What's your favourite and/or least favourite gaming hardware?
So, I'll start. I have 3 devices that I'd say are tied for best
First, my n3ds xl. Beautiful handheld, clamshell, just a nice piece of hardware. If the cstick didn't suck itd be the sole winner. My 3ds has served me very well
I also like my rp4 pro, just a great all round emulation machine. And a functional second analog stick, its almost like analog sticks are meant to be sticks and not pencil top erasers
I also like my ambernic sp, got it recently. Looks cool. And clamshell so yippee
As for the worst, I have a few:
Mandatory jab at the switch. Not awful but cmon, the controls suck
The leapster explorer. Shitty dpad. Insane power consumption, it s afun gimmick, jut kinda useless.
Then I had this little system from lexibook, the "compact cyber arcade" or something. Was silver and white, appeared to be 16 bit. Really shit controls. Buttons weren't even labeled. It also just randomly died after about a decade, but I can't fault it for that I guess.
I also hate tiger handhelds with a passion. Like ignoring the awful game, the controls just SUCK I didn't even pay for the one I do have and I still feel scammed
DSi introduced region locking to Nintendo handhelds. I stopped buying them at that point. The next Nintendo system I bought was the switch, which was no longer region locked. The DSi kicked that off, so it might be my least favorite.
Favorite hardware is a much tougher nut to crack. Could be my first console, n64, or my first gaming apparatus, the Gameboy Pocket. But the PSVR1 blew me away and made me a little less into flat games. The PS5 has everything I love from PS4 onward (and does VR), and the Steam deck streams my PS5 from bed while also playing pc, retro, and Xbox games and being a full on Linux machine.
Home consoles were region locked based on physical barriers in the slots that would block a cartridge from a different region. You could just extract those barriers and the console could play any cartridge from any region, though. Handhelds had been different, though. Up to the DSi, you could buy a handheld cartridge from any country and it would plug in and play no problem.