Top Video Game Consoles : Ranking the Rec Room Rulers

[Torzelbaum]

(Alternate titles: Console-ation Prizes, Heart and Console)

Here on Talking Time we like playing video games. And you can't play video games without a game playing device of some sort - like a video game console. In this mini-popularity contest we'll count down our favorite consoles.

To create this 15 TT members contributed personal ranking lists of 289 picks of 59 different video game consoles that span all 9 console generations (to date).

Here's the list of picky players:
me @Aurelia @Baudshaw @Falselogic @Issun @JBear @Johnny Unusual @Kirin @Lokii @Mogri @Purple @RT-55J @Violentvixen @WildcatJF @Yimothy

The presentation will be starting soon(ish). Keep an eye out for posts here.

 

[Falselogic]

Woo!

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Can't wait for this one!

 

[Aurelia]

Really excited to see how this turns out!

 

[Torzelbaum]

Before we proceed let's take a moment to look back at how we got here.

Games of skill (and/or chance) as an amusement were a popular part of fairs and carnivals since the 19th Century. During the Second Industrial Revolution / Technological Revolution they were combined with the new* invention of vending machines to create mechanical games in the late 19th Century. Often many different games were housed in the same place/venue - a penny arcade. As electronic circuitry and electrical devices advanced in the mid part of the 20th Century they were soon added to the mechanical games to create electro-mechanical games (like pinball). The increasing power and decreasing cost of computer circuitry combined with advances in video display technology led to the creation of arcade video games in the early 1970s. People wanting to play arcade video games at home and the widespread adoption of TVs led to the creation of home video game consoles soon after. Early versions of handheld game consoles followed a few years later. Technology and game consoles have been improving and evolving ever since then and have been part of all of our lives.

*Or old, depending on who you ask.

 

[Torzelbaum]

There are many game consoles out there and many that we voted for but not all of them made the cut. Before we get to the list proper I'd like to give some attention to a few of those entries with a series of Honorable Mentions.

Honorable Mention #1:
Double Vision - ColecoVision and Intellivision

(@Yimothy @WildcatJF @Purple )

Here we have a pair of similar 2nd generation consoles which were around in the 1980s but didn't last much longer than that. Like many consoles of that era they used ROM cartridges to store games but what really set them apart from other consoles were their controllers. In addition to direction controls the controllers also had a numeric keypad. The keys did different actions for each game and games came with a (easy to lose) plastic overlay which detailed what the # keys did in that game.

Here's who liked these visionary consoles and where they placed them on their lists:

	Place	Console
Torzelbaum	11	?vision
Yimothy	14	Intellivision
WildcatJF	20	ColecoVision
Purple	24	Intellivision

Combined Points: 75

(While making my list I had strong but vague memories of my oldest brother having one of these consoles but I couldn't remember which so I put down a vague pick of "one of them but I can't remember which". While researching the consoles I came to realize that what my brother had was a redesigned model of the Intellivision - the Intellivision II.)

 

[WildcatJF]

The Colecovision was the first console I technically had; it was actually my parents, but it was arguably my first gaming experience, so I had to include it, even if it vanished out of my life after I got my NES and it was handed off to my uncle who lost it, haha.

 

[Yimothy]

The Intellivision was not my first console, my parents got one from an op shop with a bunch of games long after its time had passed. Many of the games were opaque or underdeveloped, but I spent many hours on Astrosmash and maintain to this day that Biplanes, part of the Triple Action cartridge, is the best two player game ever made. Or it’s up there, at least.

 

[JBear]

I never owned one of these, but I did occasionally visit other kids who had these instead of an Atari (or, god help them, an NES), and it was like stepping into another world. An entertaining place to visit, but not one I'd care to live in, I think.

 

[Kirin]

I never had a chance to play with either of these, but seeing them reminds me I totally forgot to vote for a different 80s-era console I actually owned and enjoyed ‘cause I’m a big dummy. It probably got left off some of the reference list because it’s one of those machines that could be alternately positioned as an all-purpose mini-computer or a game console depending on who you were marketing to. Maybe it’ll still show up. Maybe I should message Torz to see if I can bump it into the honorable mentions, lol.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Honorable Mention #2:
Dedicated retro style home consoles

Place	Console
13	NES Classic Edition
15	TurboGrafx-16 Mini
18	Super NES Classic Edition
19	Sega Genesis Mini

Combined Points: 79

Please forgive me as I engage in some self-indulgence here. Retro style consoles are modern devices that imitate the style and design of much older consoles. Many of them are dedicated consoles which only have a preloaded set of different games. (But it is possible to work around that.)

I just think they're a neat way to get like a greatest hits/compilation album for a specific console. And also a way to get old games / an old console packaged in the latest technology. I am a bit surprised that more people didn't put them on their lists. I didn't specifically call them out in the rules but I don't think there was anything in the rules that should have caused people to exclude them.

 

[WildcatJF]

In my case, while owning all of those, I felt my vote should go to the original console.

 

[Yimothy]

I think I misunderstood the rule about being able to play more than one game as requiring that you can add games (which I know you can do against the makers’ wishes).

I don’t think I’d have voted for any anyway, but if I had it probably would have been the mega drive mini 2, with its excellent line up of slightly more obscure games.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Honorable Mention #3:
Emulator consoles

Clones have been a part of video games since the very beginning and emulation really took off in the mid-90s. Nowadays there are many options available for consoles that emulate one or more other consoles (usually ones from previous generations). A few of these (and also the concept of them) made it on to a few of your lists.

	Place	Console
Purple	11	Anbernic
Purple	12	Retron 5*
Lokii	17	Dingoo A320
Yimothy	19	handheld emulator box

Combined Points: 85

*

(or just... dedicated emulaton handhelds in general)

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Have you seen this new show? It's on Dingoo.

 

[Purple]

Hey now! What are those sensible console colors!?

 

[Torzelbaum]

Well... That's certainly an aesthetic choice.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

It is perfect colours for a 2010s era 1980s pastiche of a neon rainslicked grindhouse slasher.

 

[Patrick]

I love my TrimUI Brick. It's the only game system I've played since December.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Schrödinger's Selections #?

(@Kirin @WildcatJF)

We interrupt your regularly scheduled honorable mentions to bring you some entries that are a bit difficult to pin down. I'm not even sure what to call them - Conputers? Compsoles? What we have are a set of different devices that were all released in the late 70s/early 80s. They all sort of straddle the line between computer and console. Part of me says they lean more towards a computer (look at those keyboards!) but they all used cartridges, had games that were made exclusively for them and might have been the first device someone used for playing video games.

	Place	Device
Kirin	Forgotten 6	TI-99/4A
Jbear	15	Commodore 64
WildcatJF	19	Atari 400

I played a ton of random C64 games in my youth that I barely remember. Highlights include the Ultima series, Summer Olympics, and some game with a flying taxi.

Hey, @JBear, would you say the Commodore 64 is really neato?

[The TI-99/4A] didn't set the world on fire but had a big impact on me, with its combination of cartridge games, BASIC programming, and weird audio-tape storage system. I had several of those old "type in the program" books and put in a bunch of things from them! And while a lot of the cart games were obvious clones some of them were pretty cool.

(I think my family had a TI 99 or something like it but I can't really remember much more than that.)

 

[Torzelbaum]

Before we return to the countdown I have an announcement to make.

I will be releasing an expansion pack for this mini-popularity contest that adds another 8 items to the final list.
The final list will now consist of 24 consoles instead of 16.

Thank you for your participation, interest and posts. I'll be seeing you here in the days and weeks to come.

 

[WildcatJF]

Oh I forgot the Commodore 64, haha. I'm surprised I actually nominated the Atari 400, must have had the Mini in front of me, haha.

 

[Yimothy]

I didn’t vote for the C64 because of the “must be primarily for played games” stipulation. I’m sure the C64 was primarily used for playing games, but I think it was intended as a computer for other stuff, right?

Anyways, my grandad had one and a wide range of pirated games and I have many fond memories. This was the device that introduced me to loading screens. And cracker intro screens. To this day I’m not sure I’ve ever held a legit copy of a C64 game

 

[JBear]

It was also the device that introduced me to the idea of a pornographic video game! Our bootleg copy of "Strip Poker" loaded the most amateurish pornographic pixel art of a naked lady you've ever seen, one line of pixels at a time.

 

[Torzelbaum]

#24

Steam Deck
109 points, 4 votes
Console Champion: Mogri (#1)

Gen: 9th
Lifespan: From 2022
Media: Digital distribution​

Valve was started way back in 1996 and began by creating video games. They later branched out by creating the Steam service for digital distribution in 2003.

Valve had previously tried to enter the console hardware space with the development of the Steam Machine in the mid 2010s. The Machine was not successful but Valve found success on their next attempt with the 2022 release of the Steam Deck.

While primarily designed to be a handheld system, the Deck can also be used in a dock to work like a home console. It can play a large number of games from the Steam service (and other sources) giving it a massive library.

Here we go. Even if you're not doing any customization, this is already the portable with the biggest game library imaginable. When they announced this thing, they intimated that it would have compatibility issues with many titles. "Well," said I, "even if it plays only half of my games, it sounds great." Let me tell you: it plays darn near everything. When I saw how well the Deck plays Baldur's Gate 3 and FF7R, I was floored. I haven't completely stopped using everything else on [my] list, but the Steam Deck has certainly usurped the throne.

I have picked out a game for each [console], because I felt like it. - Baldur's Gate 3

A console that plays Steam games is basically everything I want out of life right now. I could care less about the portability most days, though.

(@Mogri @JBear @Falselogic)

 

[Baudshaw]

Perhaps anti-recency bias caused me to forget this. For most of my rankings, I looked more at historical stuff and I didn't really include consoles outside of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. I haven't gotten it though, mostly because I already have a laptop that can mostly play the Steam games I want.

 

[Falselogic]

This is on my list because I want one. I just haven't acted on the want. Part of this is Switch 2 stuff, part of it is I have half a dozen portable game consoles and still don't use them that often. So, I worry this thing will just sit around.

But, the idea of being able to play my Steam Library pretty much anywhere is a dream.

 

[Kirin]

I never had much of a Steam library because I’ve never kept Windows PCs at home (well, aside from an ancient work box from a previous job that wouldn’t run anything) and so much of Steam is Win-only. But it seems real convenient in concept!

 

[Mogri]

I never had much of a Steam library because I’ve never kept Windows PCs at home (well, aside from an ancient work box from a previous job that wouldn’t run anything) and so much of Steam is Win-only. But it seems real convenient in concept!

Steam Deck doesn't even run Windows! I think your complaint was accurate ten years ago, but they've made big strides since.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Expanding on what Mogri said : the Steam Deck uses a Linux-based OS. But it can also use Proton (or other options) as a compatibility layer to run Windows games.