I spent most my time in the 90s playing on consoles than PC but once I got my own PC in the late 90s I became much more interested in PC gaming. it seemed it's library of games was much more diverse and offering the type of games consoles couldn't handle well and it also had leading hardware advancements, if you could afford it. But I have also enjoyed the SNES, N64 a lot, the type of games PC could only run thru emulation. The "PlayStation phenomenon" kinda passed by me, I have seen a lot of commercials and game reviews and also played many of it's games but I never actually owned the system. It's games were a mixture of Japanese style 3D fighting games, racing games and RPGs and some PC style games which were better on a good PC (compare Need For Speed High Stakes on PSX and PC for example - they're almost a gen appart). I give props to the PSX for it's excellent fighters and Eastern RPGs though, was a reason enough to own one. The Sega Mega Drive was a good system but once I got the SNES it kinda fell to the side. I was under the impression that Nintendo makes higher quality games than Sega, a view I later on changed a little but the fact is that Nintendo was making a killing on the SNES, games wise, even if the games were sold at ridiculous prices where I lived so I never had a really sizable library of SNES games and it was also hard to find people who could lend you games (there used to be more Sega owners). I enjoyed the Famicom aka NES well into the 90s too, even though I was never really impressed by it's graphics and sound. It was pretty clear it was an ageing platform at the time and the same could be said for other 8-bitters. The N64 was a console that introduced me to proper 3D gaming I previous only experienced in the form of SNES Super FX games such as Star Fox. The N64 took the 3D on a new level, with genre-altering games such as Super Mario 64, GoldenEye and Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I used to be a pretty hardcore Nintendo fan at that time, which may also explain my shunning attitude towards Sony and Sega. But the Dreamcast changed that view. It was just too good to ignore, it's games being a gen ahead of anything on the PSX and N64. Even though the DC went down under way too soon, it enjoyed a steady stream of excellent games that showed Sega in it's most positive light, even if some old fans were disappointed by the lack of iconic Sega franchises (outside of Sonic). The Sega Saturn is a system that flopped commercially even more than the DC did, but I must say unrightfully so. I started appreciating that system much after it's market relevance and it's quite clear to me that there was nothing inherently wrong with the system but Sega's bad business decisions and Sony's propaganda machine led to it's downfall (funnily enough, I also appreciate the 32X, a hardware upgrade I feel could have been a stand-alone system and was not supported enough and is underrated right alongside 3DO and Atari Jaguar). The Neo Geo was a kind of "mythical" system back then that costed a fortune and ran Arcade-perfect games, but because of it's invailability and expenses I never owned it and experienced it only thru emulation. I was also interested in the Atari Jaguar but it never trully lived as it's presence was simply too niche and there was no game stores stocking it. The Commodore Amiga is a classic 80s computer that enjoyed good support well into the 90s but I must admit I don't have much experience with it. All I know about it is that it was the go-to 80s computer system, if you could afford one (ZX and C=64 were highly popular in the 80s where I live), but comming mid to late 90s, the DOS/Windows PC clearly overtook the Amiga and Commodore's bankruptcy kind of sealed it's fate. There was also the exotic PC engine/TurboGrafx but it wasn't really distributed in Europe (some imported machines were available in Benelux and France) and the SNES and MD almost completly took it's market share. Not to mention the handheld systems such as the Game Boy and Game Gear which were also fun, but for practical reasons I have omitted them from the pool.
Which was your fave 90s game machine and why? Vote/discuss.
