Looking For Opinions - Last Generation Consoles

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m finally at a financial point that I feel I can give a little bit this christmas to my extended family in South America and Christmas is really about the kids, so I’m giving a little to each one in the family. My cousin has a 13 year old boy and I wish I could afford to give him an XBOX 360 but with the accesories and a couple of games it would be a little too expensive.

So I’m thinking about giving him a last generation console. I’ve seen the xbox and the PS2 for less than half the price of a new generation console, but I’m a PC gamer and know very little about these consoles.

So console afficionados: I’m looking for comparisons, and suggestions: which console would be best, and which one or two games are must haves for teenage boys. Thanks!

2

I’m not a gamer, but there’s a reason the PS2 was the most successful console since the original Nintendo Entertainment System (if it didn’t actually surpass the NES). It has the largest library of games, especially when you factor in the backwards-compatibility with the PS1 library, and there were some damn good games that came out over the years, between both of them. Plus, they rereleased a lot of the classic games for cheap, and you can probably send your nephew handfuls of second-hand games for even cheaper, as people upgrade more and more to the current consoles.

3

And there are still many games coming out with a PS2 version (Guitar Hero III, for instance). So they wouldn’t have to rely on the past library but would still be able to play newer games.

4

I work for Sony. The PS2 is still selling very well and new games are still being made for it. I’m actually meeting with a team tomorrow to discuss starting work on a new PS2 title for Christmas 2008.

5

Depends. What are their tastes? What kind of time do they have for videogaming? How good are they?

My highly unscientific recommendations:

Hardcore gamer, loves big challenges, attracted to games with lots of hype, wants lots and lots of playing time in every game, wants top-of-the-line graphics and sound, really into online gaming, isn’t turned off by a history of notorious unreliability: XBox
Hardware-wise, there’s simply nothing that can compare to the computer company-created XBox, and the vast majority of the games have a whole lot to them and take a long time to get through. A lot of megatitles, like Halo, are also on this system, most of them exclusives. There isn’t a whole lot for the casual or even oldschool gamer (like me), so only get this for someone who has no bones as to what it’s about and will appreciate it.

Young/casual/inexperienced gamer, prefers “lighter”/less serious titles, attracted to cartoony graphics and bright colors, doesn’t need/care for mature-themed games, doesn’t mind unusual controls, prefers relatively short sessons (say, 10-20 minutes), wants something reliable and with few performance issues: Gamecube
Despite Nintendo’s halfhearted efforts to shake the “kiddie” label, the Gamecube’s game list is the most family- and child-friendly one of its generation by miles. Lots of party games too, and the ideal system if you’re getting one for the entire family. I’ve never heard the reliability horror stories that have plagued other systems or a laundry list of problems loading or running games, so if dependability is a big issue, this is your system.

Likes a tremendous variety of games, wants a balance between capability and cost, wants lots of peripheral support (and is willing to spend a lot of money on this), wants easy availabilty of system, games, and peripherals, isn’t too concerned about online, is willing to put up with a little slowdown and slow loading for some later titles: Playstation 2
As a longtime PS2 owner, I can attest that this is a system that can do it all. The trouble is that in recent times some companies have tried to do a little too much, to the point where some of the old problems near the end of the PS1’s run (especially slowdown) have cropped up. Also, if you want to play imports, you really have no good choice other than to shell out for an import system, as all the modding or disk swapping options come with all kinds of problems. Reliability wise, it’s well behind a Gamecube but still miles ahead of an XBOX.

As I haven’t the slighest idea what 13-year-old boys want, I leave the decision to you.

6

No shit. Can you give us any kind of hint as to what this might be? Is it more Buzz/SingStar family-type stuff or could it be a real God of War-like blockbuster?

7

Another point in favor of the XBox: If one or more of your kids is the type who enjoys taking apart computers or doing other kinds of mod work, the XBox has various internals that can be replaced with more capable computer components. (Warning, computer jargon follows for the next two paragraphs) My XBox has a 160GB IBM Deathstar hard drive in it (requires some special software doing to make work, might even require modding the XBox’s software, I dunno, my room mate set it up for me), and I had it soft-modded to run a version of Linux complete with a media player that let me copy music and video files onto the hard drive (great if you’re too lazy to keep changing discs when watching DVDs or listening to music).

I also had the DVD drive flunk out on my XBox soon after buying it on eBay, but replacement drives are easily found (also on eBay), and I replaced it with a Samsung 16X drive which someone else had modified to work with the XBox (XBox uses a different type of power connector, so some sodering work required there, and they had to change the firmware in the drive itself so the XBox could communicate with it). It’s all a bit technical, and in the case of the DVD drive, also required a hacksaw to make it fit (my dad particularly enjoyed watching me take a hacksaw to a video game console in persuit of one of my obsessions-of-the-week), but if that’s the sort of thing your kid enjoys, then your kid will probably enjoy figuring this all out. :smiley:

XBox has a wide variety of quality titles, including the aforementioned Halo series, as does the PS2 (I’m particularly fond of the Ace Combat series of jet combat games, my brother likes the Jaxter and Dax games, and we both dabble in Final Fantasy). I’m eventually going to get a PS2 just for the Ace Combat games and Katamari Damacy, which looks cracktastically fun. Both the XBox and PS2 have Dance Dance Revolution games and pads, if you or your kids are into that too (DDR is a hella great workout too)

8

I have an intense dislike of Sony products, but if you’re talking last gen, even I’d have to agree with a PS2. The simple fact that they can also be picked up relatively cheaply, are found everywhere, and have been around long enough to build a decent library of used games make it the hands-down winner.

Of course, for $249, you could get a Wii.

9

Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

Looks like PS2 it is.

10

PS2 is definitely a good idea. I just picked one up myself. You can still find lots of great older games for around $20, and new games keep coming. I think it’s still outselling the PS3 month-to-month, so it has some life in it yet. I’m also a fan of the GameCube; the overall library is a lot smaller than PS2, but there is no shortage of top-tier exclusives on GC either.

There have been rumors that Sony is going to reduce the price of the PS2 to $99 sometime soon. I would hold out on making the purchase until right before you need it, just in case the price reduction happens this year.

11

Pochacco, anything you can spill yet?

12

He appears to be referring to Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4. release date dec-10, 2008
Gamespot review says:

I may have to be shot due to suspected zombie sympathy.

bang ::thump::

13

Ahhhh! Space Zombie!

14

You, sir, need to pop “alien hand” into your nearest google search. :slight_smile:
bang ::thump::

damn hand again…

15

Head shots, people! You always aim for the zombies’ heads!