/vr/ - Retro Games

>>8524634
I'm guessing it was millennials who started gaming with Nintendo that came up with that generation numbering system. Basically all the pre-NES are lumped into two categories, Pong-clones in Generation 1 and everything else between Atari 2600 and the NES in Generation 2, including the 5200, a system that was supposed to succeed the 2600. It's only when Nintendo puts out a new console that the generation are categorized by what consoles are available at the time, yet Nintendo fans become pissy when you point that the Wii was behind the PS3 and Xbox 360 in terms of hardware powers or that Nintendo Switch is just a do-over of the Wii U.

2nd Gen has most soul

>>4700505
It was released before 2000, and "generations" are not a very accurate description in the first place.

Will you save the Atari 2600 which has the largest library and the most homebrew but the graphics and sound are painfully bad?
Will you save the Intellivision which has the most innovative games including the first console real time strategy but the video is a jerky 20fps?
Will you save the Magnavox Odyssey2 whose small library is comprised of higher quality versions of 2600 games but that's all it has?
Will you save the Bally Astrocade or Emerson Arcadia 2001 which are like the Odyssey2 but worse controllers and even harder to find games for?
Will you save the Atari 5200 which has some neat and advanced games from the Atari microcomputer line but has crippled controllers that need to be busted open and cleaned every two weeks in order for any button to work?
Will you save the Fairchild Channel F which hosts the most ancient console games in existance and has an innovative controller but good luck finding any of its miniscule library?
Will you save the Colecovision which is the most advanced tech here (nearly 3rd gen) but all the games are arcade ports which are made pointless by MAME?
Will you save the Vectrex which has beautiful and unique vector graphics but is monochrome and has a very small screen?
Will you save the RCA Studio II which with no controllers and monochrome picture is without doubt the shittiest console, not just 2nd gen but perhaps of all time. However, stoic play of this shitbox will have the effect of both hardening your resolve and making even mediocre shovelware games on other platforms feel amazing.
Will you save one of the APF Imagination Machine/1292 AVPS/Interton VC4000/Epoch Cassette Vision/Vtech Creativision, consoles so obscure and foreign that no one ever owned them which give maximal hipster cred but are not capable of doing much beyond taking up shelf space and will never in 100 years have an everdrive made for them?

(If you choose the Coleco or Intelli you may not use their 2600 bootleg adapters)

>>4332002
There's a little bit of interest in "home computer" style consoles like C64, but in general that first and second generation of consoles was so rudimentary and experimental as to not have much worth discussing today. Pitfall, your image, is probably the most advanced widely distributed Atari 2600 game, and even it is extremely simplistic compared to NES games and beyond.
I think this era of gaming is relevant mostly as for historical context, but video games as a medium weren't developed enough to leave major lasting impressions until slightly later.
Something like Colecovision is right on the edge though--see my image. If you are interested in that stuff you will probably have the best luck drumming up conversation during European hours around here.

>>3835563
That's because nobody really numbered console generations until last decade. When someone made a new machine, they simply marketed against what already existed.

Even now, the only people who care about console generations are fanboys and Wikipedians.

>>3782364
>Friendly neighborhood reminder that no one ever numbered any generations until the mid 2000s.
Wikipedia were the ones who started this shit since their editors were gullible enough to buy into the bits meme that was propagated throughout the 90s by console manufacturers.

Instead of admitting they fucked up and just classify things by their launch date or decade, the Wikipedians choose an asinine categorization method to arbitrarily shoehorn different consoles that were mere often than not released years apart. And then they betray their lack of interest on pre-NES consoles by classifying everything that wasn't a Pong machine into the 2nd gen category.

Why is the Atari 5200 considered 2nd gen when it's a successor console to the 2600?

>>3718907
>You can say it's an own gen in between.
You can say about all consoles prior to the current PS4/Xbone generation. TurboGrafx 16 was made to compete with the NES, but it ended up being matched against Genesis and Super NES and even the Genesis is a bit behind the Super NES in some aspects due to launching two years ahead. Generation cutoffs are pretty arbitrary anyway.

>>3684191
Way to completely miss my point and make a strawman out of my post, jackass. Point is that a good game is a good game, no matter the platform it came out for and the best platforms are the ones with the best libraries of games, period.

The fourth gen consoles might brought us many good games and consoles, but I don't remember the Phillips CD-i being among them, so I'm not sure why that failed edutainment machine that barely counts as a game console is on OP's image. Same thing with the 3DO and Jaguar, which were both mediocre consoles from the fifth gen.

Besides, generation dividers are arbitrary at best when it comes to a lot of the pre-PS2/Xbox consoles and even pre-NES consoles.

>>3684223
Wrong! The different media changes everything. You can't just put a Neo-Geo AES cartridge and stick it on a Neo-Geo CD and vice versa (unlike the MVS cartridges, which were compatible with the AES). A lot of games ported to the NGCD also had to be recoded to take into account the limited RAM and loading times (AOF3 comes to mind, which uses much smaller sprites than the cartridge versions). Go play Last Blade 2 on a NGCD and tell me it's the same experience as on a cartridge. Besides, NGCD has a few exclusives that were never on AES/MSV and many of the later post-2000 MVS/AES never got CD ports

You might as well argue that the GameCube and Wii are part the same console generation too. I mean you could, but prepare to deal with Nintendo fans who will insist that generations are defined by release dates and not hardware power.

>>3512548
It is in the sense that it's overly generalized pigeonholing bullshit that narrow-minded nerds created without taking into consideration various factors (e.g. processing differences, availability in certain regions, a platform's lifespan, ect).

It seems odd, but most people who are still interest in video games in their late 20s or early 30 grew up on third or fourth gen. People who were actually alive when second gen was relevant don't really care that much for the gaming industry, probably because lost interest after the gaming crash.

The fact that most so-called historians lump the 2600 and 5200 in the same generation category betrays a lack of interest in those consoles.

>>3186880
People who actually cared about Atari and other 2nd gen consoles are too old and too busy with actual responsibilities to argue with each other on Chinese image boards.