Video Gamers Podcast - Bonus Round: Best Console of All Time - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: May 10, 2021

Gaming hosts Paul, Josh and Todd are back with another awesome Bonus Round. This week we duke it out tournament style as we seek to crown the best gaming console of all time. We draft 4 consoles each and then pit them against each other in a tournament to the death. Ok, maybe not death, but at least elimination. A gaming arena like no other with only one winner crowned above all others. Which console will reign supreme? You gotta listen to find out! Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon Join our Discord Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe on YouTube Visit us on the web Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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So if you love the podcast, if you love what we're doing and you are just thinking to yourself, this is awesome. I really want to support these guys. Head over to multiplayersquad.com. That's where you can help support the show. You do get some awesome perks, but more importantly, you get our eternal gratitude. All right, now enjoy the episode and we'll see you on our Discord server. What is happening, everyone? Welcome to the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast. We are a group of dads who love to talk about gaming, and as always, the show will be family

friendly. Make sure to come join our free Discord server by following the link in the podcast description, and if you'd like to support the show, head to MultiplayerSquad.com. Make sure to subscribe, write a review, leave us five stars. You guys all know the drill. Today we have a great show for you because we are going to be coming at you with a bonus round tournament. And we'll explain what that means in just a minute. But first, we need to knock out some introductions. I am your host,

Paul, and I am joined by two co-hosts today. The first one is here to help me represent our home state of Arizona. It's Josh. Yeah! AZ! Up in the house! Whoop whoop! The Grand Canyon! Yeah!

And then we have another co-host. He used to hail Arizona as his hometown. I believe he even has an Arizona tattoo on his arm. But these days, he's hanging out and rapping with Petey Pablo. I really hope he doesn't take his shirt off, twist it around his hand, and spin it like a helicopter. It's Todd. I'm already doing that. I mean, it was right before that my video turned on for the podcast but i was practicing like from my understanding

if you go out on the town you twirl your shirt that's what they do in north carolina it's the only thing i know about north carolina because my entire frame of reference is a modest hit rap song from 20 years ago yeah so it's's the Wright Brothers and P.D. Pablo. There's nothing else in between. Equally important in the annals of history. There's license plates dedicated to P.D. Pablo here. Oh, man. You know, I know this is not a music podcast,

but the P.D. Pablo movement was really big, I feel like, for six months, and then I don't think anyone talked about him ever again. That's fair. So I had to break out the Petey Pablo. I was surreptitiously trying to type in Petey Pablo without being heard, and then I still don't know who this guy is. Ooh, yeah, you might know him from Goodies by Ciara. He wraps a chorus in there. Keep trying. Freak-a-Leek. Freak-a-Leek, I think, was his peak. All right. So anyway, today we have a bonus round tournament episode, and it's been a very long time since we did our last tournament.

I'm really excited that we get to do this because these are actually my very favorite episodes. Todd, you were actually the one who initially had the idea for these tournament episodes. So why don't you tell the listeners about the format they can expect today? So, you know, it's March Badness style. We're going through, we're all doing a draft snake style, and then we just pin everything up against each other in a bracket format and just go one by one through the list to see who comes out on top. Most of the time, it's expected, but every once in a while, there's an underdog in there. Who won the last one? The last one was... I don't even remember.

It was me! That was a loaded question! Of course it was me! What was the topic? I legitimately don't even remember. I don't know. Does a champion remember the fight that he won his belt? I remember Josh won Best Celebrities to Game With.

I remember Todd won Best Gaming Dad. I remember I won Best Gaming Gen gaming genre i feel like we've all won like one or two of these can we have a tournament of best wins and then just pin those against each other that's not bad because josh did win best gaming celebrity and i think it was like his third round pick oh you know what josh won josh also won the games to torture someone with was that our last one i don't know no because wasn't it quap that won that one quap did win that one i think that was todd right yeah i got i came close but i think i don't know i've won so many at this point they just you know all my trophies blend together all. So today the subject for the draft and the tournament is going to be best console.

So we decided to just go bird's eye view. This one's very broad. A lot to discuss and argue and debate. I feel like this can go in so many different directions. But I did look up the order of the last couple of drafts, and the order for today is going to be Todd with the number one overall pick. I get to go two, Josh will be going three, and then he'll also get the turn with four as it goes snake style. And so we're all going to draft four of the consoles. And then as Todd said, we're going

to pit them up against each other, have a little bit of an argument, and then we'll just do a vote. And it'll probably generally be 2v1 since we tend to vote for our own picks. But we'll see which console comes out as the consensus pick for number one. So let me ask you guys before we get started, did you guys have an overall strategy or what criteria makes the best console? Because I feel like you could go 100 different ways with this. I went with... I actually... You guys made me work on this one, man.

You guys know that I normally just fly by the seat of my pants and wing 99% of everything. But I can't put my reputation on the line and then not remember all the good consoles that were out there. And for me, I had to look up games for these consoles. Because I'm old, man. Let's be honest. My memory is starting to blur a little bit. And I don't want to be like, oh, yeah, that game that I played on this console, and then I got it wrong, or something like that. So for me, I'm kind of basing my list on which consoles had which games and had the best games. Because in my opinion, if you have all the best games, then you have the best console.

Okay. What about you, Todd? What do you think makes for a good console in this draft? So what I did was I varied. So I went some based off games, I went some based off the technology at the time, and then some just purely based off sales. Okay, so that's exactly kind of what I was thinking. As I was thinking about what makes the good console, we can look at top-selling consoles. We can also look at the best exclusive games, because just because a system has a game, if it's not an exclusive, then it could be on another system. But then also, like, Desert Island console, if I had to pick only one console to play, that might come into this. And also just the nostalgic factor. So a certain console that hits you at a certain age might carry more weight. And so I feel like there's a lot of things that can bake into this. I don't think there's a clear one console winner. I think this is going to come with a good amount of debate. I think you're right. The only caveat for me is that unless it's a PS5,

everything is nostalgic for me. That's fair. All right, so let's jump into our draft here starting out with round one todd you get the number one overall pick and if you are a first-time listener what we generally do is we make our pick we offer a little bit of discussion of what we think of it but we're gonna save some of that for when we do the matchups so the draft itself is usually about a good 15 minutes or so so todd Todd, number one, what you got? All right. I'm going with, you know, this is such a hard decision because there's so many different choices I could go with.

And if you mess it up, you mess up the first round pick. You mess up the 101, which is tough. And then you don't get another pick for another four or five turns. So I'm sitting here just thinking about the choices I've made for a while. Is it the Wii or the Wii U? It's a tough pick. I'm going with the N64. The main reason I'm going with the n64 one the exclusive games and two this this is the

the branch and like the venture from going into 2d to 3d this is when you switched from d-pads to joysticks this was a huge leap in gaming and we still feel the effects from that. Yeah, absolutely. Having that transition from 2D to 3D, and for the 64 to do it so successfully with Mario 64, it's pretty incredible. Now, I got a question for you, Josh. What console would you say has got the goofiest controller of all of them? Oh, the GameCube.

Oh! I thought you were going to say 64. Well, I mean, the 64, I mean, it's a toss-up, to be honest. Let's be honest. Alright, alright. I want to dive into this. I have a rebuttal to that. Do you know why they made the controller like that? Because of

the 3D movement. Because of the... People wouldn't know how to use a control stick. They had never seen it before. Right. So, what they did were playing like a 2d game they had a d-pad and then if they were switching into 3d they wanted them to physically move their hand to the middle joystick so there was a switch in their brain that they were doing something different it was all intentional it wasn't sure it looks a little bit goofy but it is a hundred and ten percent functional yeah i it's true i was really hoping that todd was gonna screw this up you know but there is another one that i think could be taken at the 101 but i was really hoping because todd sometimes really makes picks out of left field.

And I was like, come on, Todd, just pick something really off the wall. And he didn't. So I'm a little disappointed. I mean, that definitely deserves to be in the top. I get what you're saying, Paul, about the controller. But we all used that controller for so long. It's ugly. I mean, man, is it ugly it ugly but then again so is the

gamecube controller and i know that might be on somebody's list oh gamecube controller was awesome people still buy gamecube controllers they're they're durable you could sling them against a brick wall and nothing would happen but i don't know it that it's the aesthetics it's a good controller from a like functional standpoint but the aesthetics. It's a good controller from a functional standpoint, but the aesthetics of the GameCube controller are terrible. Not to preemptively strike too much on the 64, but those controllers definitely did not last very long. I feel like everyone had the drifting controls

to see where your guy would turn left. Yeah, that's the controller you give to your friend every time you wanted to play a game together you knew because it was your nintendo 64 so you knew which controller was the good one give them the green one here paul you take the uh take that blue one that you can use that one and then you're like great which button's not working on this one oh no no mad mad cats is just as good as all the other ones. That's exactly what I was going to say. But some of the Mad Catz did come with a turbo button.

So if you were playing Mario Party, you could hold Turbo A and it would tap it. All right. Yeah, you can't argue with N64. It's a first round pick, no doubt. All right. Nice pick, Todd. All right. I get the second overall pick.

Please mess this up, Paul. I'm going to go with the PlayStation 2. Dang it! I was really... I thought there was some world where maybe one of those two fell to me at the third spot. And did I not call this before the show, when we released the draft order, and I said, hey, I'm number three, I said, well, there goes one of the winners, because there's two consoles that are easily at the top.

Now, I'm not saying I'm not going to pick some great consoles, but those are the clear 101 and 102, in my opinion. I think that they are indisputed top five picks. I feel like there are plenty others that you could make an argument for. Well, then why didn't you pick them paul let me tell you let me tell you josh here's exactly why playstation 2 best-selling console of all time all time yep also the most games sold for a console i did not know this until i looked this up just before the show do you know how many games sold for the ps2 4,400 something. 4,000. Several dozen. No, I mean different titles. I don't mean like games total. I mean like actual different titles.

It was something like 4,000, but it sold 1.5 billion games. Like total sales of games on the PS2. No other console even sold a billion. So if you owned a PS22 not only were you an owner of the best-selling console but people who own the ps2 bought a lot of games for it so but how many of those this is the number one were scratched within a week 78 of them yeah hey that's why there was a market for the disc cleaners. Okay, let me tell you something.

When I worked at Best Buy, this is not a joke. At Best Buy, we did not get paid any kind of sales bonus or anything like that. There was no commission. However, if you did not do good on your sales of accessories they would just cut your hours and my boss had me walk around the cd section of best buy and try to cold sell people on the disc repairs so you would like drip the liquid on it and then you would turn a crank and it would grind the disc and then you would wipe it off and i had to try to walk up to some dude just browsing the Pink Floyd section

and be like, hey, you got some damaged discs at home? Do you want to buy a $20 disc repair kit? It was awful. They worked. I mean, honestly, they worked. If it was bad enough that you couldn't just buff it out on your shirt, and you cared about that disc that much then the

disc cleaners actually did work i have a very specific memory in mind of playstation 1 and 2 games like stuttering because you could tell it was trying to read the disc and that was like the one downside to the discs and it was always the same spot too. Yeah. It's the same map or yeah, man, same loading screen. All right, Paul. Well,

so Josh, you get to go twice now. I do get to go twice. All right. I mean, there's a clear third in my opinion here. It's the one that while it didn't technically start at all, it's the one that skyrocketed console

gaming to the mainstream. It is the Coleco... No, I'm just kidding. It's the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Wait, the Super? The SNES or the original NES? The SNES. Because let's be honest, yes, I get that the NES is out there, but the SNES or the original NES? The SNES. Because let's be honest, like, yes, I get that the NES is out there, but the SNES is

the one that exploded the world, right? I mean, this is the one that had all of the best games. I mean, Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart, Super... It's funny that every game started with Super because the games were so good, right? Donkey Kong Country, Turtles in Time, Star Fox. super it's funny that every game started with super because the games were so good right um donkey kong country turtles in time it makes every game better you know it does if you put super in the title then guess what you know that game's better than the original because let's be honest most of the originals were the nes right and so the snes was the super one of that. So all the games were better, too.

I mean, I don't want to tout any other consoles right now, but the SNES is quite possibly the console that, like I said, started the whole revolution. It was the most mainstream console. It had the coolest games when it came out. And so that, to me, is an easy number three. That's the most super. That's a really good pick.

I mean, it's no Sega Genesis, but it's a really good pick. Hey, hey. That might be on my list, Todd. All right. And then, man, there's so many of these. And it's like, I could easily take the NES and just lock down early Nintendo, play that strategy. But I'm not. Because as much as I want to go the nostalgia route, I want to win this draft, too.

And I think that there's going to be some stuff that resonates a little bit, you know, newer in this case. And again, when we're talking about games, man, I'm picking the PS4. Okay.

That's my next pick because I mean, the PS4 is the last console that I owned. And so for me, that gives it some, some street cred right away. Because you guys know, I am almost exclusively a PC gamer. But if I buy a console, it's because that console has some games that are just, I need to experience these games in my life. And I'm willing to buy the console to do that. And the PS4, man, I had those games. God of War, war phenomenal game you guys know it's one of my like favorite games

that i played red dead redemption 2 i remember standing outside at midnight to to pick up red dead redemption 2 that's i can't remember the last time i did that for a game and that's you know ps4 um i mean it's on every platform now. Yes, but that wasn't at the time. You know, you had to wait. What did it take, like two years before it came to PC? Yeah, but it also released on Xbox One. Yeah.

Ghost of Tsushima. I mean, that's another game that I bought. Final Fantasy VII Remake. Right? I mean, the list goes on and on and on. It's just PS4 had some of the best exclusives out there. It made it, like I said, I'm basing mine off of games. It made it one of the best consoles. Yeah, I think out of all the modern consoles, that one's kind of the no-brainer. I mean, it just crushed the last generation of consoles. Like, it sold so many more than the Xbox One. It even outsold the Nintendo 3DS. Solid pick. I loved my PS4 every

day that I owned it. It's a good one. So it's back to you, right, Paul? Back to me. And here's the thing. I jotted down notes for all of these systems, but I did not really rank them in order. So I'm trying to do this a little bit on the fly. And for this next one, I'm going to go with the NES. Nintendo Entertainment System. A little bit more OG than Josh's pick,

the Super Nintendo. Now, the NES, Josh and I did an entire bonus round episode on. So if you want to hear more about that, that's a great place to go. But one of the coolest things about the NES is that if you were a kid around the time it came out, almost everyone you knew had one. It's not like today where maybe you have an Xbox or a PlayStation or a Nintendo or a PC. Everyone played the same games. Everyone played Super Mario 3. Everyone played Battletoads. Everyone had those shared experiences. I loved the NES, even though we did not own one. And so

as a kid, I would always try to spend the night at my friends' houses, so that way I could play games at their house. And great system. Also, as a side note, I took a look at sales, and the NES did sell more than the Super Nintendo. So if you wanted to argue which console built the home console industry, I thought you were going to go with the Atari 2600. But the NES, I think, really built that industry. I figured as the only person here that's actually owned the Atari 2600 that I could save that for the later rounds. And let's be honest, the NES did start the revolution, but the Super NES is the one that really established the console market in the home all right so so far we've got three nintendo picks out of the first five and coming back to todd you get your back-to-backs all right

um i'm gonna break it up a little bit i'm not going to go with the nintendo pick i'm gonna go with the nintendo game boy crap um it's nintendo guys nintendo does gaming really well dude the game boy rules yeah i mean i i was i was on the edge it's like is it a console and then it's like yes it's a mobile console and it's a handheld console console um there was i mean so many great games for the game boy and like i know josh doesn't consider it a game but pokemon that that was by far and like metroid was on there like it had all of the good games um yeah i i don't know i had a game boy growing up and i i played that thing on road trips like all day every day you guys know i never owned a game boy really i never all like all of my friends had them i remember like one of my best friends like they had a game boy and i'll never like i don't know why this like rando memory is burning but his mom like completely cracked out

on tetris on the game boy so like every time i'd go is burning, but his mom completely cracked out on Tetris on the Game Boy. So every time I'd go over to his house, his mom would be in the kitchen with the Game Boy just playing Tetris at the kitchen table. That's hilarious. Legitimately, every single time. I was just like, this is weird, man. But yeah, I never owned one. It makes me a little sad because I know that there was a lot of really good games for it. It was super cool to be able to take it in the car.

I remember people, you'd have to shine a flashlight on the screen if you wanted to play it in the dark because they weren't illuminated. They didn't have backlights and stuff. Or you could buy a killer accessory, which clipped onto your Game Boy, and it had a flashlight, and it had a magnifying glass. So it would make the screen twice as large, and it had the light. Oh my goodness, the things we used to do, man. But yeah, that's a solid pick, man. I don't know if people know how well the Game Boy sold.

Did you know that it sold twice as many as the NES? Wow. Like, that's how many people had Game Boys back in the day. Pretty wild. Yeah, I i mean it sold more than uh ps4 uh and the original playstation i mean it's up there way up there it's a good pick all right you get another one todd all right third round pick um i i feel like I just have to say this one, and you guys are going to hate on it, but, you know, it's, like, for me, I have to say it. The Xbox 360.

Okay. It's actually a good pick. I'm not going to hate on it, because when I started looking into the games that the 360 had,'s that was a solid console man i mean the graphics were great outside of the red ring of death which is probably what's gonna kill it it was a phenomenal console and this is like for a lot of people where halo started really picking up. Because Halo 3, ODST, 4, these are all Xbox 360. I remember just putting in countless hours into the Xbox 360 games.

So other than the Red Ring of Death, that's kind of like saying, well, other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln? Did you... All right. To be fair, you could just wrap a towel around it and re-solder your CPU to the motherboard. People are going to laugh, but that was legitimately a fix that could work for your Xbox.

Now, Paul, did you ever own a 360? I did. Did you get the Red Ring of Death? I did. Did you? Mm-hmm. Todd? Yes. Did you get it? I did. Did you get the Red Ring of Death? I did. Did you? Todd? Yes. Did you get it? I did. I had an Xbox for

it felt like a decade and I never got the Red Ring of Death and then I remember I stopped playing it at this point and some game came out that I wanted to play on it. It booted right up. It was gravy. I was going to play this new game. Popped there started loading red ring of death i remember going like you made it this long like come on man yeah i think i had it for like six or seven years before it actually

like gave out on me so i had it for a while to to microsoft's credit they did because i guess they had extended the warranty for so long that they did actually send me a replacement now it took like a month you know to that i was without my xbox 360 but they they took care of it so yeah i worked out best by when that happened and there were always just stacks of 360s in the store dang but it was such a great console like i remember having the game pass from blockbuster and i played through basically every game on the 360 because that was before i had kids i had the console i just gamed all the time i loved the 360 although i will say really stupid name for a sequel console

why not just go with the xbox 2 i never understood why it was 360 because playstation was doing that man you know they couldn't follow they can't do 180 like they're going backwards so it's a 360 we're still going in the same direction guys i. I guess. I feel like the Xbox namings just really fell apart, you know? Xbox One, Series X, this stuff's wild. Oh, they still have fallen apart. They're not any better, like, today. They're worse. The Xbox Series S.

Oh, wait, no, the Xbox Series X. No, just the Xbox One. Wait, which? The One X? The One S. Oh, wait. No, the Xbox Series X. No, just the Xbox One. Wait, which? The One X? The One S? Wait, which? Yeah. Fire that person, man.

All right. So I get two now, right? No, it's back to me. What? So, yeah. You can click the link in our Discord, Josh, if you'd like to follow along. I know you never opened the spreadsheet, but... Told you.

All right. So with my pick here, halfway through round three, I'm going to go with the Nintendo Switch. Now, I know in this podcast, this might not be the most popular pick, but the Nintendo Switch is still killing it. It's still hard to find one. They're still selling out everywhere. You could not have had a better console during the COVID pandemic, and there are just so many great games, the best of which being Breath of the Wild, but I love my Switch. I love being able to have a console on my TV, I can take it mobile. I cannot tell you how many times I have sat in a Jiffy Lube playing my Switch during an oil change. It's great. Do you know which console is not even on my list of 12?

The Nintendo Wii U? No. Well, that one too. No lie, I get that millions of people love the Switch, but you guys know that I don't really play it very much. So I felt like if I picked the Switch, it would be disingenuous, and you guys would troll me for that, and I'd have no chance at trying to advance my pick of the Switch in this tournament. So I didn't even put it on my list. I want to say for Nintendo, how bad the Wii U u was is how great the switches that's true the wii u was terrible and then for them to come out and with the switch which was like an iteration off

of the wii u but like in the best direction possible and it just like it clicked with everyone which is crazy it's also really neat to be able to do mobile multiplayer because i know for the 2ds and the 3ds you could do some multiplayer stuff but with the switch it was just so easy to connect so many together and game you know i i love the switch so i'm gonna stay true to that and take it here and so now josh you get your last two back-to-back picks well these are easy for me because there's two very very good consoles left it is the original xbox and let me just let me just give you a rundown of some of the games because i think people forget what the original xbox had on it um how about halo 1 and 2 okay uh how about we talked about this in in a

recent show some people may not understand this series but uh kotor 1 and 2 which were both phenomenal games jade empire man did do you guys remember jade that game was the best game that never had a sequel or anything that came about but that game was so good fable todd i know you're a huge fable fan half-life 2 uh that was huge splinter cell morrowind i mean the list goes on and on and on. The original Xbox had so many good games to it. But it's like you forget about them, you know, because the Xbox 360 does stand out. But when you look at original games, man, the Xbox is phenomenal. And then what better thing to pair with the original Xbox than the original PlayStation, right? I mean, let's just

go ahead and corner this market. How about Final Fantasy VII, Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Symphony of the Night, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2, Silent Hill, Bushido Blade. I used to love playing Bushido Blade. I don't know if you guys know that game, but man, that game was great. Again, just the list of awesome games is just, it goes on for miles, man. The original Xbox, original PlayStation, they just, they took console gaming to the next level. And I got both of them. So you guys lose. I don't know if that's how it works. Josh.

We'll see. Yeah. What else do you get,'ll see I'll save my arguments You get version 1.0 of the best controller That's true It's barely changed over the last 20 years The Xbox controller is phenomenal Okay I was about to say the Playstation controller Wasn't built for human hands

Hey I still have an Xbox controller Now this is a 360 controller. But I mean, let's be honest. They got it right the first time. So both of you have 360 controllers, huh? Interesting. Well, yeah, you can't get the old Xbox controllers anymore. They're covered in Doritos and Mountain Dew stains.

All right. Nice picks, Josh. And then Todd and I get our last two picks here. So as I look at the list, do I take the PS3 since it's still out there? Do I take the Wii because it was so popular? I have to stay true to myself. I'm going with the Nintendo GameCubeube i was gonna say if you don't

pick the gamecube paul like you're you're playing to the masses at this point yeah the gamecube was such a fun system for me this just really harkens back to like my college years of gaming with my friends on a continual basis when When the GameCube came out, I remember one of my earliest fights with my eventual wife, Nikki. We had just started dating at the time. And I remember I ditched going to church youth group in order to stay home and play GameCube

with my friend, Andy. Got yourself in trouble. And I did not tell her ahead of time. I just no-showed. And then she called me later. I was like, yeah, I just stayed home to play GameCube. And I did not tell her ahead of time. I just no-showed, and then she called me later. I was like, yeah, I just stayed home to play GameCube, and she was not terribly happy. So that tells you how much I loved the GameCube back then.

But yeah, you had Wind Waker, which is my favorite Zelda. You had Eternal Darkness, which we have talked about a lot on this show. Amazing. So I'll go GameCube. It's a solid late round pick. Yeah. All right, Todd, you get to finish things up. What you got, buddy?

I'm surprised this wasn't taken. I'm going to go personal computer. Yeah. Nice try. All right. So you guys might know, I like to do at least one off the wall pick that might be oh like a winner this one this one's out of left field but i guarantee you this is not a winner

i think you guys are gonna like this one it it is a solid pick whether whether you think so or not the oculus quest 2 okay is that a console i did not think about vr i don't think that's a concept how is it not a console it's all self-contained it has its own like gaming store like just because you don't load a cartridge into it i mean i love the quest 2 it's like it's a really its own I think it counts. Does it count as a console? I say it counts. You don't plug it in. Yeah. But it has a battery.

Wouldn't a console be something that you need to... I mean, I guess you don't plug in a gamepad. I mean, I'll let you have it. I love the Quest 2. I think it's definitely an off-the-wall pick. I did not think about it, but that's a good pick, Todd. Yeah. I like it.

Thank you. I feel good about the pick. I mean, it's not going to win, but I feel good about it. Now, why do you like the Quest 2, though, Todd? The games on it are top-notch. The hand tracking is amazing. I feel like with so many of these consoles, it took a concept that kind of existed and it brought it to the masses so like just like n64 like went from 2d to 3d this is going from 3d games to like immersion and it's not the first

console to do it but it is by far the best selling and most like highly adopted um vr headset like even steam has come out and said more people are playing steam games on the quest 2 which isn't like natively supportive like people have to go out of their way to do it um than any other headset including their own which is insane yeah it's the i'll say this man number one great pick because i wasn't even on my radar at all and number two i freaking love the quest too it's like i've been playing it almost every day um the amount of technology that we can put into a small headset yeah and the mind-blowing experience that you can get from that for 300 like that like are the games a little overpriced like yes like you can sideload and you can there's ways around that but it's like you know there's times when i want to buy a game and it's like almost every

game is like 20 or 30 and i'm like this game's gonna last me like three hours. So, you know, the value may be not that, but man, is it super cool. Yeah. Nice pick. All right. Well, let's take a break to hear from one of our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by the blizzard gear store by fanatics.

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and get amazing Blizzard gear by going to multiplayerpodcast.com forward slash blizzard store okay we're back square space so so to summarize our teams here todd is coming in strong with nintendo 64 nintendo game boy xbox 360 and the oculus quest 2 i am coming in with the ps2 the nes the nintendo switch and the nintendo gamecube i have three nintendo consoles there and then josh has the super nintendo the ps4 the xbox and the playstation oh all right one of these lists looks really good yeah thanks josh that's really nice of you to say all right so let's go ahead and take a look at round one match one we've already got nintendo going for some friendly fire against itself we have the nintendo 64 versus the nintendo gamecube all right is there much discussion here

boys there's really not you tell me yeah between n64 golden eye super mario 64-Kazooie, like Pokemon Snap. Just to give you an idea, the PS2 was my 101, but there was many arguments I had in my own head about the Nintendo 64, like taking that first, because the list of games when I was listing them out just went on forever for the Nintendo 64, man. Do you guys have any parting words for the GameCube since we're shutting them out so quickly here?

The GameCube was underrated, honestly. It was. It fit a neat time when you could just tote it to your friend's house. It did have some really memorable games on it. I think the biggest detriment to the GameCube was the game library. It had a few smash hits, but there was a lot of misses with the GameCube as well. And I think that's why it's not higher up on the list, to be honest.

Yeah, I think that's fair. GameCube was a great system. Might be the number one underrated console. I do. That's what i'm saying like i think it's drastically underrated but i think there's a reason for that and that's that it just it didn't have the number of like epic games that most of the other consoles did i couldn't get over the tiny cds just yeah that was weird too honestly that was kind of strange. Yeah. How funny. All right, so we'll give the win to Nintendo 64. They will advance. And now we've got a Sony face-off in round one, match two. PlayStation 2 versus the OG PlayStation.

Ouch. That's tough. Ouch. I mean... It's PlayStation 2. PlayStation, I knew you will. But let's be honest, a bigger and better thing came along. It squashed your place in history.

And one of the best parts of the PS2, it was fully backward compatible, not just with the games, but also the controllers. And so it completely replaced the PS1. fully backward compatible, not just with the games, but also the controllers. And so it completely replaced the PS1. You definitely did not need one at this point. I mean, let's be honest. People remember Superman. They don't remember Superman's dad. And so it's the PS2 easily in this case. But I mean, I got no argument other than that playstation birthed the the ps2 does that count

right right right right yeah it it carries some weight you know i actually had jotted down some playstation facts but it was the first console to sell 100 million units i mean you cannot underestimate how massive the playstation was when it came out. Yeah. Great console. All right. And then we've got kind of a goofy round one matchup for round one match three. Super Nintendo versus Oculus Quest 2.

No competition. Did not see that one coming in round one. I mean, I'm proud of Todd for his late round quest pick, man. Like, honestly, that was surprising. And I play my quest almost every day. I do not play the Super Nintendo every day. But I have to look at nostalgia factor. I have to look at time of life.

What accelerated this console revolution? To me, there's no comparison, but I don't get to make the decision on my own pick either. Yeah, it's got to be the Super Nintendo, but you've got to give the Oculus points for... Todd wants to argue this. The technology jump. The technology jump might be Todd's best argument. You get that

with the oculus it made vr more accessible you don't have to have the high-end pc to run it but i mean come on it's it's super nintendo what's great about the super nintendo uh how long do you have todd yeah literally everything every game starts with super because they were that good it's okay that argument does not work what do you mean it doesn't work uh Star Fox Mario Kart Donkey Kong Country yeah Super Mario World for my money is the best Mario game also see see for the SNES the problem I have with it is it's not the original because there's the Nintendo, and it's not the best version because there's the N64.

So is it fine? Yeah. But is it better than a VR headset where I can play table tennis with someone halfway across the world? No, it's not. I guess we'll have to let Paul decide on this one. Good argument good argument todd it's not holding any weight

with me paul what's funny is if you follow your heart don't follow your head just follow like blind instructions oh okay uh sure no uh what's funny is if you had gone with the oculus quest two maybe one round earlier maybe it would have an upset. But the Super Nintendo is just such a heavy hitter. It's not the best Nintendo, but it's the second best Nintendo. And you gotta respect it. Alright. Alright. Alright.

So halfway through round one, we now have in match four, PlayStation 4 versus Nintendo Switch. Oh, this is easy. Battle of the modern consoles. This is actually not easy. These are two great consoles. I joke around. I do respect the Switch. Honestly, I respect it.

There's not a ton of games that I've played on it, but the games that I have are great. Hey, it has a special place in my heart because my wife plays the Switch, and she does not play like any other console so i love the fact that for her this is like a console that she can play now all that said let's be honest the ps4 has way better games than the nintendo switch does now if you're gonna make the breath of the Wild argument, let me be the first one to say the Breath of the Wild actually came out on the Wii and the Switch was just ported

over to the Switch. So I don't think you get to claim Breath of the Wild as like the Nintendo Switch game. You were claiming Tony Hawk for the PlayStation that was on 64. You know, there's a lot of crossover with some of these. Everyone played Breath of the Wild on the Switch. That was on 64. You know, there's a lot of crossover with some of these. Everyone played Breath of the Wild on the Switch. I didn't. I played it on the Wii. Splatoon 2, Animal Crossing, Pokemon Snap. You have

so many good games on the Switch. This is the problem I have. These are all snoozefest games. These are all casual games that I know you're not into. How many times did you take your PlayStation 4 while getting an oil change or waiting for your tires to get i don't do mobile gaming i i prefer to not you know bring a console with me to a oil change place man that's you know that's what my phone is for i feel like this is hard because PlayStation 4 is definitely one of the pinnacles of console gaming. But then the Switch came out of nowhere.

Especially after the Wii U was so bad. And then it's this portable, but it's a console you can hook up to your television. And the games they've been putting out for it are amazing like nintendo's been known for like not giving all of their games to a console and kind of skipping 10 years here or there but like the switch has some great games josh all right let me ask paul this name a game on the switch that's better than red dead redemption 2 well first of all red dead redemption 2 is like tied for my second favorite game. I just asked you to name a game on the Switch that's better than Red Dead Redemption 2.

On the Xbox One, the same day it came out on the PS4. That's not a good argument. Yeah, the argument isn't like, what are the best games? It's like, what's the best console? Which like technology has to do with it, function like the time it came what has better technology the ps4 the switch uh for mobile it's definitely the switch i'll tell you that for gaming all right todd you get to be the tiebreaker i think it's switch what i legitimately think it's the switch are you kidding me this is only because you have a personal preference for anything other than casual gaming.

If you liked casual gaming at all, you would think the Switch is a home run. You think the Switch is a better console than the PS4? I can play Rocket League on the go. Ooh, there you go. Dang it. How dare you? Josh might be okay. Dang it. How dare you?

Josh might be okay with it now. How dare you? Here's my own love of Rocket League against me, Todd. That's not nice. Alright. I get it. I protest a little, but at least

it does make sense. I'm just not a fan of casual gaming. That's my problem. Yeah, I understand. All right, round one, match five, NES versus Xbox 360. I like that matchup. I feel like that's a really fair fight. I'll be honest with you. I am not leaning towards one console or the other, so this one's really going to come down to y'all's arguments on this i i honestly feel like the xbox 360 was the greatest like generation console generational time period because of the games that came out and because of the technology there is a red ring of death but microsoft definitely more than made up for it by extending their warranty offering support like they they they covered themselves and they made sure to treat

customers right this was also around the same time period that you're getting wireless controllers which was really awesome and then let me read some of the games for 360 gta 5 that's how old you forget how long ago red dead redemption minecraft uh call of duty black ops halo 4 we have fallout 3 on there there borderlands 2 fable 3 like this is the best generation of gaming there is all right so for nes i would say one of the arguments is we did an entire bonus round episode on the nes we have not done a bonus round on the 360 the nes has mario 1 mario 2 mario 3 it has zelda 1 zelda 2 it has uh megaman 2 which josh and i know is one of those games that probably deserves a little more recognition these days and uh don't sleep on duck hunt sure it was a little goofy and didn't always work right, but don't tell me as a kid you didn't think it was super cool to use that zapper.

But in all seriousness, I think either of these games could win. I think it's a fair fight. I feel like it's an overtime decision. Josh, what's going to be the declared winner? Dang, this one's tough, man. I've actually owned both of these consoles. Let's just go by what console sold more so it's a fair let the public decide i mean i would make the argument about like their longevity you know to to the red ring of death because every n NES I ever saw was like half broken, but yet still functioning

in some strange way. One last argument since Todd's bringing up sales. The Xbox 360 was outsold by the PS3 and the Nintendo Wii and the Nintendo DS and it barely edged out the PSP, which the PSP was not a great mobile system.

Meanwhile, the NES absolutely crushed the Atari and the Sega Master System. It was outsold by the Game Boy, but NES, relatively speaking, you could make an argument. Alright. I'm looking at games

because, like I said said this was my criteria and i'm gonna give it to the nes okay i i am it's close todd it really is i owned a 360 and i played the heck i mean i normally i sell my consoles after a few years and i I had that Xbox 360 forever. It's just, dude, Legend of Zelda, Contra, Ninja Gaiden, Punch-Out, Duck Hunt, which Duck Hunt was terrible, but it was unique at the time. Castlevania. Battle Zones. Do you know what came with the 360?

The Kinect. You know how innovative? I hated the Kinect, Todd. Oh, come on. That's a terrible argument. I hated the connect oh come on that's a terrible argument i hated the connect the connect was baller the connect was amazing it was a great piece of technology that is still used on pcs today what game with the connect was was so great pcs like hand tracking like 3d mapping the. I just, I don't know. I don't remember. I had a Kinect.

I don't remember what games, like, used the Kinect that I remember. It's a lot of dancing. I remember having a dance game that was really fun. See, I don't dance. It had modern dance games. That one was great. But the Kinect, I think, was an extra $100. It was pricey, too.

You know what? I'm just going to start a letter campaign and we're gonna change your mind a letter all right send this letter to five other people what's your address all right we might have to pick up the pace just slightly since uh this episode it looks like it's gonna run long here but we have the last matchup in round one. Things always pick up from here anyway, because we've already made our baseline arguments. But the last one here is the Nintendo Game Boy versus the Xbox. Game Boy. One of these I've owned.

One of them I have not. That is my argument. I mean, initial Xbox. That's a bad argument. You know, I mean, initial Xbox. KOTOR 1 and 2, Halo. Todd, you can't argue against Halo 1 and 2. Fable? Come on.

I know you want to win, but you're... It was the first successful mobile gaming platform. You have Pokemon, you have Donkey Kong Country, You have Metroid 2. You have Kirby Dream Land. Yeah. You have Wario on there. Todd, Halo is your favorite game. I know. Legend of Zelda.

Legend of Zelda was on all the Nintendos. I know, but it was also on this one. It doesn't make the Game Boy unique. All right. The declared winner is the Game Boy. Oh, my goodness. I know Josh doesn't like the mobile. But Josh, you're just cutting out all casual and mobile.

That's a majority of gamers. Not everyone wants to get sweaty playing Halo all the time. I don't always want to get sweaty. You know, not always, but I like competition and not picking up rocks to discover bugs under them. I will say a small piece of me almost said Xbox simply because five out of our six consoles that are left are all Nintendo. So the ones that made it out were the N64, the PS2, Super Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, the NES, and the Game Boy. That's a lot of Nintendo. the ps2 super nintendo nintendo switch the nes and the game boy i just let it be known that i only picked one nintendo out of this list that's true you know what i think it comes down to if i'm playing something competitive it's always pc and if it's something on console i want it to

be more casual so to me i'm gonna tend tend to side with that in regards to the consoles, which is why I love Nintendo. Okay, but under that same vein, God of War is not a competitive game. You know, Red Dead Redemption 2 is not a competitive game. Like, there's so many excellent games that are not Nintendo games.

But you guys are just Nintendo fanboys. It's okay. The PS4 is great. It just, you know, ran into the Switch. It's okay. The PS4 is great. It just ran into the Switch. It's just a matter of matchup. All right, so round two, we've only got three matchups here because we only have six games remaining. We have the N64 versus the NES. Can we give the NES a puncher's chance,

or are we just going to give it to the 64? Yeah, I was trying to figure out if there was an argument I could make. But the N64, it's the best. There's not an argument I can make as much as I want to. So, no, I would pick the Nintendo 64. Plus it has one extra dimension. Yeah, that's true. 50% more dimensions.

All right, round two, match two. Ooh, these are both mine. PlayStation 2 versus Nintendo Switch. I say make Paul pick. I want to hear Josh do a 180 and start voting for the Switch. Just to throw this tournament into flames right PS2

I'm still holding back on some of my PS2 arguments but I'm not sharing them yet I feel like that might be for the finals alright so PlayStation 2 goes on and then finally we have Super Nintendo versus Nintendo Game Boy I'm not going to lie, Todd.

This is an uphill battle for you. Yeah, I mean... The only thing I have... If you guys try to argue that the Game Boy is better than the Super Nintendo... It's sold way more. There's an argument. It's sold way more. And...

You know what? Toothpicks sell a lot. It doesn't mean they that the best invention ever like but like it introduced a new form factor the snes just built off of what the nes did so like it it made a better mousetrap but it didn't invent a new category of gaming and that i think is like the best argument for the game boy is it's now a new category of gaming. Handheld gaming is its own thing, which Game Boy is the king of. So it's like, are we looking at apples and apples?

No. SNES would win in that. But for that console, in that time, and that technology, the Nintendo Game Boy was amazing. And you can tell that by sales. Maybe I'm not a mobile gamer because I never had a Game Boy. Do you think if we could do Back to the Future, and as a kid I got a Game Boy for Christmas one year, would I be like, guys let's do like a mobile gaming episode let's play animal crossing yeah would that have changed everything i might have yeah i don't

know i still say the super nintendo is better than the game uh you know todd i think you made the best possible it was a really good argument great argument argument. But yeah, it's the Super Nintendo. But for the Game Boy to really be the pioneers for mobile, you got to give them some credit. Nintendo really crushed it. But yeah, we're giving that to the Super. All right. So finally here, as always, since it's a three-man show,

we always get these three teams in the finals, which is goofy. But we've got the nintendo 64 the ps2 and the super nintendo and we'll just uh you know let's let's start off with nintendo 64 versus super nintendo between those two which one do we give it to the 64 the 64. The 64. Yeah, the 64. What about the PS2 versus the Super Nintendo? I think it's the PS2. That's a little bit harder for me. I mean, it's the PS2, to be honest. But that one actually is a harder choice for me than it is putting the two Nintendos up against each other. But the PS2...

Yeah. It is. It's the PS2. Okay, so basically that means we can declare the Super Nintendo the bronze finish third place. So really for the final finals here, we've got

PlayStation 2 versus Nintendo 64. You can't really go wrong. Totally different systems. Both great. Yeah. I mean, there's a reason these are the final two. How do you pick? Like, honestly, like, I get that, like, I would be the judge in this situation.

Yeah. But, like, I don't know how you pick the winner of these two. It's very tough. My argument would be, first of all, the PS2, best-selling console, sold the most games. Also, it gave birth to GTA 3, GTA Vice City, GTA San Andreas. It gave birth to the God of War games. Also, it took Metal Gear Solid to the highest highs. So Metal Gear Solid goes all the way back to the NES, or Metal Gear did.

But Metal Gear Solid 2 on the PlayStation 2, I remember seeing a demo at Fry's Electronics. The technology and the video cutscenes absolutely blew me away. Also, not a lot of people know this, Guitar Hero was initially a PS2 exclusive. I feel like the PS2 is the only one that's going to fight off Nintendo. Nintendo's got spots 2 through 6 or something like that for me but that would be my argument for the ps2 my argument for the n64 is it introduced another dimension like i don't know if you guys remember the playstation didn't have joysticks like it was still mainly a 2D platformer, until the N64 came out, introduced 3D, introduced a joystick, and then you started seeing PS1 controllers with joysticks because they started adapting like a new style of gameplay. Like, for me, N64 like paved that road.

You know what's so funny to me? Nintendo 64 did such a great job with the controller, but they stuck with the old cartridges. Like they had that partnership with Sony where they were going to come out with a disc console. It fell apart. The PlayStation was so technologically superior to the 64. I feel like if Nintendo did come out with a disc console, it probably would have been by far the best selling. But the fact that the PlayStation outsold the 64 simply because of the technology is the one black eye on the 64. I do think the 64 had the best games, but it was not the best technology within its generation, which is a little strange. If you look at a game like Tony Hawk Pro Skater, where it came out on PlayStation,

they did a port for N64, and I watched videos where they were saying, we had to make some compromises. And the compromises were like, graphics on the wall, or a video on a big screen is now a picture like it wasn't core to the game like i don't feel like any of the compromises the developers had to made make were core to the game i feel like it was more like aesthetics on top of it and like the n64

was still great like it still looked great compared to the PlayStation. You didn't notice a difference. All right. I'm going to tell you guys what I think, but I do not want to be the deciding voice on this. So I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you what I think, and then I'm going to let you guys see if you can make an agreement or not on

this. And if not, then I'll just be the tiebreaker, I guess. I am going to say that I think number one is the Nintendo 64. When I look at the games, like I'll preface this by saying maybe it was the time in my life, right? Because, you know, age comes into play, right? Like we talked about nostalgia and like, you know, your college years or your high school years or whatever was going on and what the, that, that memorable gaming was for you. But dude, the N64 has some of the most memorable games in existence. Like honestly, to this day,

I mean, we're talking 20 years later, you know, and it's like Ocarina of Time is one of the best games ever made. I mean, there's GoldenEye, which is probably, you know, the best game ever made for its time. You know, I just Mario Super Mario 64, I thought was absolutely phenomenal. It took Mario to a whole nother level. I did not play a lot of Perfect Dark, but I know that there's people that liked Perfect Dark more than Goldeneye at the time. The list goes on and on and on for me. The PlayStation 2 was the most dominant console ever. Honestly, ever. And there was a reason for that, but I also think it was timing. You know what I mean? They didn't have very good competition at the time, and so it was just one of those,

if you wanted a console during that period, you went with the PlayStation 2 by nature because, I mean, don't get me wrong, it had some phenomenal games, but for me, the Nintendo 64 games just stand apart. And so if it was left up to me i would pick nintendo 64 as the winner all right to add to that n64 had uh up to four controller support playstation at the time didn't playstation 2 um i think you could you use the usbs and like eventually get to four um but like i i don't know to golden eye guys i thought it was gonna make a really good argument there no you know what you know what just fell apart became golden eye todd was onto something there by saying the 64 had the native four controller ports it was

if you wanted to argue single player games, the PlayStation 2 is going to take the cake. But almost all of my 64 playing was multiplayer. Every single day, friends came to my house, or I went to their house and we played it. I remember buying an RF switch for my 64 so I could take it on vacation with my parents and in in the hotel rooms i would hook it up and play it in the hotel i mean i loved my 64 it was the first console i owned i'm 100 fine giving it to the 64 i i think the playstation is neck and neck with it 1a 1b i i really it's it's so close i mean that's not trying to say that the playstation 2 doesn't belong at the pinnacle, you know, because it does. But I just, I mean, it's a newer console, the PlayStation 2 is. There's going to be people that probably didn't experience the Nintendo 64 and are yelling right

now going like, how could you guys not pick the PS2? Like, I get that argument 100%. But if you experience the Nintendo 64, then you would see why I would say it's the number one console. Especially with friends. Like, the N64, like, whenever I went over to anyone's house or they came over to mine, like, I had friends with PlayStations, but we'd always end up playing the N64. And the thing is, like, games, like even like I said, Super Mario World, if you showed up at a friend's house and they were playing that game or Ocarina of Time, you just sit and watch them play. Like even though those weren't multiplayer games, they were so like engrossing that you were fine just plopping on the couch next to them and

watching them play whatever game they were playing, too. You know, it just it was a different like era. And I don't mean to sound old again, but that time in gaming was just different than it was with the PS2. And that's not to take anything away from the PS2, but it stands out more in my mind. It's very hard to explain what playing split-screen multiplayer Goldeneye and Mario Kart were during the 64 years. It was so much screaming and yelling and fun and accusing your friends of looking at your side of the screen. Like my greatest memories other than playing MMOs early on with World of Warcraft.

For me, the next favorite memories are playing 64 in the living room. It was so much fun all right so is that our uh final decision then yeah nintendo 64 todd you uh cleaned up with the 101 feels good it was a good choice now i will say a little surprising no sega consoles got taken i thought about if all of my favorite consoles were all gone, I was going to take the Dreamcast and make an argument for how underrated it was. It was super underrated. I loved the Dreamcast, man. And the Sega Genesis, you know, so incredibly successful, but no Sega picks, no Atari picks. You know, I think Josh thought about it. I did. The problem is that

there's only going to be like 10 listeners that are going to remember the days of the Atari. And I was ready to argue that E.T. and Pac-Man came out on Atari and killed the video game industry for a while. Hey, when you go to a place and you still see a Pac-Man console or remember the tabletop ones where it was like a bar table where you would look down at it? Those are those are the good Pac-Mans, though. The Atari Pac-Man console, or remember the tabletop ones where it was like a bar table where you would look down at it? Those are the good Pac-Mans, though. The Atari Pac-Man was horrendous. Most games on the Atari were terrible, but you could play them, which you couldn't do anywhere else either. All right. Well, thanks for listening, everybody. We were happy to have you here for the

Best Console Tournament. If you want to come join our free Discord server, just click the link in the podcast description. And if you want to help support this independent podcast, you can go to MultiplayerSquad.com where you can sign up for some great perks starting at just $5 a month to help pay for the podcast and keep it moving forward. And then we will be back with our next episode on Thursday for This Week in Gaming. I'd also recommend following us on social media at MultiplayerPod and also subscribing to our YouTube channel at MultiplayerPodcast. And I think that's it. So we'll see you guys for the next episode on Thursday. See ya.

Isn't that three for Todd now? I think Todd's won the most drafts. I feel like Todd has won the most drafts. All right. Let's make an alliance, Josh. Next time. It's we're starting the, uh,

anti Todd club. Uh, Todd, you're not invited unless you want to, unless you want to be. I hate that guy.