Top ten reasons why this was the best generation ever.

Next Gen is almost here but before we move on to the next one lets recap gaming's awesome accomplishments this gen. This is the stuff that made MS, Sony and Nintendo who they are today.
In no particular order.

1. In the beginning there was light...a red light. Remember when the Xbox 360 came out? Yeah.. that. It was a mess, the red ring of death was like a plague killing gamer's consoles like mike tyson murdered no-name boxers in the ring. And lets not even get into the scratched disks and YLOD thing. What happened? Greatly better designed consoles, new xbox machines look downright sexy nowadays, are greatly reliable and console manufacturer's go to greater lengths than before to keep you playing on their machines.

2. Xbox Live shows how you really make an online service. Let's face it guys, when xbox live came out it changed the gaming landscape, no gaming service out there made you feel as connected before Live did. PSN is a beast of a service "especially PS+" because of Xbox live. Xbox came with a mic, "the most basic and one of the most meaningful things" that would connect you to gamers in every game you played online. Thanks Microsoft!

3. Sony shows the world what next gen hardware needs to have. HDMI connectivity? Check. Wi-fi? Check. Blu-Ray? Yup that one too. The Microsoft Team just had to include some of this stuff later with add-ons but seriously... just add that in the system dude. And they did.

4. Nintendo brought in the whole family to play with you. Yup, you can say you hate casual games a thousand times but really, how could you hate seeing the whole family go crazy dancing on your living room having fun with those crazy games. Almost my whole block came home to shake it when I got a kinect. Nintendo started this trend.

5.The PC is Dead!!! The PC is Dead!!! The PC is....ouch, no wait, it's not dead. PC got back on his feet and now is back on the streets after taking 2 bullets in the chest and is out for revenge, thanks in part because of great services like STEAM. Who would of thought a no-brainer idea like downloading your games through your own PC which can download stuff would work. Go figure.

6. Call of Duty breaks worldwide sales records left and right. Possibly up and down too. Gaming's such a niche hobby.. NOT! Sequel after sequel sales get owned and gamers are happy. The movie industry gets showed who's the new kid in town (at least for a bit) when this tittle drops. Haters are gonna hate (that's what they do though right?) but most COD heads just want to play more Call of Duty duH!!

7. Indie Games!!!! Xbox live Arcade and now PSN have benefited from great relationships with indie devs. Such Gems like Braid and Journey are some of the most memorable in a long time of gaming.

8. Downloadble Content. Some of the most awesome stuff played out there didn't even come in the game you bought, that's crazy. Now of course there are a few knucklehead companies out there who can't get this right to save their own lives, but for the one's that do we got some awesome gameplay out of it at a reasonable price.

9. Mobile Gaming survives mobile phones. The ds shattered sales records. The PSP? Survived being the most hacked system ever and sold like what 70 million? Yup. The 3ds is kicking but right now and the PS Vita is coming back around because well... lets be honest, the thing is just the best gaming portable ever made. Period. Keyboard critics go type your hearts out right now.. go ahead.. start with the no-games stint, that one's always a laugh for vita owners.

10. This was the best generation because you most likely have like the biggest backlog of freaking games you've ever had in you whole life that you haven't even STARTED playing. There are so many good games on so many consoles with so much content that this gen feels like arriving at a party as a guy and there is a 20 girls for each guy that comes in. And they all wanna dance. I wonder wtf we complain about most of the time. Some people will say there isn't much to play right now but really, they are just the type of idiots you can place in the middle the most awesome place in the coolest city and say shit like: "There's nothing to do here".

We gamers have survived, changed, argued and most importantly played a generation of gaming that has defined what gaming will be like for a long time. Now put on that red banana on your forehead son because the next one will be a war, lets hope our wallets survive.

[SilentNegotiator]

I don't get #1. How is that a good thing? They messed up the first couple dozen million 360s and then created what they should have made in the first place.

[admiralvic]

I agree, #1 is actually quite the oxymoron. Especially since companies constantly redesign systems / machines, regardless of how well they may or may not work. Even then the look is quite relative, since I always thought the pointless media dock on the PS3 was cool.

[IcyEyes]

I dont want to spent my time to make a list of why this is the best generation EVER.

Im not interested in the mobile game and CoD #1256

Look at the all PC game we got in the last 7 years,
all awesome PS3 exclusive games, the xbox360's online and the (few tbh) awesome games on Wii and the motion control.

Sure, all the previous generation have incredible gems, but this one is just ... awesome !

I want to say thanks to the western developers because they raise a LOT the bar in this generation with a massive presence and incredible games.

*an happy gamer*

[FamilyGuy]

#1 should have been Free, downloadable demos.

It was the first, most blaringly awesome thing I noticed when I first brought a PS3 home. Having access to hundreds and then thousands of game samples without having to pay a dime. No more subscriptions to the Official Playstation Magazine just to get that demo disc.

This reason alone caused that back catalogue issue you later mentioned. Test more games, like more, know what to buy because of the demos, end up buying more games than you had time to play.

DLC was good at first but it's turned sour for me, I want complete games, no rushed buggy games and games with content cut just so it could be sold separately a week or a month after the game released.

Aside from dlc and a dependency on patches it has been a great generation, an easy contender for being called "the best".

[-Gespenst-]

You're just embracing the corporate dilution of gaming in #6 and #9 (the part about mobile phone gaming). The success of CoD is nothing to be happy about.

Downloadable content is by and large just another of those things that game companies make us think we want and need, but we don't, they're just a sly grab at extra revenue.

Definitely had more of backlog on previous generation consoles. The Ps1 had 2,418 games, and the Ps2 had 3,857 games. The ps3 currently has 772 games and is coming to a close. The Xbox has 952 games and is also nearing the end of it's "life-cycle" (A nonsense business term.) Also there were a lot more interesting, unique, and idiosyncratic games on those previous consoles. Most current-gen games have just been big graphics showcases.

#2 and #3 again are sort of things that the big companies have made us think we want and need, but we easily could have done without them.

[admiralvic]

Honestly speaking, even as a joke this article is pretty terrible.

1) would happen regardless. (not like we saw a redesigned Xbox till well after the problems)
2) Xbox live came out last generation and I am somewhat sure (forgive me it's been like 10 years) it came with an extremely basic headset.
3) This can be said of the last like 3 generations. When the Saturn / PS1 were out, they were able to play CD's, which was all you needed then. After that the PS2 (I believe xbox too, again, been a while) was able to play DVD's, which were top of the line then. "this" generation you can use HDMI / Bluray, which is currently top of the line. This is nothing new and no doubt the next big thing will be implemented in the next generation (or next next)
4) How many families are actually like that? Most adults I know with a Wii use it almost exclusively for things like bowling...
5) PC was never dead, people just complained it was less relevant. With this being said, Steam doesn't make the PC more relevant, just offers people great deals and in turn gets more people to play PC side.
6) This has lead to the homogenization of the FPS genre, which is far from a good thing.
7) Indie games existed prior and were always there on the PC. Nothing new to this generation, just another platform to play them on.
8) DLC started last generation and quickly moved from a cool concept to a greedy after thought. It's hard to believe at the START of this generation we would have to ask if something has DLC, where as we now just assume it does.
9) Again, this is a relative statement and really shows how stupid this article / person is (depending on how seriously we should take it). While I won't get into a long debate about other cool portable systems that flopped, the successor to the Vita will no doubt take this title, much like the successor to that and so on and so forth. Hard to really praise something that will ultimately go to the newest tech.
10) I don't see why this is a point, since you can easily get older generation titles for next to nothing. I believe I've seen Gamestop do 3 for $10 on GC / PS2 titles, much like you can get cartages for next to nothing too. Ultimately this is a choice, over a unique aspect.

[zerocrossing]

You kinda shot your whole argument in the foot with #1. The fact that RROD or YLOD was even a thing already proves that this wasn't the best gen ever...

[Garrison]

I don't view my list as an "argument" at all. I'm sort of a positive person so my view on events can be a little different on certain things. Not that I view myself as the "definitive" person on the subject, it's just something I have against that word. =)

We as gamers are used to amazing reliability from our consoles right from the get go. Other generations of consoles have introduced systems which due to their incredible reliability, didn't need any revisions at all. And that was completely fine back then of course, but not by today's standards. Even if there wasn't any issue with them, there will be always console revisions more frequently from now on forward. It's just how technology works nowadays and gaming systems cannot just take a back seat because it's not the end of the generation yet.
The fact that this generation had that huge problems early on "created" a pressing need for console makers to rethink their console designs to provide gamers with the absolute best they can give you right now instead of just saying "we will just wait till the console cycle ends and try again" like before.

Back in every era before this one all you would of gotten was a smaller more affordable version of the same system you got maybe like 4 years into the cycle, nowadays you get systems with more hdd space, better builds and features you would of needed to purchase as add-ons for already included.
RROD, YLOD, 599 and some healthy competition (#3) made the hard blows that sony and ms needed to get back on the ring and do their best.

[zerocrossing]

The severe lack of reliability of the PS3 and 360, the gradual downfall of great devs such as Capcom and Squenix, not to mention the diminishing creativity in most devs that came about this passing gen, all contribute greatly to why I believe it is one of the worst generations for gaming.

[TheFirstClassic]

Having unreliable consoles at launch is not a positive at all. Our first model consoles broke so now we have to buy new ones. Um... yay? Innovation in games is at an all time low, and there are more copycat games than ever. In my opinion the 5th gen was the best, entire genres were invented or recreated, games like Ocarina of Time, Mario 64, Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Goldeneye, and more completely changed gaming.

Dlc is more of a negative if you ask me.

And sure Nintendo got the whole family to play with you, but at what price? Less Nintendo core games, plus most of ur family members abandoned the wii not long after they got it. That's been my experience at least, everyone was all in to it for a few seconds then just dropped it. Same thing with kinect.

Also I don't agree with number 10. You can say that about other gens, especially the ps2, so many classics on that system alone.

I just don't feel like this gen has done enough to be named best gen of all time, really seems like a stretch.

[Garrison]

What they created in the first place was a HDMI-less, no wireless having 20 gig only machine that played games and looked like crap. You wanted to stay with that for 6 years your welcome to it, but MS learned from it, made awesome improvements, more reliable machines because it all started with the failures.

Ocarina of Time? My favorite game ever. Beat it in a week.
Mario 64? Awesomeness. One week play.
Metal Gear solid? The best metal gear ever in my opinion. Beat it in 3 days.

Play skyrim and get everything on that one. It has more content than almost the whole list you put together and costed just 10 bucks more than one of those games. Everyone I know has a massive backlog of games right now not because of how many actual physical boxes are out right now but because how much content there is to play. Even single player games are bursting with content these days.

So many people left the wii sure enough but the wii made them "gamers", maybe they won't pick up another wii game but they will still play on their phones, facebook and tablets. The wii gave them a new outlook on games. Nintendo core games never "went" anywhere, they are still here? What game went away?

I work in a mall right in front of the MS store and as usual they got kinect right there making crowds all the time. Kinect is not going anywhere.

[TheFirstClassic]

"What they created in the first place was a HDMI-less, no wireless having 20 gig only machine that played games and looked like crap. You wanted to stay with that for 6 years your welcome to it, but MS learned from it, made awesome improvements, more reliable machines because it all started with the failures."

I still fail to see how correcting a mistake is a plus. If it was a mistake, they shouldn't have done it in the first place, plain and simple.

"Ocarina of Time? My favorite game ever. Beat it in a week.
Mario 64? Awesomeness. One week play.
Metal Gear solid? The best metal gear ever in my opinion. Beat it in 3 days.

Play skyrim and get everything on that one. It has more content than almost the whole list you put together and costed just 10 bucks more than one of those games."

Hmm. You might have a point on this one, some games are more massive, but I say it's too close too call one way or the other. There are less games this gen, and also some games have gotten shorter. Games are also often more linear and cinematic focused than they ever have been, which decreases replayability. Your point in the blog made it seem like you thought the reason backlogs may be bigger was because there are more games to play this gen, which isn't the case.

"So many people left the wii sure enough but the wii made them 'gamers', maybe they won't pick up another wii game but they will still play on their phones, facebook and tablets. The wii gave them a new outlook on games. Nintendo core games never 'went' anywhere, they are still here? What game went away?"

Please do not put words in my mouth, where in my comment do I say that Nintendo core games "went" somewhere? I said it resulted in "less" core games. The muscle Nintendo could have put into making more core games went into casual games which ended up being largely ignored.

"I work in a mall right in front of the MS store and as usual they got kinect right there making crowds all the time. Kinect is not going anywhere."

Give it a couple of years. It was the same way with the wii, drastically high sales at first, then it fell by the wayside. It's just a fad. Unless they start putting out some actual revolutionary and interesting games for kinect, it is not here to stay.

Let me sum it up this way. This gen just isn't good enough to pass up the 5th because of its lack of innovation. The 5th gen made the jump to 3d graphics, along with analog sticks, more controller ports for party games, insanely innovative and revolutionary games, a new focus on story telling and cinematics in gameplay. This gen just can't beat the 5th gen in terms of accomplishments.

[SonyPS4]

Nah. 6th gen (Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, and GameCube) was the best generation of all time. This gen doesn't hold a candle to last gen. Not that this was the worst gen but definitely not the best.

[Asuka]

*no decent RE
*no decent FF
*no KH
*no timesplitters4
*no battlefront 3
*no decent socom
*the "cod"ification of games

[chadboban]

*no decent RE
Revelations was pretty good. Other than that, yeah I agree.
*no decent FF
Agreed.
*no KH
Sure, just not on consoles, we got Birth By Sleep on PSP and I really enjoyed it, there is also Dream Drop Distance as well, although I haven't played it as yet(trying to clear my massive backlog at the moment). No KH3 would've been a better complaint.
*no timesplitters4
*no battlefront 3
Don't remind me :( I loved the previous entries in those series.
*no decent socom
Can't comment, never really been into that series
*the "cod"ification of games
Agreed

[Asuka]

yeah i agree with you. no kh3 would be a better argument. didnt think that one through enough :P

[TuxedoMoon]

I don't think that this is the best generation at all. At the start, M$ came out with a faulty system. The ps3 was super expensive and the wii "abandoned" it's core audience in favor of bringing in casual gamers and expanding the market even more.

Xbox live isn't as secure as people make it to be. It can get hacked just as bad as Sony, not to mention all the reports of people hacking Xbox live accounts. No where on the internet is completely safe. I do think that XBL is a rip off since you're basically paying to use the internet again.

DLC is a cool idea. I like being able to expand my game in the form of Expansions. Downloadable content quickly became Disc Locked Content thanks to companies like Capcom, selling you unlock codes for things you technically already have. DLC, imo, isn't optional in a lot of games. If I want a certain costume, I HAVE to pay for it. I can't simply play the game and unlock it like I did in the prior generation. I think the only game That did that was Soul Calibur 4 with its costumes. Either unlock it or pay money to unlock all the costume parts. I prefer Pay or Play to unlock costumes and characters rather than having to pay. It's just bull crap that I miss out on costumes because I didn't pre-order at Walmart or Best buy too. What happened to getting a complete game? Asura's Wrath and FF13-2 were good games IMO, but both games sold their endings. WHY do I have to pay money to finish the game's story to its end? Why chop off and sell the ending?!

This generation made me question if I want to be called a gamer. The gaming community is pretty rude. The fighting game community being the worse I've run into. The follow up to them are the jocks. The one that only play violent games and disregard anything else that isn't COD or has guns. Am I the only one who thinks that it's terrible seeing kids growing up with heroes like the Generic American Military soldier from COD?

I don't believe that games cause violence, but I do believe that games (and gamers) influence people enough to shape their personalities in some way. In order for a kid to feel like an adult when playing COD, they curse or act stupid...just like the seniors they're playing COD with. The stupidity sort of spreads like that. It suddenly becomes cool to pick on girl gamers, telling them to go to the kitchen or be racist. Thankfully this isn't an epidemic (yet).

Gamers against gamers is another issue. I wrote about this a while ago, but Gamers tend to put down other games based on their own gaming morals. For example, if you don't play COD, you're not a REAL gamer. If you haven't played Megaman, you're not a REAL gamer. It's this that further divides gamers as a whole. Because everyone has their own definition of what a REAL gamer is, no one is a real gamer at all.

This generation has a bunch of great games. I just don't think that those great games wash away all the crap that this generation generated. Faulty systems and incomplete games, shady business practices, gamers becoming more snobby and divided, studios closing all over the place, megaman getting killed by off Capcom...It's probably the worse generation I've experienced so far.

[TheFirstClassic]

Well said. The gaming community really has gone to crap. While playing games online last gen, I ran into a lot less trolls and people who were just playing to piss people off. While playing ps All Stars, I've run into so many people who start yelling at me that I suck before the game even starts. It's insane.