[Raion]

Someone mentioned to me they found my rant on the Sega Saturn thread funny. I decided to rewrite and expand it where I roast every major console I've owned, and discuss the technical issues and strengths:

Nintendo Famicom/NES

A classic in its own right, but there's sure a lot of strange things under the hood. The PPU (picture processing unit) is not well optimized for its task, so you get screen edge glitching in games like SMB 3. The cartridge sizes were limited to 40 kilobytes. This is 1983 when it was first released in Japan. That's well and truly a serious limitation that causes issues. The main RAM is 2 kilobytes for things like variables, the call stack, and anything that's not readable directly from the cartridge. Certainly better than the 128 bytes on the Atari 2600, but that doesn't matter. The graphics memory is 2kb and 64 sprites, with 3-colors for each sprite. This is a limitation that many other systems do not have, but as the NES/Famicom was released in 1983 in Japan, it's somewhat understandable. There's also 256 tiles BUT the PPU only allows 8 sprites a scanline, which creates nasty flicker effects that even can be seen on a CRT. 

The sound chip isn't directly programmable, at least the first 4 channels. You have two square wave channels, a triangle channel, a noise channel, and a sample channel which is used for samples such as the GHOSTBUSTERS! shout in the NES version. This lack of flexibility, however, causes the Commodore 64 to have some  strengths that the NES does not. 

But that FLICKER. That's the biggest issue I have with playing the NES nowadays. It's so fucking annoying. Almost as annoying as the playstation warp, pop and snap that I'll cover in a future one. The NES aged HORRIBLY as it dragged on through the nineties, a lot like a necrophiliac corpse that has passed the rigor mortis stage. The memory efficiency of the PPU was incredible, but it also limited the artwork that can be done with the NES in so many ways. Try an 8x8 or 8x16 block with just a palette of three colors. It ain't fucking easy with a 240p playing area to do anything remotely colorful. 

What should I roast next?

Note, I didn't grow up with many home computers, and I don't own Acorn, Atari, Sinclair or other systems. Let's stick to consoles mostly, but I'll do the C64 because I own a bunch of 'em.