Hello everyone!
Feb-7-2014:
-Platforms that only lasted 2 years or less will be Event-only platforms.
-Added new Smart Phone/Tablet platforms.
I’d like to start by saying, yes I’m aware there are plenty of console mods out there… There’s also lots of consoles, that didn’t stop Sony and Microsoft from making their own versions!
Now that that’s out of the way…
I’ve been doing lots and lots of research and coming up with a preliminary list of consoles/platforms for my mod… divided into categories for ease of reading, naturally I’m interested in your opinions on this.
DISCLAIMER: Yes, I will be changing all the names for the mod as per the User Agreement. I’m simply using the real names here at the moment for ease of discussion.
Anyways… I’m going to start with planned features!
Events! Yes, well, what more should I say? The gaming industry was full of events that are noteworthy, some of them less about consoles and more about game developers! Like when Square and Enix joined forces or when Electronic Arts bought out Origins…
Manufacturer name above platform name when picking the platform… that way you don’t just see “TES” you’ll see
"Ninvento"
“TES”
…
Not sure how to do that yet but that’s what these forums are for!
Topics! I will be doing research into topics, I will not be including things like FPS or RTS… those aren’t topics, they’re sub-categories inside the already available categories… Action and Strategy respectively for my examples!
If you have any suggestions for anything, feel free to mention it! It might be a great idea or I might not like the idea… either way, it’s worth listening to.
Now for the long-winded part, you don’t need to read all of this if you don’t want to…
Let’s start with the most ignored group… PC:
26 different kinds from 1977 to present day (I’m of the opinion the start date should be prior to the 1983 crash for reasons you’ll see in the console list). There is quite a bit of overlapping but I take that as being normal, companies want their new products to already be popular by the time they discontinue their old one. I’m not going to add laptops, I figure we already get a good enough variety with desktops. This list represents mainly operating system differences, example a game developed for MS-DOS isn’t likely to work on a system running TRS-DOS the same as how a Sega Dreamcast game can’t be played on a Sony PlayStation.
Apple II (representing the AppleDOS systems from 1977 to 1993)
Tandy TRS-80 (representing the Tandy TRS-DOS systems from 1977 to 1994)
Commodore 8-bit (representing the Commodore.BASIC systems like C64 from 1977 to 1994)
Acorn 8-bit (representing the Acorn-MOS systems from 1979 to 1994; they weren’t really well known until the BBS came out)
Texas Instruments Ti-99 (representing the Ti-BASIC systems from 1979 to 1983; another small one)
Atari 8-bit (representing the Atari 8bit systems from 1979 to 1992; yes they made computers too!)
Sinclair ZX (representing the Sinclair-BASIC systems from 1980 to 1992; they were sold as a different name in the US but we aren’t all from the US 
)
Tandy TRS-80 Color (representing the Color-BASIC systems from 1980 to 1991)
IBM PC (representing the PC-DOS systems from 1981 to 1987; know this is the IBM line of computers, not the IBM compatibles or IBM clones that were created as a result of this line)
Microsoft MS-DOS PC (representing all IBM compatibles and clones running MS-DOS from 1981 to 2000)
Apple Macintosh (representing the Apple SystemOS series computers from 1984 to 1996)
Atari ST (representing the Atari-TOS systems from 1985 to 1993)
Commodore Amiga (representing the AmigaOS systems from 1985 to 1996)
Microsoft Windows PC (representing all IBM compatibles and clones running Windows 1 to 3.1 from 1985 to 2001)
IBM PS/2 (representing the OS/2 systems from 1987 to 1996)
Acorn Archimedes (representing the first generation of RISC OS from 1987 to 1995)
NeXT Computer (representing the NeXTSTEP OS from 1988 to 1993)
Linux PC (representing all Linux distributions since 1994; I didn’t feel like including the many popular linux variants since I know almost nothing about it except that there are literally hundreds of distributions, almost all of which are still supported.)
Acorn RiscPC (representing the second generation of RISC OS from 1994 to 2003)
Apple Power Macintosh (representing the MacOS systems from 1995 to 2006)
Microsoft Windows 95 PC (representing all IBM compatibles and clones running Windows 95, 98 and ME from 1995 to 2006)
Apple iMac (representing the OS-X systems since 1998)
Microsoft Windows XP PC (representing all IBM compatibles and clones running Windows XP and Vista from 2001 to 2012)
Castle Technologies Iyonix (representing the third generation of RISC OS from 2002 to 2008)
Advantage Six A9home (representing the current generation of RISC OS since 2006)
Microsoft Windows 7 PC (representing all IBM compatibles and clones running Windows 7 and 8 since 2009)
So by end game you should have Linux PC, iMac, A9home and Windows 7 PCs to develop for… just like in real life
Video Game Consoles now… 48 since 1976 (generation 2 consoles), I know that the game normally starts at generation 3, right after the video game crash of 1983, but the crash did not suddenly bring all the consoles to their demise, some like the Atari 2600 continued on >.>. For this list I decided to restrict it to multi-market (asia, europe, north america, etc ) platforms that rely on external media to provide the game (cartridge, tape or cd). Note that I might have made some mistakes and let some through that don’t fit my restrictions, wikipedia is not perfect! Consoles with very short lifespans might be made into events only instead of actual released hardware.
Finally I will be including the consoles that already exist in the game that I intend to keep because I will be modifying them, for example the NES has a longer lifespan in real life than the game.
Fairchild Channel F (1976 to 1981)
RCS Studio II (1977 to 1979) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
Coleco Telstar Arcade (1977 to 1980)
Bally Astrocade (1977 to 1983)
Atari 2600 (1977 to 1992)
APF MP1000 (1978 to 1980) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
Magnavox Odyssey2 (1978 to 1984)
Bandai Super Vision 8000 (1979 to 1982)
Mattel Intellivision (1979 to 1984)
VTech CreatiVision (1981 to 1986)
Atari 5200 (1982 to 1984) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
Milton Bradley Vectrex (1982 to 1984) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
Emerson Arcadia 2001 (1982 to 1983) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
Coleco Vision (1982 to 1985)
Nintendo Entertainment System (1983 to 1995)
Atari 7800 (1984 to 1992)
Sega Master System (1986 to 1991)
Atari XE Game System (1987 to 1992)
NEC TurboGrafx-16 (1987 to 1995)
Sega Genesis (1988 to 1997)
Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1990 to 1999)
Commodore C64 Game System (1990 to 1992) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
Commodore CDTV (1991 to 1993) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
Philips CD-i (1991 to 1998)
SNK Neo Geo (1991 to 2004)
Pioneer LaserActive (1993 to 1994) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
Commodore CD32 (1993 to 1994) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
Atari Jaguar (1994 to 1996)
Panasonic 3DO (1994 to 1996)
SNK Neo Geo CD (1994 to 1997)
Sega Saturn (1994 to 1998)
Sony PlayStation (1994 to 2006)
Apple-Bandai Pippin (1995 to 1997) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
Nintendo 64 (1996 to 2003)
Sega Dreamcast (1998 to 2001)
Sony PlayStation 2 (2000 to 2013)
Nintendo GameCube (2001 to 2007)
Microsoft XBox (2001 to 2007)
Microsoft XBox 360 (2005 to 2016)
Mattel HyperScan (2006 to 2007) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
Sony PlayStation 3 (2006 to 2015)
Nintendo Wii (2006 to 2013)
Nintendo Wii U (2012 to present)
OUYA (2012 to present)
Sony PlayStation 4 (2013 to present)
Microsoft XBox One (2013 to present)
PlayJam Game Stick (2013 to present)
Mad Catz M.O.J.O. (2013 to present)
So by end game you should have access to the Wii U, OUYA, PlayStation 4, XBox One, Game Stick and M.O.J.O.
Now for 31 Handheld Game Consoles since 1979 not including smart phones and tablets…
Milton Bradley Microvision (1979 to 1983)
Entex Select-a-game (1981 to 1982) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
Nintendo Game Boy (1989 to 2003)
Atari Lynx (1989 to 1994)
NEC TurboExpress (1990 to 1992) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
Bit Gamate (1990 to 1993)
Sega Game Gear (1990 to 1997)
- This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.*
Timlex Mega Duck (1993 to 1994; yes that’s actually what they called it…) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
Sega Nomad (1995 to 1999)
Tiger R-Zone (1995 to 1996) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
Nintendo Virtual Boy (1995 to 1996) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
Tiger Game.com (1997 to 2000)
Nintendo Game Boy Color (1998 to 2003; I opted to include it seperate from the main Game Boy because this iteration is refered to as Gen 5 while Game Boy is Gen 4 and Game Boy Advance is Gen 6)
SNK Neo Geo Pocket Color (1998 to 2003) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
Nintendo Game Boy Advance (2001 to 2008)
Nokia N-Gage (2003 to 2010; It’s both a console and a phone but I don’t think it’s a smart phone so I include it as a console)
Tapwave Zodiac (2003 to 2005) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
LeapFrog Leapster (2003 to 2008)
Nintendo DS (2004 to 2014; I know one model is still in production but I figure they will discontinue it this year in favor of the 3DS)
Sony PlayStation Portable (2004 to present; I’ll probably add an end date in like 2015 or 2016… seems unreasonable for Sony to compete with itself…)
Tiger Telematics Gizmondo (2005 to 2008)
LeapFrog Didj (2008 to 2010) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
GamePark GP2X (2009 to 2011; this is actually the Wiz and Caanoo versions since the regular GP2X was South Korea only) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
Sony PlayStation Portable Go (2009 to 2011; I know that it’s still being produced in North America… but I figure it’s had it’s run…)
OpenPandora Pandora (2010 to present)
Nintendo 3DS (2011 to present)
Sony PlayStation Vita (2011 to present)
SNK Neo Geo X (2012 to 2013) This console will only appear as an event due to it’s short lifespan.
NVidia Shield (2013 to present)
Razer Switchblade (not yet released)
So by end game you should have the Pandora, 3DS, Vita, Neo Geo X, Shield and Switchblade.
Now for the last category… Smart Phones and Tablets! After some new research I’ve compiled a list of 8 platforms for this category…
Apple iPhone (2007 to present)
Google Android (2008 to present; represents all android-based phones)
BlackBerry (2009 to present; represents the BlackBerry OS smart phones)
Apple iPad (2010 to present)
Microsoft Windows Mobile (2010 to present; represents the Windows Mobile/Phone devices)
Sony Ericsson Xperia Play (2011 to present; technically it’s a console, but it’s a phone too!)
BlackBerry PlayBook (2011 to present)
Microsoft Surface (2012 to present)
All are end-game platforms.
For now that’s all I can think of, I’m hard at work already while using placeholder graphics for the platforms.