As we approach the PlayStation 5, I feel like we should take a look back at some of the past PlayStation consoles in terms of how they stand up in terms of game library. PlayStation systems are known for their vast, and varied game libraries, filled with both quality first and third party software. So here's my ranking for each PlayStation system in terms of variety, quality, and quantity.

1. PlayStation 2

What else is there to say about the PS2? It didn't sell over 157 million units by doing nothing. The undisputed king of the 6th Generation. The PS2 encapsulates early 2000s gaming far better than any competing console at the time, with a seemingly endless lineup of Platformers, Racers, Fighters, RPGs, Many of them originally exclusive to the platform, and many of which still hold up today. It also birthed some of Sony's biggest first party properties such as Ratchet & Clank, God of War, and Killzone. Sure it may not have had the power or ease of development as the Xbox or Nintendo GameCube, and its massive library meant that there was a ton of garbage to wade through. But its massive success meant that developers couldn't ignore it.

2. PlayStation 4

After a generation of Brown and Grey Shooters, and motion controlled music games that went on far longer than it should've, The PS4 couldn't have arrived at a better time in 2013. Eschewing the convoluted Cell Architecture of the PlayStation 3 in favor a cheaper, and far more reliable PC-based chipset, The PS4 was the easiest PlayStation to develop for, and much like the PS1 and PS2, was the leader of its generation, defining what gaming in the 2010s would be like thanks to its wide array of new social features, and unprecedented game library. If a game exists, chances are, there's a PS4 version, and chances are, it'd be the definitive version. Much like the PS2, the PS4 boasts a vast, and seemingly endless library of AAA, indie, First party titles, and everything in between. While it doesn't have nearly as many actual exclusives as the PS2 did, due to the realities of modern game development, the PS4 still boasts the largest catalog of software for those in the market for a new home gaming system.

3. PlayStation

The console that started it all. The PlayStation completely shook up the video game industry when it debuted. It made disc-based media a mandatory necessity, dethroned industry veterans Nintendo and Sega, and open the medium up to an audience of young adults that otherwise had no interest in video games. It's library is vast and just like the PS2 and PS4, spans nearly every genre. There's just one problem. A lot of its games simply don't hold up today. Either due to hardware limitations, or just the fact that this was the early era of 3D gaming. There's still a lot of great games in the PlayStation catalog, but many of them were also reborn in either superior remakes, or sequels on future hardware that did them better justice. So while it brought a lot of great franchises and games to the table, its overall library is only worth looking at for either nostalgia or retrospect.

4. PlayStation Portable

PlayStation's first foray into on-the-go gaming. The PSP gave you PS2 style graphics and gameplay in the palm of your hand, plus a variety of multi-media functions that in many ways, laid the ground work for the smartphones we carry with us now. It's actual library was also solid, consisting of a good variety of genres from both Sony and third party publishers. Though it faced a large amount of competition from the Nintendo DS and its even larger library, the PSP held its own thanks to its more powerful hardware, allowing for different types of games that what you'd find on Nintendo's platform. It's mainly held back by not having a ton of groundbreaking exclusives, with many of its games either being downscaled adaptations of console franchises, or solid B-tier titles like Loco Roco.

5. PlayStation 3

The most divisive console in the franchise. The PS3 was built on a then-ultra powerful, and highly complex Cell Broadband architecture that while impressive, made the console a pain in the ass to do work with. As a result, many of the console's early multiplatform games often looked and played worse than their Xbox 360 counterparts, despite technically being the more powerful machine. Plus, as games became more expensive to develop, the PS3 didn't have nearly as many games it could call its own, and thus, features a far smaller, less varied lineup than previous PlayStaion home consoles as a result. That's not to say it didn't have a lot of great games, because it did. Sony beefed up its first party support for the PS3 later on to compensate for the third party troubles, which birthed critically acclaimed darlings like the Uncharted Series, The Last of Us, and Journey. Towards the end, many multiplatform titles began actually being competent versions, many even offering PlayStation owners exclusive content. So while it's by no means a terrible console, the PS3 was a step down from its predecessors in terms of library

6. PlayStation Vita

Now we get to the black sheep of the PlayStation franchise. The PS Vita was Sony's final hat thrown into the uncertain handheld gaming arena, at a time when games on Smartphones were reaching their peak. Including consoles and handhelds, its the least successful PlayStation system in history, with less than 20 million units sold worldwide. Aside from some early crappy console ports, niche Japanese titles, and a solid selection of indie games, the Vita pretty much had no long-term third party support worth mentioning, which is unheard of for a PlayStation console. Even Sony itself didn't really know what they wanted to do with this damn thing, as they supported it mostly with watered down PS3-like titles, before giving up in 2014 to focus on the much more profitable PlayStation 4. Despite some cult hits like Terraway and Gravity Rush, the PS Vita is the weakest in terms of library, which is a shame given how much potential the device had early on.

Most Switch ports are actually pretty competent versions of their respective games. This is just an exception to that.

Releasing a few of their games on PC is benificial for marketing purposes. But at the end of the day, Sony has a platform to sell, so most of their games should be exclusive to PS5. PC should just be used to lure people into the ecosystem.

Select PlayStation games releasing on PC is a smart way to lure people into the PlayStation ecosystem. But, full-on day-and-date PC releases for every game is a terrible strategy. Sony isn't Microsoft, they're not trying to sell their OS and acompanying services like the latter. They're selling a closed platform, so most of their newest titles should still be exclusive to PS5, at least for a good 3-4 years.

If there's one thing Nintendo is known for, it's their games. With an army of beloved characters and properties at their disposal, and a powerhouse software R&D division, Nintendo can single handedly sell consoles on the sheer strength of their first party productions alone. But with the Switch, It may just be me, but the Entertainment Planning & Development Division seems to have taken a few cues and strategies from the software arms of other Platform holders. Specifically SIE Worldwide Studios, and Xbox Game Studios. Now, Nintendo is still Nintendo. They're still the tinkering Apple-like toy maker we know them to be with products like Nintendo Labo and Ring Fit Adventure. But Nintendo has seemed to have paid attention to what Sony and Microsoft get right with their first party content strategy, and applied some of those lessons in their own Nintendo-like fashion.

Chief among them is encouraging more creative autonomy within their teams. Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa, and Head of EPD, Shinya Takahashi have both openly stated that Nintendo's Production Groups should have the freedom to peruse new ideas and concepts however they want, and not have to constantly be told what to make and how to make it. This is the strategy Sony has embraced for years with Worldwide Studios, and what Microsoft is focusing on with Xbox Game Studios. Letting the teams make what they want, how they want, and support their vision by working with marketing, sales, and focus groups to deliver games that not only sell, but ones that the developers can also call their own. Nintendo's been moving towards the same direction for a while, resulting in what could be the most varied software lineup the company has put out. From tried-and-true Nintendo classics like Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, to newer faces like Splatoon, ARMS, and Ring Fit Adventure. To collaborations with independent developers in the west like with Snipperclips and The Stretchers. In the past, Nintendo's primary Software Division, EAD was dictated almost solely by whatever creative mood Shigeru Miyamoto was in at the time.

Another key change, is Nintendo's willingness to encourage "darker" games, and in general, including darker elements in many of their games. Sony and Microsoft have always defined themselves by offering more "Adult" titles to distinguish themselves from Nintendo's largely family-friendly roster. Nintendo's no stranger to dabbling in this area before like with Eternal Darkness and Geist, but with the Switch, it seems to be a vital part of their first party strategy for the console, and not just experiments, or token titles. You have games like Astral Chain, where Nintendo went as far as to toss out the original fantasy pitch, and encourage Platinum to try something more original, hence the darker, dystopian sci-fi setting. Bayonetta 3, which even after the underperfomance of Bayonetta 2, still got a huge reveal and is a game Nintendo seems to have a lot of faith in. Famicom Detective Club, an IP that NOBODY expected Nintendo to revisit, is getting full on remakes of the two games from Mages. Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion, which contains a darker tone and story, rarely seen in an in-house Nintendo game. And the triumphant return of Metroid with the big reveal of Metroid Prime 4, where they even went as far as to publicly admit that the original build wasn't very good, and will be rebooted with Retro Studios taking over development. While all-ages content still makes up most of Nintendo's annual roster, there seems to be a more confident attitude in promoting darker, more edgy elements.

Lastly, there's production values and budget. Sony and Microsoft studios often go all out on R&D budget for various games, which result in massive worlds, and impressive technical feats. Nintendo was always and in some ways, still is, more conservative with game budgets. Sometimes, to the point of only including the bare minimum, for better or worse, to cut costs, believing that quality gameplay wins over graphics and set-pieces. The Wii U was where it got really bad, as Nintendo didn't know how to handle the change of HD development. But with the Switch, while Nintendo still isn't interested in reaching Naughty Dog level budgets, they appear more willing to splurge a bit more on the budget of several titles to help reach their full potential. Of course, there's Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey, filled with ambitious concepts and technology that's impressive, even on the under-powered Switch hardware. Even games like Ring Fit Adventure, are generally receiving more money and marketing put into them than they would've gotten on the Wii U or 3DS.

In terms of software, Nintendo, their games, and their unique ways of making them haven't changed. But, the overall marketing, production, and content strategy these days is much more in-line with Sony and Microsoft's than it was back in the Wii U days.

Pikmin 4 actually rebooted development according to rumors. That's why its taking so long, same with MP4. Games get rebooted all the time during development, it's a lot more common than you think, even within Nintendo.

The Nintendo Switch is almost 3 years old, and has enjoyed an interesting year in 2019. Lots of games released, Pokemon finally made its formal debut on the system, and there were plenty of third party games and indies to go around.

The first few months were pretty low-key. We had Yoshi's Crafted World, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (The only Wii U port), Nintendo Labo VR Kit, Tetris 99, and BoxBoy + Box Girl. Decent games, but just like last year, there wasn't a real killer app. Then in June, we got both the surprise indie crossover, Cadence of Hyrule, and Super Mario Maker 2. Both of which were highly anticipated. While Mario Maker 2's online vs. modes needed more polish, it overall was a vast improvement over the original in just about every way.

In July, we got Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, and Fire Emblem Three Houses, both developed by Koei Tecmo. UA3 was a decent brawler with friends, but not much more than that, however Three Houses was hailed as one of the best entries in the series, changing up many Fire Emblem conventions, and bringing together elements of both the pre and post Awakening games. August saw the release of Platinum Game's Astral Chain, a dual Character action game from one of the designers of Neir Automota, and a fantastic one at that. In September, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening received a full on remake, which despite some performance hiccups, was a much needed update to the Game Boy Classic. Following Zelda, was two high profile third party games, Daemon X Machina, and Dragon Quest 11 S, the later of which is considered one of the best ports on the Switch.

Even after E3, Nintendo still had a few more surprises left for their Fall lineup. On top of a new Kirby Spin-off on the eShop, October also brought us Ring Fit Adventure. A game that wraps the fitness activity of Wii Fit, in an RPG adventure using the Ring Con controller. As strange as it sound, it's way better than you might initially expect. Then Halloween brings us Luigi's Mansion 3, a technical marvel and great adventure all around. October also saw The Witcher III Wild Hunt come to the Switch, another game that nobody expected to run on the system, and is way better than it has any right to be.

Finally after a long wait, and lots of controversies, Pokemon Sword and Shield released. Despite the lackluster visuals, and the incompetent way developer Game Freak handled the "Dexit" controversy, it's otherwise a decent next gen Pokemon, but nothing more than that. Before that, Nintendo shadow dropped yet another game out of nowhere from Tarsier Studios (now owned by THQ Nordic) called The Stretchers.

So overall, based on both first and third party games released for the Switch this year, how would you rate it?

That sounds like a nice fantasy on paper. But as we know, nice fantasies don't always play out well in practice. Front loading the service with too much stuff at once may cause everything to get lost in the shuffle. By starting off with a good 20 or so games, then expanding it with steady releases overtime, you can convince people to keep checking back in for something new, and keep subscribing to the service.

I think Nintendo's current release pace with NES/SNES games is too slow, but it's not hard to see why they do staggered releases instead of front-loading.

Yeah, I deleted it, sorry about that. In the end, I felt it was a pointless thread to make, so I took it down.

Snipperclips is a bad example to use against The Last of Us. If you want to make an argument, you'd compare Astral Chain or ARMS to TLoU. Even if the former are still lower budget, it'd still be a more fair argument against Sony.

Even when Nintendo introduces a larger budget IP, it's still seen as inferior somehow. Same with Microsoft. It just seems like a thing among PlayStation fans that their games are the most ambitious. No matter what these two do, the perception among the PlayStation fan-base is always "Sony always introduces New IP, while Microsoft and Nintendo don't". Look at the reactions to games like Everwild and Bleeding Edge for example. Sony fans still see these as not good enough somehow.

And again, Snipperclips and Sushi Striker aren't the best examples if you're going to compare directly to Sony. Astral Chain, Ring Fit Adventure, ARMS, even Nintendo Labo and Splatoon would all be more fair to use as a counter argument. You're misrepresenting the argument presented. No sane Nintendo fan will compare an indie sized games directly to Ghosts of Tsushima. If we're going to make an argument for New IP vs Sony, we'd primarily list games like the ones I listed, because they're able to better hold their own in terms of ambition. Even if there isn't nearly as much money, there's still multiple years of Research and Development put into those games by talented people who worked hard.

Which is why I also list Astral Chain, ARMS, Ring Fit Adventure and such. Even Labo required a lot of money and time to prototype and execute. Games like these make better arguments for new IP than just the downloadable indie-tier games.