This is a great read and the best answer I've heard so far.
Thanks. It's always tricky to define what "engineered" means in specific context because I've come to see it not just about the system architecture/visual capabilities, but also the build quality/durability/ergonomics and with more modern systems (particularly 7th-gen onward) QOL/ease of accessibility/user options including peripheral support, etc.
So for some gens, depending on what's the focal point in terms of the engineering in question, it can definitely be one system in one aspect but a totally different system in another aspect.
I agree with all of that... EXCEPT N64... that hardware had such extreme bottlenecks it is ridiculous and is the reason less than 5% of all the games on it are 60fps, while 60fps was a common thing on PS1.
This was never true, in fact that entire gen had way less 60 FPS games compared to 30 (or lower) FPS games. You only got 60 FPS on PS1 with 2D fighters (many of whom had to pare down certain graphical features), most racing games, shmups and most 3D fighters (even some of those were 30 tho).
Other genres like JRPG, action games, action-adventure, survival-horror, etc. were commonly 30 and a lot of those struggled to maintain 30 in fact.
while it had the better 3D GPU it also was held back by basically EVERYTHING else
also you can't call the N64 the best designed system of its gen when the hardware was literally the reason Capcom and many others almost completely jumped ship and went with Sony for that gen as the main system to develop on
It wasn't really the hardware per se; it was because Nintendo stuck with cartridges and the high costs (for publishers) that came with them. The only two big hardware shortcomings you could potentially pin on it were the RAM setup, and lack of a dedicated audio processor. However, if it had a CD-drive built in natively games would've been able to use a lot more textures, and if more companies wrote microcode similar to Silicon Graphics you would've seen N64 games approaching Panasonic M2 levels of visual quality by late 1997, far ahead of what PS1 or Saturn could've done 3D-wise.
Yep... N64... Another crap console... only Nintendo and RARE games were are the exception.
Uh, no. The Ganbare Goemon games, Mischief Makers, Space Station Silicon Valley, Iggy's Wrecking Balls, Hybrid Heaven, Beetle Adventure Racing series, Cruis'n series, Quake 64, Turok series, Glover, Snowboard Kids 1 & 2, Wonder Project J2, etc.
The system has quite a few good/great games not from Nintendo or Rare.