Top 10 Lists: The Top 10 Disc Based Consoles

The Genesis CDX is the overall unit of what the Sega CD and Sega Genesis made together. When the Sega CD was released, it was simply an add-on for the Sega Genesis. Many buyers complained how it acquired another power supply and wires to connect the Genesis together. being an add-on, I couldn't put the Sega CD on the list however Sega later manufactured the Genesis and Sega CD into one unit and released it as the Genesis CDX. The Sega CD gave us more advanced featured then the Sega Genesis, such as high quality audio and movies (or Full Motion Video or FMV, as it was technically called and marketed at the time) which allowed pre-recorded scenes for games for some developers as it was a form of better presentation for gaming at the time. Maybe the best game which came out of it, was Sega's very own Sonic CD because of its soundtrack, level design and that really nice introduction movie, which still attract the attention of many new generation of gamers today. There were also infamous moments in Sonic CD like Sonic committing suicide and the disturbing looking message printed on screen in Japanese which told pirates not to pirate the game. Some of the other Sega Genesis games have their fans also such as The Terminator for it's quality audio. While Sega CD tried to make the most out of the compact drive space, many players praised the quality audio which was used in many of the games at the time as the Sega Genesis audio wasn't the best. It also gave us Night Trap, a game with pre-rendered movie scenes, which soon caused controversy with one of the scenes. Whatever the case, The Sega CD gave way to games that are still remembered today because of the Sega CD's introduction. Its nice that Sega compiled it into a single unit, the Genesis CDX. Maybe they should do that and make a flashback console which could play the Sega CD, Saturn and Dreamcast video games all-in-one to have Sega fans to play around with their compact disc generation of consoles.

While the Wii U wasn't a success and caused Nintendo alot of problems as they couldn't sell enough of the units, as they were features like the tablet itself which didn't appeal to anyone. Nintendo included their own custom format for discs, the Wii U Optical Disc which held 25 Gigabytes of data, to compete with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. While it's the same size as the Blu-ray, it is believed the disc drive used the same technology as Blu-Ray but modified in a way which they've made it their own, thus giving the console a decent chance for developers to develop games to match and compete with to the other competition. If anyone could overlook the tablet and motion controls, you have a console with a good set of game which came off the disc. With games like Super Mario 3D World, Nintendoland, Splatoon and many more which fans would expect from Nintendo, it gave players a chance to have games as worth the games found on other powerful consoles, which I think should be considered. Nab Wii U's while you can! I have!

LaserActive uses the primitive optical media which started it all, the Laserdisc. The Laserdisc was released in 1983. At the time, it was started to be used and were found its ways into the arcade with games. It gave way to games such as Dragon's Lair, Space Ace and Road Averger, which were all major hits at the time for its movie like presentation during gameplay, however console wise, it was very rare as companies tried to make devices for home entertainment. Manufactured from the Pioneer Corporation. The LaserActive is believed not to be the first commercial attempt. Another console RDI Halcyon was set to be released however it wasn't released but there's stories of unit around which some folks have set their eyes out to look out for. The LaserActive however had manufactured a good supply during it's lifespan with some units on sale with their games. The LaserActive also has some decent games for its time which were printed on their LD-ROM format and could hold up to 540 megabytes, not as much as the CD-ROM, maybe the reason developers shifted their attention onto the CD-ROM format afterwards. Maybe dated now a days however at the time, they were decent and made a good part of the gaming industry because of the help of the Laserdiscs format which gave way to the compact disc and later DVD-ROMS and other formats soon after. There had to be a console like this during the 1990s? Maybe but it's nice to have a console like this around which represents the median at the time and for future generations to follow over the decades.

The PlayStation 3 uses Blu-Ray discs, which would hold up to 25GB of game data, if not 50GB on dual layer DVDs. At the time in 2006, this interested a lot of people and journalist to see what kind of games were to be made for the console as games printed on DVD-ROM at the time proved that bigger space on discs were better and created the kind of experiences players wanted and enjoyed. The increase of size may of also limited competition and aimed to stop smaller and inexperienced developers from making games which quickly turned into shovelware by setting the standards really high from what's expected into making a game. There weren't alot of games of the PlayStation 3 unlike it's previous console, the PlayStation 2 however the expanded disc storage wasn't aimed to stop that problem. The console also had the strong online support, which gave way to PlayStation store, which gave players and developers a choice between physical games and digital games. Maybe it was too good as not many games had taken up much of the space and were better on the PlayStation store and with Sony going straight to develop and release the PlayStation 4, which used the same disc format to try to make the most of the games today. The first models of the PlayStation 3 were backwards compatible on all of Sony's games, the PlayStation 1 and 2 however later models only offered backwards compatibility for PlayStation 1 games. With Sony promising backwards compatibility on PlayStation 2 disc based games, it hasn't arrived and has only arrived with a few games found on the PlayStation Store.

The Nintendo Wii offered something new to hardcore gamers and new audiences with their motion sensing control, the Wii-Remote. It led to massive attention and success in the market. While the DVD drive was standard, which Nintendo made into their own format, the Wii Optical Disc, the discs went by unnoticed because discs at the time were standard however it made the games required to give gamers the games for the motion sensing action to be enjoyed. Nintendo never neglected the disc drive. The Nintendo Wii was backwards compatible with Nintendo GameCube games and the GameCube Memory card to still be inserted aswell as controllers also, which many of the new generation of casual gamers hadn't known about or learn when they bought the console. For GameCube players, it was understood. Future models of the Nintendo Wii removed those parts and just offered a Nintendo Wii with wireless functions to detect the Wii-Remote thus removing backwards compatibility to GameCube games. Unfortunately it may of been extremely easy to develop games for the Nintendo Wii and this led to many other developers making games, which ended up to become shovelwave material for the console which was a bit of a letdown because the consoles success invited that sort of development to that opportunity for developers to try to make money but they didn't make games have any replay value, so they were pushed aside and buried somewhere and not replayed as disc offer that kind of feature for entertainment.

After years of developing and handling disc based games from their Sega CD and Sega Saturn days, the Sega Dreamcast gave Sega a chance to continue their line of formatted disc. The Dreamcast formatted disc, the GD-ROM, expanded from the usual 650MB size on Compact disc and held up to 1.2GB worth of data. However after the Dreamcast demise occurred, which stopped its production, halted Sega from ever developing and evolving, as it was also rumored that Sega were planning to develop a DVD version of the Dreamcast to better their games however this never materialised. Sega Dreamcast fans and homebrew enthusiast discovered an exploit in the Dreamcast to read normal compact discs on the console, which allow them to make and sell their own games, which they've called the MIL-CD exploit. Many indie developers have made and released games for the Dreamcast with this mean, ever since as compact discs are very very easily to produce and sell across the internet. The Dreamcast was Sega's last console and since then, Sega hasn't released another console for the market nor do they want too. The Dreamcast disc drive and its exploit which came along with the console has given console owners a chance to stay in the market. It also has been reported that the Dreamcast market is still sustainable for many developers and console owners. Un-intentional feature maybe but a bit lucky for others to give a reason to still own a Dreamcast today.

The Nintendo GameCube stood up to the competition towards the PlayStation 2 and Xbox and it offered something more interesting for fans and owners of Nintendo GameCube. Nintendo has always been known to have quirky ways to market it's products. While the mini-disc idea for a disc is uncommon and there were little means to have mini-discs, the GameCube is the only console to sport it and sometimes fitted the feel of what the gamers wanted and which the GameCube offered. One of the more better idea behind the idea of having discs in a size of a miniDVD is that it's the first time the Nintendo GameCube used optical discs for any of their consoles, as previous consoles such as the Nintendo 64 and Nintendo Entertainment System used cartridges, so maybe it was a way of Nintendo of taking small steps of making the most out of discs for any of the games published for their hardware. Nintendo GameCube discs held 1.5 gigabytes of data, a third of the other current format popular the time, the DVD, which held 4.7 gigabytes. The games did however lived up to what could be held on a single discs. In rare cases, some games were held on two discs (Enter the Matrix for example) but this was seen as not being left out as some of the other games were mostly found on the Xbox or PlayStation 2 at the time which were tough to port onto the Nintendo GameCube because of how little space the discs could hold compared to other consoles and hardware at the time.

The Xbox One interface and how it handles games makes the most out of discs by simply taking the data from the discs and installing it onto the hard drive. While there isn't much space for many games, it does force and encourage players to complete their games before moving onto the next game. Microsoft's multitasking feature works well, so it doesn't stop players playing their games when downloading something in the background but sometimes they have to take all the content of the disc first and keep the disc handy when the consoles asks for it, however unlike the PlayStation 3 and 4, it gives more reason to do this to prompt players to finish their games. Backward compatibility is well maintained and is often a strong focus of media attention for the console (I'm not going to deny that I've been watching the headlines here on GameFAQs over the topic) as it's the most demanded and requested feature to make the most out of previous games. At one point, Red Dead Redemption for the Xbox 360 disc sales jumped when the news broke that it was made backwards compatible for the Xbox One.

The Xbox generations of consoles are a very interesting seeing how their disc drives were made and used on each console. While Microsoft has only three consoled to date, I thought the first original Xbox was very powerful in the features they've presented that is over-shadowed their DVD Drive for their games. Even their discs had hologram markings on the inner ring, is a nice way to show off their discs to represent their games but I thought the internet connectivity and graphical hardware made more of an impact for their games then the games printed on their discs. There's even a feature where players have to pay to unlock the DVD movie function on their consoles. The following console the Xbox 360 tried to make the most out of their unique format, the HD-DVD format which could hold , which at the time led to a format war against the Blu-Ray but lost and shown that the HD-DVD wasn't successful. The Xbox 360 was unfortunate enough to later be plagued by scratching discs with Microsoft assisting that customers were responsible and later has led to a court case against Microsoft over the issue which still hasn't reached a verdict yet with the time I'm typing this. However it didn't stop Microsoft letting all there experience of the median go to waste. Microsoft's third console, the Xbox One uses the Blu Ray format however does so in an very interesting way.

The PlayStation was Sony's first attempt into the video game market and it was a extremely successful first try to break into the market, maybe because of their experience and succcess in user electronics over the years, such as their 1980s music device, the Sony Walkman. The Sony PlayStation has more of an interesting history of it being developed then it's actual success. With recent headlines of the news of the Nintendo prototype made together with Sony, being found and featured, it's clear that Sony wanted to help Nintendo make a video game console before their partnership spilt between them which allowed Sony to continue to make the PlayStation. Many successful games and franchises appear on the PlayStation, from Gran Turismo, Tekken and Metal Gear Solid. Because of the amount of disc space CD-ROMs offer, 650 megabytes and some cases, 700 megabytes and they were easy to produce, it allowed developers to expand their ideas and make more content to make bigger games with more graphics and also allowed to fit movies and good quality audio. Other more interesting ways the console with the disc drive embed were developers using the disc drive itself as a gameplay feature, to encourage players play around with game and audio discs for the CD drive. Games such as Monster Rancher and Vib-Ribbon as well as Sony printing discs black for anti piracy measures, which many gamers talk and bring up as points of discussion today make the the disc drive worth the feature on the console.

The PlayStation 2 (in my opinion) made the most out of its disc drive. It came at a time when people were still using compact discs but were looking forward to how DVD Drives were used. The PlayStation 2 offered this when it was first released. Despite the console not having a hard drive and gave an internet connection late during it's life cycle, the PlayStation 2 games shows off what the hardware could pull off for gaming. The PlayStation 2 was already built to make the most out of medium considering that the DVD was created and maintained by Sony as well as many other electronic companies, it also gave raise to game printed on dual-layered discs, which held up to 9 gigabytes altogether, however this didn't fare as well as expected as this wore out the laser rendering the console not to function properly. Gran Turismo 4 being the biggest culprit as it would run down the laser power. The PlayStation 2 also proved that games on a bigger format allowed better gaming experiences, this led to many to stay tuned for later consoles which supported the Blu-ray format, which could hold five times more data then the DVD during the time when the PlayStation 3 was released, thus making PlayStation 2 more satisfying before the production of the PlayStation 2 ended.

The PlayStation 2 biggest sell were the console used DVD-ROMs where movies were printed onto. This allowed the console to not only play games but also the movies. In Japan, it was a big deal as many players didn't have the space in their apartments to have both a DVD Player and game consoles, so the PlayStation 2 was the best way of watching both movies and games at the same time, which helped sell the console. For Sega lovers, it was a bit unfortunate because this is what may of caused the PlayStation 2 to outsell the Dreamcast at the time. It wasn't just for gaming. Gaming wise, it did expand gameplay times for video games because they were often bigger because the DVD-ROM allowed it too. While the console also discouraged piracy making their CD formatted game navy blue, DVDs weren't colored coded, however with the swap disc method out there, Sony manufactured their DVD-R discs to be the only discs to allow to play copied version of the games on the PlayStation 2, (which I found interestingly enough) so no other electronics company DVD-R would work on the PlayStation 2. It was the age where online piracy was huge but many players feel bad and bought the original copy of those games, before Sony stopped region locking games for PlayStation 3 and many countries started blocking out websites which provided data illegally of those games for anyone to print onto discs.