While each one of these machines has been less and less used as the gen has gone along, I still have to give it to the Xbox 360 as my favorite.

Hardware
I think the 360 slim design is my favorite looking machine, and a nice increase over the initial 360. Overall the hardware in the machine just runs most games out there better, due to it not being nearly as tricky to developer for as the PS3’s cell-driven architecture. While the Cell has shown great output, it takes alot of resources from devs to get use out of, while the blu-ray drive is slower, and the GPU factually weaker. The Wii is obviously the weaker system, and few if any games have shown me why I should care about motion gaming.

Games
Despite the image of the 360 as being the console only for action games, I have a striking amount of genre diversity in disc games, and the majority of third-party games just look and run often better than the 360. The parity has improved over time, but a large collection of multi-platform console exclusives just are better on 360. What really edges the 360 out though is the downloadable library of games, which the 360 grew YEARS before Sony really put in the effort, and their is a large list of fantastic titles of striking creativity. Sony has done really great in that last 2 years, but they’ve only reached parity in downloadable exclusives, so all those other years the 360 racks up more.

Accessories
Personally I don’t much care for the accessories on most of these devices this gen, but I like having battery packs for my controllers over my PS3 controllers just dying. Kinect is the most innovative new device I’ve seen put into the market…just that it’s a much cooler device for things outside of just games. The 360 controller in general though is my ideal way to play a gamepad game, and that just means for to me.

Services (PSN/Xbox Live/Netflix/etc.)

Again an absolute no contest between these services, minus what Sony has done with PSN+. PSN+ is a solid value compared to both other consoles, but every other factor of their service is inferior in raw functionality. Microsoft largely wins for how well they truly prepared and built their consoles for online networking, while Sony struggled this entire gen to catch up…and even then I don’t have cross-game chat. Getting to game features and loading through the menus is still faster than PS3, better organized even with the ads to do basic things, communication is simply faster and easier, and when running the OS in the background while playing….the 360 is FAR faster than PS3. Other than that, their extra services are largely the same.

The price point is bad to me, but the streaming functionality for steam games is worth something to me.

Not sure how the android support will be for it, but I wouldn’t mind this device being like a prototype for PCs getting their own remote WiiU gamepad stream screen.

I’d personally just like the stream functionality, and gut the android stuff.

Well if the next game takes real advantage of the base hardware for the next consoles and modern PCs…it should, but it’s not like they’re lazy.

CoD on consoles still works within a 60fps limit, while most other shooters work to just keep 30. The 30fps games have far more resources to spend thanks to the lower frame-rate.

Well I’ll throw out that I think the PS4 or next Xbox will have a $400 option, and will have more software support and exclusives out of the gate to support itself.

If the next Xbox is like the 360, it will have backwards compatability to some extent, opening their large library of still releasing games.

The social aspects to both of Sony and Microsoft’s machine will eclipse that of the WiiU, and those features create peer pressure for kids and adults to buy into their networks. Also, the people who bought PS3 and 360s are invested in their profiles for that network, increasing the likelihood of then spending money on those next machines.

The WiiU is publicly losing more third-party support than the Wii, because the Wii barely made any of them money. While they will have big Nintendo exclusives…what’s to keep it from being another GameCube?

Nintendo needs to encourage more third-party support, otherwise the other consoles will quickly build up momentum with a more diverse larger set of games. Their tablet controller is also not starting a trend like the Wii did with motion gaming, they’re simply jumping on to the touch screen market with traditional controls bolted on…or a bigger DS.

As far as AAA console games are concerned, 2007 was the apex year for this generation to me. You had nice variety, and it was before expectations drove budgets way up…so those games actually took some risks, and innovated to some respect.

I’m in the group that is waiting for the mod to just get an official release, and I’ll happily jump into it.

I enjoyed the game, but it didn’t hugely impact me, and I didn’t want my list to get too long…so I condensed my choices.

Also, I figured someone else would mention it.

It’s fine if people want to mention industry defining games, but I think most of those are known quantities, and seeing people’s personal attachments to games are more interesting.

Well it’s really made by one dude, so the port job to PC would be easier than the PS3’s architecture, and Steam fans on PC pretty voraciously support indie games.

Also the original game was published by Microsoft, so I’m not sure if there are limits to what he can do, as I see Microsoft genuinely ok with later ports to PC….since PC isn’t their main competition.

I really do see downloads working like this in the future for consoles, where you only have to download a portion before you’re ready to play, and day one. The PC has already done a bit of this through Blizzard games, and I can see Steam trying to do it in the future. I’m hoping consoles will push for pre-release downloads like Steam does as well, because the more time you can save is time you can spend playing, and gives it more competitive ease next to retail discs.

MGS4 and games like Uncharted suck up that space because they load in already rendered cutscenes with little compression.

I really was just looking for games that had personal impact, not the industry as a whole or the gamer collective.

Mass Effect wasn’t mentioned by me because I personally was more impacted by Bioware’s earlier isometric RPGs.

The Witcher 2, Fallout: New Vegas, and Deus Ex: HR schooled any of Bioware’s RPGs this generation for me, though I have some love for Dragon Age 1.

It’s a pretty valid game. While I wasn’t personally impacted that much, I did get a bit vicariously through how much my grandparents enjoyed it.

Nah, don’t feel apprehensive. I’m really just interested to see what games were impactful for other people, and a nice excuse to sit back and come up with my own list.

If you didn’t play System Shock 2 before, then Bioshock is fairly going to be more the impactful first experience.

I’d also add that Gears of War in the dev community was one of the first real examples for good modular art asset workflow, and is something that is pretty universally used in AAA games…and alot of the reason why they’ve been able to look as good as they have. Sadly what enough shooters don’t steal from them is response time in animation, and by that I mean the game Gears always blends quick animations so the player is rarely stuck watching an animation from a previous button press. Pretty similar to how fighting games and the better breed of character action games perform, so the player always feels in control, rather than in Uncharted when they can’t help by show off their extended animations.

Gears of War often unfairly gets called a simple game, based on either its appearance, or that the basic mechanics aren’t that difficult to pick up…but as a straight up action game there is quite a bit of depth there. It’s also the only third-person shooter with a Halo-like set of weapons, where each one serves a specific purpose effectively against particular enemies.

I was close to adding Bioshock, but that initial impact was dulled for me because it borrows a lot from System Shock 2, which I played years ago.

AC2 I really put in because the repetitive structure of AC1 sapped my excitement for that game early on, and I feel the level layout kept that flow of movement better in AC2. The setting in AC2 was just far more stimulating to be in too.

Sweet, I’ve been holding off this title in hope of a PC release, and was curious when it would hit since it missed April.

I don’t think I’ll have money for it this month, but I’m saving money for the summer Steam sale anyway…so I’ll get it then at likely a small mark-down.

There is obvious similarity in Platinum Games work, but my experience with the demo in Revengence (on my 360) is that I don’t the like parry or die focus of the combat, the controls for the cutting mechanic are finicky to me, the camera was more unwieldy, and Raiden has more animations where I’ll be stuck watching what he wants to do…and when I’m pressing a button to parry in response to an attack, his previous animation doesn’t end, so I just get hit.

Not saying it’s a bad game, just felt less polished than Bayonetta, and I just don’t like the focus on parrying. I like having a basic block function, even if the block can only withstand so much abuse.

Not really interested in the game, but good on another Japanese dev making a PC port. I’d totally scoop up a Bayonetta port though Platinum.

Well that makes me happy, but I’ll take that with a grain of salt. The advertising for this game has spent so much time on presenting cutscene and performance recording…that I’m worried cutscenes and scripted events will consistently keep it not MY pace.

I’ll give the game a shot though, just maybe not day one since Company of Heroes comes out a bit close to it.

I am hoping they look into increasing the city size as time goes along, or at least confirm that is something they’re actively trying to add.

This DLC doesn’t surprise me, because it’s been a decent amount of time before many other companies would release their first DLC pack. No amount of time would be good for this game, with all the hate on it.

It’s pretty incredible what they were able to produce in those conditions, and I’m hoping this title will do well enough to allow them some room to upgrade into better work conditions.

Cool, I’ve always wanted a modern Twisted Metal experience on my PC.

Well I’m hoping that there is some PC support around this controller, not just for emulation, but using it for any game, and god willing actually use it as a second screen for PC games.

I’m pretty sure there were some that played Diablo 3, were maybe bummed, and then just didn’t buy anything else after that. After all, it’s not like Torchlight 2’s sales are close to Diablo 3’s.

Yeah, I thought about adding Minecraft or Terraria, but didn’t want it to get too long. Minecraft is especially amazing for how much it lets your really shape your own world, along with the survival aspects.