Ten gadgets that defined the decade

As 2009 winds down and we try to come up with new and clever ways of referring to the early years of this century, there's really only one thing left to do: declare our ten favorite gadgets of the aughts and show them off in chronological order. It's arguable that if this wasn't the decade of gadgets, it was certainly a decade shaped by gadgets -- one which saw the birth of a new kind of connectedness. In just ten years time, gadgets have touched almost every aspect of our daily lives, and personal technology has come into its own in a way never before seen. It's a decade that's been marked the ubiquity of the internet, the downfall of the desktop, and the series finale of Friends, but we've boiled it down to the ten devices we've loved the most and worked the hardest over the past ten years. We even had some of our friends in the tech community chime in with their picks on what they thought was the gadget or tech of the decade -- so join us for a look back at the best (gadget) years ever!

Canon Digital ELPH (2000)

Vital stats

Line started in 2000 with PowerShot S100, which retailed for $599 with 2 megapixel sensor and CF storage.

History

We've no personal attraction to Canon, but it's tough to argue the importance of the PowerShot Digital ELPH range during the noughties. First emerging in early 2000, the 2 megapixel S100 sparked a revolution in the point-and-shoot arena by enabling the (mildly affluent) Joe and / or Jane to afford a pocket-sized digital camera with image quality that was more than passable -- and even today the lineup is as significant and well-respected as the day it was introduced. The line took handheld cameras to a new level of thin (borrowing heavily on the already-popular ELPH line of fashion-forward film cameras), and starting with the SD100 model in 2003 it also helped kick start the SD obsession that carries on today. Various manufacturers have attempted to achieve the same level of success by jacking up the megapixels and slimming things down as much as humanly possible, but when you think P&S, you probably think Canon first (and for good reason).

Editor's take

My first experience with the Digital ELPH came in early 2005, when I was gifted with an SD200. Turns out that unboxing would lead to a lifelong obsession -- or should I say love / hate relationship -- with the Digital ELPH. I've since donated my SD200 to my dear mother, and it's still pumping out reasonably decent photographs to this day. I can't say the same about the pair of SD850 ISs that I've owned, both of which are currently sitting on a shelf of defunct gadgets after being dropped onto hard surfaces (and in turn, obliterated) during trips to Montreal and Philadelphia, respectively. You'll notice that my own clumsiness didn't stop me from purchasing the exact same camera to replace my first shattered SD850 IS, and I can say with some degree of certainty I'll pick up a Canon to replace it. Probably something a little more me-proof, though. - Darren Murph

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Stuart Miles, Pocket-lint Gadget of the decade? Canon 300D - Launched in 2003. "The Canon 300D (or Rebel I think it was called your side of the pond) marks the rise of the consumer digital SLR for me. Without them we would all be looking at blurry pictures on the web.... Oh wait..."

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Apple PowerBook G4 (Titanium) (2001)

Vital stats

Released in January of 2001 with a starting price point of $2,599, the original TiBook boasted a 15.2-inch widescreen display, a 400MHz PowerPC processor, 128MB of RAM, and a 10GB hard drive.

History

30 years in Apple products: the good, the bad, and the ugly

PowerBook G4 Titanium inelegantly modded into desktop

RIP, PowerBook: 1991-2006

Along with objects of desire like the iMac, iPod, and iPhone, the titanium PowerBook G4 stands as one of those pivotal moments in Apple design history -- a moment when everyone (even non-fanboys) had to take notice. The laptop broke away in more than just basic design; while it did eschew the previous G3's curved, black plastic housing, it also set the stage for widescreen displays as a standard, brought slot-loading drives to the masses, and transformed the idea of a laptop from mere business accessory to object of desire. Since 2001, the look and feel of Apple's portable computers has evolved, but still remains closely linked to this category-shaping design; a testament to the power of good looks.

Editor's take

In 2001 I couldn't even dream of fantasizing about imagining that I might find enough money to buy one of these, but a much more successful friend had no problem dropping nearly $3k on the day Apple made them available. While playing one of our many Myth II tournaments at his house I remember marveling at how smooth the graphics were on the TiBook (the game was a bit old by then, but still crawled on a G3 I'd bought second-hand). I never managed to scrounge up the dough for the titanium version of the G4 PowerBook, though eventually I scored its replacement, a 15-inch aluminum model that I used all the way into my early days at Engadget. - Joshua Topolsky

Microsoft Windows XP (2001) / Apple Mac OS X (2000)

Vital stats

Windows XP - released in 2001 for $199 ($99 upgrade price) and minimum system requirements of a 233MHz processor, 64MB of RAM, 1.5GB of disk space, and SVGA display.

OS X - released as "public beta" in 2001 for $29; final 10.0 version released later that year for $129. Preloaded and set to boot by default with the release of OS X 10.1.2 in 2002. Minimum 10.0 system requirements were a G3 or G4 processor, 64 MB of RAM, and 800MB of drive space, although the "recommended" configuration was 128MB of RAM and 1.5GB of storage.

History

Turn your PC into a Mac

Boot Camp lets Macs run Windows ... officially

Poll: Which OS do you prefer?

Both Microsoft and Apple started out the decade by offering customers a fresh start -- Windows XP brought the entire Windows family onto the vastly more stable NT kernel, while OS X represented a dramatic wholesale change for the Mac. It took OS X some time to become a usable daily OS, but XP quickly became everyone's favorite version of Windows -- so much so that it's still being sold on netbooks to this day. Sure, you can argue about how much Apple and Microsoft openly riffed on each other's ideas as the decade wore on -- some in-window file previews here, a little fast user switching there -- but you simply can't deny that XP and OS X each set a new standard for computing.

Editor's take

If you had found me right after I'd installed OS X Public Beta for the first time in 2001 and told me how dramatically the OS would change over the next decade, I'm not sure I would have believed you. There was a gigantic difference in feel between installing Windows XP and OS X Public Beta -- with XP you got that fun sense of having a whole new computer, fast and ready to take on whatever you could throw at it, while with OS X you just sort of stared at the huge icons and wondered, "Now what?" It was clear Apple had a lot of work left to do -- although by 10.3 or so I'd deleted my Classic partition and wasn't looking back. But hold up: OS X 10.3 looks and feels dated by today's standards, while XP looks and feels like... XP. Where Apple did an fantastic job of relentlessly improving and iterating OS X over the past decade, Microsoft set the bar so high coming out of the gate that the biggest threat to Windows 7 is the installed base of XP users who are still happy with their machines. That's pretty amazing. - Nilay Patel

Honorable / dishonorable mentions

• Ubuntu / Linux - The long promised, long hoped for consumer-friendly Linux finally found a face in Ubuntu. As the distro began its reign over the desktop, we also witnessed a newfound ubiquity of Linux in such disparate projects as Amazon's Kindle, Palm's webOS, and Google's Android.
• Windows Vista - No matter how many service packs or Mojave Experiments Microsoft ran through, it could never wash the original taste of Vista (spendy, slow, incompatible) out of consumer's mouths.

Apple iPod (2001)

Vital stats

Released on October 23, 2001, with 5GB of storage that held 1,000 128kbps MP3s, a two-inch black and white screen, a mechanical scroll wheel surrounded by four buttons, and FireWire connectivity only.

History

Steve Jobs says it again: no video iPod

The iPod family cemetery

How-to: get music, videos, and photos off your iPod or iPhone

It wasn't the first MP3 player, and it certainly wasn't the cheapest, but the original iPod radically reshaped the idea of how digital music should work. With a dead-simple interface, compact (for the time) minimal good looks, and seamless integration with iTunes combined into one package, the iPod instantly got everyone's attention -- and when the iTunes Music Store launched in 2003, it became unstoppable. While the dedicated PMP category is starting to fade in the face of smartphones and the iPod itself is transforming into something entirely different with the iPod touch, it's the original iPod that started this whole crazy gadget thrill ride.

Editor's take

It's hard to imagine that there was a time when people had no idea how to use an iPod. I distinctly remember teaching my friends how to use my brand-new 2G in the car right after I'd first gotten it, and it just didn't take very long at all -- unlike the Rio players I'd had before, which no one could figure out and always ended up on the floor. Now, of course, there are dock connectors everywhere, iTunes is the biggest music retailer in the world, and the iPod and music seem like an afterthought to the iPhone and apps, but man -- I'll still take a first-gen iPod loaded up with the Clash and the Afghan Whigs and blaze down Lake Shore Drive in my old Mustang any day. - Nilay Patel

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Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica "When the first iPod was released in 2001, my initial reaction was a huge yawn. Another MP3 player? But, as it turns out, the original iPod was a pioneer in many ways, even if it wasn't the first MP3 player to ever hit the market. The UI, coupled with iTunes desktop software (and eventually the iTunes Store) eventually made it an iconic device that would forever (or at least for the next decade) be copied, both by Apple itself and its competitors."

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TiVo Series2 (2002)

Vital stats

Released in 2002 for $299, the original TiVo Series2 featured a 60GB hard drive that recorded 60 hours of SD video at "basic quality." Later units would come down in price to $149, add more storage, and eventually feature dual tuners.

History

The Engadget Interview: Mike Ramsay, CEO of TiVo

Ten years of TiVo: how far we haven't come

TiVo Series2 DT hands-on review

TiVo had launched the DVR category with the original Series1 in 1999, it wasn't until the Series2 came out in 2003 that things started to blow up: prices came down, the addition of USB ports brought networking to the table, and dual tuners were (finally!) added in 2006. Sure, the cable companies completely drank TiVo's milkshake soon thereafter, but the Series2 was fundamentally so much better than the competition that cable and satellite providers are still playing catch up -- sure, the TiVo Series3 and TiVo HD now support HD recording and offer an array of streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Video on Demand, but the TiVo experience is still fundamentally the same. Whether or not TiVo can continue to survive without some radical changes has been an open question for some time now, but the Series2 will forever live on as the archetypical DVR for an entire generation.

Editor's take

TiVo hacking is still quite popular, but it's settled into a nice little groove -- people know what's possible with the current hardware and software, and they're trying to perfect it. That's nothing at all like the excitement around the Series2 when it first launched -- I remember anxiously digging through Linksys USB-to-Ethernet adapter boxes at Best Buy, trying to find specific serial numbers that indicated a supported chipset so I could put my new Series2 on the LAN and just poke around to see what was what. The first time I ever downloaded a show onto my computer? Heaven... until I had to let the transcode process all night so I could put it on my iPod. We're still a long way from the perfect cable box, but TiVo's been the closest for the longest -- I just hope it can stay alive long enough to get to the finish line. - Nilay Patel

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Ross Rubin, Executive Director, Consumer Technology, The NPD Group "At first glance just a VCR that had its tapes switched for a hard drive, TiVo reached beyond its hardware and service to become that rarefied generic verb describing a how we watch television, wreaking havoc with how broadcasters and advertisers thought about programming. The company knew from the beginning that its idea was huge, but it's never been able to capitalize fully on its revolution as cable companies have pushed generic competitors. Moving beyond the DVR, TiVo is now home to a wide range of interactive TV services, but has been stymied by its low subscriber base."

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Dishonorable mentions

• CableCARD - We'd love to be able to name CableCARD as the home entertainment gadget of the decade, a wonderful little plug-and-play module that finally wrested control of our entertainment centers away from the cable companies. But it wasn't and it didn't.
• Blu-ray / HD DVD - Instead of a single next-gen movie format, the industry gave us two. A bloody war ensued that slowed adoption of both formats. Blu-ray emerged the victor, but as internet HD distribution picks up, it will probably never reach the level of ubiquity that DVD has.

Motorola RAZR V3 (2003)

Vital stats

Released in 2004, $500 pricetag (after rebate), VGA camera, 2.2-inch 176 x 220 LCD, 110 million+ sold.

History

Hands-on with Motorola's RAZR V3 for Cingular

RAZR V3c debuts on Verizon

The Motorola RAZR 2

As mobile phones, now priced within reach of most folks, began to reach some sort of ubiquity, and smartphones were stepping into the realm of real usability, Motorola did something... different. It built an object of desire that just happened to be a phone. The RAZR V3 was unlike anything before it, seemingly carved out of aluminum, a sliver of a thing. It didn't even matter that the feature set was a little dated at the time of introduction, or that it was oddly oversized when opened and held against the face -- even the $500 price seemed appropriate in the face of such visceral attraction. But then the price started to fall. What was once an object of distant, decadent desire was within reach for a new class of people, and every slash in price seemed to increase the handset's popularity exponentially.

Editor's take

I remember the first RAZR ad I saw on TV, which showed the phone flying through the screen, violently slicing whatever lay in its path. When it at last came to rest and I realized I was staring at a phone, I exclaimed this improbable fact to everyone in the room and knew I wanted it for my own. I finally purchased the phone the next year, after a short, painful time spent with the N-Gage QD. It survived my first year as an Engadget editor, an attempted mugging, and even embarrassing subway rides next to other members of the 110 million-strong RAZR club, all of us tapping away on our little Java applets (mine was a Tetris clone) and dreaming of nothing better. If I suddenly had no use for a smartphone, I'd switch back to my old battered V3 in a heartbeat. - Paul Miller

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Eric Zeman, Phone Scoop Tech of the decade? Multitouch. "The theory behind multitouch displays was first proven to be possible in 1991, but no one capitalized on it until the 2000s. Though multitouch itself wasn't exposed to the public at large until January 2007 when Apple unveiled the original iPhone, the speed at which multitouch has proliferated and spread across the technology world in the last three years is incredible. The first thing everyone asks about a new touch phone is "does it have multitouch?" Why is this? Multitouch enables whole new (enjoyable) ways to interact with electronic gadgets -- as we are beginning to see more and more."

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PalmOne Treo 600 / 650 (2003 / 2004)

Vital stats

Released in 2003, the Treo 600 sported a 144MHz ARM CPU, 32MB of RAM, 160 x 160 color display, VGA camera, Palm OS 5, SD slot, and came in both GSM and CDMA variations.

History

As a reader of Engadget, you probably know that our interest in Palm (and its smartphones) goes way back... back to our roots. In 2004, site founder Peter Rojas spoke to the New York Times about the Treo 600, explaining what happened when leaked photos of the device emerged online. In his words, "People were going crazy." Seriously. You may not realize it, but before the iPhone was even a twinkle in Apple's eye, the Treo line of smartphones had already been fulfilling the earliest promises of Moore's law and convergence -- they were really the original "do everything" devices that fit in your pocket (well, kind of). The Treo 600 and its follow-up -- the 650 -- truly set the stage for many of the innovations we take for granted these days; mobile web and email, touchscreen interfaces, built-in (and video capable) cameras, developer communities providing scores of applications, and easy desktop syncing. The Treo set up the pins, and modern smartphone makers are just knocking them down.

Editor's take

I missed the boat on the 600, but couldn't wait to get my hands on the 650. After a long series of disappointing encounters with dumbphones, I decided I really needed something more attuned to my special needs as a tinkerer. The idea that I could install whatever launcher I wanted, check Engadget while I was having lunch, or play TurboGrafx-16 games in a waiting room was fairly mind-blowing to me. The dream of the magical, changeable box became more concrete than ever before with the introduction of these devices. And just as the iPhone has become largely about the apps, the Treo was attractive not simply because of the platform itself, but the community that had risen up around it. Applications like Butler, the aforementioned TG16 emulator, and powerful utilities like LauncherX showed the possibilities of an open, active developer base matched with the right hardware. Despite the advances we've seen in the years since the Treo 600 made its way into the world, the basic concepts behind these devices remain largely the same, and the blueprint can be traced right back to Palm. - Joshua Topolsky

Honorable mentions

• BlackBerry - We could try to explain the importance, impact and popularity of the BlackBerry this decade, but instead we've given it its very own decade feature to tell its tale. Unfortunately, no single BlackBerry ever really satisfied our pure gadget lust in the way the Treo did.
• G1 / Android - If you thought Apple's entry into the phone-building space was unlikely, you were probably dumbfounded by Google's entry. The G1 and its open source-ish Android OS arrived too late in the decade for its full impact to be felt, but if the recent uptake is any indication, we're going to be seeing plenty of this OS in the decade to come.

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Kara Swisher, All Things Digital Tech of the decade? Mobile phone / email devices. "From my suitcase cell phone in the 1980s to my Nokia brick in the 1990s to my Palm in the early 2000s to my beloved BlackBerry to the iPhone, these have been my most satisfying relationships ever. Yes, I am a loser. "

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Microsoft Xbox 360 (2005)

Vital stats

Released in 2005, $399 pricetag, 20GB HDD, DVD drive, 34 million+ sold.

History

Live Xbox 360 shot!

Engadget's live coverage of the Xbox 360 launch

Xbox 360 hands-on preview

There were many reasons to doubt the Xbox 360 upon its launch. It wasn't Microsoft's fault, they'd made a good first effort with the Xbox, and Halo was clearly a juggernaut, but the PS2's overwhelming success made Sony look nigh invincible in the space. Once the specs started pouring in for the PS3 like 1080p games, Blu-ray, and PSX / PS2 backwards compatibility, the Xbox 360 was starting to sound like the Dreamcast of its generation. But then it wasn't. It beat the Wii and PS3 to market by a full year, managed to keep a price point that was significantly lower than the PS3, and as previously promised PS3 exclusives started to migrate to the increasingly intrenched 360 it was clear that Microsoft had pulled off a major coup. If it had merely been a cheaper, earlier version of the PS3 it might've eventually fallen by the wayside, but Microsoft's audacious approach to charging people to play online with Xbox Live Gold actually ended up as the console's greatest strength, and a key to its staying power.

Editor's take

You don't remember a console for the chips inside or the case design, but the games you played. For me those games were Gears of War and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. I bought the 360 in 2006, and always felt a little out of step with what my friends were playing -- particularly as the catalog has ballooned in 2008 and 2009. But these two games forged the perfect intersection with my Xbox Live friends list. I spent untold hours hopping from match to match with a group of peers, shouting cries of despair into my wired headset as I continually fulfilled my role as "the weakest link" on my team. Those two games were everything I'd ever tried to emulate growing up with a game of laser tag, a pair of walkie talkies or an elaborately constructed Lego battlefield, and I got to share them in real time with real people thanks to technologies so complicated and market forces so beyond me that I'd really prefer not to even think about them. - Paul Miller

Honorable mentions

• Sony PlayStation 2 - If you're going by sheer sales, the PS2 is the clear winner of the decade. The console not only dominated living rooms and popular imagination in a way only recently matched by Nintendo's Wii, but the depth, breadth and quality of its catalog is one to be envied by every console since the SNES. We went with the Xbox 360 for its innovation in online play, but we still have a nice backlog of PS2 titles to play through -- perhaps enough to get us through the next decade.
• Nintendo Wii - Its low-end graphics and dearth of fully realized 3rd party titles has made it the bane of the self-styled "core gamer," but the implications of Nintendo's revolutionary motion-controlled gaming are hard to overstate. The fact that Microsoft and Sony are scrambling to build their own motion control answers to Nintendo's juggernaut should be proof enough that we've only seen the start of Wii-style gameplay... and Wii-style injuries.

Apple iPhone (2007)

Vital stats

Released in 2007, $499 / $599 pricetag for 4GB or 8GB model, 2 megapixel camera, 3.5-inch 320 x 480 LCD, 30 million+ sold.

History

The Apple iPhone

iPhone multi-city lineblog

iPhone review

When Apple released the first iPod in 2001, mobile phones were very different animals than they are today -- there may have been a vague sense that we'd someday do a significant portion of our computing from our pockets, but the industry possessed neither the technology nor the vision to make it happen. Over the years, PDAs and phones inevitably started to merge en masse; Treos and BlackBerrys helped defined the term "road warrior" (much to the chagrin of businessfolk who'd valued their personal time) and geeky segments of the consumer market started to hop on board. The "ah-ha" moment, though -- the turning point that would transform smartphones from niche accessories into must-have status symbols -- would ultimately take a fundamental rethinking of the genre, and that's exactly the sea change the iPhone provided. Of course, the industry saw the merger of the iPod and the cellphone coming from a mile away, but by the time the iPhone was officially unveiled by Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, virtually every prediction and false "leak" was hilariously incorrect -- proof that it took a deep realignment of the way the world thought about mobility to make the device possible. The rest, as they say, is history: as we close out the decade, full touch is the new black, finger-friendly UIs are virtually required, and world-class industrial design is a given. The game has changed.

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Ryan Block, gdgt Tech of the decade? 3G. "3G changed everything. I don't think it would be overstating the case to assert that mobile broadband -- specifically, 3G, but soon LTE, etc. -- is nearly as transformative a technology as the internet itself. I'm sure a lot of people would vouch for the iPhone (1st-gen, 3G, or 3GS, take your pick) as the most important piece of tech in the last decade, but I'd argue that Apple -- and all smartphone makers, for that matter -- would not have had a clear path to making smartphones a viable mass-market consumer product without being able to fulfill a basic expectation and need for speedy data access. (Of course, if you're an AT&T customer, those expectations have probably been lowered significantly by now, but you get where I'm going.) "

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Editor's take

I remember the introduction of the iPhone like it was yesterday: Team Engadget was holed up in a dingy, smelly hotel conference room south of the Las Vegas Convention Center in the thick of CES while our then-Editor-in-chief, a guy called Ryan Block, had taken a quick jaunt up to San Francisco to cover Macworld live. I can't describe the feeling in that room, the feeling I had as I was preparing our iPhone announcement post -- my heart was pounding. It was as though we knew what to expect and had absolutely no idea what to expect at the same time. It's something I haven't felt before or since, and I think most of the editors here would tell you the same. For a device -- any device -- to create that kind of emotion in a room full of jaded gadgetheads is pretty amazing, and I'm honestly not sure we'll ever experience it again. Not with Apple, not with anyone else. It's not that there won't be incredible phones introduced year after year after year -- there will -- it was the culmination of years of speculation coupled with the feeling that the entire game had just been rewritten in a profound way. - Chris Ziegler

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Michael Gartenberg "The culmination of Apple's mobile efforts which began with the iPod, the iPhone integrated that functionality into a phone and then took smartphones to a whole new level and introduced the mass market to the mobile internet. Apple single handedly jumpstarted the mobile applications market while simultaneously re-defining the carrier and handset vendor relationship. "

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ASUS Eee PC 900 (2008)

Vital stats

Released in 2008, $549 for 8.9-inch display, 12GB SSD, 1GB of RAM, was available with both Windows XP and Xandros Linux.

History

Asus' new Eee PC 701 joins the laptop-lite fray with a bang

Hands-on with the 9-inch Eee PC

ASUS Eee PC 900 review roundup

Where the Eee PC 701 and its Xandros Linux OS was aimed at kids and "housewives" (seriously, an ASUS representative said that at the time), the succeeding Eee PC 900 was the realization that netbooks had wider market appeal when preloaded with Windows XP. Whether it was business-minded folk or just those looking to connect to the web on-the-go on a device larger than a smartphone, the small and very affordable laptop made a lot more sense than anyone ever could have imagined. The 900 series was officially launched in April 2008 and though Intel's future Atom platform was still being developed by those silicon "rockstars" at Intel, the 2.2-pound mini-notebook had an 8.9-inch display, Intel Celeron M processor and 12GB of flash storage (an odd pairing of one 4 GB SSD and one 8 GB SSD). ASUS sold more than a million units in the first couple of months which resulted in global shortages of the liliputian laptops. In the U.S. the 900 was the first netbook to be sold at Best Buy. Shortly after the 900's worldwide success and the release of Intel's Atom CPU, all major laptop manufactures brought netbooks to market with 9 or 10 inch displays.

Editor's take

It is funny to think that the word netbook wasn't even around when I first got my hands on the Eee PC 900 (us crazy kids called them mini-notebooks back then). For the first few months, I took my "cute laptop" (as people would remark) everywhere. And the fact that I could fit it in my purse never seemed to get old. Though I like imagining that my first few months with the 900 was all rainbows and butterflies, it really wasn't. I hated the small touchpad and its rock-solid mouse bar and I couldn't stand the cramped keyboard and screen. It was those frustrations that ASUS and others took note of and improved in today's ever-so-popular 10-inch netbooks. The New York Times recently included the word netbook on its Buzwords of 2009 list; there's no mention of the Eee PC 900, but it silently takes the credit for jump-starting a whole new category of mobile computers about two years ago. - Joanna Stern

[Flix C Posted Dec 30th 2009 2:37PM]

@Astrobiology is my wife
I liked that too.

WinXP which is possibly THE MOST UNIVERSALLY PRAISED thing of the decade HAS to share one spot with OS X....
Not only has WinXP brought innovation in a way that Windows rarely did, but it was praised from the very beginning, and STILL IS NOW !
I mean how many of you guys still have WinXP somewhere ?
How many downgraded their vista to winXP ?
How many put WinXP on bootcamp ?
(Ok mainly because Vista Sucked but still ! vista wasn't bad, it wasn't as good as XP that's all !)

How can the most sold and used software on the planet during at least Half of the decade doesn't have its own spot ?

[Wwhat Posted Dec 31st 2009 10:39AM]

Also: Software isn't a gadget dammit.
Why am I the only one that feels strongly on that?

[SirNoDroin Posted Dec 30th 2009 12:25PM]

Wait...xbox360?!?!

HELLO?!?! PLAYSTATION 2 came out right in 2000!!! that was the big game changer if i remember right and has sold more units in the history of gaming consoles then most of the other systems combined.

[sfox8 Posted Dec 30th 2009 12:33PM]

@SirNoDroin
I agree here. I see where they were coming from with 360's online play but I think the PS2 definitely should've deserved a spot over the 360.

[iFlash Posted Dec 30th 2009 12:34PM]

@sfox8 I'm with you boys.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 30th 2009 12:35PM]

@SirNoDroin I agree as well. The PS2 probably has the longest shelf life of all consoles. They still are selling it almost 10 years later. And it is still a great console. I own an Xbox 360 as well, and I think it's amazing, but PS2 definitely deserves that spot.

[Midnitte Posted Dec 30th 2009 12:36PM]

@SirNoDroin

As they said, they werent going by sheer numbers. I loved the ps2 but I'm surprised they said xbox 360 and not xbox since the first xbox was the one that reshaped online play (as buggy as it was apon release).

[richb93 Posted Dec 30th 2009 12:36PM]

@SirNoDroin +1

[syko21 Posted Dec 30th 2009 12:38PM]

@SirNoDroin I agree with him. PS2 is still being sold today and is wildly popular.

[kfury77 Posted Dec 30th 2009 12:47PM]

@SirNoDroin +1

[gerrrg Posted Dec 30th 2009 12:51PM]

@SirNoDroin

Should have either been the Wii for breaking the game console out of the hard-core gaming crowd (62M units sold), or the PS2, for becoming the best-selling console ever (133M units sold).

The XBox360 seems like a really bad choice (37M units sold).

- via vgchartz.com sales tracking

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 30th 2009 12:51PM]

@SirNoDroin

The PS2 was popular, it doesn't mean it was that important, the PS2 wasn't that much of a step up from the Dreamcast, even with a year extra to boost hardware, the dreamcast could crank out games that looked just as good as the PS2 and it was the console that introduced online play, a mantle which was very much taken up by the orignal Xbox but reached a new level with the 360 and, imho, one of the most important aspects of the console business now, its certainly the only reason i've stuck with the 360 over the PS3.

[SirNoDroin Posted Dec 30th 2009 12:55PM]

@Midnitte numbers or not PS2 introduced

A processor over 100Mhz in a gaming system (evolutionary maybe...but the fact is the PS2 was the first true computer level gaming system)

An 64-bit processor in a gaming system
An Amount of RAM that was actually usable,
Internal hard-drive storage
Games on DVD (this was just evolutionary, but whatever)

Take a look at some history and read the prototype next gen systems of the other companies before the ps2 came out (they were mostly shooting to match the System2 (dreamcast) level graphics) and how rapidly they had to play catch up once the ps2 said, hell no, this is how good games are going to look for now on.

[Troll Posted Dec 30th 2009 12:58PM]

@SirNoDroin

sirnodrain, you are a fanboy. you havent named a single game that was good for it,y ou just keep spouting sales numbers or hardware that doesnt matter. the games are more important than the hardware, and the ps2 didnt have the good exclusive games that the xbox 360 had, hence why you have yet to name 1.

[SirNoDroin Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:01PM]

@SirNoDroin sorry dreamcast was 200mhz:

after further thought, this is what i meant to say

The PS2 was the first console that was not just a gaming console, but an ENTERTAINMENT console because of its inclusion of a DVD player. Other systems could have even included VCD/Karaoke disc playback, but this was a breakthrough with the ps2

ok now i feel better that i figured that out :)

[kiyu727 Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:01PM]

@SirNoDroin
agreed, we had all 3 consoles of the current gen in our house but still I spent most of my time on my old PS2(back then) and I bought mine in 2003.

[Tristan88888888 Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:02PM]

@SirNoDroin
really. i thought we were talking about gadgets that DEFINED the decade. the ps2 definitely did that, as it practically dominated the gaming space for 7 of those years. the 360 didnt define the decade at all.

[Troll Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:05PM]

@Tristan88888888

noone cares what you think

[F orrest Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:06PM]

@SirNoDroin

The PS2 was just a more capable version of previous consoles. Its primary purpose is to play games, and maybe watch DVDs.

It's not just Xbox Live, either. The 360 is the first console to be the center of home entertainment. You have TV and Movies on demand with Netflix, Zune Marketplace, and Sky. You can stream music with Last.FM. You can use it as a media center to stream content from any PC in your house. Before the death of HD-DVD, you could even play HD movies.

The original Xbox and the PS2 pushed pixels harder. The 360 changed how consoles are used.

[F orrest Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:10PM]

@Tristan88888888

I can see that - the 360 didn't necessarily define this decade. I think it's setting the stage for consoles in the next decade, though.

You might even take a more general stance and say that 'gaming consoles' helped define this decade, considering their rise compared to PC gaming. I feel like an outcast because I got MW2 for the PC.

[Mitch Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:10PM]

@SirNoDroin
I'm not sure where you got your info from, but according to Wikipedia, the hard drive was released in 2006, 5 years after the Xbox(2001).

I love my PS2 and many of the games on it, I would have bought a PS3 if it included backwards compatibility, I went with the 360 due to Xbox Live, which is why it's on here.

Sales numbers don't necessarily equate to a more innovative product.

[SpecTP Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:11PM]

@SirNoDroin the year 2000 counts as the previous decade of the 90's since decades count from 01 to x0 and not from 00 to 09. And yes, this decade is not over yet until the end of next year (2010).

[kiyu727 Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:11PM]

@F orrest
you may be right, but that said, the xbox360 didnt start in 2000 ... u cant compare it to the PS2.
the x360 started in the second half of the decade which gave it the advantage of technology. Im not saying that PS2 is better than x360, rather both should be in .......

[Karate Tortoise Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:27PM]

I have to disagree with you guys. The PS2 was not the first system that everyone and their grandmother bought (Just the first of the decade) But What engadget is getting at here is that the Xbox 360 really set the bar that a gaming console can no longer be just that. Its taught us 2 things:

1. Game consoles are integral piece to a home theater setup (after the TV of course) and the only thing in your house that should be able to do more is your computer. Future consoles that don't achieve this will not be very sucessful

2. It pays to pay for things. $50/year isn't so bad anyway

[srikanth Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:35PM]

@SirNoDroin

" Wii " !!!! where is that

[MasterCKO Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:42PM]

@SirNoDroin Agreed. Not only was it by far the most influential video game system of the decade (seriously, they're still selling newly made units now), the PS2 was the catalyst that supercharged DVD's into the mainstream.

It revolutionized not one, but TWO forms of home entertainment.

[Vidikron Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:42PM]

@Karate Tortoise

"1. Game consoles are integral piece to a home theater setup (after the TV of course) and the only thing in your house that should be able to do more is your computer. Future consoles that don't achieve this will not be very sucessful"

But that's actually debatable given the runaway success of the Wii which basically does none of that. It could also be argued that the 360 is one of the most notoriously bad gadgets of the decade due to the hardware issues. I mean, the 360 is certainly very memorable, but decade defining? Only if you are including bad things as viable criteria.

And don't get me wrong here, I like the 360 a lot more than the Wii because I prefer the games on the 360.... but both the PS2 and Wii clearly made much bigger splashes in this decade than the 360. Hell, the DS would likely have been a better choice too.

[OG Phenix Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:47PM]

@SirNoDroin
before this turns into a full-scale war...

The PS-2 does deserve to be on the list of things that've changed technology. It did something impressive- it added a DVD player that for many people turned it into their main DVD player.

But by that token, the original XBox deserves to be on the list because it was the first console that had an integrated hard drive and ethernet port, turning it (for many) into a substitute for a home media server and allowed some games to be played with your soundtrack in them (a feature I adored).

The 360 did not outsell the PS-2. It did not introduce a completely new hardware profile.But what it did do is open the doorway to dozens of things we consider commonplace today. Consider the things that the 360 did introduce:

The need for internet: does anyone think that any modern console would be as much fun without it? I hate bringing my 360 anywhere where I won't get internet. The 360 lets you chat with people across games, across services and lets you IM people who are not even on the 360.

Downloadable content- no console before it could get new content onto it without a disc. XBox live games have opened up the console market to smaller developers and allowed larger companies to develop add-ons to their games. No console did this before (yes, of course, it was always available on PC).

Micro-transactions: Whether you love it or hate it, the 360 ushered in the era where small fees over time added up to a lot of money. The fact that the dashboard was customizable, as were the avatars, made customization a must for other consoles.

Persistant persona: Your avatar and your gamerscore are things that the 360 made up. Even when there was only a picture and not the sorta-creepy Rare avatars, there was the gamerscore. The *ding* of achievement was common in RPGs-- but never before did everygame have those moments. Never before could all your accomplishments be placed in one location. I think it is a point that gets overlooked a lot- sometimes, that tiny reward of gamerscore keeps you playing games you wouldn't and unifiies the experience. Steam, PS3, and World of Warcraft owe their own achievement/trophy systems directly to the 360.

Streaming services: whether you are talking about using media center, the built-in movie player, netflix, last.fm, etc- the 360 was the first console to have a powerful set of tools with which to get content from the cloud to your TV.

The PS-2 is still probably the longest-lasting console ever. It had more great games than any other console ever. But it did not usher in a wide swath of advancements to how the business operated. It did not change how content was delivered. It did not allow you to IM people on their phone or on their computer.

It is a great device, and if the list were longer, I am sure it would be on there. Like it or hate it, the 360 is responsible for many of the themes we see in gaming today. Downloadable content, netflix directly to your TV, achievements (ding!), persistant persona/avatar- these are things that are standard faire now..and the 360 ushered those in. Does anyone really think that any high-end gaming console will not have any of these things?

[Kamokazi Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:54PM]

@SirNoDroin

They would have had to cut out one of the four Apple products to fit that in, duh. Clearly it is less important than the Powerbook G4.

[fef714 Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:57PM]

@SirNoDroin

PS2 totally deserved that spot, with the Wii as honorable mention (as much as I hate the Wii)

The 360 is great and all, but it doesn't come close to the PS2.

[SirNoDroin Posted Dec 30th 2009 2:04PM]

@OG Phenix Some really strong points you made there, but a lot of it i think falls into the category of software, rather then an acutal gadget; many of which the software STEAM set the ground work for, and that LIVE built upon.
One question I have about this who agrument is to lasting technological impact, to decade defining, and this article seems to flip flop on the two.

Other then graphics, SNES had no real lasting impact to the console world other then the memorable games, the same can be said about the orginal PSX. Where as the N64 introduced force feedback, bottom triggers to controllers, and frameworks for the idea of easy home SDKing (with the never released N64DD) just to name a few. However 9/10 people will say SNES or PSX for the console of the 90's not the n64.

So, Ill concede and say,

lasting technology wise xbox360 wins.

However as a definition to when you say, "the console of the 2000's" hands down PS2.

Can we all agree on that?

[Christian Martin Posted Dec 30th 2009 2:18PM]

@SirNoDroin

+1 once again, good Sir. I still have a first-gen PS2 chugging along.

The 360 defined SOMEthing, though it wasn't the decade - it was the public's ability to exercise warranties.

[Tsing Tao Posted Dec 30th 2009 2:30PM]

@SirNoDroin I would think that the 360's decade defining quality was to have the highest consumer electronics failure rate %40+ and still exist on the market. I am pretty sure any gadget before it with even a 10% failure rate was pulled in the first year.

[Cpsheehan Posted Dec 30th 2009 2:55PM]

@SirNoDroin
I personally think the xbox360 was more gamechanging than the ps2, simply because the ps2 was popular because of newer technology, and the 360 was popular because of pure innovation, which will shape gaming from now on. But that's just imho.

As for why Engadget chose it? The 360 was one if their first big stories. I actually became aware of (and hooked on) this site because of that. Sure, they're Apple-biased, but their loyalties obviously lie with Microsoft in the gaming world.

[SirNoDroin Posted Dec 30th 2009 3:21PM]

@Cpsheehan are we talking social impact, or techno impact here?

As I previously posted, technology introduction wise, 360 wins

but as the system that had the biggest cultural impact (in which i believe that would give it to be the title of DECADE DEFINING) it has to go to the ps2

just curious, which had a bigger impact in the 90s according to you...Dreamcast (which introduced console online connectivity, but put Sega out of business as a console maker because of such low sales, and saturation) or the SNES (which was only a stepping store in terms of console graphics and game styles, but was integral into 90s gaming culture)?

[OG Phenix Posted Dec 30th 2009 3:22PM]

@Mack Stone Ah yes, because the PS2 never had a massive problem with the lasers going out...*sigh*

Again, I'll say it like this: the PS2 is STILL a great game console, and in the end, it's the BEST game console of the 2000s in terms of overall time spent with it.

Again though- the 360 has completely changed what we expect out of a console. Not because it's the best console in terms of hardware, or even software. Because of the concept behind it. Same as the iPhone- there are still "better" products, spec-wise. The concepts they put into it were already in existence (touchscreen phone with built-in music player and downloadable apps had existed with the emergence of WinMo 6.1) But the iPhone brought everything to a head.

The XBox 360 is inferior hardware-wise to the PS3. It doesn't bring something completely different like the Wii did. But it brought existing and emerging trends to a head. Whether or not you like the 360 is irrelevant. No future console will exist without a persistent avatar. None will exist without the ability to download small games. None will exist without chat and messaging. None will exist without ways to customize the interface (for a fee). All of them will have some sort of achievement.

You can claim it's software...but that's part of the design. The iPhone's tech with WinMo 6.1 on it wouldn't be impressive, would it? The 360's design and focus on online play, downloads and outside services like Netflix really did change how console experiences are defined.

I'm note saying it's the best console. I'm saying that when it came out, everything changed in the gaming world. Moreso even than with the Wii, which has sold plenty, but is used little. I love my Wii...but can you really say that you wish every game console had only motion controls?

I would never want a game console without achievements, without the mandate that every game allow cross-game chat, that didn't allow me to access content on my computer easily, didn't allow me to customize the interface, or didn't allow me to keep a single profile across all games. Heck, even the simple option to have my console remember if I like my controller inverted is something I'd never want to do without again. The 360 brought those things. Even if you like nothing else about it...you have to give it some credit for pushing the industry forward.

Or, you can recycle the same old jokes about the 360's reliability a year after it stopped being funny. Your choice...

[Rasec Posted Dec 30th 2009 3:30PM]

@SirNoDroin I'm sorry guys, but the 360 DID NOT INTRODUCED ANY TECHNOLOGY. it even is a regular computer (albeit a SLIGHTLY modified CPU), and PAID online play was in use way before in the PC. On the other hand, it is always Sony that tries new things with its consoles, although it isn't always the best decision.

[SirNoDroin Posted Dec 30th 2009 3:35PM]

@OG Phenix

We aren't going to agree, I'm not saying you are right, I'm just going to leave my last 2 cents and end my yelling at a wall.

he SNES or PSX are the systems of the 90s (not the Jaguar, Dreamcast, or N64). Gameboy was black and white, but lasted till 2000, even when Gamegear had a full color screen and NeoGeo had a 16bit processor. BetaMax and ColecoVision was better techonolgy in the 80s, but VHS and NES is what we remember.

Technological advances doesn't make something a decade definition. Only it's cultural impact does. Everyone remembers there first time seeing Gran Turismo on the PS2, and there jaws dropping at the realism that matched a computer's at the time, they remember playing Metal Gear Solid 2, or GTA3 for the first time. They remember the news about how PS2 couldn't be exported to the middle east because it could be used to guide nuclear missiles. PS2 was the first console frat boys admitted they played for the madden series.

EVERYTHING you are talking about the xbox360, had exsited in the PC gaming community for years before, and could be accomplished simply by hooking a PC into a TV. Yes, they brought it to a console and for a cheaper price, and that does make it notable, but it does not make it the defining console of the decade.

I'll end with that

[TSIG Posted Dec 30th 2009 3:47PM]

@SirNoDroin I agree. PS2 was the greatest gaming system
in the history of the world. Games and consoles are still sold, 10 years later.

[OG Phenix Posted Dec 30th 2009 3:50PM]

@SirNoDroin
Very well. I'm not trying to say anything is wrong with your ideas. I'm simply offering another standpoint. It's funny to think that the 360 released in 2005. For over half a decade now, there has been a console that emphasized the possibilities of having a single "you" online that collected accomplishments from every game. Even PC gaming had to play catch-up with that. 1/2 a decade is quite enough time, in my opinion, to say it has defined this decade. The PS2 was great, and will leave a lasting cultural memory. Some of those games were absolutely great.

But when, in 10 years, people ask what the defining moments of gaming were, social interaction will end up being one of those things. As far as moments from games, I will give you that the PS2 had many, many of them. But those are not the same as the PS2 itself. I will always remember playing Shadow of the Colossus. But I will also always remember my downloading Hexic and Geometry Wars and thinking "this small thing has changed everything". I remember downloading a new quest for a console game the first time and knowing that it would be the hallmark of a new era of how companies made money.

I don't wish to insult the PS2's memory- I love those moments of gaming as much as anyone else. But those were games, made by others, and not indicative of the concepts behind the PS2s design. The 360 on the other hand, was designed from the start to have achievements, to include downloadable content from the get-go and to allow social networking through the built-in IM client.

When I think of best gaming moments? PS2. When I think of what had more effects on how consoles will be built from here on out? 360.

[OG Phenix Posted Dec 30th 2009 4:05PM]

@SpecTP

Sorry- I had to respond to this.

SpecTP Posted Dec 30th 2009 1:11PMLOW RANKED
@SirNoDroin the year 2000 counts as the previous decade of the 90's since decades count from 01 to x0 and not from 00 to 09. And yes, this decade is not over yet until the end of next year (2010).

So I assume you enjoyed throwing your "new millennium" party in 2001, then?

Every counting system starts with 0. You always count from 0, be it binary or base-10. Semantically, yes, there was no "year zero", but then again,our measurement of time is speculative and relative only to what we define as a starting point. Everybody else celebrated the new millennium in 2000, which means 1999 was the last year of the previous one to everybody else. You can count 2010 as this decade if you wish...but I hardly think you're going to convince the vast majority of the world that when the last number in a year is "0", that it is not the start of a new decade.

[Maximina Posted Dec 30th 2009 4:35PM]

@SirNoDroin I hate to get involved in a console flame war, but I have to agree. One needs only look at the trends(http://bit.ly/8jsGGn) to see that the PS2 was monumental to the consoles of this decade. The Xbox 360 probably does deserve a spot in the top 20, but the PS2 should be in the top 10. And for the record I never owned one, nor did I want to, but the numbers speak for themselves.

[isotrex Posted Dec 30th 2009 4:44PM]

@SirNoDroin
Yeah, definitely PS2.
I guess they got paid for promoting 360. hehe j/k

[EGOvoruhk Posted Dec 30th 2009 4:46PM]

I agree that the PS2 was a game changer, but has no one noticed that the year 2000 was part of LAST decade, not the current one we're in?

[OG Phenix Posted Dec 30th 2009 4:59PM]

@EGOvoruhk again...technicalities. Did you celebrate the new millennium in 2000 or 2001? funny thing is, not only did someone already make that point, I already responded to it.

much like language, time is one of those things that tends to be a common-usage scenario. Yes, technically as the first day of AD dates was likely intended to be in year 1, not year 0, 2001 would be the 1st day of the 3rd millennium. But who cares. Everybody called Jan 1, 2000 the new millennium. Which also makes it the beginning of a new decade. Ten years later is 2010. New decade.

Let's forgo formality and simply agree that when a year ends in 0, it is the start of a new decade, shall we? Nobody wants to hear about your awesome century party on Jan 1 2101.

[SirNoDroin Posted Dec 30th 2009 5:00PM]

@EGOvoruhk I said i'd stop commenting, but whatever.

Gameboy came out in 89, but its considered the handheld of the 90s

PS2 came out LAST QUARTER of 2000. So even in the event that you are technically correct and 2000 was the last year of the 90s (I don't agree with this in the first place) the majority of PS2 sales (and impact) was THIS DECADE, regardless of technicalities of release date.

[Wiizer Posted Dec 30th 2009 5:01PM]

@SirNoDroin

Yeah, the 360 made history this decade.

It has the highest failure rate out of all the gadgets in this list.

And quit making the site more like Gizmodo! I swear, you guys get a web show, and you're all about revenue now!

[OG Phenix Posted Dec 30th 2009 5:05PM]

@SirNoDroin

heh, at least we agree on something.

[EGOvoruhk Posted Dec 30th 2009 5:06PM]

@OG Phenix Did you? There's a jillion replies, and I tried a search. Sorry

It's not just the PS2/2000 thing though. I mean what happens if the iSlate is real and rocks us to our core? It would deserve to be on a list for this decade

[Teer1998 Posted Dec 30th 2009 5:12PM]

@SirNoDroin
PS2 with the DVD player was revolutionary in that it was a home entertainment system. Xbox 360 was for gamers and fan boys, and even then it was plagued with issue RROD?!?! Hardly a good choice for this list.