated with me. I started gaming as a 6/7 year old in the mid to late 80's with my 8-bit Amstrad CPC and was totally gripped by it. I would go round to my friends to play on his C64, then the Amiga hit the market - huge success in the UK - and I was blown away by that. So much so I would find any excuse to go round to my mates to play on it. Not long after, the Mega Drive then hit the market and I was so excited by this system that I just had to get one.
I had to wait a bit and save my own pocket money but boy was I excited to finally bring that little black box of 16-bit magic home with me. I was blown away by Sonic, which was the pack in game at the time. I was suddenly a hooked Sega fan and went on to get the Mega CD, Sega Saturn - still own one and play it to this day - and the Sega Dreamcast. I was so excited to make that leap up with every next generation. There was just something so special about it, and the console wars just added to the whole joy. I loved debating with my mates about which system was the best.
The last next gen system I actually purchased for myself was the Xbox 360. It was the last generation which truly captured my excitement and appreciation for the technological leap. The Gears of War games were just amazing to experience. It was like transitioning to interactive movies with such in-depth story lines and great story telling. Alas, I've not bought a new generation system since. I suppose work and parental responsibilities take priority and are primarily responsible for this, although my two boys do have a Switch - which is great - but just doesn't have that same appeal for me.
I think it is quite telling that I have shunned the more recent generations and instead opted for the C64 mini, Amiga mini and the Sega Mega Drive 1 & 2 mini's. Retro gaming is truly where it's at.
I remember playing Metroid Prime for the first time and i couldn't believe what I was seeing . Everything from the sound, the way the water would roll off the visor, the lighting effects and just the insane amount of stuff you could do . I marveled at how it was even possible that this massive game could even fit on such a tiny CD and I was lucky enough that I had one of those GameCubes that had the Component out which made things look even more impressive. Yeah it was a magical time and when the video game crash hit I remember seeing bin after bin full of games at rock bottom prices , but I took advantage of it and started my journey on Video Game Collecting. One system however was still making games after the Video Game Crash which did very well in sales so it almost got a follow up console and that was the INTV 3 . So seeing games like Hover Force, Tower of Doom, Diner and many more was awesome.
For me there were 2 major advances:
C64 to Snes
&
Everything else to Dreamcast.
Basically Dreamcast was the template for all current consoles.
Just want to say, putting these captures in the order that you chose really did a nice job of relaying the advancements that have come along in video games. Its very easy to dismiss what we had on the atari or nes because of the limitations of the hardware, but seeing the leap in improvements in only on generation is quite eye opening!
Greetings from another 1975'er. We truly got the see the release and evolution of very first consoles, arcade games and home PC's.
I remember being really excited at the Sega Saturn and previews of games like Panzer Dragoon, wishing I had one and believing I'd never get bored of a console like that. Fate determined that I got a Playstation instead though. My favourite gaming nostalgia has to be getting home from school (preferably on a Friday and after McDonalds) with the latest monthly Playstation magazine and its DEMO DISC!
I miss them...
The Sega/Nintendo rivalry of the 90s were quite epic and countless gaming gems were spawned from it not to mention, games from NeoGeo and Turbographx were awesome as well then, the portable versions like Game Gear, Gameboy, TurboXpress etc also gave us gaming on the go nonetheless, thanks for this great video btw, any chance you'll cover the TurboDuo system as well as the turboxpress and its history or did i miss it binge watching your content?
Born in '82, my first one was the Game Boy in '90, then I got a Megadrive in '93, we got our first PC in '94, I bought an old C64 in '95, a N64 and SNES in '99, Master System 2 in 2004, GBA, NDS and PSP in ~2015, a SNES classic mini in 2017, and a new gaming PC and PS3 in 2022.
And now I'm waiting for my ordered Neo Geo Arcade Stick Pro 😁
You and I both had pretty much the same gaming journey at ages just 3 years apart. Dad had bought a Commodore Vic-20, but my cousin had an Atari 2600. Both my cousin and I had an NES (best gaming years ever!). I'd gotten my NES for Christmas from my grandmother and a few years later, I'd mow her yard for an entire year at $10 a mow to buy the SNES when it came out at $199.99. Dad took me to to Toys 'R Us and I happily plunked down that $200 only to be told $212 - I'd forgotten to account for sales tax. My cousin had opted for the Genesis. At the 32-bit era, I'd finally gotten an actual job and saved up for the N64. Through all of it's delays though, that Sega Saturn started looking really tempting w/ Sega Rally and VirtuaFighter 2 and my SNES started looking and feeling really dated. Continued delays on the N64, made it harder to hold off on spending $500 on the Saturn (plus two games). When I saw the Atari Jaguar on clearance as a package deal (Jaguar + Rayman, Tempest 2000, Aliens vs Predator, Iron Soldier, Canon Fodder, and Dino Dudes - all for $120) I had to get it to keep me distracted while I continued to wait for the N64.
As you could probably tell, I was strictly a Nintendo nerd. When Project Reality finally released, I played the crap out of it. Funny enough, my job continued paying moneys. With the Saturn starting to go down in price, I picked one up. Funny thing. This "Nintendo Nerd" loved every little thing about the Saturn. With me spending most of my time playing DragonForce & Panzer Dragoon Saga - and coming home to find dad playing Saturn Bomberman, the N64 just sat there collecting dust. Soon enough I would find myself calling in sick, standing in line on a Thursday - 9.9.99.
I'd moved to Japan in 2001, and bought a PS2 - "My First Sony" lol. I had a few games including Final Fantasy X - but... Let me put it this way: What happened to Black, White & Red Wizard? What happened to Warrior, Thief and so on? ...and who the heck is this guy with a beach ball?! Couldn't imagine going to a weapons shop and asking for the deadliest volley ball they had. I didn't play it for too long. I'd gotten a Nintendo Wii at some point, and it was a nice gimmick - but at some point it felt like more like: 1,001 Ways to play Samba de Amigo.
I've recently gotten back into gaming though. A couple Arcade1Up's, basically all of the minis: NES, SNES US&JP, TurboGrafx, Genesis US&JP, Genesis 2, and PS-X (which I've turned on like 3 times), a Dreamcast w/ GDEMU and a Model-1 Sega Saturn w/ Satiator. Oddly enough the system that I find myself playing the most these days - Atari VCS (2021). I don't know why, but I absolutely LOVE that thing. I'm awaiting my Atari 2600+ w/ paddles. Full-Circle. In this house, Atari is once again King. *shrugs - Pretty weird, huh?
In Colombia southamerica, I lived your same transitions, I was disoriented when began to purchase magazines that shows Super Mario World and mentioned the X and Y buttons, I didn't know about the SNES, and the NES was all about in home gaming, when I meet the SNES for my first time was with a Super Famicom that my neighborn had, those were the years of awe.
I'm a 26 year-old zoomer that grew up with the Xbox/GameCube/Playstation 2 console war.......as a PC gamer, so not only were the games that me and my brother played very different, but also because I live in a small town in Brazil, newer tech was harder to come by (it has gotten way better since then), a generous donation by my aunt meant we also got a SNES in the early 2000s so we could play some of the classics for that console (like Mario All-Stars and DKC 1 & 2) and after my dad upgraded his PC so it could play games like Doom 3 and F.E.A.R., the technological leap was massive. I haven't even mentioned that during this time, I was introduced to emulation, which changed my gaming tastes forever.
My dad also kept his PC gaming magazines from the late 90s so in a way, I was familiar with titles released in that era such as SiN, Half-Life and Deus Ex, all of which I played to completion when I got older. I have a lot of nostalgia for late 90s and early 2000s PC gaming, I personally played and finished a lot of games from that era and still plan on playing more.
Back in August this year, I beat two classics back-to-back for the first time: Final Fantasy VII (on DuckStation) and the original Unreal, their art direction blows away the vast majority of games released _today_ and I don't even *need* a CRT monitor to appreciate how those (and older games in general) look, they're already perfect to me.
After beating Unreal, I played Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, which was released this year, its cel-shaded, Jet Set Radio Future-inspired environments not only look excellent, but it genuinely made me realize just how much I miss blurry PS2 textures, games nowadays have such a massive focus put into their high polycounts and texture resolution that budgets went wildly out of control and the industry is stagnating more than ever, imagine how much we could push other areas of gaming if developers weren't putting such a massive amount of time and effort on those things when we could instead be iterating on Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom's focus on physics (which they already were iterating upon - Half-Life 2), doing things like more destructible environments, practically infinite draw distance and the best real-time lighting possible.
It made me realize just how good the sixth generation of consoles really was, anyone could release a game on a console or PC in that time and even if it didn't sell well, they most likely didn't cost a ton of money to make or anything, nowadays I'm seeing the phrase "testing the waters" more and more, but back in those days you could get away with risky ideas much more often, "safer" games and IPs were less prevalent and like you said, consoles genuinely felt different from one another and PCs were even MORE different than those.
I play older games more than newer ones and thanks to emulation, I can do that to a wide variety of older consoles, Saturn emulation has improved massively over the years and it's been a blast digging through that console's library, genuinely one of my most liked consoles because of how much of a Wild West it feels, so many games left to discover. I haven't checked out OG Xbox emulation yet but I hope it keeps making good progress, recently I heard news that a team was able to rescue dead Xbox Live games from the dead and I respect those people so much, preserving games to the best of their ability while all I can do is watch and hope they succeed.
And it's not like I'm even a posh gentleman of refined gaming tastes either, my favourite game of 2020 was actually the infamous Cyberpunk 2077 and despite the bugs, I was immensely invested in the world and characters, the combat was fun and I was so happy to see that someone finally picked up where Soldier of Fortune 1 & 2 left off with their dismemberment mechanics, because of that combat felt _satisfying_ and it's something no other recent FPS game was really doing for me, not even Doom Eternal allowed you to blow a demon's arm or leg off, there was visible damage but no actual dismemberment! The music is excellent and walking around Night City on foot I got the same feel I have when I go take a long walk around my town, not because I live in a Cyberpunk city full of skyscrapers, but because it nailed the feeling of just taking in the sights, other people walking around, watching out for traffic before crossing the streets, looking at distant landmarks, it felt more immersive than any other open world game I played before.
Anyway, this wall of text has been going on for long enough, it's just that I'm so disappointed in the gaming industry right now, I'm _tired_ of all that bullshit, so I needed to get those feelings off my chest.
TL;DR - Gaming was full of wonderful and risky projects, the sixth generation of consoles was the best, more effort was put into art direction in older games (although there are exceptions, I'm aware of that), modern AAA titles cost way too much to make because of shiny hi-poly graphics and that, along with overly greedy publishers, are slowly choking the industry to death.
- Signed,
Marcello Antony Soares Silva.
41 years old... you are a preacher, honesty telling it how it was, for all of us growing up in the magical analog age... Love you, brother. ❤ Thank you for sharing so authentically. Your channel is priceless. 🙏
We got our first SNES, after having an NES and Atari 2600.
The first game we played was Super Mario World, and I will always remember the first time I heard the echo when Mario jumped while inside a cave.
It was SOOOO cool!
This channel helps me feel connected to a time I never experienced. You do a really good job of conveying the wonder and excitement of gaming in the early days. I’m glad I got to experience most of the 90s at least!
This feels like an epic poem, a treatise on the beauty of what console gaming was. Absolutely brilliant work on capturing these feelings.
18:57 and on speaks directly for me as well SLX. We're about the same age and I'm ever so grateful for growing up during those amazing years. I truly consider them the golden years of video games (80's, 90's and early 00's)
I have always felt the same about the 6th gen being the last generation that was truly exciting. Every console of every generation up to that point seemed to have it's own identity. I remember getting the PS3 and once the wow factor of the latest graphics wore off, its primary use was a blu-ray disc player.
Yeah that certainly was the hey day of gaming back then. Glad I was there too man
Now the excitement of a new console is nonexistent generation for me.
It’s really sad we’ll never see another major technological leap again. It all just feels incremental from here on after the 360/PS3 generation.
I think the last gen that felt like a huge leap was the 7th gen with the introduction of "hd" graphics, the normalization of wide screen and the graphics technology. From the 7th gen forward the it feel like a smooth transition rather than leaps
I got my 2600 in '82. I was 7. I couldn't get an NES till '89. I feel your passion and excitement! We are the same age, we were so lucky to experience it from the beginning.
My first console was the Magnovox odyssey II which was crappy competition to the atari 2600. The jump from 8 bit nintendo to 16 bit was awe inspiring to me. Strider, Thunder Force III, and MUSHA on the Sega Genesis blew my mind at the early days. When the SNES came out, I was yet again awe struck at the fantastic software. Super mario world, super metroid, donkey kong country, secrete of mana, LOZ link to the past, castlevania IV, starfox, contra III, actraiser, street fighter II everything, super mario kart....and so much more. To me the jump to 32 bit was the largest. I agree that the 3D graphics did not age well but good gameplay is good forever. To me, the PS2 (probably my favorite console of all time) was historic and a incredible machine that any self respecting gamer owned at the time. While I do not own any modern current consoles, I do have a powerful PC. Great video friend.
Honestly, the 6th generation really was the last generation I was truly excited for and I actually found to be completely and thoroughly satisfying.
In the last two to three generations it's all been downhill. It's not all bad don't get me wrong but it's nothing as groundbreaking or as exceptional as the consoles that launched between late 99 and 2002. That was the last time I truly truly felt blown away.
This wild ride aint over yet. The new generation of Hologram game consoles is coming soon. And we will see entire new genre's of games that utilize the technology. It will be the biggest leap we ever saw.
Man, Pilotwings, I sunk so much time into that game as a schoolkid. Loved it from the beginning. So many games from that era still hold up on multiple systems, it's no accident that the 16 bit era is remembered so fondly. Some very well crafted games came out from that point, more sophisticated than what had come out before.
In the past I commented that I thought you were making the best Sega content on RUclips. I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to take that back.
I think you're making the best gaming content on RUclips.
For me the jump from 5th gen to 6th gen was the most significant
Having mgs2 as my first ps2 game was life changing
Same here. The Dreamcast was the last console that truly kept that feeling alive. To some extent, the original Xbox did it, too, but much less. It was the 360 where things really started to feel incremental.
Nice video
N64. Will never forget it. Got it for Christmas as a young teen and my god I was excited.
Then when I got older I bought a PS2. Gran Turismo blew my mind.
You always come up with the most interesting topics. I only had a Master System, Mega Drive and Playstation growing up so this kind of perspective from having the wider range of consoles from each generation is really cool.
I don't think we will ever see technological jumps as big as the 8, 16, and 32 bit generations ever again.
Not as quickly as we saw with those that's for sure. Plus most of the kids in gaming nowadays have no concept.
Now you can play games on a phone that you never could have dreamed of playing on the go even ten years ago.
SLX, we both had similar journies! Had the 3do, Saturn, even NeoGeo MVS. When I got an import PSX, everyone wanted to come over and play it!
Sega Lord X with another banger vid. Got me all in the feels. It was a special time and era. We are lucky to have experienced it.
Awesome video! Anyone born in the mid-to-late seventies (as I was) knows exactly what you felt in each of these moments. Every few years we had an experience akin to walkiing into Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz.
I wasn't even gonna watch this video because the title "The Excitement of a New Console Generation" made me think you were gonna talk about the current "9th" gen, but then I realized it would probably be about the classic ones. The video title misled me at first but I don't know else how you could have titled it.
Well said SLX. Gen 4, 5, and 6 was a magical time for home gaming. Like you, I'm also glad I experienced it 1st hand. I think it will be looked back on as the Golden Era of Gaming. Another great video. Thanks man.
A nearly identical and fantastic walk through of my own past. Don't forget the legendary Neo Geo and the longing of owning one. Always seeing the ads and knowing it was soo out of reach.
All that evolution was truly a sight to behold.
The two decades between 1980 and 2000 is basically where all the action took place. Practically every genre, every video game convention, everything that today's games are based on was invented during that time, and we'll never see the likes of it again. The explosion of progress was very exciting to witness, but we are in the mature phase now and that has some advantages too. There was a time when 2D games almost died out for a while, everyone was so focused on staying at the cutting edge of technology. But everything exists side-by-side now, and previously abandoned genres have been revived.
The 16 bit times are fondly remembered today. The fact that the indie game developers are making games with 16-bit and even 8-bit influence is the proof of it.
Great video! I too grew up in this generation. And where as I’m still an avid gamer today (tons of amazing titles still being produced constantly) the 1980’s and early 90’s was my favorite and most influential era to me! It truly was a special time of constantly evolving hardware. Something younger / modern gamers will never experience like we did…
The 90's was a great time to be a gamer. The difference of games from the start of the 1990's to 1998/1999 was *huge*
I was genuinely hyped for the dreamcast release, it still makes me sad that sega discontinued it wayyyyy too soon.
To think what could've been 😢
Sega do not make it easy to be a fan.
My brother and I made a variety of audible excited expressions when we first booted up the PS1 and played Tekken. The graphical leap was surreal.
I too was first exposed to the Atari 2600, though technically you can put the blame on my dad's Pinball mania. Dude's been collecting probably since shortly after you were born, he's got a couple thousand of em. And that hobby brings with it lots of exposure to those machines... and access to everything else at the arcade. One of his friends was the owner of a little place that used to be called New England Amusement I believe, maybe it was called New Milford Amusement more likely, easily the biggest thing like it in CT if not some other states nearby. When they were shmoozing after hours making deals I was given free play on whatever machines I wanted. That was so sick, so much SF2, MK2, Time Crisis, Area 51, all the shmups, really anything from the early-mid 90s. Unfortunately that guy passed away maybe like 2 months ago, but he hasn't run NMA in ages. It's been multiple different establishments since the early 00s.
And at one point when I was a kid we had a Goonies 2 I think arcade cabinet in the garage. Shame he hasn't got anything like that since.
Gen 6 was the last great jump for console technology. Everything has just been so gradual afterwards. We're all still playing glorified PS4 titles now almost three years into the PS5, ya know? That's an entire decade with only a very fine incremental improvement in graphics and system architecture, but virtually no new gameplay designs or meaningful innovations. After more than four decades of gaming, it's no wonder that despite owning current and last-gen systems, I likewise still spend more time playing on and collecting for 8, 16, and 32-bit games, myself, too. So I totally feel ya, Sega Lord.
I've been digging through your archives and I have to say I've noticed you've really improved your word variety and choice in newer videos. Nice work!
Sonic impressed me graphically when it was released on the Genesis. The Dreamcast was what really blew me away. I didn't think anything could top my N64.
I remembered going from Madden 97 to Madden 99-2000, then Madden 2000 to NFL 2K, then NFL 2K to Madden 2001, along with Smash Bros 64 to Melee. Mind was permanently blown.
I can’t quite put my finger on it. But you’re one of my favorite RUclipsrs. Great script, good voice tone and always something that interests me.
Born in 1975 this narration was a carbon copy of my experiences. What made that time special is each console had its own identity which has been lacking for the past 20 years. That was especially prominent in the 16 bit gen. What we get now is console PC's. Feel fortunate to have experienced that period in time.
Nintendo Consoles have had their own identities for the past 20 Years. GameCube was a nice compact console with plenty of fun for the whole family. Wii was a Bigger thinner GameCube with motion Controls. Wii U while disappointing had its Gamepad gimmick, & compare Switch to the competitors as well. Sony & Microsoft tend to go in that Powerful PC direction, Nintendo does their own thing with their IPs & experiments the most with hardware. Nintendo & Sega made hardware that hit different remember the VMUs or GameBoy/GBA connection for N64 & GameCube?
I have been playing for 40 years, in my opinion the biggest "jumps" were with the transition from 8 bits to 16 bits (from Commodore 64 to Amiga, for example) and from 16 bits to 32 bits (from Super Famicom/Megadrive to Playstation/Saturn). Huge progress has been seen since then, but I have never again encountered that WOW effect.
My favorite moment playing video games as a kid occured shortly after I got my SNES. I managed to reach the end of Super Mario World, and in the final moments I went toe to toe with Bowser. After a few hits he receded back into the background, and then swept toward the screen. I was shocked, and jumped back from the TV. I had heard about Mode 7 effects on the Super Nintendo, but that was my first time experiencing them. After that I giggled with glee and went on to finish the fight. It was a moment I will never forget.
I went from Sega master system to MegaDrive to Snes to PS1 to PS2 in the space of seven years.
My condolences to you and your family if they were the ones to buy you the 3DO.
My dad paid $700 smackeroonies, a year later I deeply regretted it seeing the Sega Saturn and especially the Sony PlayStation, had to mow so many lawns as an 11 yo for the Saturn and PS1.
I paid for my 3DO and loved it. Not kidding.
@@SegaLordX
Truly dedicated gamer thru n thru!
I still have mine as well, just that price, adjusted for inflation about $1600 that was the end of my free ride lol, and those Saturn and ps1 games next to mad dog mcree made me a lil regretful, but it does have spot in my heart.
So I have a "Generation regret" I was very young when the 2600 came out, and I went from 2600 to 7800 to NES, and when the NES came out I was 9, so still very young. I didn't appreciate the Atari 5200 until much later in my life in my late 20's, and the jump in quality from the 2600 to the 5200 is just astounding, and I had I been older back then it may have been something I could have witnessed in real time, the 5200 is one of my favorite classic consoles of all time that I would have loved to have experienced back when it was new.
I also started out on the 2600. My cousin got an NES, so he gave his Atari to my mom along with a collection of games. Then my mom one-upped him and got a SNES when it came out. I don't exactly remember when we got a Sega Genesis because we kept switching between the two.
As usual lots of great points SLX. The 6th Generation really was the end of those great leaps. The 90's was really the wild west of gaming, an age we'll never see again. When companies tried exciting new things to carve out a niche
While I have liked a lot of consoles since the Dreamcast, I feel like it’s the last console that I loved! Thanks for another great episode!
Great video. It was interesting to hear the perspective of someone a little older, having grown up during the psx-ps3 era
Thanks for the nostalgia my dude... one of my favorite vids
The Dreamcast had a major impact on me and while I’ve been chasing that excitement ever since, and games are better in 2023 than ever before, but it’s never been the same. The DC was magic to me.
I remember seeing the Dreamcast running for the first time in a store display unit. My first thought was, "Developers may not have all the power they want, but they now have all the power they NEED." I bought it on day one without a second thought. I never regret it.
Of course, nothing compares to seeing Daytona USA in the arcades. That was jaw dropping. You had to be there to understand how big a deal that was in the day!
That cockpit camera mode. There was just nothing like it. In the full sit-down cabinet with the chair that made you feel like you were banking with the car in the turn, it was magic.
You articulated a statement i’ve had many times. The jumps from console generation stopped being huge for me probably when we moved from PS2 to PS3. Not saying I didn’t notice improvements, but they started being more subtle, less hugely impressive.
I just want to say I’m really digging your channel and quality content. My childhood was so similar to yours it’s extremely nostalgic. Thanks for all your hard work 👍👍
I couldn’t agree more about the excitement between each generation. 6th gen was the last big upgrade before it plateaued. I was still a kid during 4th and 5th gen and though I enjoyed them so much, you had a deeper investment in that world at the time and it’s cool to here about the experiences you had
I am a couple of years older than you and my own gaming journey is similar but coming from UK personal computers were dominant during NES is time. Still my gaming is very much 2nd to 6th Generation and the wonder at the improvements in hardware and gaming over the approximately 23 year period (1980-2003) was just extraordinary and I LOVED reliving it in your video. Thank you;-)
When my brother brought home his first NES, I couldn't see it ('cause I was pretending to be ill and had to keep up the pretense), but I could hear it, and I couldn't believe my ears. It sounded like he had brought home an arcade! I couldn't believe how immersive NES games were as a result
My dad was literally in the hospital and I drove 45 miles to go buy a Dreamcast instead of seeing him. Got marvel vs capcom and sonic adventure!!!! Good call on my part
So feel you in this video. I never forget how blown away i was first playing the master system. Then the massive rush of the megadrive and super Nintendo.
i switched to pc after the ps2 x box game cube era but i do own a wii and ps3 it was a great time to be a console gamer