Was this the last time game consoles were unique?

>Dreamcast had the ability to perform what was called Order Independent Transparency. Dreamcast can output VGA natively
>PS2 is full of beautiful particle effects that wouldn't even come close to being surpassed until GPU particles went mainstream two generations later, and even then tanked with transparency effects the PS2 powered through at 60fps
>GameCube supports texture compression, has hardware support for a lot of different texture effects (via TEV shaders), has a decently large dedicated texture cache and actually has proper support for mipmaps / trilinear filtering
>Xbox had a high end PC-level GPU coupled with a low-tier Pentium III 733 CPU with a crippled cache. The system has Direct X 8.1, shader model 1.1, vertex shader 1.1 and two Vertex Shader units, while the Geforce 3's only had one

>>11867513 (OP)
Xbox could output 720p

>>11867513 (OP)
no 7th gen

>>11867610
PS3 and 360 were too similar.

>>11867513 (OP)
As long as Nintendo keeps being Nintendo, the last time for that is obviously right now. Unless you mean ALL consoles have to be unique (and also that handheld platforms don't count), in which case I'd say it was the time of the PSX. Those differences you list are relatively subtle; the consoles were already mostly the same at that point.

>>11867513 (OP)
>the last time game consoles were unique

more like the first time they all felt the same.

>>11867513 (OP)
The Xbox is responsible for the generalization or "generification" of the video game industry, where consoles being sold with generic PC components.
I mean, the original Xbox is nothing more than a custom PC from iBuyPower or Alienware, but by Microsoft, with a custom operating system and firmware that made it impossible to convert it into a regular PC, since the only purpose of the Xbox was to disrupt the video game industry and not to add something new to the table.
PS2 (while PS3 is not retro) was the last unique console. Kutaragi was a genius.

>>11867853
>Kutaragi was a genius.
His consoles were consistently the weakest of their generations.

PS2 is the last true console

Dreamcast, GameCube and Xbox are all PC based

Not the PS2

>>11867986
The SH4 in the Dreamcast was more exotic than the MIPS used on the PS2. There was an official distribution of Linux for PS2.

>>11867996
PS2 Linux wasn't ever intended to be a real product, it was just a tax scam.
At the time EU had a lower tax rate for computers than video game consoles, so Sony ported Linux to PS2 and eventually the PS3 in an effort to take advantage of this by arguing it's not a game console, it's a general purpose computer.
I can't remember off the top of my head why it ended, either the computer tax rates increased or there was a ruling against Sony saying they are consoles, but either way once it stopped being profitable for Sony they stripped out Other OS from the PS3.

>>11868035
Tax exemption or not I think it's awesome they did something like that. PlayStation always used to do weird shit just for the hell of it. Hooking up 3 PS2s and 3 TVs for 3 screen gt4? Sick

>>11867974
ps2 was a powerhouse on the hands of the right developer

>>11867610
>>11867718
The general sense I get is they’ve all had the tendency to converge since the late 90s. You get small blips where there’s a real difference before the others move into the same space, like the early Wii era. Seemed like there were enough consoles in the 90s with enough differences that the games mostly came out feeling unique to their respective platforms versus just being PC ports for each.

>>11867513 (OP)
Each console had its own unique personality too.

>Dreamcast had the best arcade ports and fighting games
>PS2 had the best JRPG's, action-adventures, and weird experimental Jap games
>Gamecube had the best local multiplayer/party games and the most consistently good first-party exclusives
>Xbox had the best shooters, sports games, multiplats, and online multiplayer

>>11867513 (OP)

It was definitely the first time they were more similar as someone else said since you really couldn't go too wrong with any version of most of the games that were multiplats, but at least there was still a large enough number of exclusives that there was reason to own them all. 7th gen is when exclusives really started to dry up and now they basically don't exist.

>>11868259
>since you really couldn't go too wrong with any version of most of the games that were multiplats

PS2 ports always ran worse

>>11868261
Not always but I mostly meant in terms of it being the same game across all platforms. That wasn't always the case on 5th gen and below.

>>11868261
There are several games that are better on PS2, big name ones like MGS2, Silent Hill 2, and all of the GTA games for example. They either ran better and or looked better on PS2 due to the Xbox not being able to handle or convert effects properly.

Yes, hot take but the wii fucking sucked

>>11867853
>>11867986
>>11868171
Kill yourself.

>>11868339
>hoe is mad
I love triggering, with truth nukes, the /vr/tards

>>11867610
Wii was unique but 360 and PS3 were exactly the same. Almost disgusting how similar they are.

>>11867695
>Nintendo
The Switch/Switch 2 are glorified tablets. Hell, the first one was actually made thanks to Nintendo buying all the unsold stock of the X1 chips that Nvidia couldn't sell in the Pixel C and the Shield TV devices.

>>11869368
>Wii was unique
It was, literally, a GameCube 2.0

>>11867718
lol no, that was in the 8th generation

>>11867986
>PowerPC means it's an IBM clone
lol. shut up and read more

No, it wasn;'t.

>>11869736
>>11870739
Nobody outside the game industry cares about what specific chips were in the things. The player-visible aspects of the design, especially including weird input hardware, are what make the platforms "unique" in this context. That said, a Switch 2 is not "unique" in this sense across all consoles, thanks to its very high similarity to the Switch, but it is at least unique within its own generation.

>>11867513 (OP)
>>11867613
>>11869368
7th gen was the last time consoles felt unique because the consoles were catered to their specific audiences....
>wii - gamecube 2.0 for the nintendo fanboys while a bunch of waggle party games for children & casuals.
>360 - PC ports & FPSes for the dudebros & the teenagers who were too poor to buy a gaming PC.
>PS3 - weebshit, JRPGs & fighting games for the weeaboos & black people that seem to gravitate towards sony.

8th gen onward was when exclusives started getting phased out and a stronger push for cross-platform multiplayer happened