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On a tangential note, I saw this graphic on Reddit that shows the venerable PS2 still having the largest number of console sales of all time: https://i.redd.it/

On a tangential note, I saw this graphic on Reddit that shows the venerable PS2 still having the largest number of console sales of all time: https://i.redd.it/24zu04bbtvc41.png https://i.redd.it/24zu04bbtvc41.png I loved my PS2, and I loved going to play N64 (actual console, not emulators) at friend's houses. That was the real deal for me.

tracer4201 7y ago
My family couldn’t afford a PS2 or N64. I certainly can now - my library of games over the past few years has been all PS2, N64, and Dreamcast games. Aside from The Witcher 3, I have had a hard time finding great games in the newer generation of consoles and PC games. The older games have character, beautiful animations, tons of creativity. I’m sure not all new games are bad, but just doing a direct comparison I don’t see the creativity of the games in the previous generations. During the holidays, I spent some time playing Star Wars Knights of the old Republic. What a fantastic set of simple mechanisms and amazing story telling- I’m not even much of a Star Wars fan. But I don’t see these kind of games these days.
- dangus 7y ago
  Don’t forget section bias. There were a lot of trash games in the PS2 era and before, and worst of all, many of them barely functioned on a technical level compared to today’s games. Of course KOTOR is good, it was probably the best RPG of its half decade and it won GOTY awards all over the place. The same year KOTOR came out, Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing was also released. And besides abysmal games like that, a lot of relatively forgettable games that might not stand up to another go-around in 2020 were critically acclaimed: perhaps selections like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Grand Theft Auto Vice City, or even the original Call of Duty, depending on your point of view.
  - P_I_Staker 7y ago
    I found this to some degree with Vice City. I didn't end up getting very far in it and didn't enjoy it like San Andreas... Which I loved, and could probably even still play. I think it was something about the gameplay being frustrating. This wasn't exactly recent either, I played in between San Andreas and GTAIV. Sands of time, however, was different. If memory serves, it holds up okay. I played it around the same time. It's an old game, so you have to factor that in, but I recall it being pretty decent. COD type games tend to suffer, due to their draw being state of the art shooters, vs. true "creativity". For some reason, I don't feel that way about UT2004, CS:Source, and others. Maybe that's just bias.
DharmaPolice 7y ago
Related - I think instead of Stadia being pitched as a competitor to cutting edge gaming platforms it would have been interesting if they had started out with offering "classic" gaming content. A cloud service which offered me the ability to switch between (for example) Atari 2600, SNES, NeoGeo, Dreamcast and old school PC games is something I might consider depending on the price model. Yes, emulators exist but they can be fiddly to setup depending on the platform and not everyone is comfortable with downloading ROMs of questionable legality. Presumably, Google engineers could get older games running pitch-perfect on their server hardware and we could stream the results. Once people were comfortable with "game streaming" they could move forward with new/exclusive content. Which is basically what Netflix has been doing. I appreciate licensing old games is probably a nightmare, but a service offering opportunities to play old classics would have got a lot more goodwill than this mess.
- technofiend 7y ago
  There's nothing stopping someone from adapting an emulator to Stadia's rendering framework, although I'm not sure Google would approve the result. I agree with you that Google acquihiring (for example) Good Old Games might have been cool, but IMHO Google is pitching the other end of the performance spectrum: play AAA games on a Chromebook. If they had done both then they could have released GOG titles as filler between AAA releases and that would have been something.

tracer4201 7y ago

My family couldn’t afford a PS2 or N64. I certainly can now - my library of games over the past few years has been all PS2, N64, and Dreamcast games. Aside from The Witcher 3, I have had a hard time finding great games in the newer generation of consoles and PC games. The older games have character, beautiful animations, tons of creativity. I’m sure not all new games are bad, but just doing a direct comparison I don’t see the creativity of the games in the previous generations. During the holidays, I spent some time playing Star Wars Knights of the old Republic. What a fantastic set of simple mechanisms and amazing story telling- I’m not even much of a Star Wars fan. But I don’t see these kind of games these days.

dangus 7y ago
Don’t forget section bias. There were a lot of trash games in the PS2 era and before, and worst of all, many of them barely functioned on a technical level compared to today’s games. Of course KOTOR is good, it was probably the best RPG of its half decade and it won GOTY awards all over the place. The same year KOTOR came out, Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing was also released. And besides abysmal games like that, a lot of relatively forgettable games that might not stand up to another go-around in 2020 were critically acclaimed: perhaps selections like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Grand Theft Auto Vice City, or even the original Call of Duty, depending on your point of view.
- P_I_Staker 7y ago
  I found this to some degree with Vice City. I didn't end up getting very far in it and didn't enjoy it like San Andreas... Which I loved, and could probably even still play. I think it was something about the gameplay being frustrating. This wasn't exactly recent either, I played in between San Andreas and GTAIV. Sands of time, however, was different. If memory serves, it holds up okay. I played it around the same time. It's an old game, so you have to factor that in, but I recall it being pretty decent. COD type games tend to suffer, due to their draw being state of the art shooters, vs. true "creativity". For some reason, I don't feel that way about UT2004, CS:Source, and others. Maybe that's just bias.

DharmaPolice 7y ago

Related - I think instead of Stadia being pitched as a competitor to cutting edge gaming platforms it would have been interesting if they had started out with offering "classic" gaming content. A cloud service which offered me the ability to switch between (for example) Atari 2600, SNES, NeoGeo, Dreamcast and old school PC games is something I might consider depending on the price model. Yes, emulators exist but they can be fiddly to setup depending on the platform and not everyone is comfortable with downloading ROMs of questionable legality. Presumably, Google engineers could get older games running pitch-perfect on their server hardware and we could stream the results. Once people were comfortable with "game streaming" they could move forward with new/exclusive content. Which is basically what Netflix has been doing. I appreciate licensing old games is probably a nightmare, but a service offering opportunities to play old classics would have got a lot more goodwill than this mess.

technofiend 7y ago
There's nothing stopping someone from adapting an emulator to Stadia's rendering framework, although I'm not sure Google would approve the result. I agree with you that Google acquihiring (for example) Good Old Games might have been cool, but IMHO Google is pitching the other end of the performance spectrum: play AAA games on a Chromebook. If they had done both then they could have released GOG titles as filler between AAA releases and that would have been something.