6th. Gaming was mature but internet enabled greed wasn't there and budgets weren't too bloated for companies to take risks.
this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2026
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PS2/GC/XB was the last generation where, with very few exceptions, the game on the disk was the entire game. No post-launch patches, no DLCs, no microtransactions.
I’m not blinkered enough to say those things are always bad, but it was nice to know you could take a game off a shelf and it’d be the complete product.
How dare you leave out the Dreamcast.
Because they had to come correct the first time around or else it wouldn't sell due to bad feedback. That could come at a steep cost to the studio, so there was more incentive to get it right the first time, since post-release patches weren't really a thing before the 360 came around.
I wonder if this is just a proxy question for "what game system did you have when you were 14?"
The best years for music are [birthyear + 12] until maaaybe [birthyear + 18] but I'd certainly listen to your points about extending that up to [birthyear + 25] because that's when [band #5] came from behind and pulled to the lead after [band #2] and [band #4] broke up. Glad to hear you had the same experience
6th gen. PS2 was the cheapest DVD player, DVDs were a huge upgrade from VHS. It was a grest "single console", anything that was on multiple consoles would be on PS2. More great exclusives than any other console except for the SNES when most games were exclusive, some all time greats. Native backwards compatible with the previously best selling console of all time.
And then there is everything else. The GameCube has many of the greatest entries in long running Nintendo series, and therefore the greatest games of all time. It was a strong comeback in tech after N64. One of the best controllers ever, people still use it.
Xbox had crazy good hardware for the time, it was more 6.5 gen. It basically invented the concept of a home theater PC. While the Duke isn't exactly the best Xbox controller, it was a good first stab at focusing on ergonomics, especially for adults. A lot less exclusives than the previous two, but a respectable amount, and a crazy hard hitting top 5 that you could play endlessly. Because of the tech and coming out slightly later with new content, it usually has the definitive version of third party games. The first console with fully formed online and plenty of games to get people out of their comfort zone to try it.
Dreamcast is here too kinda. More 5.5 gen in practice, but certainly closer to 6 tech wise, it is probably more powerful than PS2. 6th gen was good at unique experiences, and Dreamcast is the epitome of this. So many strange games that somehow work really well. Excellent arcade ports during a time when that was relevant and some GOAT fighting games were releasing.
For the generation as a whole, it was a HUGE graphical jump, but not that much more difficult to program than 5th gen. Production values also took a big jump, people were realizing that video games were a more legitimate thing, which largely ptevented unforgivably horrid voice acting common for 5th gen, but neither were companies spending millions on famous actors or motion capture. Performance was the biggest jump, going from plenty of games doing a (not even steady) 20 FPS to 60 FPS being the new standard. Not always, some stuff was a locked 30 or unlocked 30 usually averaging 30 only on lows. Honestly the next 2 gens had less 60 FPS games than 6th gen. Because of these things, we got a LOT more games than we're used to now with a LOT more quality control and content than previous gens. Online was possible on everything but GameCube, but not pushed to much to the point it takes over and micro transactions began, or rely on endless patches, not having the full game on the disk, or releasing a broken game to maybe finish later. The main course was in your hands and runs on your machine that you own, and the older I get, the more I prefer that. Wireless controllers were a thing if you wanted to pay a little extra. Every console had a strong visual identity. Look at the boot up screen and menus for all 4 consoles, but especially PS2 and Xbox. Then look at PS5 and Xbox Series. Are they even different besides seeing a bit more blue or green? Boring. Ads. No cool effects to get you hyped for the game.
I could probably go on but yeah it's 6the gen for sure. You could basically play good 6th gen games the rest of your life.
For my childhood, Super NES/Genesis (though, I started with Pong and had a 2600).
Now I say 360/PS3 because looking back, those games tend to have been the best. You had the Mass Effect trilogy, the more fun/silly Saints Row games, Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, Oblivion and Skyrim, the best Grand Theft Auto to date (San Andreas) and the two before it... and the two after it... Just loads of great games came out on those systems. Going back on my XSX and looking at the sales on 360 games, it's insane how much game you can get.
The one that had the N64.
Agreed. I played my n64 sooooo much. I wanna get one again.
A few years ago, this would have been my answer just because we spent so many hours on GoldenEye and Mario 64, but I've since realized that aside from a few gems, most of the games on that system were garbage.
Playstation2/Gamecube, GBA/NDS
For me Twilight Princess is the GOAT of single player games, so I agree. And I started gaming at the beginning, so it isn’t just nostalgia for me.
PS3 / Xbox 360 / Wii era
- acceptable price
- boots straight away
- physical media you can collect and trade
- offline multiplayer friendliness
- games never expire
I am pretty sure all of these points apply to most systems prior to this as well, especially boot fast. It was just one of the last to offer it, although I personally think the ps4 and original switch check off the boxes as well, but it was the start of having some physical media be made by the end of its liefcycle.
8 Bit.
£5–20 games; plug n play; coupla hours fun with no micro transactions, DLC, games had to have a unique concept and playstyle to stand out - not just skyrim or cod but xyz
DC/PS2/Xbox/GC
you had a ton of options, many more exclusives, and there was competition with pricing. also because of the fact that games would release on all the consoles sometimes some of the games would have "incentives" to buy a game on a certain console. exclusive characters or levels or what have you. Soul Calibur 2 comes to mind. Outside of Xbox online play was free. Q3A on the Dreamcast using a mouse and keyboard was right up there, if not better, than playing Q3A on the PC. Phantasy Star online was another great online game. PS2 had awesome online games like SOCOM or Final Fantasy XI. Plus the SOCOM headset was actually a damn good gaming headset.
Other than the early PS3/360/Wii days I think it was the last best generation of console gaming.
NES & SuperNES. Because that's how old I am.
How's your back feeling today?
8th Gen was the last good one, and therefore the best one.
Gen 6
i'm going to say the 7th generation, but for a different reason. you chose it for community, i choose it for continuity. those consoles were the standard targets for games companies for an uncommonly long time. consoles that came before and since haven't matched that. some of this, i think, is due to them kind of being architectural dead ends. that was the last console generation where the hardware wasn't just PC hardware but a little bit different. the PS3 in particular is an incredible feat of human ingenuity with second hand PS3s being hard to find at reasonable prices since the US military depends on them for nuclear research. but all this cleverness made them too expensive to develop for corporations seeking to design hardware to sell at a loss to play games sold at a markup.
but during the era of the 7th generation? it was incredible. whichever console you chose you would have so many options for games that would give you incredible and unique experiences. and the hardware exclusivity was an actual real constraint sometimes with developers knowing they were making a PS3 exclusive or a 360 exclusive targeting that hardware to get every drop of performance out of the hardware, whereas now it's just a form of manufactured scarcity since new consoles are on the same architecture as PCs nowadays.
the games that have come since that generation also haven't had any fundamental paradigm shifts in how they're played that makes them more fun either. there have been some paradigm shifts that have made gaming less safe and healthy to engage in with companies shifting the brain chemistry of their players by creating addictive structures in the rulesets and paradigms of the games.
in conclusion: 7th generation good, industry bad
They still haven't managed to recreate the magic of full-lobby Halo 3 custom games, thats the most fun I'll ever have gaming.
I guess the ps2/xbox era along with the handhelds like the DS and PSP included. There was just an unreal amount of games being made for everything and games still took chances. I think getting my PSP when it launched was peak excitedness for gaming because of how new and cool it all felt. I still have my original PSP, the only thing I lost was the charger but picked up a 3rd party gamestop branded knockoff that works perfectly fine.
Now we can just play the best looking games on mobile and not even think twice about how incredible that is, except they created such a shit genre with rules that almost every mobile game follows that killed any chance of them being any good. Also steamdeck is crazy impressive as well, but it is pretty big compared to any old school handheld.
Hard to pick between 6th and 7th for me. Born in the 5th, raised during the 6th, and went online for the first time with the 7th. The only one of that bunch I never got was a PS3.
Amiga 🙃
I agree with the PS3 due to the roaster of games.
To me it would be Gen 6 (PS2 / Xbox / GC) as it was not only the golden age of 3D platformers, but the developers were not afraid to regularly introduce new gameplay mechanics that were specific to a single level. Very few games do that nowadays, the most recent examples I can think of are Psychonauts 2, It Takes Two and Split Fiction.
PS3/Xbox 360