DCEmu Asks - What's The Most Reliable Game Hardware Ever?

[symbal]

If i'm going on CD consoles it has to be Dreamcast because weak lasers count out the Playstations, and with handhelds apart from the screen cracking the original Gameboy is almost indestructible.

[WhizzBang]

I am surprised to hear people say Dreamcast. I have had problems with lasers and controller ports in recent years and have seen much about these on the web so they are not so rare problems.

I think the original Gameboy mono was pretty indestructible.

[Eviltaco64]

I'm currently on my fourth Dreamcast because the lasers continually die out. I've also had a controller port blow out on me once.

The original front-loading NES was also pretty unreliable because the connector pins would get dirty and misaligned. With some q-tips, rubbing alcohol, and a screwdriver, however, you can have it in working order in no time.

[JDvorak]

Yes but the problem with the controller ports not working can be fixed by shorting out a capacitor. Only thing is after doing that the light gun, steering wheel, fishing controller, etc. quite working. So you can only use the regular controllers, but it works. Lastly you can't do 4 players any more because 4 controllers draw too much power and the Dreamcast shorts out and shuts off. But you can still do 3 players. Had to do this with my 2 white dreamcasts, but never had to on my black sports one. As far as the laser goes I have never had a problem with any of them and my first one was bought brand new on launch day 1999.

[Eviltaco64]

Yes but the problem with the controller ports not working can be fixed by shorting out a capacitor. Only thing is after doing that the light gun, steering wheel, fishing controller, etc. quite working. So you can only use the regular controllers, but it works. Lastly you can't do 4 players any more because 4 controllers draw too much power and the Dreamcast shorts out and shuts off. But you can still do 3 players. Had to do this with my 2 white dreamcasts, but never had to on my black sports one. As far as the laser goes I have never had a problem with any of them and my first one was bought brand new on launch day 1999.

Yeah, I know that it's an easily fixable problem. I twisted the F1 resistor on my 2nd/3rd Dreamcast (since the 3rd one came with no controller port) and it still works fine, but it's an unnecessary problem.

As for your laser, nice! I hope my Sega Sports Dreamcast doesn't fail on me now.

[jayety]

All my cartrdige based consoles still work (2600, Lynx, Gameboy, NES, SNES, SMS, Megadrive).
As for CD Based, i've gone through 3 PSX's 2 Xbox's and 2 XBox 360's. So i'd say any console that doesn't have moving parts inside is reliable. With memory prices getting cheaper and cheaper (4GB for $10) Bring back cartridge format. At least they last well after their warranty date.

[symbal]

Yeah but a 4.7gb dvd costs pennies to make so optical disks won't be going anywhere for at least the next decade.

[Eviltaco64]

Yeah but a 4.7gb dvd costs pennies to make so optical disks won't be going anywhere for at least the next decade.

True, but to be fair, the cost of solid-state and flash media has gone far down in price from where it was in the 90s.