Video Gamers Podcast - [Flashback Friday] Best Gaming Consoles of All Time - Video Games Podcast

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

Take a trip to the past with this video games flashback episode. This isn’t the console wars you’re used to. In this awesome episode we draft the best gaming consoles of all time and then pit them against each other in a gaming tournament for the ages as we crown one the best console of all time! It’s a fantastic trip down memory lane with some modern competitors and more in another packed gaming episode from your favorite video games podcast!  Thanks to our LEGENDARY Supporters: Redletter, Gaius214, Nate and Kiitaclyzm Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com//videogamerspod Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/videogamerspod Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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fridays are the path to the light side. Fun leads to enjoyment. Enjoyment leads to laughter. Laughter leads to happiness. Get into it now, we will. 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 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, it's the Wright Brothers and Petey Pablo. There's nothing else in between. Equally important in the annals of history. There's license plates dedicated to Petey Pablo here.

Oh, man. You know, I know this is not a music podcast, but the Petey 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 raps 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 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 even know. No, because wasn't it QWOP that won that one? QWOP did win that one. I think that was Todd, right? Yeah, I got QWOP. I came close, but I don't know.

I've won so many at this point. They just, you know. All my trophies blend together. All right. 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 a hundred 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 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 i so what i did was i i varied like 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, 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 round pick you mess up the 101 which is tough but like and then and then you don't get another pick for another four or five turns so like i'm i'm sitting here just thinking about the choices i've made for a while is it the wii or the wii u like it's a HuffPick. I'm going with the N64. The main reason I'm going with the N64, one, the exclusive games, and two, this is the branch and 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 well i mean the 64 i mean it's a toss-up to be honest let's be honest all right i want i want to dive into this i have a rebuttal to that do you know why they made the uh controller that? Because of the 3D movement. People wouldn't know how to use a control stick. They had never seen it before. Right.

So what they did was if they 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. Sure, it looks a little bit goofy, but it is 110% functional. Yeah, that's true. I was really hoping that Todd was going to screw this up. 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 use that controller for so long it's ugly i mean man is 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 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. 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 that blue one. You can use that one. And then you're like, great, which button's not working on this one? Oh, no, no, no. MadCatz is just as good as all the other ones that's exactly what i was gonna say but some of the mad cats did come with

like a turbo button so if you're playing mario party you could hold like turbo a and it would you know 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 gonna 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 when we released the draft order and i said hey 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? top five picks i feel like there are plenty others that you could make an argument 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 4,000 several dozen no i mean different titles i don't mean like games total i mean 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 ps2 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 like 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. If it was bad enough that you couldn't just buff it out on your shirt, you know, 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.

Oh, 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 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. It's funny that every game started with Super because the games were so good, right? Donkey Kong Country, Turtles in Time, Star Fox. It immediately 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. And so all the games were better too. So 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 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 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 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 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. You know, 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, but the Super NES is the one that really established the console market in the home. This is an ad from BetterHelp Online Therapy. We always hear about the red flags to avoid in relationships, but it's just as important to focus on the green flags. If you're not quite sure what they look like, therapy can help you identify those qualities

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console um there's 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, 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 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. 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 boys sold did you know that it sold twice as many as the nes like that's how many people had game boys back in the day pretty wild yeah i mean it sold more than uh ps4 uh and the original play I mean, it's up there. Way up there. It's a good pick. You get another one, Todd.

Alright, third round pick. I feel like I just have to say this one, and you guys are going to hate on it, but, you know, for me, I have to say it. xbox 360 okay it's it's actually a good pick i i'm not gonna hate on it because when i started looking into the games that the 360 had

it'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 going to kill it. It was a phenomenal console. And this is like for a lot of people where Halo started really picking up because like Halo 3, ODST, 4, like these are all Xbox 360. Like 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? Todd? Yes.

Did you get it? I did. I had an Xbox for, it felt like like a decade and i never got the red ring of death and then i remember like i stopped playing it at this point and i i some game came out that i wanted to play on it it booted right up it was gravy i was gonna play this new game popped it in there started loading red ring of death 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 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 that I was without my Xbox 360, but they took care of it. Yeah, I worked at Best Buy when that happened, and there were always just stacks of 360s in the store. Dang.

But it was such a great console. 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. And 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 guess. I feel like the Xbox namings just really fell apart, you know? Xbox One, Series X, this stuff's wild oh they they still have fallen apart they're 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 what wait which the one x the one at wait which yeah uh fire Wait, which? The one X? The one X? 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. Like, 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 like i'd have no chance at trying to advance my pick of the switch in this tournament um so i didn't even put it on my list but i want to say for nintendo how bad the wii 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 give you a rundown of some of the games because I think people forget

what the original Xbox had on it. How about Halo 1 and 2? Okay. How about, we talked about this in a recent show. Some people may not understand this series, but KOTOR 1 and 2, which were both phenomenal games. Jade Empire.

Man, do you guys remember Jade Empire? 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 7 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, the 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. You know what else you get, Josh? 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 controller is phenomenal okay oh yeah 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. 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 GameCube. I was going to say, if you don't pick the GameCube, Paul, you're playing to the masses at this point. Yeah, the GameCube, Paul. 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 my college years of gaming with my friends

on a continual basis. 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 she was not terribly happy.

So that tells you how much i loved the game cube back then uh 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 game cube 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 a winner. This one, this one's out of left field. But I guarantee you this is be a winner. This one's out of left field. Guarantee you this is not a winner, Todd. I think you guys are gonna like this one. It is a solid pick 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 console. How is it not a console? It's all self-contained. It has its own gaming store. Just because you don't load a cartridge into it.

I love the Quest 2. It's its own platform. I think it counts. Does it count as a console? You don't plug it in. It has a battery. Wouldn't a console be something that you need to plug in? I guess you don't plug in a gamepad. I'll let you have it. I love the Quest 2. plug it in yeah but is it a battery console be something that you need to pull i mean i guess

you don't plug in again i mean i'll let you have it i i love the quest too i think it's a it's definitely an off-the-wall pick i did not think about it but that's a good pick todd yeah thank you i i i feel good about the pick i mean it's not gonna win but i feel good about it now why do you like the quest too though todd the games on The games on it are, like, top-notch. The hand tracking is amazing. I feel like this, 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 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 2.

I've been playing it almost every day. The amount of technology that we can put into a small headset and the mind-blowing experience that you can get from that for $300? Are the games a little overpriced? Yes, you can sid load 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 that the value maybe not that but man is it super cool yeah nice pick

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Squarespace. 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. One of these lists looks really good yeah thanks josh 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, GoldenEye, Super Mario 64, Banjo-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 like 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 two versus the og playstation ouch that's tough ouch i mean it's playstation two 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. You definitely did not need one at this point. I mean, like, let's be honest. People remember Superman. They don't remember Superman's dad.

You know? And so, it's the PS2, easily, in this case. But, I mean, I got no argument other than that PlayStation birthed the PS2. Does that count? Right, right, right. Right? Yeah, it carries some weight. 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. Great console. Alright, and then we've got kind of a goofy round one match up for round one match three

super nintendo versus oculus quest 2 no competition did not see that one coming round one i mean i'm i'm proud of todd for his late round quest pick man like honestly i 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 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 starfox 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 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, Todd. It's not holding any weight with me. 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 2 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, 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. And hey, it has a special place in my heart because my wife plays the Switch, and she does not play 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 going to 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 the Nintendo Switch game. You were claiming Tony Hawk for the PlayStation. That was on 64. There's a lot of crossover with some of these.

Everyone played Breath of the Wild on the Switch. I didn't. Plus, 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, man. 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 rotated? You know I don't do mobile gaming? I prefer to not bring a console with me to an oil change place, man. That's, you know, that's what my phone is for. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

I feel like this is hard because, like, PlayStation 4 is definitely, like, you know, one of the pinnacles of, like, console gaming. But then the Switch, like, came out of nowhere. Especially after, like, theii u was so bad and then it's like this portable but it's like a console you can hook up to your television and like 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 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 tied for my second favorite game. No, no, I just asked you to name a game on the Switch that's better than Red Dead Redemption 2. It came out 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, form function, like the time it came out. What has better technology, the PS4 or the Switch?

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 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 with it now. How dare you? Use 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. Alright, 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 have... 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 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 gta5 that's how old you forget how long ago. Red Dead Redemption, Minecraft, Call of Duty Black Ops, Halo 4. We have Fallout 3 on 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 has Mega Man 2, which Josh and I know is one of those games that probably deserves a little more recognition these days. And 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 super cool to use that zapper uh but in all seriousness i i think either of these games could win i think it's a fair fight it's i feel like it's an overtime decision you know josh what's

what's gonna be the declared winner dang this one's tough man i've actually owned both of these consoles um let's let's just go by what consoles sold more. Let the public decide. I mean, I would make the argument about their longevity to the Red Ring of Death, because every NES I ever saw was 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, this was my criteria, and I'm gonna give

it to the NES. Okay. I am. It's close, Todd. It really is. I owned a 360 and I played the heck. I mean,

normally I sell my consoles after a few years and 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 Kinect. The Kinect was baller. The Kinect was amazing. It was a great piece of technology that is still used on PCs today. What game with the Kinect was so great?

Not PCs, like hand-tracking, like 3D mapping room stuff. Yeah, the technologies. Yeah. 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. games 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 going to change your mind.

A letter campaign. 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 match up 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? Fableable come on okay i know

you want to win but it was the first successful mobile gaming platform you have pokemon you have donkey kong country you have metroid 2 you have super mario dreamland 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 God. I know Josh doesn't like the mobile. You Nintendo fanboys, man. Josh, you're just cutting out all casual and mobile. That's a majority of gamers like not everyone wants to get sweaty playing 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. 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 going to 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 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 no it's just to throw this tournament into flames right yeah no ps2 hands yeah i'm still 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 trying to argue that the game boy is better than the super nintendo it's sold way more i mean there's an argument more and you know what toothpicks sell a lot it doesn't mean 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 it made a better mousetrap, but it didn't invent a new category of gaming. And that, I think, is 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

like apples and apples no like snes would win in that but like for that console in that time and that technology the nintendo game boy was amazing and like you can tell that by sales maybe i'm not a mobile gamer because i never had a game boy do you think like if we could do like back to the future and as a kid like 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? It might have. I don't know. I still say the Super Nintendo is better than the Game Boy. You know, Todd, I think you made the best possible argument. It was a really good argument. Great argument, but yeah, it's the Super Nintendo. But for the Game Boy to really be the pioneers for mobile, you've 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, you know, let let's start off with nintendo 64 versus super nintendo between those two which one do we give it to the 64 the 64 yeah the 64 what about 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 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 cut scenes 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 two through six 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 PlayStationstation they did a port for n64 and like i i watched videos where they were saying like you know we had to make some compromises and like the compromises were like graphics on the wall or like 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 that developers had to 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 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, I'll preface this by saying maybe it was the time in my life, right? Because age comes into play, right? We talked about nostalgia and your college years or your high school years or whatever was going on and what 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. I mean, there's GoldenEye, which is probably the best game ever

made for its time. 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's just the list goes on and on and on for me. The PlayStation 2 was the most dominant console ever. Like, honestly, like 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, like, if you wanted a console during that period you went with the playstation 2 you know 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 i if it was left up to me i would pick nintendo 64 as the winner all right to add to that, N64 had up to four controller support. PlayStation at the time didn't. PlayStation 2, I think you could use the USBs and eventually

get to four. But, like, I don't know. GoldenEye, guys. GoldenEye, that was the only argument you need. I thought Todd was going to 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 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 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, the 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'd just sit and watch them play.

Like, even though those weren't multiplayer games, they were so engrossing that you were fine just plopping on the couch next to them and watching them play whatever game they were playing too. It was a different 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 final decision then?

Yeah. Nintendo 64. Todd, you cleaned up with the 101. You did. 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. So incredibly successful, but no Sega picks, no Atari picks. I think Josh thought about it. I did. The problem is that there's only going to be 10 listeners that are going to remember the days of the Atari and how great that was. Oh, 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 were the good Pac-Mans, though. The Atari Pac-Man was horrendous. Most games on the Atari were terrible, but you

could play them so you know what you couldn't do anywhere else either so yeah 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 multiplayer podcast 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. We're starting the anti-Todd club.

Todd, you're not invited. Unless you want to be. I hate that guy.