Games

It could be argued that the launch of the Xbox 360 was the point at which gaming went truly mainstream. Of course, such a thing is impossible to quantify, but the Xbox 360 did absolutely huge numbers; we distinctly remember almost every household we went into in the 2000s and early 2010s having an Xbox … Read more

When Microsoft entered the console market, it had everything to play for. The Washington tech giant was already dominating the world of PC gaming with its Windows operating system, but it had yet to prove that it could establish itself in console gaming as well. The original Xbox arrived to much cautious optimism and quickly … Read more

After the video game crash of 1983, it was going to take something seriously effective and innovative to change the public’s hearts and minds about gaming. That something came in the form of Nintendo’s NES, or Nintendo Entertainment System. By packaging the console as an “entertainment system”, Nintendo sidestepped the idea that it was “just” … Read more

Here’s an idea of just how dominant and all-conquering the PS2 was back in the day. As of 2022, the PS2 is still the best-selling console of all time, outstripping rivals like the Nintendo DS and the PS4 by a significant distance. With over 155 million units sold across its lifetime, the PS2 still stands … Read more

The Sony PlayStation came about thanks to a botched deal with Nintendo. Originally, Sony was to develop a CD add-on peripheral for Nintendo’s SNES console, but the deal fell through, leaving Sony with a whole bunch of CD-ROM gaming research and nowhere to put it. They channeled that research into the PlayStation, which rapidly took … Read more

Ah, the Sega Mega Drive. Sega’s answer to the Super Nintendo had a famously aggressive marketing campaign, claiming that the console (which was called the Genesis in America) “does what Nintendon’t”. Whether you remember this campaign or the infamous “blast processing” that Sega used to promote the Mega Drive, one thing’s for sure: the console … Read more

There are many who say that Sony should re-enter the handheld gaming market. Thanks to the success of the PSP (and, to a lesser extent, the cult popularity of the PlayStation Vita), many gamers clamour for a return to the halcyon days of Sony’s first handheld and its hardcore alternative to the more family-friendly DS. … Read more

The Sega Dreamcast is one of the most underrated gaming consoles of all time. Launched back in 1999 (in the West, at least; it was released a year earlier in Japan), the Dreamcast had to compete with the PlayStation 2, the GameCube, and the Xbox, and it struggled to do so. That’s a shame, though, … Read more

The Nintendo 64 was Nintendo’s third major home console release. It launched in late 1996 (early 1997 if you were in Europe or Australia) and was the only console of its generation to use cartridge media rather than the CDs used by PlayStation and Sega Saturn. Despite this technical limitation – which made many developers … Read more