A couple of years ago I wrote up a piece called
Closing Time which examined the last official releases for popular game consoles, and some no-so-popular ones too.
Earlier this year I finally got around to adding a Game Boy Advance entry.
Yeah it had been over a year since the last game was released but I just kept hoping one more title would sneak out.
If another game had been released after July 31st 2008 then the Game Boy namesake would have made it 20 years.
Now of course this wasn't one single system that lasted 20 years, three distinct systems were tagged "Game Boy" over this span.
Most of the longevity can be credited to the original B&W model which had a shelf life of just over a decade.
I bet that little guy had the longest lifespan of any game system... well, did it?
Not content to just look at a couple systems to see which won the marathon, I decided to create a little timeline of how long they all lived.
Maybe I should have done a Google image search to see if someone already did?
Then again, I've never done that for anything else I've posted so why start now?
So how does one measure the lifespan of a video game console?
I went with
the date it was first available until the date the last licensed game was released.
Only US dates are represented because consoles had different lifespans on different continents.
For example, if you took the date the Sega Master System launched in Japan until the date when the last game was released in Brazil you'd find that it lasted longer than time itself.
A couple systems never had any games released beyond their launch library, those massive bombs are shown to go until the approximate date when they were discontinued.
There are still a few systems where I couldn't find exact final dates so their ranges are also approximations that may be off by a month or two.
I respect that others may prefer different criteria but this one made the most sense to me, plus I already did the
last game released research and am lazy.
Here's what the final timeline looks like (click for full-size):
That's cool and everything but what does it all mean?
Let's start breaking this giant diagram down..
The whole reason I started this was to see which was the longest lasting system, but now I think the winner needs an asterisk next to it.
See for yourself:
At almost 14 years the
Neo Geo is the winner.
It's a little hard to hand it the trophy since it served a niche market and was not sold in the vast majority of retail stores.
For all practical purposes, the
Atari 2600 earns bragging rights by edging out the Game Boy by a few months.
Comparisons can be made between the two - they were both pop-culture icons of their respective eras that survived against technically superior rivals.
They succeeded by being simple and accessible to a broad audience.
Of the systems still going today, the PlayStation 2 stands a small chance of breaking the record.
I'll go out on a limb and predict it will get a version of Madden 2013 which will give it a 12 year run.
On the other side we have the Virtual Boy, Gizmondo, RDI Halcyon, Tandy VIS, and Pippin failing to see their first birthday.
I'll stand by
my previous claim that the Gizmondo is the worst system ever.
I got my Virtual Boy for free and sometimes I feel ripped-off but at least it has some collectible value and is a nice conversation piece.
The RDI Halcyon and Tandy VIS would be great collectors items too due to their extreme obscurity.
I can't tell you beans about the Pippin but I'd still buy one before a Gizmondo.
OK, there was a second motivation for starting this article.
In numerous places, like
Wikipedia, I see the 3DO and Atari Jaguar referred to as "fifth generation" consoles.
Putting them in the fifth generation makes them contemporaries of the PlayStation, Saturn, and Nintendo 64.
That doesn't sit right with me.
For starters, they both spent far more time competing against the Genesis and Super Nintendo.
Heck, they were both dead before the Nintendo 64 was even released.
The real objection though is that there's simply no comparison between the 3DO/Jaguar and the PlayStation/Saturn/Nintendo 64.
I know I'll get hate mail for saying it but nearly every Jaguar game could have been done on the Super Nintendo with no loss of quality.
For 2D and FMV games the 3DO stacked-up well, but this was the 3D generation and it didn't stand a chance.
I prefer to define generations by major/defining-moment system launches:
- First Generation - Not pictured but would commence with the Magnavox Odyssey
- Second Generation - Fairchild Channel F, the first system to use programmable cartridges
- Third Generation - Nintendo Entertainment System
- Fourth Generation - Sega Genesis
- Fifth Generation - Sega Saturn
- Sixth Generation - Sega Dreamcast
- Seventh Generation - Xbox 360
This is just my opinion though and who the heck am I anyway?
Using these generation dates, the picture looks something like this:
The immediate problem with this order is it puts the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS a generation behind where they probably
should go.
If I held the Dreamcast to the same criteria as the Jaguar and 3DO I'd be forced to bump it back a generation too since it never really competed against the Gamecube or Xbox.
Here's the picture after making those changes:
Hmm.. now I'm not sure if that really looks better or not. I'll concede this is not an exact science.
All I really wanted to say was that there is no way the Jaguar and 3DO can be considered fifth generation consoles.
I realize most visitors just want to look at the big pictures and argue about their accuracy.
I can already hear distant keyboards complaining away -
hey moran, the game gear was re-make by majesco in 2001 and you have it stoped in 1996, you have no idea what your talking abot.
So I decided to keep the main page brief (I know, too late) and move the more in-depth examinations to different pages for those few that are interested.
There are more really big pictures on these pages too if that's what you're in to.
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