Microsoft’s long-awaited entry into the house console market not solely immediately gifted us with Halo: Fight Developed (maybe essentially the most vital launch recreation ever) however step by step introduced genres and ideas previously restricted to the PC gaming scene to console gamers in every single place. That strategy gave console avid gamers experiences like The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and Knights of the Previous Republic and helped usher within the period of viable on-line gaming for consoles (a motion the Dreamcast kicked off in the beginning of the era). The Xbox provided a robust, modern, and basically cool different to the PS2 that disrupted the business as few new consoles ever have.
Nintendo’s GameCube will go down as a gross sales disappointment, however you’ll have a tough time convincing those that owned one which it’s something lower than one among Nintendo’s greatest consoles. The GameCube’s stellar library not solely featured a few of the greatest entries in Nintendo’s legacy franchises however a few of these franchise’s boldest entries as effectively. Video games like The Wind Waker and Metroid Prime ruffled some feathers at their time however at the moment are extensively thought-about to be masterpieces. You then had video games like Resident Evil 4, Tremendous Smash Bros. Melee, and Animal Crossing making it almost unattainable to keep away from the temptation to purchase the “third place” console. For all their questionable enterprise and design choices, Nintendo did all the pieces they might to make the GameCube’s library as stellar as attainable.
And what extra are you able to say in regards to the PlayStation 2? Together with being the best-selling console ever, it might simply be the best console ever made. The PlayStation 2’s file gross sales can actually be partially attributed to the worth of its DVD participant, however it was the console’s traditionally numerous array of all-time nice video games that raised it to such nice heights. We’re speaking in regards to the console that gave us Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Shadow of the Colossus, Gran Turismo 4, Guitar Hero, Metallic Gear Stable 3: Snake Eater, and God of Struggle not inside its lifetime however inside lower than a calendar yr.
Although issues had been comparatively quieter for handheld consoles, the Sport Boy Advance actually left an impression throughout its surprisingly transient run. The WanderSwan additionally loved a wider launch than it ever obtained, and whereas the Nintendo DS and PSP are technically a part of the subsequent era, they had been launched at a time when the PS2, Xbox, and GameCube had been nonetheless going robust.
I’ve referenced issues like “potential” and “promise” all through this text as methods to assist measure the importance of a console era. Whereas there was fairly a little bit of that in the course of the sixth era, it additionally felt just like the fruits of the concepts, developments, and underlying sense of hope that earlier generations established and which future generations would liberally draw from. By way of the standard and amount of video games, the artistic competitors between {hardware}, and the standard of life choices that had been changing into customary, it actually was the very best time to be a console gamer.
