PixlBit

That's pretty awesome, even though i myself am an Applebot. :)

You asked for our takes on the state of the generation, so here is mine.

The bad:

The Wii U's failure. I enjoyed my system, in some years more than I did the PS4. It had great games like Bayonetta 2 and Super Mario Maker. I also enjoyed the remasters of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, since the Gamecube was my favorite Zelda console overall.

Microsoft's disastrous handling of the Xbox One. I'm a PlayStation guy, but still.

EA keeps pimping the whole "games as a service" model. On the one hand, it doesn't affect me directly since I have avoided EA for years. On the other hand, EA is so influential in the industry that I am concerned that more companies will buy into this nonsense. Other companies have tried to lesser degrees to push games-as-a-service.

This generation started off kind of slow. Most of that, I think, was hangover from the worst excesses of the PS3, 360, and Wii eras.

The Good:

The PS4 has recaptured a lot of the glory of the PS2. The PS3 was great, and to its credit, Sony worked hard to right the ship on the PS3, but it was still a stumble.

Nintendo is having a great deal of success with the Switch. As a Sony and Nintendo gamer, these developments make me happy. I also like being able to choose to play games on my TV at home or on the go.

For all that EA continues to suck hard, console RPGs and Japanese games in general have really made a comeback this generation. Last generation was kind of barren for a lot of the types of games I enjoy until nearly the end of the generation. This generation, we're getting Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Zelda, a new Mario, and even Valkyria Chronicles. Sega has really been knocking it out of the park lately with Persona 5, VC, and Yakuza.

Neutral: Incremental mid-generation iterations of consoles (i.e. the New 3DS, PS4 Pro, and Xbox One X). While I could see good points to this, a part of me really doesn't want Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft going the Apple/Samsung route and releasing a new version of their hardware every single year.

Overall, I'm enjoying 8th gen more than 7th gen. Single-player games and Japanese RPGs are more plentiful this time around, and I'm happy with the PS4 in particular.

Bee Wary never got a dedicated blog. It just got a blurb in my TRS-80 blog and the video,

That's no surprise. I think Tri-Ace helped develop LR.

Buy 1,000,000 gems to win the game for the low, low price of $99.99.

Yeahhhhhh... good luck with that.

Kids do change gaming habits. I know that from experience. Sounds like the Switch is more adaptable to those changes than the PS4 by nature of being portable and being able to put it down at a moment's notice.

I've played Seiken Densetsu 3 on an emulator. It's much better than Secret of Mana. The battles are a lot better, for one thing. I didn't like how awkward the battles in SoM were compared to Zelda or even later Mana games. I see why they didn't release it on this since it never got an official English translation.

I never was a huge fan of Rare. I'd have traded Rare for Square, Capcom, or Namco in a heartbeat. Goldeneye and Perfect Dark were the best FPS's on consoles at the time at least.

I'd actually like a GameCube Classic more than a N64 Classic.

I've played all three of those games. I played them on our Atari computer. I played Hitchhiker's Guide before I read the book. When my sister got me the book at the age of 10, the game made a lot more sense. I also played the sequel to Archon, though it was a bit more esoteric and the computer was really hard to beat. I also played a number of computer games that came from the UK, like Breath of the Dragon and Jet Boot Jack.

I actually did not know that. I started out on 1UP.com when I was in my late 20s. I'm now coming up on my 40th birthday in January. Looks like we'll all be chasing kids off our lawns soon enough.

The SNES Classic Edition appeals to me more than the NES Classic Edition, but I have almost all of these games on Virtual Console. It could have used a few more games like Zombies Ate My Neighbors. I also wish they could have bought the fan-translations of Final Fantasy V and Seiken Densetsu 3 (which blows Secret of Mana out of the water), but that was never going to happen. Ogre Battle would have been nice, too.

SNES games were generally better than their NES counterparts, but Super Punch-Out was the weakest game in the series IMO. I didn't like it as much as I did the NES or Wii Punch-Out games.

If they do the N64 Classic Edition, I hope they put Ogre Battle 64 and Harvest Moon 64 on it along with the usual standbys of Mario and Zelda. I doubt Goldeneye, Banjo, or Jet Force Gemini will show up on it unless Nintendo makes a deal with Microsoft. What I'm really hoping for is a GameCube classic edition that includes games like the Zeldas, Metroid Primes, Tales of Symphonia, and Viewtiful Joe. That would be a day one buy for me.