The 2000s were an incredible decade for gaming, holding two of the most impressive years: 2004 and 2007. Basically, no matter which of the mainstream systems you happe🍸ned to own, you were practically guaranteed a solid library. Sometimes it just took a few years to get there.
Some of the best consoles of all time landed in the 2000s. The ensuing console war forced consum෴ers to start asking the hard questions about what they really wanted in a console, how much they enjoyed multiplayer and if having the most powerful console was even what mattered.
Loꦏoking back, it's a lot🌠 easier to see and rank their impact and libraries.
10 PlayStation Portable (2005) 🅺
The 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:PlayStation Portable (PSP) was Sony's first major attempt to compete with Nintendo in the handheld gaming market. An admirable effort, really. Nintendo got a stranglehold on the market with the release of the original Game Boy and didn't let go. Others had tried to usurp 💜them and failed, like Nokia's N-Gage.
Compared to its contemporaries, the PSP was a powerhouse. It held games that would be comfortable on consoles like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:God of War: Ghost of Sparta.
With Internet capabilities and several media playback features, the PSP was as much an entertainment 🧜device ෴as it was a handheld gaming system.
9 🍌 ꦚXbox (2001)
The 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Halo machine. That was the truth of the console for most of its lifespan. While later years finally saw other solid exclusives like Fable, the Xbox was mostly used to play that sweet, sweet Halo. Its most significant contribution to the industry, Xbox Live, owes much of its success to Halo 2.
Despite a relatively weak library, the system itself had some notable q꧟ualities that would go on to become standard. It was the first console to have a built-in hard drive for internal storage -- no more (required) memory cards! But it can't be forgiven for its initial horrendous giant of a controller, aptly nicknamed The Duke by fans.
8 𓆏 Xbox 360 (2005)
After a relatively weak library in their previous installment, Microsoft worked to make sure the Xbox 360 had more exclusives to match their competitors. Halo and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Gears of War led the charge, while titles like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mass Effect rounded out the third-party games.
At least at first. Over time, Microsoft watched several of those third-party exclusive go multi-platform. Mass Effect and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Saint's Row left Microsoft's fenced yard, weakening the broad range of exclusives. Games that remained like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dead Rising and a more robust iteration of Xbox Live made the 360 a soꦦlid console fo💫r its time.
Except for the Red Ring of Death. That was kind of a big d🗹eal too.
7 Game Boy Advance (2001) ⛄ 🎃
The Game Boy was an incredible success. After incremental changes and a soft reimagining with the Game Boy Color, the Game Boy Advance was the first major revolution in Nintendo's handhelds. What a revolution it was. The GBA maintained backward compatibility with previous Game Boy games, added two shoulder butto⛎ns and had a larger, higher resolution screen, and it still only ran on 2 AA batteries.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Golden Sun. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Metroid: Fusion. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Advance Wars. The first 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fire Emblem game to escape Japan. It even 𒅌housed remakes of old SNES titles. The list🦄 of fantastic GBA games is longer than a receipt from CVS.
But it still wasn't quite perfect. It needed one more iteration.
6 𝐆 PlaySﷺtation 3 (2006)
In a way, the story of the PS3 is the reverse of the Xbox 360. It struggled to find footing in its earlies🐈t days, caught between a weak library and a staggeringly high starting price tag ($599!). "The PS3 has no games" was a common meme on forums back then -- one with a bit of truth.
It wasn't until the release of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots that the system began to gather some heavy-hitters. It also benefited from several exclusives from other platforms going multi-platform. Looking back at a system that ended with titles like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us, it's a🍷lmost easy to forget ho💧w hard Sony had to work to turn the system around.
One thing it did have going for it e♈arly on: it was one ofﷺ the cheapest Blu-ray players at the time.
5 Game Boy Advance SP (2003) ๊
Two years later and Nintendo nailed it again. The GBA was already a phenomenon but the SP made several features standards for handhelds. A backlit screen (originally tried with🌄 the Game Boy Light, a Japan exclusive), a rechargeable battery (10 to 18 hours of battery life!) and a sleek clamshell design made it an absolute joy to use. A few years later Nintendo released a slightly-updated model with an even better backlight for the screen.
Unfortunately, it still wasn't the perfecꦯt handheld. In a baffling decision, the SP lacks a headphone jack. So close.
4 🐭 🎉 Nintendo GameCube (2001)
The 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:GameCube was Nint💦endo's weakest console in terms of sales at the time, held back by a few quirks. the lack of a DVD player in the console meant it lacked major features of the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, not to mention a controller too far removed from its rivals to make third-party games easy to port.
Nintendo games make this system a must-have. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Super Mario Sunshine, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Luigi's Mansion, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:F-Zero GX -- those are just some of the most well known. The GameBoy Player also opened up the entirety of t🌜he GBA library right on your TV.
Even lacking all those, it would always be remembered as the168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Super Smash Bros. Melee machine and played even today.
3 Nintendo DS (2004) 🐓 𓃲
If Game Boys were widespread, t𒉰he Nintendo DS was ub♈iquitous.
Later updates in the DSi model saw the loss of GBA backward compatibility, which was a tragedy as the system went on to completely replace the Game Boy line. By then its library was strong enough to stand on its own though. Between a portable 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Animal Crossing, mainstream titles like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokémon Black and White and cult-favorites like The World Ends With You, the DS rightfully eಌa꧒rned its place as the second most-sold game system of all time.
2 ෴ Nintendo Wii (2006) ꦅ
Nintendo probably didn't know quite how accurate this system's original name, the Revolution, would turn out to be. The Wii's cheap $250 price ta🤪g and quirky motion control focus made it a justifiable add-on to complement a PS3 or Xbox 360.
While it had titans like Super Mario Galaxy, no title represents why the Wii succeeded like Wii Sports. It made playing games easy and welcoming.
Maybe motion controls weren't everyone's thing. Nintendo wasn't satisfied with doing the same thing as their competitors or even their own previou♛s consoles. Even if it hadn't succeeded, they wanted to try a new way to play, to try and revolutionize the industry. That, at least, is truly admirable.
1 PlayStation 2 (⛦2000)
The big boy. The giant. The best selling vid🔯eo gameಌ console of all time.
It probably has the strongest library of any console ever. Ask anyone what their top five PlayStation 2 games are and you're likely to get many different lists. Perhaps its biggest weakness was multiplayer games. With only two controller ports by default, the PS2 and its library didn't capture the magic of local gaming parties that the Xbox or GameCube did.
One of the big🍷gest reasons for its success wasn't even related to games at all. It was related to that DVD player feature. For its starter $300 price, it was one o😼f the cheapest and best DVD players at the time.
The P🌃layStation 2 didn't go out of production until 2013, 13 years after its launch. 𝐆It left behind a behemoth of a legacy, a true Olympus that no console has topped since.