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2013's rivalry between the Xbox One and Playstation 4 might be intense, but it pales in comparison to the knock-down drag-out slugfest Nintendo and Sega were embroiled in during the 80s and 90s. While the two Japanese giants duked it out on store shelves and in TV commercials, kids all over the world mimicked this argument in miniature. Virtually every child of the 90s had to pick a side - were you a Genesis kid, or a SNES loyalist? Did you rock the Game Gear or a Game Boy? The console wars may have died down, at least a little, but these memories got us thinking - if we mashed them all together in one giant fight, which video game console would emerge as the best of all-time? So... that's exactly what we did! Cast your votes today in the Never-Ending Console War to help determine the greatest video game console of all time.
The Fine print:
It turns out determining exactly what does and doesn't count as a video game console, and where to draw the line, can get a little tricky. These are the criteria we used to help narrow down the entrants and focus the list. Every console on the list must:
1) Be a stand-alone piece of hardware that loads and plays discrete game software. This excludes: modern all-in-one plug and play consoles, or extremely old consoles with only built-in games. 2) Or be a hardware add-on that plays game software that can’t be played anywhere else. Examples: Sega 32X, Atari Jaguar-CD. Other criteria: 3) The device's commonly understood primary use case must be playing video games (no PCs or mobile phones). 4) Separate revisions of a product are not included separately. Example: Game Boy Advance, GBA SP and GBA Micro are all represented under a single "Game Boy Advance" entry. Likewise for revisions to the Xbox 360, PS3, etc. Major revisions that make a home console portable, like the Sega Nomad, have been included. 5) The console must have been released in the United States, or otherwise be widely known in the U.S. This means the Nintendo Entertainment System is included rather than the Famicom, and that consoles that never launched in the U.S. like the iQue or Playdia are not included.
...whew! With those details out of the way, get voting! Although the voting will never officially close, on January 17, 2014