WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.940 All right Anthony we have a task to get done here. Okay as noted retro game 00:00:06.940 --> 00:00:11.940 enthusiast I guess this one's gonna be a little bit heavy on the retro for me huh. 00:00:11.940 --> 00:00:18.100 Well I mean I've got mixed feelings about the Atari 2600. This thing is an 00:00:18.100 --> 00:00:23.700 important console but it also caused the video game crash because bad games and 00:00:23.700 --> 00:00:29.460 I mean I don't have any nostalgia for it so I'm just gonna put it down here. I know 00:00:29.460 --> 00:00:32.580 that's gonna rub some people the wrong way. Oh man so you're putting in F tier 00:00:32.580 --> 00:00:37.500 then. Well maybe not F tier. Okay. It's better than the Wii U was. Let's let's 00:00:37.500 --> 00:00:42.940 throw the Wii U and F tier because Nintendo tried but not very hard. The 00:00:42.940 --> 00:00:48.180 Atari 2600 it's gonna go there. It's an important console but I don't like it 00:00:48.180 --> 00:00:55.500 very much. NES also an important console in the North American region. It is 00:00:55.500 --> 00:01:02.400 credited with rekindling the gaming market. I'm gonna put it in A. Oh the 00:01:02.400 --> 00:01:07.660 reason I'm gonna put it in A is I didn't really have an NES until like way 00:01:07.660 --> 00:01:14.780 later but also like I feel like it's overrated. I do feel like the NES is 00:01:14.780 --> 00:01:19.740 overrated a little bit because the Japanese version of it the Famicom is 00:01:19.740 --> 00:01:24.220 actually a lot better. You have expansion chips and stuff like that which you just 00:01:24.260 --> 00:01:29.380 can't get with well outside of the MFCs but you can't get like expansion audio 00:01:29.380 --> 00:01:34.740 or anything like that on the North American NES. Super NES though I'll put 00:01:34.740 --> 00:01:42.100 in S tier. That's a console that I didn't really have growing up either but it 00:01:42.100 --> 00:01:49.300 also is a very important console and yeah its library is legendary. A lot of big 00:01:49.300 --> 00:01:53.500 name titles came out on that for the first time. What's your favorite? Oh man 00:01:53.500 --> 00:01:59.340 favorite... I don't know. I think my favorite SNES game was probably 00:01:59.340 --> 00:02:04.660 Seiken Densetsu 3 which was recently re-released and finally translated in 00:02:04.660 --> 00:02:10.300 the West as was it Trials of Mana? Yeah I think so. Master System is the console 00:02:10.300 --> 00:02:19.980 that I grew up with surprisingly enough. However as good as it is I recognize 00:02:20.100 --> 00:02:24.420 that it has its faults and the game library isn't super strong. Now there 00:02:24.420 --> 00:02:27.660 are some really good games on there but it's not super strong. I'm gonna put it 00:02:27.660 --> 00:02:32.940 in B. I think it deserves more credit than people give it but it's it's 00:02:32.940 --> 00:02:39.100 deservedly failed against the NES. That being said Nintendo had some hand in 00:02:39.100 --> 00:02:43.340 that. It's just a flow plane exclusive I'm not getting into that. Sega Genesis 00:02:44.300 --> 00:02:52.340 that I'm gonna put up next to the SNES. These two butted heads and they both 00:02:52.340 --> 00:02:57.700 have amazing libraries depending on what kind of games you want to play. So yeah 00:02:57.700 --> 00:03:03.420 I mean Sega Genesis I again grew up with that and yeah there's a lot of games 00:03:03.420 --> 00:03:08.700 that I feel are highly rated for good reason and underrated for no reason. 00:03:09.060 --> 00:03:14.340 Also there's a version of Duke Nukem 3D on it. Best game? Best game? My favorite 00:03:14.340 --> 00:03:19.300 game is Fantasy Star 4. It's the last of the Fantasy Star series before they did 00:03:19.300 --> 00:03:25.780 the online thing. Shining Force 2 is also really good. Thunder Force 4 is 00:03:25.780 --> 00:03:28.980 really good. I'm not sure what the best rated game would be. I want to say like 00:03:28.980 --> 00:03:33.380 Sonic 3 and Knuckles. Still a lot of consoles left here. Still a lot of consoles. Oh yeah. 00:03:33.420 --> 00:03:41.100 N64. Let's go with this. I'm gonna throw this in the B tier and I'll tell you why. 00:03:41.100 --> 00:03:48.780 N64 is a console that has a lot of great games but let's just say that it's rare 00:03:48.780 --> 00:03:53.300 for third-party titles to come out on it that are any good. The only people who 00:03:53.300 --> 00:03:57.660 put out third-party titles that were any good were rare. Factor 5 did a 00:03:57.660 --> 00:04:01.060 couple of things with the Star Wars series but yeah the N64 had kind of a 00:04:01.100 --> 00:04:06.420 limited library because of Nintendo's insistence on cartridges over CDs. 00:04:06.420 --> 00:04:11.180 Speaking of which, the PS1. This is a console that I didn't have a huge amount 00:04:11.180 --> 00:04:17.980 of experience with when I was a kid but I'm gonna throw that next to the NES. Again 00:04:17.980 --> 00:04:23.700 a lot of big titles came out on that. In fact I probably should put it in S tier 00:04:23.700 --> 00:04:26.900 but I don't have as much nostalgia for it than does I have for the other ones. 00:04:26.940 --> 00:04:32.060 PS2 though. I feel like this is when gaming really hit its stride. PS1 was kind of the 00:04:32.060 --> 00:04:36.980 ramp up but the PS2 is when things kind of really took off like a lot of major 00:04:36.980 --> 00:04:42.340 franchises became big franchises on the PS2. So I'm gonna throw this up in S tier 00:04:42.340 --> 00:04:47.180 just because. Also one of the best-selling of all time. It is one of the 00:04:47.180 --> 00:04:53.980 best-selling of all time yeah. I'm not sure if it's still the best-selling of all time. I feel like the Switch surpassed it. Probably. Yeah. Speaking of which, 00:04:54.620 --> 00:05:01.260 Switch is there. But the next one I'm gonna grab is the GameCube. It was a 00:05:01.260 --> 00:05:05.060 competitor with the PS2. Again Nintendo kind of did this thing where they did 00:05:05.060 --> 00:05:09.500 their own media and that kind of hurt them a little bit. Especially after the 00:05:09.500 --> 00:05:15.380 N64 when all the third-party developers jumped ship. And yeah that kind of hurt 00:05:15.380 --> 00:05:19.180 the library a little bit. That being said the GameCube is a really good 00:05:19.180 --> 00:05:23.540 console and it was the basis of the Wii. The Wii is basically just a GameCube 00:05:23.580 --> 00:05:29.580 with extra clock. So I'm gonna throw this in. I'm gonna throw it up next to the N64. 00:05:30.180 --> 00:05:37.060 I feel like it's just as flawed. But it has a pretty good library. The Xbox. 00:05:37.780 --> 00:05:46.340 Ooh first Microsoft. The first Microsoft console. The Xbox was a thing. This is 00:05:46.340 --> 00:05:51.980 a Pentium 3 laptop basically. I remember being super excited for this like oh 00:05:52.020 --> 00:05:55.940 it's running at 800 megahertz. It's gonna have a hard drive. I was too hyped 00:05:55.940 --> 00:06:02.460 about it I think. The problem with it was that Microsoft didn't have a huge 00:06:02.460 --> 00:06:07.100 stable of developers lining up for it and Japan just never accepted it. They 00:06:07.100 --> 00:06:14.100 still don't really like Xbox. So I'm gonna throw that. I'm gonna throw it in B. 00:06:15.100 --> 00:06:19.900 We got Halo out of it at least. We did get Halo out of it. And Project Gotham Racing 00:06:19.900 --> 00:06:24.740 was also there. Basically any cross-platform title was usually best on 00:06:24.740 --> 00:06:30.180 Xbox. Usually. That doesn't always hold true but you know anytime the developer 00:06:30.180 --> 00:06:34.940 made an attempt to utilize the full functions of the hardware the Xbox was 00:06:34.940 --> 00:06:39.100 usually the best in terms of like graphics and performance. I guess we're 00:06:39.100 --> 00:06:45.820 through that generation. Oh yeah. Let's start the next one with the Wii. The Wii 00:06:45.860 --> 00:06:51.940 was Nintendo's lightning in a bottle. This was how do I put this? The beginning 00:06:51.940 --> 00:06:59.260 of a very big stint of hubris that led to the Wii U which I put an F tier. The Wii 00:06:59.260 --> 00:07:03.900 U was Nintendo's vain attempt to get people who bought the Wii to buy a new 00:07:03.900 --> 00:07:07.380 console but the problem is most of the people who bought the Wii were casual 00:07:07.380 --> 00:07:13.940 gamers. People who might have only ever bought the Wii. And yeah that didn't go 00:07:13.940 --> 00:07:18.500 out so well. So I mean there's there is some good software on the Wii. The Wii is 00:07:18.500 --> 00:07:24.380 very hackable and that's good because I spent so much time playing like emulating 00:07:24.380 --> 00:07:30.540 games on the Wii. I'm gonna throw it. This is gonna be controversial but I'm 00:07:30.540 --> 00:07:37.020 gonna throw it in the C tier. Oh wow. Because it started Nintendo off in a 00:07:37.020 --> 00:07:43.060 pretty bad direction and honestly it didn't keep up with the rest of the 00:07:43.060 --> 00:07:47.860 competition. It's kept Nintendo out of the HD age which is part of the reason 00:07:47.860 --> 00:07:52.700 why the Wii U failed. Yeah I mean it was just it was entirely marketed around 00:07:52.700 --> 00:07:57.740 its motion control gimmick and they even cut that before it was released. They 00:07:57.740 --> 00:08:02.940 had Wii Motion Plus later. So I think Nintendo the way they handled that, the 00:08:02.940 --> 00:08:08.340 way the library worked out, yeah they they dropped the ball at the Wii. It was 00:08:08.340 --> 00:08:14.300 super successful but I think they dropped the ball with it. The Xbox 360. This 00:08:14.300 --> 00:08:20.420 was my first console of this generation. I got an Xbox 360 Elite. I really liked 00:08:20.420 --> 00:08:25.180 it. I got it for Ace Combat 6 for some reason. I don't know why but like it was 00:08:25.180 --> 00:08:29.980 an exclusive on the console and sure. But I also played stuff like Call of Duty 00:08:29.980 --> 00:08:35.180 Modern Warfare, Halo 3 and a bunch of other games like Game of Gears of War and 00:08:35.220 --> 00:08:40.740 pretty much the big titles of the day. I think it was probably Microsoft's 00:08:40.740 --> 00:08:49.300 biggest success to date and it put Xbox on the map like where Xbox Xbox kind of 00:08:49.300 --> 00:08:55.060 made push Microsoft into the market. The Xbox 360 made Xbox basically 00:08:55.060 --> 00:08:59.180 synonymous with video games just like back in the day when Nintendo used to be 00:08:59.180 --> 00:09:05.380 synonymous with video games. So given its importance to gaming history, I'm 00:09:05.380 --> 00:09:10.260 gonna have to put it in S tier. I like how you have like one from each brand up 00:09:10.260 --> 00:09:15.260 at S tier. I didn't plan that. I literally just decided just then to put it in S 00:09:15.260 --> 00:09:21.220 tier. It's gonna probably A but no. It's important. The PS3 on the other hand, this 00:09:21.260 --> 00:09:30.340 too was a good console but it was marked by its very expensive launch price and a 00:09:30.340 --> 00:09:33.660 lot of failures early on. Actually the failures of the Xbox 360 were also a 00:09:33.660 --> 00:09:39.500 thing but Microsoft kind of dealt with that sooner rather than later. The PS3 00:09:39.500 --> 00:09:45.020 has some interesting ideas but it also launched without rumble. I don't know how 00:09:45.020 --> 00:09:49.860 many people remember that but there was a lawsuit going on over rumbling 00:09:49.900 --> 00:09:54.420 controllers. So the 6-axis was originally marketed as oh well we put so much 00:09:54.420 --> 00:09:58.580 advanced technology in this controller that we can't possibly put rumble in it. 00:09:58.580 --> 00:10:03.340 Rumble is a last-gen feature. Then they came out with DualShock 3 because the 00:10:03.340 --> 00:10:08.380 lawsuit ended. The PS3 became a contender later on in its life. So whereas the 00:10:08.380 --> 00:10:15.820 Xbox 360 came out swinging early on, the PS3 kind of was a slow burn. I'm gonna 00:10:15.820 --> 00:10:19.340 put it under the Xbox 360 not because I don't like it as much but because I 00:10:19.360 --> 00:10:24.540 think that Sony's mishandling of the early launch really hurt it and hurt Sony 00:10:24.540 --> 00:10:33.260 as a company. Also the PSN hack. I forgot about that. Yeah. The Xbox One. I never 00:10:33.260 --> 00:10:38.260 bought one of these. Actually that's a lie. I got one at auction recently but I've 00:10:38.260 --> 00:10:41.540 never actually like powered it up or anything. I don't have any love for the 00:10:41.540 --> 00:10:48.140 Xbox One. It is hackable I think. That's really all that's going for it. I 00:10:48.700 --> 00:10:53.420 skipped this entire generation because maybe I fell off the wagon but the Xbox 00:10:53.420 --> 00:10:59.780 One was such a debacle when it launched with the always-on DRM Kinect. What 00:10:59.780 --> 00:11:06.460 were they thinking? And they were talking about how oh well the Kinect is important because it improves the GPU performance. No it doesn't. What would you 00:11:06.460 --> 00:11:12.940 think would how could it possibly do that over USB? Anyway, Xbox One. I'm gonna 00:11:12.980 --> 00:11:18.820 put that in seat here. They tried. They tried to do something very different. 00:11:18.820 --> 00:11:23.380 They tried to be ahead of the time for the time. They wanted the Xbox to be 00:11:23.380 --> 00:11:27.620 the one thing in your living room and that's pretty much it. That's why they 00:11:27.620 --> 00:11:33.220 had the HDMI input and all the controls for your speaker systems and stuff like 00:11:33.220 --> 00:11:38.740 that. So like I get what they were going for but no. PS4 was actually pretty 00:11:38.780 --> 00:11:45.420 decent. The DualShock 4 actually overtook the DualShock 3 as my favorite 00:11:45.420 --> 00:11:50.740 controller despite the fact that they changed the form factor. The games 00:11:50.740 --> 00:11:55.140 themselves though. I don't know. Like there wasn't that much that wasn't also on 00:11:55.140 --> 00:12:01.740 PC and that's kind of because this and the Xbox One were PCs. Just like the 00:12:01.740 --> 00:12:05.580 current gen consoles are PCs. I guess that's why I fell off the wagon for this 00:12:05.580 --> 00:12:09.660 because like my PC can do pretty much everything that these consoles can do. 00:12:09.660 --> 00:12:15.140 The PS4 though. I don't know that it really helped Sony that much. It kept 00:12:15.140 --> 00:12:20.580 them in the game but I think towards the end Microsoft's Xbox One overtook it. 00:12:20.580 --> 00:12:24.420 That's just going off my gut though. But I'm gonna put it above the Xbox One 00:12:24.420 --> 00:12:29.260 just because it was handled so much better than Microsoft's attempt. Alright 00:12:29.260 --> 00:12:32.860 we're coming to the last three here. The last three. The current gen consoles. 00:12:33.260 --> 00:12:39.100 What do I think? They're all trash. We'll leave them there. No. The Switch is 00:12:40.940 --> 00:12:45.060 everything that I thought the Wii U should have been. Like a controller that is 00:12:45.060 --> 00:12:49.340 the console that you can then plug into the TV and have TV scale experiences. 00:12:49.340 --> 00:12:53.500 The Wii U's main problem was that nobody used the second screen for anything 00:12:53.500 --> 00:12:56.700 because you couldn't guarantee that the second screen was going to be usable. 00:12:56.700 --> 00:13:00.980 So that tablet controller was dead weight. This turns that concept into the 00:13:01.020 --> 00:13:05.540 entire console which means that you always have this. So yeah it just works. 00:13:05.540 --> 00:13:11.740 Now that being said it is based on a NVIDIA Tegra platform. Basically it's a 00:13:11.740 --> 00:13:16.500 shield but I like it. It's just too bad that Nintendo has to keep locking it 00:13:16.500 --> 00:13:23.140 down. Do I think it's as important or likeable as either of the ones in the 00:13:23.140 --> 00:13:28.740 A tier? Do I think it's as bad as any of the ones in the C tier? I think it's 00:13:28.740 --> 00:13:35.140 got to go in the B tier. The PS5 and Xbox Series X. This is difficult because 00:13:35.140 --> 00:13:41.740 these haven't been available. Series X has been more available recently but I 00:13:41.740 --> 00:13:45.300 think the PS5 is still having supply issues. I don't like the fact that 00:13:45.300 --> 00:13:51.220 Microsoft has a Series S and a Series X. That splits the ecosystem. That basically 00:13:51.220 --> 00:13:56.820 means that developers have to focus in on two different hardware levels. Whereas 00:13:56.860 --> 00:14:01.100 the PS5 only has the digital and disc editions and as far as I know there's 00:14:01.100 --> 00:14:06.860 no other hardware variation between them. So that being said the Xbox Series X is 00:14:06.860 --> 00:14:11.820 a much nicer form factor and it has in my opinion the better game library 00:14:11.820 --> 00:14:18.860 thanks to Game Pass. For me I'll probably put this in A. And the reason I'm 00:14:18.860 --> 00:14:22.940 doing that is because you can also enable developer mode. Now I think that's 00:14:22.980 --> 00:14:28.580 less possible than it used to be but it's still a thing you can do. So you can 00:14:28.580 --> 00:14:33.100 basically use it as a PC. In fact you still have Chromium even if you can't 00:14:33.100 --> 00:14:38.100 enable developer mode. So you can use in-app emulators or games or whatever. So 00:14:38.100 --> 00:14:41.620 I think there's a lot of potential there that I don't think is available on Sony. 00:14:41.620 --> 00:14:48.220 But do you like the Series X more than the Nintendo Switch here? Yes. The reason 00:14:48.260 --> 00:14:53.860 for that is the Nintendo Switch isn't as versatile. You can carry it around, you 00:14:53.860 --> 00:15:00.180 can plug it into a TV, etc. But the problem with it is that Nintendo has 00:15:00.180 --> 00:15:04.300 locked it down to the point where aside from playing Nintendo games there's very 00:15:04.300 --> 00:15:08.500 little you can do with it. So it makes it kind of tough to justify packing. 00:15:08.500 --> 00:15:17.500 Whereas the Xbox Series X is arguably a PC. The PS5 also a PC. Also a PC. 00:15:17.780 --> 00:15:21.660 I haven't tried the DualSense controller yet. In fact I don't really have a 00:15:21.660 --> 00:15:27.780 whole lot of context for what the PS5 experience is like. But I do know that 00:15:27.780 --> 00:15:32.940 Sony is being kind of dicks about their intellectual property over the 00:15:32.940 --> 00:15:38.420 the popped cuff of the PS5. This one's a tough one, huh? It's another tough one. 00:15:38.420 --> 00:15:41.500 You know what? I think I'm just gonna throw it like right there. Right in 00:15:41.500 --> 00:15:46.340 between. So right in between. It's a B plus. It'd be an A if Sony weren't dicks. 00:15:47.180 --> 00:15:52.660 Basically. Yeah, that's about it. I feel like as far as that goes I wish the 00:15:52.660 --> 00:15:57.140 Master System were higher but I can't justify it. But I think I put the most 00:15:57.140 --> 00:16:01.340 influential consoles at the top. I think it was pretty solid. It was pretty balanced. 00:16:01.340 --> 00:16:06.620 I don't think there were too many truly bad consoles. Yeah, I mean the Wii U was a 00:16:06.620 --> 00:16:11.140 bad console. Now that being said there are good games on the Wii U. And I wish the 00:16:11.140 --> 00:16:15.620 Wii U was better. But it was a bad console. If you had put the Atari 5200 on 00:16:15.620 --> 00:16:21.100 there, I would have said that it was a technically interesting console. But it 00:16:21.100 --> 00:16:28.260 was a bad console. And so was the 7800, I think. Because that had a... it was 00:16:28.260 --> 00:16:31.940 released like two or three years after it was supposed to release because of the 00:16:31.940 --> 00:16:37.740 video game crash. And basically nothing came out for it. And it was spec-trumped 00:16:37.740 --> 00:16:43.780 by the NES and Master System at that point. TurboGrafx 16, I probably would 00:16:43.780 --> 00:16:47.220 have put a little bit higher. But it was kind of a bad console because it didn't 00:16:47.220 --> 00:16:52.140 perform well here. So there weren't that many games. There you go. There's Anthony's 00:16:52.140 --> 00:16:57.020 tier list. Now what does the rest of the office think about this?