Most improved console generation?

[Darksider]

With the PS4 officially announced, and the current generation of consoles on the way out, I find myself thinking back to the previous consoles that i've used over the years. The question formed in my mind is this: Which console generation do you think was the greatest improvement over the one that came before? Was it the switch from 2d to 3d in the fourth generation of consoles, the refinement of 3d in the fifth, or the full realization of online capabilities in the current generation?

Basically, i'm asking which generation of game consoles you think best improved over the previous one and why.


Note:This is not a thread asking people what the "best" console generation was, because that will devolve into a shit fest by the third post.

[DaveJB]

Without a shadow of a doubt, the first 3D-capable generation (i.e. PS1, N64 and Saturn). With most of the other generations there's been a gradual evolution of features - the Atari 2600 introduced fixed-screen 2D for instance, then the NES introduced scrolling, then the SNES brought in scaling and rotation features, plus a much greater colour palette. The introduction of 3D changed nearly everything about how games worked, and the changes introduced since then - improved graphics plus basic online functionality in the PS2/Xbox generation, then HD graphics, more advanced online functionality and motion controls in the PS3/360 generation - have been more evolutionary in nature.

EDIT - That's talking hardware, though. If we were to go by game quality, I would actually go with the jump from the Atari 2600 to the NES, as that was when games became much longer and more structured than the simplistic ones on the Atari and its stablemates.

[Darksider]

The jump to 3d was probably the biggest "holy shit" moment in my gaming career. SNES was the first console I ever played, and going from that to the more open worlds of N64 games was a major leap. I can still remember playing Super Mario 64 for the first time on a rented N64. I was completely blown away by how much more open and vibrant the worlds were. It was like an entirely new world had opened up for me.

I admit that the online revolution was probably bigger in terms of innovation than the jump to 3d, as it enabled greater connectivity between players, but the first 3d games will always stand out in my mind as opening up that new world.

[Guardsman Bass]

I'll third the N64 over the SNES. Just compare Super Mario 64 to Super Mario World, both great games.

[Vendetta]

The introduction of 3D was matched by a massive increase in storage space. CD storage is 50 times the size of the largest SNES cartridge ever (Star Ocean, 96mbit which had its own special on cartridge compression hardware, and that was a one off that was itself twice the size of the next largest).

So yes, the PS1 in particular was the largest generational leap, it could do things that the previous generations couldn't at all, not just not do as well, not do at all.

[Stark]

It's ironic people mention the N64 in this context, because it wasn't enough of a jump and was the beginning of the end for a downward Nintendo slide only briefly arrested by the Wii. Strategic blunders had been made before and continue to be made, but it put the N64 definitively in second place.

[Jub]

I'd also have to go with the jump to 3D, some of my favorite games came out that generation and even the flops like the Dreamcast had some good games for them.

[atg]

It's ironic people mention the N64 in this context, because it wasn't enough of a jump and was the beginning of the end for a downward Nintendo slide only briefly arrested by the Wii. Strategic blunders had been made before and continue to be made, but it put the N64 definitively in second place.

What do you mean by "not enough of a jump"? It's storage was lacking compared to the PlayStation (CD v.s. cartridge), but every other way in terms of specs SNES/MegaDrive -> N64 was a bigger jump than SNES/MegaDrive -> PlayStation (or Saturn lol). It "failed" compared to the PlayStation based on price and storage format, not because the games weren't "a big enough difference" over the previous generation.

[TheFeniX]

It's ironic people mention the N64 in this context, because it wasn't enough of a jump and was the beginning of the end for a downward Nintendo slide only briefly arrested by the Wii. Strategic blunders had been made before and continue to be made, but it put the N64 definitively in second place.

The N64 was a pretty powerful console for the time, hamstrung by limited texture memory (IIRC). The expansion pack really couldn't save them as, like you said, they made some bad calls when it came to other aspects of the system. 1996 was a pretty good year for 3D gaming though. But at the same time, Quake may have been the first true 3D shooter, but I don't remember it being particularly better looking than Duke Nukem. There was nothing about ammo packs now being objects, rather than sprites, that made me step back and say "wow."

You could cheat by bringing up the Atari Jaguar (considering the leap it was over the 2600) or even the Saturn which was a crazy leap over the SegaCD/32X and all the other hilarious shit SEGA released back in the day.

Realistically, the NES brought us out of the gaming crash with graphics and gameplay well above the previous generation, which has more to do with time than any kind of innovation. Then again, it also lead to many absolutely WTF inducing "ports" to PC.

[Stark]

You could see why they stayed with cartridges at the time, but even midterm N64 was clearly behind and could never catch up. Poor old Nintendo. Poor old Sony.

[Vendetta]

It's ironic people mention the N64 in this context, because it wasn't enough of a jump and was the beginning of the end for a downward Nintendo slide only briefly arrested by the Wii. Strategic blunders had been made before and continue to be made, but it put the N64 definitively in second place.

What do you mean by "not enough of a jump"? It's storage was lacking compared to the PlayStation (CD v.s. cartridge), but every other way in terms of specs SNES/MegaDrive -> N64 was a bigger jump than SNES/MegaDrive -> PlayStation (or Saturn lol). It "failed" compared to the PlayStation based on price and storage format, not because the games weren't "a big enough difference" over the previous generation.

The N64 had significant limitations in texture handling, with only a 4KB texture cache it could only load low resolution textures with limited colour palette, which made everything look like you were looking at it through an inch of grease. It could do trilinear filtering, which meant that the graphics didn't have the graininess of the PS1, but given the low res muddy textures it just makes everything look super blurry. (check out comparisons of Resident Evil 2 on the PS1 and N64 for instance).

It's a generational leap, to be sure, but like the Saturn it focused on the wrong things and ended up being the wrong hardware at the wrong time. Also the cartridge format wasn't just bad because of limited storage (the largest ROM size was 512mbit/64MB, and only three games ever used that), but also high production costs which got siphoned back into Nintendo's pocket because the only way to get your cartridges made was to pay Nintendo to do it. Proprietary storage was dead, Nintendo just didn't know it for another two generations.

[DaveJB]

Plus the PS1's usage of CDs meant that it had certain tricks available to it, such as pulling pre-rendered backgrounds from the disc and focusing on generating the player characters, while the N64 had to create everything on the fly. That, plus the texture problem and supposedly poor documentation meant that nearly all third-party titles looked worse on the N64 than they did on the PS1, and by the time developers properly figured out the system it didn't really matter, because the Dreamcast had already arrived on the scene and the PS2's launch was imminent.

[Stark]

Its always important to consider the context of the old consoles, because the decisions they made generally had reasons behind them. They were just bad calls that misjudged what was important or relevant.

Like the Wii U. :V