Dvader said:

N64 could do more than the PS1, it just looked ugly, PS1 games used many more tricks which the CDs allowed them to use to make the games look nicer. But yeah its pretty impossible to determine this stuff if you are just going by consoles. I thought you would go by how certain games pushed graphics. For instance Zelda OoT was a graphical marvel at its release, so was RE4, and the MGS games.

Zelda 64 looked great, but Rare had released Banjo & Kazooie 5 months earlier, and it looked quite a bit better than Zelda honestly. Banjo was absolutely AMAZING looking at the time.

As for this argument...well graphics are constantly getting better. By the time all these new consoles are out, there will be new graphics cards that are technically much better. A game doesn't NEED the best graphics or production values to be a great game, but those things usually DO go hand in hand. The greats usually push whatever hardware they are on...whether you're talking about Vagrant Story on the PS1, MGS on the PS2, Metroid on the Cube, etc.

Its been proven time and again over the past 15 years that, as much as people like to have the best hardware, it doesn't guarantee anything. PS1 beat N64 even though it was weaker. PS2 beat the shit out of Cube and Xbox even though it was weaker. Wii was more popular than 360 and PS3, though that is kind of an anomaly. Up until PS3, I think Sony's marketing did more to make them #1 than anything else. They had genius marketing, they knew how to make themselves sound invinsible.

Nintendo's marketing sucks ass, which makes it hard for them to ever dominate regardless of their hardware. They almost NEED some crazy idea to catch on like the Wii did...something that markets itself. Then MS just throws so much money at everything that their marketing is solid by default.

Despite the difference in the console's power, the thing that always remains true is that typically the best games have the best production values on whatever platforms they are on, at the time.