Lurker > lordjers

Poor Things should've won more imo

Speaking as someone who lived through that era as a kid with many gaming friends

No it did not (though Mario Kart 64 was a popular party game there were a ton of them back then)

Theres very limited occasions where I interact with kids but the only three times ever I let a kid use my switch all three IMMEDIATELY freaked out that I didnt have MK8. Like they could not comprehend me not having it

I never really know how much of my experience is colored by the games I had and did not have in my childhood, but the difference between the 2nd gen and 3rd gen is like... the difference between "proto-video games" and "video games." Playing most Atari games now is like - I don't feel like I'm playing a game, I feel like I'm fucking around with a prototype of something that could be cool later. When I play NES games I feel like I'm just playing video games. Of course, for a lot of people the NES feels as dated as the Atari now (and I dread the idea that even the SNES/Genesis is dated to some people) but to me the 3rd generation is the beginning of modern console games.

2nd to 3rd is not that big of a jump. If not for the crash, you absolutely would've had games like Super Mario Bros. on Colecovision.

2-3 was the biggest leap. It was an extinction event, the types of games that were common in 2 don't really exist now

1. 4-5: 3D and FMV explosion, it was something to behold.
2. 2-3: Super Mario Bros. changed the landscape of videogaming. Still, 3rd gen's early years were still dominated by arcade games in the style of 2nd gen. Consoles like the SG-1000 also overlap generations.
3. 1-2: Underrated answer. 2nd gen standardized actual game libraries, greatly expanded on genres when the 1st gen only had like 3 of them in very raw formats (sports which were Pong variations, light gun, racing), level progression even if most loops were short, in-game backgrounds, high scores. You have the progression of dots and sticks to Coleco and SG-1000 graphics that look like early 3rd gen.
4. 3-4: Back then when bits actually mattered.