The 10 Most Important Gaming Consoles In History

Gaming consoles like the NES and Wii completely changed the industry, and video game history would look very different if they were never created.

[zaanan]

Calls the OG Xbox a “smash hit” and leaves out the PS2. This list is shit.

[darthv72]

Making online play and having a hdd is a bigger deal than being a DVD player. We still play online to this day. Can't exactly say the same about people watching DVD or even blurays. I still do... but i know Im in the minority now.

[TheEnigma313]

Nah you're wrong. Dvd was a huge deal at the time. Ps2 was the cheapest dvd player in the market at the time. Dreamcast already had online play, ms just polished it. This is the reason ps2 sold like 4 times the og xbox. OG xbox is still important to gaming though.

[darthv72]

@nigma... the key words in your comment are "at the time". Im talking about since then. We still play online and pretty much all game systems have some form of internal storage. Even Sony tried to push for hdd and online with the PS2, but the issue was after the fact. By making it an afterthought, it doesnt get used by the masses. Every person who bought the og xbox used the hdd and a pretty sizable amount likely used the online, if not then they did LAN play. It was a big influence on the 'present' of gaming.

[Vits]

Yeah, not a bad list.

But 3DO should be there for the huge impact that it had on the license agreements between publishers and console manufacturers. A big part of the "Nintendo exodus" was only possible because it opened the door for the later, much more competent, devices like the PS1 to steal games and publishers.

The original Xbox being listed is also odd. I could see an argument that it popularized online play on consoles, but even that is a bit of a stretch. So is the Xbox Series and PS5 inclusion. They really didn't bring anything other than the expected to the table. Their big claim to fame is being very good value-oriented devices, something that was lost in the previous gen.

Also super weird that PC is included in a "console" list. Even more because mobile is not and if the argument is only the impact that PC has done to the "console wars" then mobile should also be there.

[rlow1]

I agree with you about PC which shouldn’t be on a console list. But I disagree about og Xbox. It was the first console with a built in broadband Jack. Back when it launched, broadband penetration was a “niche” market at the time. It helped to accelerate the adoption rate of broadband. Plus, Xbox live came out and that introduced console players to online multiplayer. Sony would launch its next console, “ps3” with both features added to the console. So it impacted, by helping to drive broadband, competition and gave console players a true multiplayer experience on a console.
So it deserves to be on the list as well as the PS2 that drove the adoption of dvds and helped to bring in people that wouldn’t have ever invested in a console.