Best Console (Not Including the Games) (Patreon Bonus)

As a holiday treat, the Besties brings one of our most beloved Patreon bracket episodes to the main feed. What is the greatest video game console of all time? Before you answer that, we have one huge caveat: you can't factor in the quality of the games. We literally mean "what is the best chunk of plastic, chips, power cords, and peripherals?" Is this the most ridiculous question the Besties have sought to answer? We will leave you to decide.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, hey, everyone. We have a very special gift for y'all. Uh, you're about to hear an episode we had a lot of fun recording. It was a Bracket Battles episode, one of many that we've recorded on the Patreon that's behind the paywall, but everyone gets it for free. And this is the one that the Patreon members picked. Do you guys remember recording this episode?

• 0:19Speaker 01

  This is a-

• 0:20Griffin McElroy?

  It's like a fever dream.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's an unhinged episode where we picked the best console-

• 0:25Chris Plante?

  Well, I'll be damned! What the fuck is me? Magical Texas Giraffe?

• 0:36Speaker 01

  This is supposed to be a gift.

• 0:37Griffin McElroy?

  This is like an intro.

• 0:38Chris Plante?

  I am a Patreon subscriber, and I didn't know that on top of being a lawyer, who has been graciously funding this-

• 0:49Griffin McElroy?

  Is this a new OC of Chris Cray?

• 0:52Chris Plante?

  That you would be releasing one of my behind the scenes episodes, and yet, I do declare, one of the best episodes, I'll grant you this time to share it with the public on my behalf.

• 1:05Griffin McElroy?

  So if you want more Texas Magic Giraffe, patreon.com/thebesties, he's huge over there. Huge over there.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  They have their whole alternate fiction.

• 1:14Chris Plante?

  I'll show myself out.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Thank god.

• 1:17Griffin McElroy?

  Probably good.

• 1:17Speaker 01

  You showed yourself in, it seems only fair. This is the episode where we picked the best console, but don't talk about video games at all. It's really good. Enjoy.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  Dreamcast's the best.

• 1:31Griffin McElroy?

  Dreamcast the best, you say?

• 1:32Speaker 01

  Wait, let me try. Let me try again, because I need to say it more authoritative, because I'm trying to save us a little bit of time.

• 1:36Russ Frushtick?

  It sounded like you were taking a bong rip when you said that.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  I was trying to get my, like, that was my voice I was going for. Guys, Dreamcast's the best. I was trying to see if I could skip the episode, if I could just be like, Dreamcast's the best. Whenever I'd be like, Dreamcast, and then it wouldn't even be an episode.

• 1:52Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, Plant is on board for Dreamcast the Best.

• 1:54Chris Plante?

  I was ready for it, but.

• 1:56Russ Frushtick?

  You just walk away.

• 1:57Chris Plante?

  We owe the people what they want, you know, we have to at least put on the charade.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  I forgot.

• 2:01Russ Frushtick?

  Probably a little more than just Dreamcast the Best.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  About our wild rubric, though, I don't know if it's gonna come out on top, but I thought it would be worth floating Dreamcast the Best and then just see how it played.

• 2:11Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin, do you think Dreamcast the Best?

• 2:12Griffin McElroy?

  Um, I don't know about the best. It makes me sad that we don't live in a world where Sega was allowed to keep fucking up in huge, inexpensive and spectacular ways. Because Dreamcast not the best, but Dreamcast does have DevM U, Dreamcast does have Fantasy Star Online and Shimmer. No, fuck it, Dreamcast the Best. What am I saying?

• 2:34Russ Frushtick?

  Justin is.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  You can't bring games into it, but Dreamcast the Best.

• 2:38Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, yeah, I took out we're not bringing. Okay.

• 2:40Chris Plante?

  A 1920.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Russ to pick up Dreamcast the Best so fast, but the way it got on so quick really tickled me. I feel like I just sent out a fax to everybody in town and all of a sudden this thing caught on.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best console of all time.

• 3:14Griffin McElroy?

  My name is Griffin McElroy. I know the best console of all time.

• 3:18Chris Plante?

  My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best console of all time if you take away the games, which would seem to be self-defeating, but it's what we're here to do today.

• 3:27Griffin McElroy?

  Don't you undo the progress we're about to make before we even make it?

• 3:32Russ Frushtick?

  My name is Russ Russian and I have the best game of the week.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  This is the besties. It's Video Game Club and just by listening, you are a member, but you know the spiel because you're here for our exclusive Behind the Velvet Rope extra sexy After Dark, super naughty.

• 3:46Griffin McElroy?

  I did not agree to.

• 3:47Russ Frushtick?

  We even made like new exclusive box art. McKay made like album art specific to this.

• 3:55Griffin McElroy?

  The B4.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  B4, the bonus besties battle, baby.

• 4:00Russ Frushtick?

  The Bony's.

• 4:01Griffin McElroy?

  Welcome to the Bony's.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Welcome to the Bony's, the bonus besties battle, baby. The B4, B4 Bony's.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Hey, listen, we're gonna be picking the best video game console, but we can't talk about the games. Well, we can like, the games aren't part of the rubric.

• 4:19Russ Frushtick?

  Right.

• 4:19Griffin McElroy?

  You mention the title of a game, I'm gonna lose my fucking mind.

• 4:24Russ Frushtick?

  You cannot, a console cannot win in a matchup because it had a game that was better than the other consoles.

• 4:30Chris Plante?

  So, let's dive into the rubric then. How does a console win without its games?

• 4:36Russ Frushtick?

  Very valid question. So ordinarily, if you've been a regular listener of these bracket battles episodes, you know that we've had a pretty simple rubric. It's usually two points and then a tiebreaker point in case the two points are tied. I thought in this case, actually, I really tried to boil the rubric down, but in this case was unable to. And, and now we have six points.

• 4:58Chris Plante?

  Six points. And the first fucking question is which box looks cooler?

• 5:05Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. That is important. That has to be the backbone of the conversation every time. I don't know what else we're talking about.

• 5:11Chris Plante?

  It's true, it's priorities.

• 5:12Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so I think it's pretty straightforward. So here's the rubric, I'll read through it quickly because we have a lot to cover. Rubric one, which box looks cooler, pretty straightforward. Two, which has more innovative, which was more innovative in terms of features? So this is like, oh, this was the first that had a rumble pack. This was the first that had like online support, shit like that.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 5:35Russ Frushtick?

  Three, which has the more comfortable controller?

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 5:39Russ Frushtick?

  Pretty straightforward. Four, which has the cooler looking controller? Which controller do you want to have sex with more?

• 5:45Griffin McElroy?

  Gross. I'm not actually doing that.

• 5:49Russ Frushtick?

  Just re- it's like subtext. Um, so five is which has the better system UI? And that's obviously assuming if it exists, some of these don't even have a system UI. And then six, which is more portable? If you had to bring it to a friend's house? I will say up ahead, GameCube's fucking winning that one every time.

• 6:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 6:08Russ Frushtick?

  Cause it has a fucking handle.

• 6:09Griffin McElroy?

  All it's got.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  That's a walk.

• 6:11Griffin McElroy?

  The intro stinger and the handle is the only thing the GameCube really had.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Now, here's my question about this in your head, Russ. Do you feel like this is an up and down six point thing? Or do you think this more holistic rubric?

• 6:25Griffin McElroy?

  These are conversation starters.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Is this more conversational? Or do you think it's like you win?

• 6:29Russ Frushtick?

  I think if it's tough to decide, we should do an up and down.

• 6:31Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  But this is the rubric we're using generally. I like that. I think that's gonna be more fruitful.

• 6:36Griffin McElroy?

  It does.

• 6:37Russ Frushtick?

  And we have not shared the tiebreaker, which is which name is cooler?

• 6:40Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 6:41Chris Plante?

  So, so what we're saying is we're gonna use this to, to come to a consensus. And if we can't come to a consensus, then we'll have to rely rigidly on the rubric.

• 6:51Russ Frushtick?

  Right.

• 6:51Chris Plante?

  And if the rubric still ties out the name.

• 6:55Russ Frushtick?

  We're fu- well, it won't, cause it has a tiebreaker.

• 6:57Chris Plante?

  That's what I mean. That's when we'll go to the name.

• 6:58Russ Frushtick?

  Yes, we'll go there.

• 6:59Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, okay. I like it.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Saying if it's a tie, we'll use the tiebreaker. And I think we all agree on that.

• 7:03Chris Plante?

  I like this.

• 7:03Russ Frushtick?

  So issue two, before we get started, um, there's too many fucking consoles. Way too many.

• 7:09Griffin McElroy?

  True.

• 7:09Russ Frushtick?

  And to get it down to 16, which is what we normally do, um, and to keep this, uh, focused, we're gonna have to cut all but two PlayStations and two Xbox.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Yes, I like that.

• 7:22Russ Frushtick?

  So if anyone has any initial thoughts, and just as a reminder, we're talking about PlayStation 1 through PlayStation 5, and Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and Xbox 1.

• 7:35Griffin McElroy?

  I refuse. I fucking refuse to consider the Series X versus the Series S as two different. For the, for the, for our, for the purposes of our conversation, it is outrageous to think that we would have to decide.

• 7:47Russ Frushtick?

  They have very different boxes.

• 7:48Chris Plante?

  Um, let me put it this way. I don't think we need to worry about that. We're certainly not gonna do the Xbox One. I think we can actually decide right now.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  We are just throwing the pool cues in, into the pit. And there is no rules here. We're just, we're just gonna take two of them with them. You, you ain't decide who makes it out. We don't care. God's light does make it here.

• 8:07Chris Plante?

  PlayStation 2 is gonna be there, right? That seems safe to-

• 8:11Griffin McElroy?

  I think, yeah, I think PlayStation 2, I think any of the four of us could make a pretty good case for the PlayStation 2 being there. In terms of ahead of its times-ness, in terms of like introducing a user interface. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:24Russ Frushtick?

  I agree.

• 8:25Griffin McElroy?

  I think-

• 8:25Russ Frushtick?

  I think it's the PlayStation 2 and the PlayStation 5. Cause I think the PlayStation 5 has the like controller aspects and it's certainly the one that everyone is-

• 8:32Griffin McElroy?

  I see, I would say 4 over 5. I would say 4 over 5. As evidenced by the fact that I played my 4 a lot and I've played my 5 to play Sony exclusive PlayStation 5 games pretty much exclusively.

• 8:45Russ Frushtick?

  That's a fair cop.

• 8:45Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, and then never again.

• 8:47Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay.

• 8:48Griffin McElroy?

  I think, I think PS4-

• 8:49Russ Frushtick?

  I was thinking back compat.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  I have a, a slight issue here with the, the system UI rubric, right? Are we, I mean, is that fair in these contexts? Because that's very much iterative, right? So like, you could argue that 5 and 4 have the best UI of the Playstations because they've been building on, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know that it makes sense to limit-

• 9:12Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, is there ever, like, is a UI from 10 years ago ever gonna be better?

• 9:17Speaker 01

  I mean, I feel like that's always gonna be a-

• 9:18Russ Frushtick?

  Probably not. Although I would argue the Blades on the Xbox 360.

• 9:22Griffin McElroy?

  If you like the Xbox One interface more than the Xbox 360 interface, you are a, a f- nut.

• 9:28Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, that's actually true. Yeah, fair.

• 9:31Chris Plante?

  Well, I think the Xbox answers this question very well. I think the Xbox Normal, the original, and the Xbox 360 are the two to go forward.

• 9:40Griffin McElroy?

  Cause the Xbox-

• 9:41Chris Plante?

  I would agree with that. Yeah, right? The Xbox is a significant console. It's a weird fucking console that did a ton of shit.

• 9:49Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 9:49Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, okay, a very cool name too. I would agree. So, uh, and, and 360 was obviously like the, the peak of where Xbox has ever was.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Okay, I, I agree with that. It's been a downside since 360. We, we all know it. They had a brave new year.

• 10:06Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so that leaves us with, we're bringing forward the PlayStation 2 and the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox and the Xbox 360, correct?

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 10:13Russ Frushtick?

  Argument on the PlayStation?

• 10:14Speaker 01

  It's not an argument on the PlayStation. I think it's, it's, it's

• 10:19Speaker 01

  the proximity to the Dreamcast limits a lot of why PlayStation seemed so sort of like groundbreaking at the time, like

• 10:27Speaker 01

  the leap from cartridge to CD like media. I don't know that there's a more significant jump in terms of consoles.

• 10:36Chris Plante?

  I would do PlayStation 1 and PS2 for that reason. I agree. I think there's a more interesting conversation to be had about the original PlayStation. And PlayStation, I think a lot of the points I would make about PlayStation 4 are upgraded versions of the points I'd make about 2. It's like, it's not just DVD, y'all. It's a Blu-ray this time.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  What about, hey, can I throw this out there and this may be kind of anecdotal, but what about reliability?

• 11:00Chris Plante?

  Oh.

• 11:01Russ Frushtick?

  Well then.

• 11:03Chris Plante?

  I like that. I like that a lot.

• 11:04Russ Frushtick?

  360 is gone.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, 360, if we're talking about what is box is best, one of the boxes you had to wrap a towel around and bring back to life.

• 11:14Russ Frushtick?

  Do we want to kill the UI thing in favor of reliability?

• 11:18Griffin McElroy?

  No, I think the UI thing is, is, is, maybe we fold it into something else.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Can we get, can we just make three, can we combine better, like cooler looking and more comfortable controller into one? Thing. I like talking about.

• 11:32Chris Plante?

  Can I, can I also just remind you before we get too lost in, in, in the, the rubric? The whole change here is that it is conversation starters, that in theory, we won't even have to get down into the nitty gritty of like,

• 11:45Russ Frushtick?

  yeah.

• 11:45Chris Plante?

  Checkmarks.

• 11:46Russ Frushtick?

  And I would, I would say if you want to talk, if you want to talk about the UI stuff, you can talk about it in the context of features.

• 11:52Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 11:52Russ Frushtick?

  So we have a rubric for features. So I think that's a good place to talk about UI and we'll add reliability here as well.

• 12:00Russ Frushtick?

  And you can follow along at home if you want.

• 12:01Griffin McElroy?

  I'm loving it.

• 12:02Russ Frushtick?

  Probably the rubric is probably in the newsletter.

• 12:05Griffin McElroy?

  So are we saying PlayStation one and two and then the Xbox one and 360 completely?

• 12:10Speaker 01

  If we're talking about reliability, I gotta revisit one now. Because I had a lot of pals that had to play Tonya Hot Pro Skater with that bad boy flipped upside down because it no longer funnels properly.

• 12:21Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, that's a good point. Let's, I would say, I, I think PlayStation two and, and four.

• 12:28Griffin McElroy?

  That's where my, that's where my heart is leading me.

• 12:31Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, reliability is only one point on the rubric for what it's worth.

• 12:34Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 12:35Russ Frushtick?

  So innovate.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  What looks cool? What do you guys think about the look of the PlayStation one?

• 12:40Russ Frushtick?

  Uh. I think it looks fucking awesome.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Good, right? Like in terms of a console design, I want to eat it. It's up there with the Dreamcast.

• 12:46Russ Frushtick?

  I think, I would say, real talk, I think it looks better than any other PlayStation console ever made.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  I don't disagree. I think they've all been kind of blobby, black shapes.

• 12:55Griffin McElroy?

  We gotta get into the main thing.

• 12:57Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, we do.

• 12:58Griffin McElroy?

  You're right.

• 12:58Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. I think it's PlayStation one and PlayStation two.

• 13:02Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 13:03Russ Frushtick?

  That's where I've landed. I think those are both very representative of the biggest leaps that have happened and everything else after that, while there have been highlights, have, has been iterative.

• 13:12Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, I agree.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  I would push towards PlayStation two and three because I think the online jump in three is such a massive change.

• 13:21Russ Frushtick?

  There was online in two. You can play online. So calm, baby.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  You could, but it's like very much a not built to do, like that is not the.

• 13:29Russ Frushtick?

  Certainly not built with the Spider-Man font in mind. So that is something in favor.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  I will say the original PlayStation three controller was so bad.

• 13:37Griffin McElroy?

  And.

• 13:38Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, also terrible.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  A lot of stuff.

• 13:42Russ Frushtick?

  We, we do have to make these choices.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  One and two, one and two, one and two.

• 13:45Griffin McElroy?

  One and two and then the Xbox and the 360.

• 13:48Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Is this, are we? Is this a problem? If you think about what has just happened with our system as designed, we old men pick the two oldest boxes in each category. Is that?

• 13:58Griffin McElroy?

  I don't think so.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  Are we okay? We did, but like.

• 14:01Griffin McElroy?

  I know we, no, no, I know we did, but I specifically don't think it's old man thinking.

• 14:06Chris Plante?

  I think video game consoles have gotten increasingly boring and devolved into just being PCs. So there's not a lot to talk about because a lot, and that's like in some ways for the better. Cause they were figuring out what the hell a console even was. The switch is here. The switch is doing new shit. But like, the difference between a PS4 and a PS5 is like, congratulations. You have to turn off the thing that makes it hurt your fingers when you pull on the triggers.

• 14:30Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. It is quite a bit. Also like, I think that that would be a problem if we were including games. The game catalogs for these things, which is the major differentiator between modern like console cycles.

• 14:44Chris Plante?

  I made, I made a bracket, so you don't need to worry for us. Just scroll down. I got, I got us all taken care of. We're, we are ready to go. And may I kick off this fantastic episode with what I just don't think anybody gives a shit about. Sega Master System for everyone who played not the Genesis, but the thing before the Genesis. Versus the TurboGrafx-16. The clear winner, oh fuck, I can't say because it had Bonk. I immediately ran into the main problem. I can't say Bonk.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  No, TurboGrafx-16 to me is, if you knew a rich kid, they might, their parents might have taken a flyer on the TurboGrafx-16.

• 15:26Griffin McElroy?

  We stayed at a fancy hotel once that had a TurboGrafx-16 in it. And I felt like I was one of the Rockefellers. I felt like we had finally raised, been raised above our station and now could live. Like this is what the, this is what the wealthy kids play. This is, they're playing with this power, the TurboGrafx-16.

• 15:47Russ Frushtick?

  And they also pulled, managed to pull off, not exactly what the switch is doing, but pretty fucking close. Where they managed to shrink the TurboGrafx-16 down to the point where you could play your full console game.

• 15:59Griffin McElroy?

  Games in a handheld format. True. Which is They were quick to do that. Crazy. We're not discussing handhelds in this. We should make this clear also. We are not. Yeah. Which is like, I feel like that, that, I could get way fucking rowdier on that one. Uh, as I think a lot of us could.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Maybe someday we will.

• 16:15Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 16:16Chris Plante?

  Yeah. I mean, hey, right off the top here, we're talking about the box, right? And talk about a actual challenging face off. The TurboGrafx-16 box is actually what would happen if you took gamer culture of the 1990s? And you distilled it into like orange cardboard hell. It is.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Really bad. It looks like somebody dumped a Josta on a VCR.

• 16:39Chris Plante?

  Yeah. But the Sega Master System box is one of my favorite boxes of all time.

• 16:46Griffin McElroy?

  It's so fucking cool.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  The black and red, like.

• 16:50Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:51Chris Plante?

  Well, and there's a, I'm, I'm looking at, I'm talking about the graph paper one. The white box with the blue.

• 16:57Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, you're talking about the box. Yeah, there's a Japanese.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  You're talking about the box box. Yes. Okay.

• 17:00Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Got you. I thought you meant the box.

• 17:02Chris Plante?

  Oh, and I think both. I think also the hardware looks like you're gonna, you know, like launch nuclear weapons and like the beginning of the Cold War.

• 17:09Griffin McElroy?

  There is the.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Look at this Sega Master System Power Base. Like, look at, it's like

• 17:14Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Sleek and black. It's got this red panel with killer design.

• 17:18Griffin McElroy?

  It looks like, I mean, it, it looks like a fucking Cylon turbo truck. Uh, or Cyber, Cybertruck? I forget what they're called. They're called turbo trucks or cybertrucks? Just look in your garage and tell us.

• 17:31Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I actually prefer the Sega Mark III Master System, which is like a white. Uh, it looks like a, I mean, it looks like a Yamaha sort of, uh, some synthesizer of some sort.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Says computer TV game on the front, which is how you know you're gonna about to have fun.

• 17:47Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Um, these both look.

• 17:51Russ Frushtick?

  The same.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  All the Master System's looks better, like all the.

• 17:54Russ Frushtick?

  Ah, yeah.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I agree. What else do we have? Uh, which is more innovative in terms of features or UI?

• 18:02Russ Frushtick?

  Are we gonna sit here and pretend like we all have?

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Had, no, but I think if we are not using the rubric, at least to like, structure these conversations, especially when we're.

• 18:10Russ Frushtick?

  This helps especially because I don't think any of us are like that in-depth familiar with these consoles in particular. These are some of the oldest consoles that we've got on this list.

• 18:18Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure. TurboGrafx 16 is a 16-bit, uh, graphics card and the Master System was eight. So.

• 18:25Russ Frushtick?

  Well, 16 is bigger than eight.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:29Griffin McElroy?

  It's unfair.

• 18:30Russ Frushtick?

  Also, the TurboGrafx had cards, like, like credit cards as the games, and that's pretty fucked.

• 18:35Griffin McElroy?

  That's pretty sick.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Kinda cool. And that's a cool feature.

• 18:39Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I, how about controllers here?

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Oh, boy, yeah.

• 18:45Chris Plante?

  Two things that, you know, you're gonna experience serious hand strain minutes after playing either of these consoles. I think that the TurboGrafx 16 comes out ahead. Both of them have that kind of NES, very simple controller look. TurboGrafx 16 has a little bit more ergonomic shape. It's not literally just a pure box. Has a little curve to it on the back, but.

• 19:10Russ Frushtick?

  I guess it depends on the controller, because there is a rounded version of the Master System controller. I guess it's the Mark III.

• 19:16Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 19:16Russ Frushtick?

  That looks a little more ergonomic.

• 19:19Griffin McElroy?

  I prefer the Master System to like, this is a controller. This looks like a controller that was issued to you by some sort of government agency. This is controller, uh, and it's very minimalist, and I think it looks way better than the Turbo, any of the TurboGrafx ones. Which is like, this world's smallest buttons on the world's biggest rectangular piece of plastic.

• 19:42Russ Frushtick?

  The TurboGrafx one looks like if like Power A was in control of like releasing the first-party controllers and they just sort of like farted.

• 19:50Griffin McElroy?

  Hey, I've, I use a Power A controller exclusively to play Nintendo Switch, and I'm not gonna sit here and let you besmirch Power A. I think this looks much.

• 19:57Russ Frushtick?

  What's the shittier, uh, peripheral, uh, example that we could use?

• 20:01Griffin McElroy?

  Uh.

• 20:02Russ Frushtick?

  There was, there was one in Days of Yore that was like, no one wanted, Mad Cats.

• 20:06Griffin McElroy?

  Mad Cats did make some shit, but they also made the Guitar Hero controllers, so you can't stay too mad at them.

• 20:11Russ Frushtick?

  Fair.

• 20:12Griffin McElroy?

  Um.

• 20:14Chris Plante?

  I think we should just decide a winner on this one. I don't think we need to go too deep here.

• 20:18Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, because this thing, this one ain't beating the next round, whatever it may be.

• 20:22Chris Plante?

  This is also already one of the most surreal episodes of an audio show where we just talk about buttons on old video games. You know?

• 20:31Speaker 01

  It'll be easier once we dive into controllers and things.

• 20:33Chris Plante?

  You're so right, but let's pick one here. I'm gonna say Sega Master System wins because the box is absolutely sick. The hardware itself looks beautiful and you can plug one of those little laser zapper guns into it, even in the early days. I mean.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Congratulations.

• 20:49Chris Plante?

  Love it.

• 20:51Russ Frushtick?

  Well done. Congratulations Sega Master System for moving on. Uh, now things are gonna get interesting.

• 20:57Chris Plante?

  Hmm. Okay, now we're in it.

• 20:58Russ Frushtick?

  A little spicy even.

• 21:00Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 21:01Russ Frushtick?

  We've got Sega Saturn versus the Nintendo GameCube.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Dang, man.

• 21:07Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin, do you want to sing the intro song for the Nintendo GameCube?

• 21:10Griffin McElroy?

  Sure.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  That's pretty good.

• 21:17Griffin McElroy?

  That was actually pretty good.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  It wasn't really good.

• 21:19Griffin McElroy?

  I didn't know I had that inside of me. It scared me a little bit.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Uh, okay, so these are both consoles, uh, that are, I would say, you know, you know what's nice about these? These are sort of, I feel like these both have a little bit of the black sheep stink, huh?

• 21:36Griffin McElroy?

  A little bit?

• 21:37Speaker 01

  I think they, well, Wii U probably had, Wii U is probably a little bit more of a problem child for Nintendo, but yeah, these, uh, these both have a little bit of the, uh,

• 21:48Speaker 01

  sophomore slump, even though it's neither of their sophomore projects.

• 21:52Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 21:53Russ Frushtick?

  I would say this Sega Saturn was like, when it came out, a little bit ahead of, ahead of the game, right? In terms of like horsepower.

• 22:02Chris Plante?

  That's.

• 22:02Griffin McElroy?

  No, I mean Sega Saturn was way ahead, like it had a lot of, uh, Sega does what Nintendo don't like, power under the hood. It was just-

• 22:12Russ Frushtick?

  It could do like 3D stuff better.

• 22:14Griffin McElroy?

  It was just the, the sort of, uh, commercial strategies behind the Sega Saturn and the-

• 22:20Russ Frushtick?

  Disaster.

• 22:21Griffin McElroy?

  Catalog, which we're not discussing, failed it tremendously.

• 22:24Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, we're also not talking about price, but if I recall correctly, I think the Sega Saturn was like comically expensive. Is that-

• 22:30Griffin McElroy?

  No, I don't, I can't.

• 22:32Chris Plante?

  The Sega Saturn was very expensive. That's how Sony just undercut it with price alone.

• 22:36Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 22:37Chris Plante?

  It was rushed out the door. It is, if we're talking about like features set or just like how it works, for all intents and purposes, a disaster to design for. And that is why it has been a nightmare for emulation in the past, because it was having to do things like pull power from the sound card. It is, it is not great. And I say this as somebody who absolutely loved the Sega Saturn when it came out.

• 23:03Griffin McElroy?

  I, I played a Sega Saturn once at a Blockbuster Video. I played Nights into Dreams- On a Sega Saturn demo unit that they had there. And then I swear to God, you guys, I never touched one again. We did not own one. I don't, I don't know much about the Sega Saturn, except that they announced it and released it on the same day, uh, and put it under everybody's chairs or some shit at the press conference where they announced it to give a bunch of freebies away.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  The look is a gimme. The look goes to GameCube.

• 23:34Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  GameCube's a lovely thing to look at. That's easy.

• 23:39Griffin McElroy?

  Colors, so many color options. Nintendo does it the best for, for many-

• 23:44Russ Frushtick?

  There's a fucking orange one, wasn't there?

• 23:45Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 23:45Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it was like a-

• 23:46Chris Plante?

  Orange one, it was a purple one. What, what's next here?

• 23:48Speaker 01

  Most innovative. I mean, I don't-

• 23:50Chris Plante?

  GameCube, I think, pretty easily. So the, the reason I would say that is Sega had a, a challenge here with building to the Saturn and that they just kept putting shit out. So they're like, here's the Genesis, here's the Sega CD. So we have CDs out. Here's the 32X. So we have the power boost and 3D graphics. And then they kind of like rushed from that to the Saturn. So there was no like- It's kind of actually what I feel like has happened with the Xbox Series X from like the last console generation where there's so many little spots in between and such like a lack of a power curve that it's hard to justify what the console is.

• 24:27Russ Frushtick?

  And you can kind of see it with the controller because the controller is like spot on exactly like the Genesis.

• 24:33Chris Plante?

  And then they had to release a new controller for Nights in the Dreams, which you know, is recognizing that and they're kind of building the airplane mid-flight.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  Most, really the only stuff that you could, a lot of the point, stuff you could point to that was like innovative about the Saturn compared to the Genesis, like it is almost immediately succeeded by and superseded by this Nintendo 64, which doesn't have the disk drive leaps forward that the Saturn has and the Saturn still gets its lunch eaten. So I don't even think you can make a real like innovative features thing when this like console that should have been completely outclassed by the Saturn like almost immediately ate its lunch.

• 25:16Chris Plante?

  Yeah, blasted it.

• 25:17Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. I think we're going to talk a lot about the GameCube, but I think in this matchup specifically, it smokes.

• 25:24Chris Plante?

  And every, the Sega Saturn controller is an abomination.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  And he touched it once, so.

• 25:31Chris Plante?

  And I touched it one time and I still remember how bad it felt in the hands. It is, it is, it's like holding a ciabatta loaf.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  Congratulations to Nintendo's GameCube for your very fortunate pairing.

• 25:45Chris Plante?

  Yeah, because your controller ain't great either, partner. Speaking of fortunate pairings.

• 25:50Russ Frushtick?

  That controller, by the way, we'll talk about it.

• 25:51Chris Plante?

  The Nintendo Wii versus the Nintendo Wii U. Okay.

• 25:56Russ Frushtick?

  Now.

• 25:57Chris Plante?

  2K. Now, hold on. Now, hold on. No, no, please.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Let me clear my throat.

• 26:05Russ Frushtick?

  You've mentioned one console and then you mentioned some other words that didn't sound like anything. So you mentioned the Wii, the Nintendo Wii, and then what did you say after that?

• 26:15Chris Plante?

  Nintendo Wii U.

• 26:17Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that doesn't.

• 26:17Chris Plante?

  It's mine just goes to Saturn. Let's, let's, let's have like a clarinet.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Darrow one, just do the Atticus Fitch, one, one hail Mary. I'll go see if we can sell ourselves in the Wii U.

• 26:30Griffin McElroy?

  I'll go to the fucking map for the Wii U. If you guys need, need a champion for that, I will be your Huckleberry all day.

• 26:37Chris Plante?

  Hey, without it, we don't have the Switch. I, it is.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  You know what else we don't want?

• 26:42Chris Plante?

  What, you don't think, it's a clear path to the Switch because what they did is they made what the Switch should have been.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  It can't matter though. It can't matter, right? Like it can't.

• 26:50Chris Plante?

  It can matter in like, that's how innovation works, right? Look, it's not.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  It only matters in this because we're directly comparing one to the other.

• 26:57Chris Plante?

  Let me give it a decent funeral. I'm just trying to put out a cheese plate and you're like knocking me over and you're like.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Draw, could you draw even a loose profile of the Wii U console from memory?

• 27:07Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it's called a rounded rectangle. Done. I'm done. It's so easy. And then you want me to draw the controller? Okay. Uh, I just drew the, the, the screen on the back of your airplane seat. And then I put two little knobs next to it.

• 27:22Griffin McElroy?

  I congratulations gang.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  Credit, credit to Nintendo though. If I could just say briefly.

• 27:27Chris Plante?

  Credit.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Credit to Nintendo, when they walked in to start planning for the Switch, they walk into the room where the Wii U is sitting. And they look at both of the components of the Wii U. And somebody in that office picks up the console part and they're like, this is the problem. This is what people hate. We gotta get rid of this. They love this thing. This is working. It's the console we have to get rid of. There. And everyone's like, yep, let's do it. You're right. This is the, the console's the problem.

• 27:55Chris Plante?

  Well, I mean, even if you look at the box, like the box is the Wii U controller and then the console peeking out from behind it like, uh, I'm still here. I'm still doing it.

• 28:06Griffin McElroy?

  There was a chapter in the history of, of modern gaming where second screen experiences was something that people were trying to make happen. And that moment has, has passed, I would say, largely speaking, Xbox got in on it with, uh, a lot of shit. Uh, yeah. Microsoft, uh, I mean, you could also like connect your phone to like drop. Ordinances in Battle, one of the Battlefield games for like Xbox.

• 28:33Russ Frushtick?

  Also, the fucking DS was like huge.

• 28:36Griffin McElroy?

  Well, that's not second screen. That's, that is not the type of thing I'm talking about. I'm talking about like one play, you know, people looking at a TV, but then you also have a little pad that you can do shit on. And the Wii U, not to talk about specific games, had a lot of fucking rad applications of that. Uh, I, I think that it's, it was a weird little bubble, but it was like a, a thing that I found very exciting. I really liked games that could, could create these neat asymmetrical experiences in like a multiplayer setting. Uh, and, and the Wii U did that. And it was the most that I think a major company went all in on this like idea that ultimately, ultimately like the idea

• 29:18Griffin McElroy?

  itself kind of collapsed in on itself, which I think is a shame because I, I think that we are all using a phone while we're watching TV or playing a game or whatever anyways. I think it's wild that this thing was such a bubble.

• 29:30Chris Plante?

  Netflix is, is I think the, the air to this idea.

• 29:34Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, absolutely.

• 29:35Chris Plante?

  Gaming is like very interested in exactly what you're talking about.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  I, I like to imagine that Griffin is standing behind a pulpit next to an open grave and there's all these empty folding chairs in front of him and we're like standing there with our shovels and our watches. Like we really, we have another one to do in 20 minutes. We really gotta wrap.

• 29:53Griffin McElroy?

  You are burdened, overburdened by consideration of catalog. I invite you to remove that consideration entirely and then give me an objective look.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Do you realize that this conversation has only been able to continue because we are not mentioning the Wii like it's behind our back like this? Like, well, we do, okay, hold on, wait a second. Okay.

• 30:13Griffin McElroy?

  You mean the Wii, the thing that the Wii U could do all the same stuff as?

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, sorry. Does what the Wii don't.

• 30:21Chris Plante?

  No.

• 30:21Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, okay. The, let me first start by saying, I, this might have been unclear, but when I said which box looks cooler, I meant the physical console box, not like the marketing box.

• 30:32Chris Plante?

  That's too bad, because.

• 30:34Griffin McElroy?

  I was wondering why that conversation kept rearing its head.

• 30:37Chris Plante?

  In, in both, in both cases, the Wii still wins, so I'm, I'm fine with that, that. The Wii just looks like a white.

• 30:43Russ Frushtick?

  I actually think the box of the Wii U looks better than the box of the Wii, for what it's worth.

• 30:49Chris Plante?

  Like the white monolith, just like.

• 30:51Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, they're both white monoliths. I mean, in a way, one is just like a little rounder and more friendly.

• 30:55Griffin McElroy?

  I gotta disagree with you here. I do, I think the Wii looks cooler. I think the Wii hardware, just the box, just like a sleek.

• 31:02Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 31:03Griffin McElroy?

  Cybertruck.

• 31:04Chris Plante?

  It doesn't get so smudgy. Yeah, the Wii U looked.

• 31:07Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, okay, that's fair.

• 31:08Chris Plante?

  Screen was awful. Um, okay, Wii, here's the thing. Looks nice, has the motion controls that, you know, like shook the world. It got, it got grandma moving her booty, you know, down at the exercise place.

• 31:22Russ Frushtick?

  You could use two candles for that shit and it still worked. Crazy.

• 31:24Chris Plante?

  It was incredible. It also, features wise, brought the virtual console to our world, which at the time was awesome. You would, you would look forward to like the Wednesday drops of like new, new old games, and that was so exciting.

• 31:41Griffin McElroy?

  You had the Wii.

• 31:41Chris Plante?

  It's easy to take that for granted now, but like, that was huge.

• 31:44Griffin McElroy?

  You had all the Wii stuff, where you can make your own characters.

• 31:46Chris Plante?

  The Wii, yeah.

• 31:48Russ Frushtick?

  That verges on talking about a game, but not quite.

• 31:50Chris Plante?

  No, but it's, it's part of the UI, yeah.

• 31:52Griffin McElroy?

  I, I think, when I, when we talk about doing this episode, like, in my mind, I feel like Nintendo is such a front router in terms of like, what is exciting to me about like gaming hardware, and that it, they do weird shit. They do really weird shit with their stuff, and sometimes it's on a hardware level, sometimes it's on like an OS level, but they, they're the only ones doing really, I guess Xbox did Xbox Live avatars for a while, uh, which were. Not great, uh, but I don't know, I, the Wii really was, everything was channels. When you turned it on, it looked like a little, a little TV and everything was the Wii Shop Channel or the Wii News Channel or... That shit's so good.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  Okay, okay, okay. So the, the box, the Wii looks cooler. Even if you want, I mean, the Wii has to be more innovative. I mean...

• 32:42Chris Plante?

  We said enough of nice things about the Wii. We, we can just acknowledge that.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  More comfortable controller.

• 32:46Russ Frushtick?

  Well, but there are some interesting, there are some interesting matchups here. I'll go, I'll go very quickly. Um...

• 32:52Chris Plante?

  Neither.

• 32:52Russ Frushtick?

  Cool looking controller. I mean, you look like a fucking dork using the Wii U controller, like, let's be real.

• 32:58Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, and you look fucking so cool using a Wii Remote. Yeah.

• 33:02Russ Frushtick?

  I was swinging the fucking master sword around.

• 33:04Chris Plante?

  You look like a future tennis person. You did look cool.

• 33:06Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure.

• 33:07Chris Plante?

  That's true.

• 33:08Griffin McElroy?

  Um, can't beat the reliability of the Wii. Yeah, okay, it's fine. Wii, Wii wins. Uh, I just didn't...

• 33:14Russ Frushtick?

  Wait, wait, and portable, uh, the Wii U does take portable because you could technically play the Wii U without, like, a screen. Yeah, you could play it without a screen.

• 33:24Chris Plante?

  Yeah, people did. People would like bring it onto their airplane and plug it in to the power source.

• 33:29Russ Frushtick?

  You just need a power, you just need a power thing.

• 33:31Chris Plante?

  They'd keep the console in their bag and then play on the tablet.

• 33:34Griffin McElroy?

  That's great. I love that.

• 33:35Russ Frushtick?

  It is unfortunately the least cool name ever for any console ever.

• 33:41Russ Frushtick?

  So, uh, I agree. We, we, uh, wins this round.

• 33:44Griffin McElroy?

  Push it forward.

• 33:45Russ Frushtick?

  You forever will.

• 33:45Griffin McElroy?

  Push it on.

• 33:46Russ Frushtick?

  Never.

• 33:47Chris Plante?

  Next up.

• 33:47Griffin McElroy?

  Now we're freaking talking.

• 33:50Chris Plante?

  The... Bloodbath.

• 33:52Russ Frushtick?

  Let's go!

• 33:54Chris Plante?

  Super Nintendo. Sega Genesis.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Yes, this is when the console wars were wars, man.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm getting up my reference materials here because I don't want to say anything wrong.

• 34:08Griffin McElroy?

  I still feel afraid.

• 34:09Chris Plante?

  All these books hitting the ground.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Because I don't know how I feel yet and I, I really like this rubric because it's forcing me to like...

• 34:14Chris Plante?

  I don't like how I feel. I don't like how I...

• 34:17Griffin McElroy?

  Can we, can we, I feel like we are all struggling to begin talking about, I think let's, I think let's lean on the rubric here. I think let's go piece by piece for, for this matchup, the Titan of, of gaming console matchups.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  The first one is like, which looks cooler? They both look so cool.

• 34:34Chris Plante?

  And they're two different types of cool.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:38Griffin McElroy?

  I think the Super Famicom, if we can consider that instead of the American SNES box, I think is so fucking good. It looks so rad. It's got that, the blue, red, yellow, green little thing icon on it.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  But is that part of, I mean, I guess it has to be.

• 34:55Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I think that's part of it.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Permutations. It is really good looking. The, I've always loved that Super Famicom color palette.

• 35:02Chris Plante?

  But.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  But the Genesis is like sleek, especially when they got it down to just like a square. Uh, it just looked, it looks so cool.

• 35:12Chris Plante?

  And what about like when you stack on three Trex, a Sega CD?

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Then it loses points.

• 35:20Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  Get his saddlebags going.

• 35:23Griffin McElroy?

  I think we got a raw dog it. I think we got a raw dog straight Genesis to the dome and do not attach any peripherals to this.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  Now, I, no, sorry, but the expandability of the Sega Genesis is a promise that came from the, the Nintendo side of things that never like actually delivered on, the Sega delivered on the expandability and I think that.

• 35:44Griffin McElroy?

  And wow, did they deliver with a, with a suite of hit games.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Go on. Of what? Of what?

• 35:51Griffin McElroy?

  Can't talk about that. Something.

• 35:55Russ Frushtick?

  It looked like a Jenga tower. Give it that. That's all you got.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  It looked like the dumbest.

• 36:03Griffin McElroy?

  Look, let's call it look a tie.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  I give it, give it to Nintendo. I would give it to the SNES.

• 36:07Russ Frushtick?

  I would give it to Nintendo. I think Nintendo wins this. I think Genesis.

• 36:11Griffin McElroy?

  I will say the Genesis looks like a lot of other consoles that we've looked at so far.

• 36:15Chris Plante?

  Just a cooler version.

• 36:17Griffin McElroy?

  A little bit more character.

• 36:19Russ Frushtick?

  Innovative features, I think it's Genesis.

• 36:22Griffin McElroy?

  I think so too.

• 36:22Chris Plante?

  Yeah, definitely.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  How so?

• 36:24Russ Frushtick?

  Cause of all that wild fucking shit they had.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Blast processing.

• 36:27Chris Plante?

  They would try anything.

• 36:29Griffin McElroy?

  SNES had the Super FX chip, but really that was in the cartridge, I think. That wasn't hardware, hardware bound.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting. Yeah.

• 36:37Griffin McElroy?

  SNES just looked good and had a lot of stuff on it that was fun to interact with. But it didn't, it wasn't the most exciting in terms of, it was not the most feature-rich of gaming hardware. It really was, did the one thing pretty good.

• 36:54Chris Plante?

  It's funny with what you said about Nintendo, Griffin, like SNES is the contradiction, right? SNES is, we did the NES, but we did it better and we did it simpler. Like, they had more experimentation with the NES than they did with like, the NES just drive and all those things. With Super Nintendo, they kind of just knew what they wanted and they stuck to it.

• 37:13Griffin McElroy?

  Well, that was very much like their place in the market. I feel like this is when Nintendo is a kid's, is the kid's one. Like Nintendo's the kid's one, Genesis is for cooler. Like, that's always the conversation, right? To contextualize this for our younger listeners, like, these were arguments that were had in my school a lot of Sega or Nintendo, which one's cooler? And the subtext of those conversations is always like, well Nintendo's little kid shit and Sega is like, is pretty, pretty raw and pretty, pretty cool.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  I won't talk about the games, but Sega had blood.

• 37:46Griffin McElroy?

  Sega had blood on it.

• 37:47Chris Plante?

  Sega, yes. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we don't have policy here, but.

• 37:51Griffin McElroy?

  So the simplicity of SNES is, I think, by, by design, and it certainly worked for them.

• 37:57Chris Plante?

  When I say the simplicity worked for them and maybe against them, kind of what Hoops, I think you were getting at with like, not expanding on the console is why we have a PlayStation. Like, they had the opportunity to add CD functionality. They didn't. Sony was like, cool, we'll go do our own thing.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  If we're talking about more, it says more innovative, and I mean, you can't say that the SNES writ large innovated and evolved like more than the Genesis.

• 38:28Griffin McElroy?

  No, I would agree with that. I think.

• 38:29Chris Plante?

  I agree.

• 38:30Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 38:31Chris Plante?

  Here's a weird one.

• 38:32Griffin McElroy?

  We have removed the SNES. We have, we have Solomon's style, cut the hair of the SNES by not talking about its truly remarkable, solid gold, uh, library of games.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, what can you do? Ooh. I don't like the Genesis controller. I never have.

• 38:49Griffin McElroy?

  I don't either. I think it sucks shit.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  I've never liked holding it. I know that the ergonomics of the SNES are not good, but like, just the sounds, man. I, I, I can picture like, I, I, I think that would be, I would, that would go SNES for that one.

• 39:04Griffin McElroy?

  I think the SNES controller is pretty ergonomic. I, I, this is a controller that I-

• 39:08Speaker 01

  We understand more about how you should grip things, right? Like, the, the idea that it doesn't, I mean, compared to like, modern controllers, like,

• 39:14Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  There is a bit more heft to the Genesis, and if you're talking about like, which is better in the hands to hold long-term, it may be the Genesis, because the, the profile is a little bit closer to, like, what-

• 39:25Griffin McElroy?

  The human hand.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 39:26Chris Plante?

  And in terms of reliability, so many Super Nintendo controllers ate shit while I was using them as a kid. So many-

• 39:34Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, really?

• 39:35Chris Plante?

  Yeah, so many frayed, so many buttons got stuck, like, I, I constantly had trouble with that.

• 39:40Griffin McElroy?

  It's fucking ridiculous we're still talking about this. Look at these two controllers side by side, and then look at every other controller that ever came out after them, and tell me which one got copied by everyone. It's fucking crazy that you guys are like, "Yeah, the one with 60 million fucking buttons on it that nobody knew how to use is the-" Like, that's crazy. It's the SNES with a bullet.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay. Um, cooler looking controller, still SNES, I think.

• 40:07Chris Plante?

  Definitely.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:09Russ Frushtick?

  I mean aesthetically, it's certainly aesthetic choice, but yeah, I think, unless you are into like, how they design like motherboard boxes.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Reliability, I would go SNES, just because if we're giving it the benefit of the doubt for its innovation, then I think the reliability of those has to be taken into account. And that whole setup, once you started, like, once you plugged everything in, it was really one of those like, "Okay, hold it on, everybody. I'm turning it on. We'll see what happens."

• 40:40Griffin McElroy?

  Here comes Sewer Shark.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Something's gonna come out, yeah. It's spinning up. You can hear that baby purr.

• 40:46Russ Frushtick?

  So the, so the fact that the SNES was not really trying any of that stuff, except for maybe the multi tap.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think in terms of reliability, like.

• 40:55Russ Frushtick?

  I think that's probably true.

• 40:56Chris Plante?

  I don't think we need to get into more portable. They're basically the same.

• 41:00Russ Frushtick?

  And I would agree.

• 41:00Chris Plante?

  Super Nintendo one. I, I, I, I think you look back.

• 41:03Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Super Nintendo takes this Genesis, you're dead forever.

• 41:06Speaker 01

  All right. Hey, good try.

• 41:07Chris Plante?

  Ah, I'll miss your childhood.

• 41:10Russ Frushtick?

  It's another easy one.

• 41:11Griffin McElroy?

  This is dirty. Y'all done us dirty with this one.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  They're all gonna feel bad.

• 41:16Chris Plante?

  It's better be an easy one. If there's conflict here, I'm gonna fucking be pissed. Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  Dreamcast the best.

• 41:24Chris Plante?

  Dreamcast the best.

• 41:26Russ Frushtick?

  We did discuss it earlier, that Dreamcast is the best, but I think we need to go through and just confirm.

• 41:32Griffin McElroy?

  It is hard for me, guys, to lobotomize myself and not think about the N64 games I enjoy. If you look at the hardware of these two consoles, Dreamcast the best vice.

• 41:47Griffin McElroy?

  Dreamcast best.

• 41:48Russ Frushtick?

  I also, yeah.

• 41:48Griffin McElroy?

  Dreamcast had the virtual memory unit, which may be the most exciting bit of gaming hardware that was dropped.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Most exciting failed gaming hardware.

• 41:58Griffin McElroy?

  Like a hot stone.

• 41:59Chris Plante?

  Can we actually, can we pause? I, I, you're, I want you to have your entire VMU moment. Dreamcast is gonna get so much talk, cause it is the best later on.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, you don't need the VMU for this.

• 42:13Chris Plante?

  I would hate for you to like burn your best material on something as filthy and shameful as the Nintendo 64 hardware. Which like, congrats, yeah, they added rumble pack. They also added, remember the, uh, the little power boost that you had to put in, in its gut? Like Iron Man?

• 42:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it needed more memory. Yeah.

• 42:33Chris Plante?

  Oh, that, the, that fucking console.

• 42:36Griffin McElroy?

  That's so weird. That always weirded me out because it's like, when you bought the Nintendo 64 and you got it home, you're like, hell yeah, time to play video games. And then you look down, you're like, it seems like there's a little flap here. What's under that?

• 42:46Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 42:47Griffin McElroy?

  And then it's like, don't worry about it. For, don't worry about it for a little while. But then when Star Fox 64, I don't, I forget which one was, no, uh, it was Majora's Mask, right? It was the one that was like.

• 42:57Chris Plante?

  I thought it was Donkey Kong. It was one of those.

• 42:59Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I think it was Donkey Kong.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Had the expansion pack?

• 43:01Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. That required it.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  Required it was Perfect Dark did.

• 43:05Griffin McElroy?

  So it's like, why did you guys?

• 43:06Speaker 01

  That was a pack in as well.

• 43:08Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 43:08Griffin McElroy?

  You guys were always kind of planning on this, as evidenced by the fact that you did have a little hole here from the beginning. Why not put the thing in there from the beginning?

• 43:16Speaker 01

  That, yeah, that expansion pack is not so much a, an upgrade. It's, it's an upgrade in the sense that like, when people get metal discs in their spine, it's an upgrade. It's like, yeah, well, that's a medical assistance device that you have there. You need that to live.

• 43:30Russ Frushtick?

  They also put it in such a prevalent spot that was like, you could not, it was like someone got a tattoo on their forehead.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  They knew they had to make it easy.

• 43:37Russ Frushtick?

  There's no missing that slot.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Everybody was gonna need to do it.

• 43:40Chris Plante?

  The controller is also like, um, when you go to Chicago and somebody in a bar is like, you gotta have some Malort. You haven't been to Chicago if you haven't drank in the Malort. And you're like, yeah, I mean, sure, I'm glad I did that. That was fun. We had a good time. It was not a good experience.

• 43:55Russ Frushtick?

  Does, does the N64 win any of the categories of the reverse?

• 43:58Speaker 01

  It's lucky we're not able to talk about what the games look like. It's probably pretty excited about that, honestly.

• 44:04Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, it doesn't win boxes core, it doesn't win innovative, it doesn't win comfortable controller, certainly.

• 44:10Griffin McElroy?

  Guys, this really is Dreamcast's episode to win. Like, all of this shit is so good.

• 44:15Russ Frushtick?

  All that stuff.

• 44:15Chris Plante?

  Let's keep going.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  That's not fair to N64, because it should get its day in court. Um, the controller is one of the worst things I've ever seen. Uh, and I've seen multiple car crashes. Reliability.

• 44:27Russ Frushtick?

  And they break awful. It's some of the worst controller.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, they break all the time, which is more portable, like, I don't think you'd wanna bring it over to someone else could see that you had it, right? It's like, so embarrassing.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  No, okay, this is one.

• 44:44Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  This is one where I definitely have moved the Nintendo 64 to more places than I have moved any of these other consoles because...

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Of reasons that we can't discuss, but I think that's a good point.

• 45:03Griffin McElroy?

  In terms of reliability.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  To a lot of dorm rooms and dens and, you know, I haul that thing around a lot.

• 45:09Russ Frushtick?

  I don't think it wins on reliability, no matter what, because again, those controllers died. But portability, I don't think the fact that you had a reason to make it portable is a point in its favor.

• 45:20Speaker 01

  Listen, but the cartridges versus the discs.

• 45:23Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, oh.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  It's a lot easier chucking a bag than.

• 45:25Russ Frushtick?

  You don't have a fucking CD binder?

• 45:27Griffin McElroy?

  Dog, I will say that the Dreamcast. Can it have one? It's like a pure victory at best, man. I, no, I think that this one is fair because I think the Dreamcast disk read error was a real.

• 45:40Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 45:41Griffin McElroy?

  Epidemic, so it's not fair to just only.

• 45:44Russ Frushtick?

  I definitely had that issue as well.

• 45:45Chris Plante?

  Listen, we get it. Nintendo 64 had its time. We are debating whether it gets three consecutive life sentences or four.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:53Chris Plante?

  I don't really care. I mostly just want to get out in time for lunch.

• 45:57Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, Dreamcast is best.

• 45:58Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, Dreamcast is the best. Oh, boy.

• 46:02Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 46:03Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, this is great grandfather versus little baby boy.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 46:08Russ Frushtick?

  NES versus Nintendo Switch.

• 46:12Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I mean, the Nintendo Switch is fucking incredible. It's so good and it does a lot of stuff no other console has ever done before.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  And it's. I feel like someone has handed me a marker and asked me to circle the wrinkles on my nani. I don't, I don't like this feeling, but we are the feeling that we have to stand in front of the NES and just start sadly pulling out bricks until it dumbfolds like a Jenga tower.

• 46:40Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I mean, if you talk about, I mean, in any category, guys, one of these consoles came out 50 fucking years after the other one. It's gonna win in all of them. It's gonna beat the shit out of them.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  I would say that the Nintendo Entertainment System looks better than the Nintendo Switch. The Nintendo Switch has very little character and it's really, it's just a slimmed down Wii U at the end of the day.

• 47:07Russ Frushtick?

  And if you throw in the dock. The dock is horrible.

• 47:10Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 47:10Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it doesn't.

• 47:11Russ Frushtick?

  Visually speaking.

• 47:12Griffin McElroy?

  The dock's not great.

• 47:13Chris Plante?

  Okay, so yeah, it got one win.

• 47:14Griffin McElroy?

  The Switch Lite though, I think, looks great, especially when you mod it, you know? But I guess you could also mod any S.

• 47:20Russ Frushtick?

  But you know what's not on this list is the Switch Lite.

• 47:22Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 47:23Chris Plante?

  It also does, the Switch looked different than like half the emulator handhelds that come across your desk.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't think it looks that. So NES looks cool.

• 47:31Chris Plante?

  Yeah, that's fair.

• 47:32Russ Frushtick?

  I, yeah, I think NES is cooler. I mean, fuck. Innovative, innovative is where things get a little tricky, because we're talking about like

• 47:41Griffin McElroy?

  popularizing home.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  We should explain, by the way, we should have mentioned this upfront, but I'll just speak for myself. I don't want to speak for you guys, but I have what could at best be described as a very limited understanding of computation, broadly speaking. So some people might be like, but what about the chip? You know, or you know what I mean? Like the other chip that everybody knows about, like I, you know, I'm sure there's

• 48:07Griffin McElroy?

  Last processing.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's architecture things that I simply don't understand.

• 48:12Russ Frushtick?

  In addition to the architecture, it's worth considering that the NES did have its own robot and its own gun.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  Switch would be better with a gun.

• 48:20Griffin McElroy?

  That was a really good gun and a really shitty robot.

• 48:22Russ Frushtick?

  It also had a glove and a hoop and a, and a mat that you ran on.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  Now, wait a minute. There's a lot of things that the NES could, I mean, you're listening to a lot of different stuff. You're right.

• 48:32Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, all of it, all of it sucked absolute dog shit, except for the zapper. But yeah, otherwise you have a really good point.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  Innovative in terms of features.

• 48:45Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, the Switch, you can play on the go or at home on it. Like that alone, I feel like we are pretending like that is not sort of the dream scenario for us having kids and traveling as much as we do.

• 49:01Chris Plante?

  The dream scenario is video games our entire lives. It was the, it was the forever fantasy. What if I, my game boy played the games that I actually like?

• 49:10Griffin McElroy?

  Right, and it does it, and it does it pretty, pretty good. I mean, obviously it's aging, but it does it pretty good.

• 49:19Russ Frushtick?

  It's just hard because we were all like more or less babies when the NES came out. So the the frame of reference of like what the world was like before and after. We just don't have that.

• 49:29Chris Plante?

  I don't I don't think that's I don't think that's really fair, though, because like consoles had existed before the NES. An entire boom of consoles had happened before the NES. We just because we're babies doesn't mean we don't like know what history is.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  I think we might.

• 49:47Russ Frushtick?

  As a baby, I didn't.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  I think right now we might be discounting a little bit like just because we can't talk about the specific quality of the games. What the leap forward in terms of what this looked like.

• 49:59Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, you could talk about graphics.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, graphically speaking, at that time, like if you especially if you had grown up with with a lot of different games and seeing how all that evolved like seeing an NES was the wildest jump forward in our heads at that time, we had all seen several console generations because the Atari had had like three or four different like big releases, right? 2600 and then and and we thought like, wow, this is each one of these is a step forward. The NES was such a massive jump in terms of like backgrounds and character fidelity and like all that stuff.

• 50:34Chris Plante?

  It's such old man shit, but it is true. When you played the original Super Mario Brothers and the game scrolled and you weren't locked in the screen was mind blowing.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:46Chris Plante?

  It was like actually mind blowing.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  And go back if you if you have access to like some some ways of playing older games, whatever that may be, go play the stuff that came out the year the NES was released on Atari. Look for Atari games released in that year and then see like where where things were at like and even like it is such a massive jump. It's really hard to contextualize, especially because kind of a lot of people thought games were dead like that was it. They had run their course like.

• 51:16Chris Plante?

  Hmm, this one's tough.

• 51:18Griffin McElroy?

  I think for the conversation we're having here, it's for me, it is the Nintendo, Nintendo Switch. I feel like I'd be lying. I play it more than any other, of all the other consoles here listed, I play it more than any of the other ones, so.

• 51:37Russ Frushtick?

  And it did like manifest a total sea change. Like I've gone back and you're right, there isn't enhancement playing 7800 Atari versus the NES. But like side by side screenshot wise, it's not that different. Like it's pretty close.

• 51:53Chris Plante?

  We, we have the rubric.

• 51:54Russ Frushtick?

  I think the Switch is more innovative.

• 51:56Chris Plante?

  There's one other great thing that we have here. We always afford ourself one pick that can go to the final five if we so choose, right?

• 52:05Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I don't know if it's gonna be the NES though.

• 52:07Chris Plante?

  I'm just saying it could be.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  It's a tie. So do you think, you think the Switch is a better name? Cause I'm assuming you're using the tiebreaker, right?

• 52:15Russ Frushtick?

  I don't, have we even gotten to the tiebreaker?

• 52:17Chris Plante?

  Let's, let's, real quick, do the rubric.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Chris is saying it wins the rubric, so I just thought we would.

• 52:22Chris Plante?

  Yeah, so I would say which, which box looks cooler?

• 52:25Griffin McElroy?

  NES.

• 52:26Chris Plante?

  Which has, was way more innovative in terms of features UI? Switch.

• 52:29Russ Frushtick?

  I think it's Switch.

• 52:31Chris Plante?

  Which has the more comfortable controller? Switch.

• 52:33Russ Frushtick?

  Switch.

• 52:34Chris Plante?

  Which has the cooler looking controller?

• 52:36Griffin McElroy?

  NES.

• 52:38Russ Frushtick?

  I think the NES is.

• 52:39Chris Plante?

  NES.

• 52:39Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 52:40Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 52:40Chris Plante?

  Reliability.

• 52:41Griffin McElroy?

  That's NES. Talk to me about Joy-Con Drift.

• 52:44Chris Plante?

  No, no, no, no.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  Are you fucking kidding me?

• 52:45Griffin McElroy?

  Talk to me about Joy-Con Drift.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Talk to me about Joy-Con Drift.

• 52:49Chris Plante?

  How many times you have to go on the cartridge?

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Though, I wanna stay focused on Joy-Con Drift.

• 52:54Griffin McElroy?

  Joy-Con Drift versus every game failing eventually. Between those two, Joy-Con Drift versus every game eventually fails and stops working.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  And one is a portable console.

• 53:03Chris Plante?

  To recap, we are at 3 to 2. Switch has 3, NES has 2. Question 6, which is more portable?

• 53:10Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, that's a, that's a slam dunk. Out of curiosity, which do you guys think is the cooler name?

• 53:17Russ Frushtick?

  Nintendo Entertainment System.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  It's the best, right?

• 53:19Russ Frushtick?

  It's fucking so good.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  Nintendo Serial System in terms of great names and stuff.

• 53:25Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, rest in peace Nintendo NES.

• 53:30Russ Frushtick?

  Next matchup, we have the original Xbox versus the Xbox 360.

• 53:36Griffin McElroy?

  Um, look, if we're talking, if this conversation is, I think largely spearheaded by aesthetics, I think that the Xbox doesn't look very good.

• 53:49Russ Frushtick?

  And I think it's one of the ugliest things I've ever seen.

• 53:51Griffin McElroy?

  I'm trying to be nice. I think it looks not great. I don't think it's Microsoft's best looking piece of hardware. I think the original controller was a mistake. Was a mistake.

• 54:04Chris Plante?

  Abomination.

• 54:06Griffin McElroy?

  Was it the Duke? Was the Duke the big one?

• 54:07Chris Plante?

  The Duke.

• 54:08Russ Frushtick?

  The Duke was the first one, yeah.

• 54:09Griffin McElroy?

  It was so bad. It sucks so bad to hold that controller.

• 54:13Chris Plante?

  It was like.

• 54:14Russ Frushtick?

  It looked ugly.

• 54:15Chris Plante?

  It was like the Dreamcast controller without any of the cool features. So if you got like that shape, but none of the cool stuff.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  It bums me out that so many people listening to this never held one of these things. Cause you think it's people are blowing it out of proportion. But the first time you held that thing, it really was, most people's reaction was like, oh, not, I mean, not this, right? It can't be this size. Certainly not this.

• 54:39Griffin McElroy?

  I remember Juice got an Xbox and was staying in an apartment, was living in an apartment at the time. And I came to stay and you had a, you had, not Oblivion, Morrowind. You had Morrowind on there and I was like, all right, cool. We're not counting this. This is not part of the conversation. This is purely anecdotal. But as soon as I picked up the controller, I was like, oh, uh oh.

• 55:01Griffin McElroy?

  I was really looking forward to spending time with, with Morrowind, but this sucks so fucking bad to interact with.

• 55:10Griffin McElroy?

  But I also, I recognize its place in history and it's not like the Xbox 360, the box itself is like gorgeous or anything.

• 55:17Speaker 01

  No, it's nice.

• 55:19Russ Frushtick?

  It's nice.

• 55:19Griffin McElroy?

  But I do think if we are doing.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  Has there been a better console design since the 360?

• 55:26Russ Frushtick?

  Since? Probably the Switch.

• 55:30Speaker 01

  But like, that's a long time.

• 55:32Griffin McElroy?

  I guess it depends what you're into. You can switch the faceplate out of the 360. Listen, I think 360 is gonna beat the shit out of the Xbox in every conceivable way.

• 55:41Speaker 01

  With the 360 though, I gotta give credit for, it is one of the only consoles that I could think of where I know there was a design philosophy because they talked about it. Like, they talked about the inhale, and like, there was thought put into it. Like, a lot of 360 decisions, they're kinda off the wall, but like, I, I think it's a really fun design and, uh...

• 56:01Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I will say, for the original Xbox, a few things in its favor.

• 56:07Chris Plante?

  Played DVDs, CDs, basically was trying to be a computer. It, it kinda set the pace for where video game consoles went. Where they're like, "We're gonna use parts that are inside computers, we're gonna use an Nvidia graphic card."

• 56:21Russ Frushtick?

  As well, though.

• 56:22Chris Plante?

  Playstation was very much into like, "We're going to make cell processing," or like, any of that sort of stuff.

• 56:27Russ Frushtick?

  But it could play DVDs and CDs.

• 56:29Chris Plante?

  Yes, I, I...

• 56:30Russ Frushtick?

  I'm just saying, as an innovative point.

• 56:33Chris Plante?

  What, sorry, when I say CDs, DVDs, and all the PC parts, that it is building... Where Playstation was like a home entertainment system, for lack of a better word, a Sony home entertainment system. Xbox, I think, was building towards, even at this early stage, this like, your video game console is more like a PC. And I think that's interesting, and I think that is where video game consoles ended up going. Ironically, I think there were times where Microsoft ran away from that own internal direction. But also, it, it is kinda like the heir to the Dreamcast. It is Xbox Live, it has the Ethernet port, it, um, it has features that...

• 57:18Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I think, I think in terms of our rubrics specifically, there is only one of the six starting rubrics that the original Xbox wins, and that is reliability. And that is only because the Xbox 360 failed at such great numbers.

• 57:34Chris Plante?

  Yeah, profound.

• 57:35Russ Frushtick?

  That it just wins by default.

• 57:37Chris Plante?

  That, that's fine. I'm, I'm fine with us going 360 and talking about it more in the next round.

• 57:42Russ Frushtick?

  That, oh, sorry, it would, if it made it to the tiebreaker, it would also win which name is cooler.

• 57:47Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, the Xbox 360 is like a cool stunt you can do. They've been trying to recapture the magic of Xbox 360 as a name.

• 57:55Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, no, I like Xbox.

• 57:56Griffin McElroy?

  Really?

• 57:57Russ Frushtick?

  I think that's cooler than Xbox 360.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  Xbox 360 is stupid, and it was a bad name, and everybody made fun of it. You're too young to remember, maybe. I don't know.

• 58:04Griffin McElroy?

  It sounds like something you would do on a vert ramp, and I like that. I guess I'm sort of street style.

• 58:11Speaker 01

  They're both pretty good.

• 58:12Russ Frushtick?

  It's only, and I think they only named it that because they realized they'd be going up against the PlayStation 2, and they wanted a bigger number.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  Well, they were trying to keep pace with the PlayStation 3. They wanted you to go to the... Yes. It's a great...

• 58:25Russ Frushtick?

  So funny.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  In that term, it is so funny. The only thing that would have been funnier is calling it the Xbox 3. There is no law against that. They could still do it, actually. If they dropped the 3, can you imagine how excited everyone would be?

• 58:38Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, the next console was called the Xbox One, so they were fucking running off the rails.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  I know, but at this point, they could make an argument that the next one is because they restarted this franchise in Xbox One.

• 58:52Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, we have our... Okay, so 360 takes that one. Well done. And then we are our final matchup, which is PlayStation 1 versus PlayStation 2. Spicy.

• 59:03Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  PlayStation... PlayStation 1 looks better, but PlayStation 2 looks really, I think, kind of cool.

• 59:12Griffin McElroy?

  The Slimline PS2 is one of my favorite pieces of gaming hardware. That thing, that... Everything was so big. Everything disc-based was so fucking big, and the Slimline PS2 was like... What's the thickness? I gotta look this up. I gotta look up the thickness on this bad boy, because it was unreal.

• 59:31Russ Frushtick?

  Have you guys seen, though, the mini PS1?

• 59:36Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, I have one.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's beautiful.

• 59:38Russ Frushtick?

  You know that cute little guy with the rounded... I think that thing is fucking gorgeous.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 59:43Griffin McElroy?

  The PlayStation 2 Slim had a height of 1.1 inches.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  I mean, imagine. It's wild.

• 59:49Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, really small.

• 59:51Chris Plante?

  Okay, I mean, let's talk about PlayStation 1 just coming into existence, that Sony is, you know, co-developing an idea for something like this with Nintendo, doesn't work out, and they're like, "We're just gonna go do our own damn thing." Sony, who is not even in the video game scene at this point. And they, and they just leap in with this right off the bat and they leap in with the dual shock that yeah, it doesn't have, it doesn't have the joysticks, but it's effectively the same.

• 1:00:22Russ Frushtick?

  It does eventually.

• 1:00:22Chris Plante?

  It does eventually and it's the same design that they have been using up until the PS5, when they, they kind of finally changed away from it.

• 1:00:29Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:31Chris Plante?

  Pretty bold.

• 1:00:33Russ Frushtick?

  Did they, were they first or was Nintendo first on the analog stick? I think it was Nintendo, right?

• 1:00:39Griffin McElroy?

  Nintendo was first with, I think the 360 analog, or the.

• 1:00:42Russ Frushtick?

  The 64, yeah.

• 1:00:43Chris Plante?

  Yes. Playstation was first with the dual analog sticks.

• 1:00:47Griffin McElroy?

  Right, yes.

• 1:00:47Chris Plante?

  You can play Apescape with it, which we won't talk about.

• 1:00:51Griffin McElroy?

  It's fucking wild how there was a period of such rapid evolution of like the fundamental ways that you interact with video games. Like when the dual stick came out on the Playstation 1, I remember being like, oh, so I can finally move and look around. Yeah, I can move and look around at the same time. That's, that kicks ass. That's actually a good thing.

• 1:01:11Russ Frushtick?

  To use like C button.

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  It's, there's definitely a, I think that this period that we're talking about is the, the period where we are trying to reimagine everything about interacting with video games because of the switch to three dimensions, right? Your, your pad makes perfect sense in two dimensions. And what you're seeing, a lot of the flailing, I think at this point is like, okay, how do we make it okay to interact with this world? Like what is the language that makes the most sense? Because you have so many more things to consider. I mean infinitely more in a, in a certain sense, because you've expanded like the planes in which you're operating.

• 1:01:47Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, so Nintendo went ahead and made, and took a bunch of peyote and then like kind of drew something on a squiggle board.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, Playstation meanwhile, didn't do them and then were, looked around like, oh no, this is not working. This is not how you interact with 3D worlds. We need something else. So mid console, they, they put out the.

• 1:02:07Russ Frushtick?

  And, and ended up doing it better than Nintendo by quite a bit.

• 1:02:09Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:10Russ Frushtick?

  So.

• 1:02:12Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 1:02:12Griffin McElroy?

  It's tough, man. This is the hardest category for me to remove the history of it from because the, I mean, the cartridge to disc. Leap was outrageous.

• 1:02:22Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I think, I think the PlayStation one is more innovative than the PlayStation two. The PlayStation two, obviously, software wise, which we're not talking about, incredible. But like.

• 1:02:32Griffin McElroy?

  Interface wise, I think you can't, you cannot undersell the, the interface of the PlayStation two. That's the first one I remember being like, oh, okay. So like I manage all of the, I manage everything through this. Right? Like I manage my memory card data through this. I manage, did the PlayStation one have like a?

• 1:02:51Speaker 01

  Look at the PlayStation, before you lay too many more plaudits on the PS2 UI, you should look up a video of the PlayStation one AI. Because a lot of the stuff that, that you are talking about is, is baked in.

• 1:03:03Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, you could manage like memory cards and stuff because that's how, you know, you think about Metal Gear Solid one.

• 1:03:08Griffin McElroy?

  Oh my God, this looks so rough though, guys.

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  Well.

• 1:03:12Griffin McElroy?

  The PlayStation one UI.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  It was the PlayStation one.

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  It's before the PlayStation two, Griffin.

• 1:03:21Griffin McElroy?

  I, I think if, when I watch videos of the PlayStation two UI, which I do frequently.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  It looks like, it looks like a, an official PlayStation magazine fell down a well of stairs.

• 1:03:33Griffin McElroy?

  Demo disc, yeah.

• 1:03:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:36Griffin McElroy?

  But you also could watch DVDs on the PS2. It was like a multimedia machine and it was pitched as such.

• 1:03:44Chris Plante?

  The DVD thing is so huge because it was cheaper than most DVD players at the time.

• 1:03:51Russ Frushtick?

  That's true, yeah.

• 1:03:52Chris Plante?

  Which, one, made it like the default best DVD player you can get. Plus, how many people did it bring into video games? Just because they bought it just to have a DVD player and they're like, oh, now I can play.

• 1:04:04Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't think I would ever be as pumped as I was for a new console as I was when we got the PlayStation two at Christmas. Because that was also our first DVD player at our house and like.

• 1:04:16Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:17Speaker 01

  The, some of the biggest fights that we had, like the time on that thing was strictly managed because we were all wanting to use it all the time.

• 1:04:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  It was such.

• 1:04:24Chris Plante?

  You could watch The Matrix now.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  You could watch The Matrix on it.

• 1:04:28Griffin McElroy?

  You could also connect to the internet if you had the ethernet adapter.

• 1:04:32Chris Plante?

  You could also use the iToy in the Buzz Controller.

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, PlayStation 2 had a lot of good. I think this is PlayStation 2, guys.

• 1:04:40Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  But, I mean, do we go?

• 1:04:42Russ Frushtick?

  I, I would give it, yeah, I would give it the PlayStation 2. I, I still think the box is cooler or the PS1.

• 1:04:48Chris Plante?

  1.1 inches tall.

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  The PlayStation 1 does have a cooler box.

• 1:04:51Russ Frushtick?

  That's because it's little, doesn't mean it's cool looking.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  PlayStation 1 has a cooler looking box.

• 1:04:55Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so they're tied, and then we go to most comfortable controller, uh, which is tied, I guess.

• 1:05:02Chris Plante?

  No, it's the 2. The 2, the 2 does, um, round the edges. It's a little bit more ergonomic.

• 1:05:08Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, right. The 3 was the one that was the worst.

• 1:05:10Chris Plante?

  Yes, and also I believe PlayStation 1 took a while to get all four top buttons. I think it was just two top buttons.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  No, they always had, they always had two. It was the Dual 6. They didn't have them. Pretty sure they always had L1 and R.

• 1:05:23Griffin McElroy?

  I think that's right.

• 1:05:24Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, so, so, okay, so we're going to cooler looking controller. It's really down to, do you like the gray or the black? Right at that point.

• 1:05:32Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:05:33Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, you could get some, there was a multitude of colors for each of it. It's, we're splitting hairs talking about the differences of the controllers between these two consoles.

• 1:05:42Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, they're very close. Do we have any insight on the reli- oh, reliability? Someone was talking about, uh, games not running unless there was upside down, right?

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  I know that that was a, a thing. I mean, definitely there was less, they were less reliable. Like PlayStation 1 definitely had a lot more disagreed errors, et cetera, et cetera.

• 1:05:57Chris Plante?

  And PlayStation 1 died off much faster. Like, my old PlayStation 1, it had a very clear shelf life. For my PS2, I've, I've still dug it out and it still works.

• 1:06:09Russ Frushtick?

  And then on the portability front, are we counting the little 1-inch baby? Guess it was an offshoot, but.

• 1:06:16Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I mean, I definitely, I definitely brought the PS2 with me to places. Like, if I would go to a friend's house to play Burnout, I would bring it with me because it was so fucking little and, and it was no problem at all.

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:06:31Russ Frushtick?

  It seems very close. It seems like we might.

• 1:06:34Chris Plante?

  So there's one problem with portability and it's that the PlayStation Portable had a screen that you could attach to it.

• 1:06:43Chris Plante?

  That.

• 1:06:44Russ Frushtick?

  That was.

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  Wait, the PlayStation, the original PlayStation?

• 1:06:46Chris Plante?

  No, the PlayStation Portable. So PlayStation One Portable.

• 1:06:50Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, well, the PlayStation Portable is a PSP, which is.

• 1:06:53Chris Plante?

  Oh, no, sorry. I mean, the, um, whatever, the, the smaller version of it, whatever that was called. The, uh.

• 1:06:59Russ Frushtick?

  The PS1.

• 1:07:00Speaker 01

  It was called the PS1, spelled out one.

• 1:07:02Chris Plante?

  That, there was a, like, a hatch screen that you could put on top of.

• 1:07:06Griffin McElroy?

  Was this a first-party device?

• 1:07:08Chris Plante?

  I'm pretty sure it was, right?

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

• 1:07:11Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:12Speaker 01

  Put it in the back of the PS1 and it flipped up. And it was, look, look at it.

• 1:07:15Russ Frushtick?

  It seems pretty fucking portable to me.

• 1:07:17Speaker 01

  It's extremely portable.

• 1:07:19Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it was real cool.

• 1:07:21Russ Frushtick?

  I think it probably takes the edge on portability with that in mind.

• 1:07:26Griffin McElroy?

  I am fine with that. It's, they are the same. Again, let's talk about what's a cooler name. PlayStation or PlayStation 2?

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  PlayStation 2, maybe.

• 1:07:33Russ Frushtick?

  Now, let me stop you right there.

• 1:07:35Chris Plante?

  It's twice as good.

• 1:07:35Russ Frushtick?

  Although.

• 1:07:37Chris Plante?

  It's twice as good.

• 1:07:38Russ Frushtick?

  Say, hold on. You've got, let's look at the abbreviations for a second. PS2 or? PSX.

• 1:07:46Chris Plante?

  Pizzex?

• 1:07:48Russ Frushtick?

  I didn't say Pizzex. I said PSX.

• 1:07:51Griffin McElroy?

  I think Pizzex is something we came up with recently as a way to tronk it.

• 1:07:56Speaker 01

  I am not gonna have this discussion with you guys. It's pissing me off. PlayStation is a name of a box. Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Wii, the Saturn Genesis Mega Drive. That's something. PlayStation 2 ruined it for everybody because they put a number on there. And then it's like, and then everybody has to do the numbers thing. You couldn't just have these cool conversations about Saturns and, and Ultra 64.

• 1:08:28Russ Frushtick?

  Plutos.

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  Plutos and all that cool stuff.

• 1:08:30Griffin McElroy?

  This is actually a really good point that I've never considered before.

• 1:08:32Russ Frushtick?

  I like that point.

• 1:08:33Griffin McElroy?

  I do too. Alright, let's do a PS1 then.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  PlayStation is a, PlayStation's a very good poll. Like.

• 1:08:39Griffin McElroy?

  It's a very good name.

• 1:08:40Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah. Branding wise, crushed. I think, I think PlayStation One somehow takes this.

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  Congratulations to PlayStation One. You did it.

• 1:08:48Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 1:08:49Speaker 01

  We must move faster.

• 1:08:50Russ Frushtick?

  We are moving on to round two. Uh, and we've got some matchups coming at you. We're gonna start with a BV one. Xbox 360 versus PlayStation one.

• 1:09:01Speaker 01

  I'm gonna open this in a separate tab, in another tab, so I don't have to keep scrolling all the way back up to the rubric to reference it.

• 1:09:08Griffin McElroy?

  All right, 360 versus PlayStation one?

• 1:09:13Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 1:09:17Griffin McElroy?

  Guys, the 360 did so much shit. I feel like the 360 came out when I started to really play a lot of fucking games, a lot. And it, it had new ways of getting those games with like the Xbox Live Arcade and playing those games online from the jump with all my buddies. Like, that's, that's, that's halcyon days level shit for me. So that's, that's tough to argue.

• 1:09:45Russ Frushtick?

  I think the 360 does very well in the matchup because I think it definitely looks cool. I think we can all agree on that. It's more innovative in terms of features.

• 1:09:55Griffin McElroy?

  Love the controller. Love the controller.

• 1:09:57Russ Frushtick?

  The controller is fantastic. It looks great. It's comfortable to hold. Reliability, not so much. Probably loses the original PlayStation reliability and probably loses on portability. But it, it the first four categories.

• 1:10:10Griffin McElroy?

  Because if you moved your Xbox 360 around in the wrong way, it broke forever.

• 1:10:15Russ Frushtick?

  Right. But I think it takes the first four, which means it's, it's got the majority of the rubric there. And I, I think it's a very strong pick as much as I love the PlayStation as we just established.

• 1:10:26Chris Plante?

  I want to give Griffin his time to talk about the VMU again, but here we are once again with a showdown. We're Dreamcast is the best. There's not a conversation to be had here. The Sega Master System versus the Dreamcast. I think.

• 1:10:39Griffin McElroy?

  Get this fucking bullshit off my plate. Get this off.

• 1:10:42Chris Plante?

  I think, I think, I think, I think, I think the defense of the VMU is yet to come. We'll get to it.

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm on the edge of my seat, but for the moment, Dreamcast the best.

• 1:10:52Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:52Russ Frushtick?

  Dreamcast is the best. And, and we will get down to the point of where we're discussing the final five. And I think at that point, the VMU, uh, treat us will be.

• 1:11:00Griffin McElroy?

  Sure. I'm gonna fucking.

• 1:11:01Chris Plante?

  Okay, the GameCube versus the Nintendo Wii, um.

• 1:11:06Chris Plante?

  Fun fact, the Nintendo Wii is better in practically every way. I had a good time humoring y'all as if the GameCube was ever a cool console.

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  GameCube's trash.

• 1:11:14Chris Plante?

  It's absolute garbage.

• 1:11:15Speaker 01

  I don't know how the worst console of all time made it to a list of the best ones. It's impossible. Everything stinks.

• 1:11:25Speaker 01

  I hate the GameCube. Those fiddly little discs. Keep them. This is a man's hand. I need a man's disc. I like the disc.

• 1:11:32Russ Frushtick?

  Strong disagree on almost every front.

• 1:11:35Chris Plante?

  Wow, okay.

• 1:11:36Russ Frushtick?

  Which box looks cooler? The fucking GameCube is maybe the best console.

• 1:11:40Speaker 01

  That's not even close.

• 1:11:41Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay, okay.

• 1:11:42Griffin McElroy?

  And also, when you turn on the Wii, I mean, you did get pretty good music. You didn't get the

• 1:11:50Griffin McElroy?

  That one wasn't as good.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  I would say the GameCube is actually like the last hurrah for fun Nintendo design. Like, it all became, for good reason, I think it became a lot more function centric after that. Because so much of it was interacted with and like couldn't just be an aesthetic thing, but.

• 1:12:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:08Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, innovative. I definitely agree that the Wii takes innovative.

• 1:12:11Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 1:12:12Russ Frushtick?

  Easy. Uh, which has the more comfortable controller? I will die on this hill. It is definitely the GameCube.

• 1:12:19Chris Plante?

  Are you fucking kidding?

• 1:12:19Griffin McElroy?

  You could not be more wrong.

• 1:12:21Speaker 01

  Then step away, bud. Let's just step away. Let's figure this out.

• 1:12:24Russ Frushtick?

  I love, I love holding the GameCube controller. It fits perfectly in my hands. All the buttons are easily accessible. They have crazy shapes, so you don't need to look down to remember what your thumb is resting on. I love that controller. It would win for me for both more comfortable and cool looking.

• 1:12:41Chris Plante?

  You know when they're like, nine out of 10 dentists recommend you brush your teeth? You're the one dentist who's over here like, just let it, let the grime come up.

• 1:12:50Russ Frushtick?

  The GameCube controller.

• 1:12:50Chris Plante?

  This is so wrong.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  Russ, this is the most problematic thing I've ever heard you say, and I've known you for a long time.

• 1:12:56Chris Plante?

  Anybody could play the Nintendo Wii. Anybody. It was the most intuitive.

• 1:13:01Russ Frushtick?

  That has nothing to do with it.

• 1:13:02Chris Plante?

  What do you mean it has nothing to do with it?

• 1:13:04Russ Frushtick?

  Just because people can play it, that is not the rubric. It's whether it's comfortable to hold.

• 1:13:09Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, okay. This is an interesting wrinkle that I'm willing to, I don't, I don't.

• 1:13:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, this one did.

• 1:13:14Russ Frushtick?

  While you're playing tennis, it's fine to hold. Try playing fucking Excite Truck and see how you want to hold that.

• 1:13:22Speaker 01

  I would even make the argument, guys, that I was a game journalist in A8, A7. And like, this is one of the consoles that, that came with the Surgeon General's warning for, don't hug this guy in the wrong way. You're gonna shatter your TV. Don't, I don't know if most comfortable is also most propulsive.

• 1:13:41Griffin McElroy?

  Too comfortable to hold, that you start to fucking lose your, your focus a little bit.

• 1:13:45Speaker 01

  They, they gave you a strap to hold it better.

• 1:13:49Russ Frushtick?

  No, not only, not just a strap, a rubberized condom.

• 1:13:52Griffin McElroy?

  I loved, I did love having a little Jamie cap for my.

• 1:13:55Chris Plante?

  This, because you got me with the wording, and I feel like you planted the seed months ago, that you've all been building up to knowing that this moment would happen. Because if the question was, which is the better controller, Wii with a bullet. But if the question is, most comfortable controller, then like, yeah, you're right. They put the, they put the thing in a damn condom. Because it was like, so uncomfortable to hold a candy bar for a video game controller.

• 1:14:20Russ Frushtick?

  And, and on the cool, we're looking front, have you seen the movie Existence?

• 1:14:24Griffin McElroy?

  It looks like, I was just thinking about Existence.

• 1:14:27Russ Frushtick?

  The GameCube controller looks like the fucking Existence controller.

• 1:14:29Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, we're all having a lot of fun here, but the GameCube controller can't have like that. That, that is one of the worst things you could look at. You can't, no.

• 1:14:41Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, well, let's see. So if the game, we say that the, the GameCube controller takes one. The Wii takes the features and UI.

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:51Russ Frushtick?

  The, um, GameCube controller takes more comfortable. GameCube controller gets cooler. Um, on the reliability front, I, probably the Wii is more reliable. Is that fair to say?

• 1:15:04Chris Plante?

  Um, Wii still works today.

• 1:15:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I think Wii is pretty.

• 1:15:08Chris Plante?

  You could use your candles.

• 1:15:10Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, that's fine.

• 1:15:11Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, guy. I'm sorry, we gotta go back. No, I'm sorry, Russ. I can't, but I was trying to have fun.

• 1:15:14Griffin McElroy?

  You really snuck that one in.

• 1:15:16Speaker 01

  But like, I'm sorry, the first thing is, I came up with the comfortable controller thing, and then I'm thinking, what if I go to heaven? And God's like, if you love it so much, hold it forever. No, I was kidding to torment Russ. I didn't mean it. It's a bad controller. That is definitely not the most more comfortable than the Wii than the Wii controller. I'm sorry. No, I can't.

• 1:15:38Griffin McElroy?

  I will say when you're holding the Wii controller, if you're playing something for a long time, you have to do this a lot. So it's like the controller itself may be good to hold, but you do have to flail in order to operate.

• 1:15:50Russ Frushtick?

  It's also just like the games that weren't motion games, that controller fucking sucked. It was like holding the NES controller, worse even because it had that divot for where the trigger was.

• 1:16:00Chris Plante?

  Can we do less like a Survivor vote to like see where we're at here?

• 1:16:04Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:16:05Chris Plante?

  Okay, I vote Wii.

• 1:16:09Russ Frushtick?

  Wii. Okay.

• 1:16:12Russ Frushtick?

  I disagree.

• 1:16:14Chris Plante?

  You're heard.

• 1:16:15Speaker 01

  Okay, let me do it. That felt unfair to Russ. Let me do a rubric real quick. Which looks cooler?

• 1:16:20Russ Frushtick?

  Do a rubric.

• 1:16:21Speaker 01

  The GameCube.

• 1:16:22Russ Frushtick?

  GameCube.

• 1:16:23Speaker 01

  More innovative in terms of features.

• 1:16:25Russ Frushtick?

  Wii.

• 1:16:26Speaker 01

  More comfortable controller, Wii. Cooler looking controller.

• 1:16:31Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Think about it.

• 1:16:33Speaker 01

  I just talked about how much I hated it, Russ. That's not a, I was trying to see if you were listening. No, that's definitely not GameCube. So that's Wii. Reliability. Okay.

• 1:16:44Russ Frushtick?

  Give it to GameCube.

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  Why?

• 1:16:47Russ Frushtick?

  And we've got one more.

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  Motion tracking and like having to fix the light bar.

• 1:16:51Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, no, I totally agree. And now we've got another rubric to discuss.

• 1:16:56Chris Plante?

  Which is more portable, GameCube. So it comes down to which name is cooler. And there's no fucking way you're gonna say GameCube is cooler than Wii. Wii is iconic.

• 1:17:05Griffin McElroy?

  Hold on, actually. This is tough, actually, for me, Chris. Actually, Chris, this is tough for me, actually, Chris. I'm realizing with horror.

• 1:17:13Russ Frushtick?

  This was 20 minutes ago that I realized this is how it was gonna play out, and I'm so glad.

• 1:17:17Speaker 01

  GameCube is a much better name than Wii.

• 1:17:19Griffin McElroy?

  GameCube kicks ass. That's such a fucking cool name for a thing. The GameCube. We retire. We'll settle this in the GameCube, but it's so fucking cool.

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  So good.

• 1:17:30Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so there you go. GameCube wins.

• 1:17:33Chris Plante?

  Honestly, what's worse than GameCube winning is your little fucking plan coming into place perfectly.

• 1:17:39Speaker 01

  From the beginning, he said, he said, just so you know, he gave us all the clues. He said, just so you know, that is winning most portable. He gave it to us.

• 1:17:49Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that's true. Okay, so the GameCube takes it. We're down to the final matchup, which is Super NES versus Nintendo Switch.

• 1:17:59Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I mean, I think the SNES kind of limped into its victory because its hardware is not very exciting. And it sort of has a much stronger catalog of games, right?

• 1:18:08Speaker 01

  But if it's a straight up and down in the rubric, if the rubric is a straight up and down, that we are saying that each of those is equally important. So are we really saying we value which is the most portable against which is the most innovative in terms of features?

• 1:18:22Chris Plante?

  Also, remember, the rubric is a, it's, it's to get us talking. We, we do have the ability to say-

• 1:18:28Speaker 01

  I don't like the GameCube. I really don't feel good about the GameCube in this.

• 1:18:33Russ Frushtick?

  Too late? The rubric made its choice.

• 1:18:36Chris Plante?

  I, I, don't worry. I think the Wii is gonna come back for the top five.

• 1:18:39Speaker 01

  Alright.

• 1:18:41Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 1:18:42Russ Frushtick?

  I would agree that the NES, based on the rubric, will struggle because we are not talking about games and everything else about the NES-

• 1:18:50Chris Plante?

  The Super NES.

• 1:18:50Russ Frushtick?

  Super NES, I should say, is pretty mixed.

• 1:18:53Chris Plante?

  I want to get to that. I want to get to the top five then. Let's do this. Like, why waste our time? The Nintendo Switch wins. And we, I think, I think the, the five that we're gonna talk about here are the, the four winners, the Xbox 360, the Sega Dreamcast, the Nintendo GameCube, and the Nintendo Switch. And then I think the Nintendo Wii is the other entry that will be going into the top five.

• 1:19:19Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know about that.

• 1:19:20Chris Plante?

  Yeah?

• 1:19:21Speaker 01

  Versus what? What are you thinking, Griff?

• 1:19:26Speaker 01

  Cause we should figure this out before we-

• 1:19:29Chris Plante?

  Versus the original NES? Like, what, what would it be?

• 1:19:33Griffin McElroy?

  Maybe just the NES.

• 1:19:34Russ Frushtick?

  The NES was the only other one that I think had like a real competition shot at making it to the top five.

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  Man, I don't think you can discount though-

• 1:19:41Griffin McElroy?

  I think a PlayStation, having a PlayStation product in the top five makes sense to me. And I think PS1, we could, we could probably make the argument for.

• 1:19:50Speaker 01

  Oh, man, I know what you're saying, but like, Nintendo Wii-

• 1:19:56Speaker 01

  Changed so like the innovation of the Nintendo. We don't have a rework for this part. So it's more about gut, but like that chain, that was foundational. I mean, that shook everything.

• 1:20:08Russ Frushtick?

  Does it impact anything that it was like that foundation was later reverted and everyone realized it was a big mistake?

• 1:20:14Chris Plante?

  I don't, but I don't think it was because it got people playing. I think a huge challenge with video games at that time was just getting people to try them. And I think in the same way that like touch based games on iPhones brought a lot of people into the circle. You need that space. You need the kind of like learning area. And yeah, we don't need that as much anymore because now it's more common for everybody to play.

• 1:20:40Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, but don't, if you're gonna make that argument, does, doesn't the NES do that better?

• 1:20:44Chris Plante?

  No, I actually, I don't think it does. Um, I maybe the Super Nintendo, but like the NES was not the barn burner that brought people into video games compared to even something like Pac-Man or Pong. Like it was good. It saved a video game industry that was spiraling out of, you know, the full collapse, but I don't think it was like the system that, that got us to where we need to be.

• 1:21:11Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, that's fair.

• 1:21:12Chris Plante?

  I think, I think it was, it was pulling up on, it was the pilot, you know, saving the airplane from crashing into the ground.

• 1:21:17Russ Frushtick?

  I'd be fine putting the Wii at five.

• 1:21:19Griffin McElroy?

  Okay. I think that's a good, I think this is sound argument. All right.

• 1:21:22Chris Plante?

  You're only saying that because you know that that means the game cube is gonna get higher. I see exactly what you're doing. You just, what you did is.

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  Oh, GameCube is five. I'm not saying that Wii is fifth.

• 1:21:31Griffin McElroy?

  We can't say that the GameCube beats the Wii in one round and then in the very next round, say that the Wii is better than the GameCube. That's unhinged.

• 1:21:40Speaker 01

  You're right. You're right. That's a pretty far, even for the best, it's a bit much.

• 1:21:46Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, Wii is five. Uh, what other ones?

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  GameCube is four.

• 1:21:52Chris Plante?

  You had a good run.

• 1:21:54Russ Frushtick?

  Good job, buddy. I love you.

• 1:21:56Griffin McElroy?

  Dreamcast's best.

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  Slap Dreamcast in at one.

• 1:21:58Chris Plante?

  I, I, I think, I think Xbox 363, and now we can have the real conversation, which is Switch versus Dreamcast.

• 1:22:04Griffin McElroy?

  I actually know.

• 1:22:05Chris Plante?

  Coming towards this. Really?

• 1:22:06Griffin McElroy?

  I disagree. I think, I think, I love the Switch. I think Switch 3, Xbox 362, Dreamcast to best.

• 1:22:15Chris Plante?

  Can you just tell us why Dreamcast to best? Because we've been dancing around to this whole episode, and it needs its time.

• 1:22:23Griffin McElroy?

  Dreamcast. You know that scene in Alien? When Alien shows up?

• 1:22:28Chris Plante?

  Uh huh.

• 1:22:28Griffin McElroy?

  And he's like, oh fuck, how is this guy gonna kill this guy? And he opens his mouth like, oh, he's gonna eat him. But then another smaller alien comes out of the alien's mouth to eat him? That's what it was like the first time I popped the virtual memory unit out. And was like, wait a minute, this game console just shit out a small game console? That I can take with me to school to feed my...

• 1:22:50Chris Plante?

  If you didn't know, it was a memory card that had a tiny screen and even tinier buttons on it.

• 1:22:55Griffin McElroy?

  And it was incredible. You would be playing, uh, Shenmue, and you would fucking see a prompt on the screen that's like, B, B, B, B, B, press B? But you would also see it on your VMU if you were looking down at your controller for some reason, and that's fucking great. That's killer.

• 1:23:11Russ Frushtick?

  Do we not get it all for, for the fact that even though it was basically a mandatory attachment to your console, it was not included in the box?

• 1:23:20Griffin McElroy?

  I think it was included in the box eventually. No?

• 1:23:23Russ Frushtick?

  I think there might have been a bundle, but by default...

• 1:23:25Griffin McElroy?

  It's a little game console. It's not gonna be free. Wait, that can't...

• 1:23:30Chris Plante?

  Yeah, also, it, it's still part of it. We've been including things that are outside of the box itself for a while here.

• 1:23:37Griffin McElroy?

  Fair enough. I, it, it's such a wild thing to have.

• 1:23:42Chris Plante?

  It did so much more, too. Because like, Griffin, it had multiplayer. You could plug a VMU into another VMU.

• 1:23:52Russ Frushtick?

  Like in Avatar.

• 1:23:53Griffin McElroy?

  Like a Gigapet.

• 1:23:55Chris Plante?

  Like in Avatar's Gigapet.

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  Do you guys think the Dreamcast is the best looking video game console of all time?

• 1:24:01Griffin McElroy?

  I think it looks so cool. I think it looks so cool.

• 1:24:05Speaker 01

  It looks so cool that.

• 1:24:07Griffin McElroy?

  It's round and square. It's round and square at the same time. How's that possible?

• 1:24:13Chris Plante?

  And the logo.

• 1:24:14Speaker 01

  It's rounded square and then it's got a giant triangle on it.

• 1:24:17Chris Plante?

  Hey, how many video game consoles have a logo that is not like a letter mark that you remember?

• 1:24:24Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I mean, the Super Famicom, for sure.

• 1:24:30Griffin McElroy?

  That might be it. That might be it.

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  So I think, and the controller looks great. I will say though, guys, the Dreamcast controller to hold.

• 1:24:39Russ Frushtick?

  Not a blast.

• 1:24:40Speaker 01

  It's not a real treat to use.

• 1:24:42Russ Frushtick?

  And if you don't have a VMU because you didn't buy one, it does look very shitty to just have a hole in your.

• 1:24:47Griffin McElroy?

  The triggers are also pretty rotten on the Dreamcast controller.

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  I remember the squeakiness of these triggers. They would get very squeaky over time.

• 1:24:58Russ Frushtick?

  And again, even though I acknowledge, I guess we're putting it up against what? The Switch?

• 1:25:03Griffin McElroy?

  Switch and the 360.

• 1:25:04Russ Frushtick?

  We're talking about three examples of very unreliable consoles because each one of them, either a disk read error or stick drift, or the three lights on the front of your Xbox 360. So I guess it's a wash at that point.

• 1:25:17Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, the controller kind of fails the Dreamcast a bit.

• 1:25:21Chris Plante?

  Hey, other, other things for the Dreamcast here, though. Uh, built with dual booting capacity for Windows. So if we're talking about like.

• 1:25:30Russ Frushtick?

  But you would have to be a super fucking huge dork to do that.

• 1:25:33Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 1:25:33Russ Frushtick?

  How big of a dork would you have to be?

• 1:25:35Chris Plante?

  I get it. I was a dork. You don't have to say it out loud.

• 1:25:40Griffin McElroy?

  The Dreamcast was the first console I got online to play Fantasy Star Online.

• 1:25:44Chris Plante?

  Yes.

• 1:25:45Griffin McElroy?

  And, and that was pretty easy to do.

• 1:25:47Speaker 01

  All right. Yeah, the first game I played online was NFL 2K.

• 1:25:51Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:53Russ Frushtick?

  Known sports guy.

• 1:25:54Chris Plante?

  Also, you can, you can get an adapter to go beyond 56K when you wanted to go online.

• 1:26:00Griffin McElroy?

  That's true.

• 1:26:01Russ Frushtick?

  57.

• 1:26:01Griffin McElroy?

  If you wanted to play with the big boys.

• 1:26:03Chris Plante?

  Big stuff.

• 1:26:05Griffin McElroy?

  The, the interface also, if that is something you care about, is kind of iconic. I feel like anytime you had to manage your, your data through the Dreamcast interface, it was always,

• 1:26:17Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know, it had such, that is such a vibe to me of the era.

• 1:26:23Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, I think the 360 interface is like, that's the gold standard of this era.

• 1:26:27Chris Plante?

  Yeah. I, yeah, I guess I look at this Dreamcast in terms of innovation, setting the template, does a little bit of everything. It gets people online before that is common. It gets them online fast, which was even more unusual. Its online features were like quite robust in terms of, it's hard not to talk about the games here, but something like Fantasy Star Online having literally translation features in it is, I don't know.

• 1:26:54Griffin McElroy?

  No, sorry.

• 1:26:55Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:26:55Griffin McElroy?

  We can't consider that.

• 1:26:56Russ Frushtick?

  The Switch, ignoring that, the Switch is a more innovative console by like a fucking mile.

• 1:27:02Chris Plante?

  I, I think in terms of just, yes, it's a portable thing, but I think, I think it's like really hard to ignore the fact that the Dreamcast literally had Windows built into it and made it so you could develop for it. That is a huge thing. That, I can get it. It's not as like, it's not as sexy.

• 1:27:22Russ Frushtick?

  Forget that. Like what percentage of people actually fucking did that?

• 1:27:25Griffin McElroy?

  Nobody.

• 1:27:25Chris Plante?

  Nobody ever.

• 1:27:28Chris Plante?

  What do you, what do you mean?

• 1:27:29Russ Frushtick?

  I, I think, I think, oof, God.

• 1:27:34Chris Plante?

  Let's do the rubric. I, I know that, I know that the Switch is gonna win here, which is weird. But I want to just go through the rubric, so.

• 1:27:42Griffin McElroy?

  I think Dreamcast is best. I'm still firmly in camp Dreamcast at best. I think,

• 1:27:46Russ Frushtick?

  That's fine.

• 1:27:47Griffin McElroy?

  I'm a, I'm a sucker for like the history of the, and Dreamcast changed fucking everything and then it failed catastrophically in doing so. It died for our sins. So that it walked and fell over and died so that other consoles could run.

• 1:28:00Chris Plante?

  One of its features, you could just pirate all of the games if you wanted.

• 1:28:05Griffin McElroy?

  I pirated every fucking game on the Dreamcast. It was so easy.

• 1:28:08Chris Plante?

  Yeah. No, nobody talks about that feature. Okay, which box looks cooler? Congratulations, Dreamcast.

• 1:28:13Russ Frushtick?

  Dreamcast. Yeah.

• 1:28:14Chris Plante?

  Which is more innovative in terms of features, UI?

• 1:28:17Russ Frushtick?

  I think it's the Switch.

• 1:28:19Griffin McElroy?

  Let's give it to the Switch for now. Which has the more comfortable controller? The Dreamcast, ironically.

• 1:28:25Russ Frushtick?

  I think we just discussed how it wasn't. And it was a misery to hold.

• 1:28:28Griffin McElroy?

  Have you held Joy-Cons?

• 1:28:32Speaker 01

  I mean, if you're now, if you are saying that the, I really, okay, now, I really hate using the Joy-Cons. I really hate using the Joy-Cons.

• 1:28:43Russ Frushtick?

  What about Pro Controller? Do we count that?

• 1:28:44Speaker 01

  I mean, that's. You gotta pay extra. I mean.

• 1:28:48Griffin McElroy?

  We've been considering that for everything else, and I love, I think the Pro Controller is pretty solid.

• 1:28:52Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, the Pro Controller is.

• 1:28:53Griffin McElroy?

  I think the Switch beats the Dreamcast. Think about those triggers, guys. It sucks so bad.

• 1:28:57Russ Frushtick?

  Uncomfort, I'll give it to. I think cooler controller, Dreamcast, I'm fine with that. Reliability, they're all pretty shitty in different ways.

• 1:29:06Chris Plante?

  Which is more affordable, Switch?

• 1:29:08Russ Frushtick?

  The Switch. I think the Switch wins. I think Dreamcast is not the best.

• 1:29:12Chris Plante?

  You don't have to be married to the rubric, though. There's, again, it is a, it is a starting point.

• 1:29:16Russ Frushtick?

  I put a ring on it, so.

• 1:29:17Griffin McElroy?

  Why are we giving reliability to the Switch and not Dreamcast?

• 1:29:20Chris Plante?

  We're not giving it to anybody. No.

• 1:29:22Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it's a, it's a.

• 1:29:23Speaker 01

  Okay, but can you?

• 1:29:26Speaker 01

  So it's just a tie. It's like, doesn't count. But what if it did, right? Just because, like, is there any way for us to quantify that?

• 1:29:33Griffin McElroy?

  It sucks that we can't, that we're removing one of the rubrics in the final consideration.

• 1:29:38Russ Frushtick?

  We can, we can keep it, and let's look at the reliability issues. When the Xbox 360 fails, you just don't have a console. When the Dreamcast fails, you can't play certain discs.

• 1:29:48Chris Plante?

  You can play, you have to put a dictionary on top of the, on the system.

• 1:29:52Russ Frushtick?

  When the Nintendo 64, when the Nintendo Switch fails, sometimes Link runs around when you don't want him to run around.

• 1:29:58Griffin McElroy?

  I guess you're saying that, yes, it is less catastrophic, the failures. Yeah, I don't hear a lot about just Switch is just not fucking working anymore.

• 1:30:07Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:08Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I'm sure that it happens, but yeah, I guess, yeah, I think reliability, I think for, in that case, does go to Switch. Damn it.

• 1:30:14Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, I think Dreamcast is a more interesting winner, but I think if we, the scientists that we are, we need to look at the rubric.

• 1:30:22Griffin McElroy?

  I, I, I agree.

• 1:30:25Speaker 01

  I would make, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think it's, I think it's a switch.

• 1:30:29Chris Plante?

  Switch the best?

• 1:30:31Griffin McElroy?

  Switch the best. Alright.

• 1:30:33Russ Frushtick?

  Dreamcast not the best.

• 1:30:34Speaker 01

  Can I say though, what if, Dreamcast? I still feel pretty certain Dreamcast the best, so I don't know where to go from here, guys. Cause I, the way I see it, Dreamcast the best.

• 1:30:46Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, do we want to relitigate it from this, from the jump again? And see if we get the same result?

• 1:30:51Speaker 01

  Let's start back at the beginning. Let's start back at the beginning.

• 1:30:52Griffin McElroy?

  Which was also cooler, Dreamcast, which is more innovative in terms of UI and features? Dreamcast, it has the VMU, which has the more comfortable controller.

• 1:30:59Russ Frushtick?

  No, the fucking Switch was a portable. That was the Switch, because it, it transformed portability in gaming consoles.

• 1:31:04Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, so did the fucking VMU. The VMU did that first.

• 1:31:09Speaker 01

  You got a lot of VMU Reddit followers, there've been a lot of things like the VMU since that.

• 1:31:14Chris Plante?

  That's true.

• 1:31:14Griffin McElroy?

  I'm fucking counting the Game Boy.

• 1:31:16Chris Plante?

  The Switch doesn't even happen if, I, oh shit. Because Sega said, what if it was, a console you could play at home and on the go? And Nintendo was like, yeah, we'll steal that idea.

• 1:31:27Griffin McElroy?

  In 20 years.

• 1:31:29Chris Plante?

  Wow.

• 1:31:30Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, fair enough.

• 1:31:32Griffin McElroy?

  Awesome.

• 1:31:33Russ Frushtick?

  You know what? Guess what, guys? Dreamcast.

• 1:31:36Speaker 01

  I knew it! I knew it!

• 1:31:37Chris Plante?

  Yeah!

• 1:31:38Speaker 01

  I knew it! Thank you, my bias. You did it again. My biases have been confirmed. Thank you, besties.

• 1:31:45Griffin McElroy?

  Listen, if you're feeling sore about that, Nintendo's got three fucking consoles in the top five.

• 1:31:50Chris Plante?

  And also Sega doesn't even get to make these anymore. So like, let us have a moment for them. Let them have fun.

• 1:31:56Speaker 01

  It's the only context in which, I mean, it does kind of feel like in hindsight that we created, created a contest that only the Dreamcast could win.

• 1:32:06Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 1:32:08Speaker 01

  But congratulations to Dreamcast. Thanks to you for listening. We appreciate you. We have run very long here, so let's wrap up quickly and just say, thank you so much for your support. I hope you're pleased with the outcome. Alright, that's gonna do it for us of the besties. Until next time, be sure to join us again next month for the besties, because should the world's best friends pick the world's best games?

• 1:32:55Speaker 01

  Besties!