What do you personally believe is the greatest gaming system of the last ten years and why?

Jeremiah Slaczka (Co-Founder and Creative Director, 5TH Cell): This question is a bit more difficult. There are just too many great games on too many systems. I really loved the Dreamcast which came out in '99, but had a run in the 2000's. The PS2 had so many awesome titles, so it's hard to ignore that. The DS is the unsung hero of the generation with such massive sales and titles.

J. Allen Brack (Production for Director for World of Warcraft, Blizzard): Well, I am a big fan of PC. I was raised on PC gaming. I've always been a console fan – I've had consoles and I have consoles right now, but I really appreciate the flexibility that the PC has; I really appreciate the power that the PC has over a lot of the consoles, and of course I think that for many games and many types of games the keyboard and mouse is a superior control mechanism...

Dan Greenawalt (Game Director at Turn 10 Studios): Although this may not be what you had in mind with the concept of a "gaming system", I think Xbox LIVE has been an incredible "platform" for games that are LIVE-enabled. Not only for all of the social media and UGC reasons… but Xbox LIVE's ability to champion the underdog indie games and developers out there really levels the playing field and is healthy for the industry in general.

Paul Denning (Senior Gameplay Programmer, Rocksteady Studios): In terms of use I've never been far from my Game Boy and my DS. The latter specifically would get my vote. You can point at the Wii as a very accessible console that can be enjoyed by all but when I look around everyone has a DS. My Gran has never played a game in her life yet we bought her a DS for Xmas last year and she never puts it down. It bridges the generation gap. We're now at a stage where pretty much everyone in the western world has had some exposure to games. It's helping us ditch the spotty geek image that gaming had and it's moved it into the mainstream.

From the DS to the DS Lite, there's no denying Nintendo's dominance of the handheld space over the last decade.

Kelly Zmak (President, Radical Entertainment): PlayStation 2 – It formed the "PlayStation Generation" and set a new standard for games, changed the way games were made, and became the most popular gaming system of the decade.


Yoshinori Ono (Producer, Super Street Fighter IV, Capcom): This is hard to answer since my personal opinion is a mix of both creator and consumer, but my Japanese consumer part says I was very excited about Game Boy Advance which made my commutation pleasurable.

As a unique culture, Japan has the ultra packed rush hour train which literally is a living hell to be in. Game Boy Advance changed this living hell into a temporary oasis with games that almost equalled the quality of console gaming experiences back then!

As a creator I'm still adamant that Dreamcast from 1998 (just a bit over 10 years!) was a brilliant hardware. It had everything a gaming consoled needed – development kit, API, good tools… I recall that I could design games very freely without difficulty. It is a shame no console has its heritage to date.

Randy Pitchford (President, Gearbox Software): Launched in 1999, the Sega Dreamcast system was very far ahead of its time. Its controller design represented the biggest interface evolution since the original D-pad was introduced by Nintendo with the 8-bit NES. Today, new interfaces are driving a huge percentage of the industry, especially for customers new to gaming. Additionally, the way the Dreamcast anticipated connectivity and storage to be relevant future components of the gaming industry was remarkable. I believe that the Dreamcast was just too far ahead of its time. Perhaps some different positioning and later timing could've made all the difference for this greatest of gaming systems.

Yes, the Dreamcast was released in late 98 in Japan, but it was still a developer favourite of the last ten years. Come back to us Ulala!

Denby Grace (Senior Producer, 2K Games): Xbox LIVE, as a service, has to be up there in the way it's revolutionized online gaming but also in how it's bringing smaller "Arcade" games to the masses. PS2 as a system also packed some punches: God of War, Ico, GTA III… so many great games.
Hermen Hulst (Managing Director, Guerrilla Games): To me, the greatest gaming system is the one that's been the most successful this decade. I believe the PlayStation 2 still wears that mantle – it has by far the largest and most varied game library of any home console released in the last ten years.

Jamie Jackson (Creative Director, FreeStyleGames): Xbox. Not for its power or technology, but because it came out and offered a challenge that has stood up! The PlayStation really changed the way games are consumed. It changed the format, introduced more powerful graphics engines and turned games from a "geeky" past time to something that became part of your living room and home entertainment.

PS2 was always going to happen and it was always going to be great, but in my honest opinion to truly develop you must have competition and the Xbox did exactly that. It stood toe to toe with the PS2, some might even say surpassed it. For me both consoles delivered a very capable platform to make games on and pushed us as developers to get the best from each.

The Xbox may have been the size of a small car but it was a great console.

Ged Talbot (Lead Designer, Bizarre Creations): Xbox – As it almost single handedly re-wrote the template for online gaming with Xbox Live. While online gaming had been first done on consoles with the Dreamcast, the Xbox took social gaming to a new level by giving players a unique permanent identity that they could use to play games and interact with friends with. Added to this was the ability to download demos and videos of upcoming games which has fundamentally changed the way the public is introduced to new games coming onto the market.
Peter Johansson (Lead Game Designer, Avalanche): I would like to say the Dreamcast, but that was in '99 and I know in my gut it's just nostalgia speaking. I think I must say the Xbox 360 because of how it feels like a pure gaming system of old, with power we could only dream of 10 years ago and great online integration for both single and multi player.

Steve Stamatiadis (Creative Director, Krome): While there's been better technology since, I'd have to say the PlayStation 2. I think its sheer numbers of units and longevity are things to be admired. A lot of developers complained about how hard it was to develop for but that little beast could do some great things once you got your head around how it worked. If there wasn't the big push to High Definition, I think it would still be going strong.

The PS2 took a while to get going, but no other console has had such a long shelf life.

Hideki Kamiya (Game Director, Platinum Games): I don't have one specific console to which I was attracted especially. I'd absolutely give the first prize if there were a system on which every game including former titles can be played. The advance of consoles is wonderful, but it's a shame that now we abandon the legacies of the past. Can't we play classic games after the further evolution of consoles? I strongly feel the game industry is immature in this regard compared with other entertainment forms such as film.