Most Robust Console

[Ferentix]

Well, I was reading some posts about the GP2X design, and some are saying that it's good and robust, others that it isn't, and of course there's stuff like the mysterious vanishing earphone jacks and so forth. It got me to thinking... which console is the toughest? Which is built most like a tank? The computer equivalent of an OTT action movie hero. So, I'm throwing the floor open to debate this most exciting of subjects!

I'm NOT asking anyone to get their gaming kit out and hit every item with a large hammer (though that would surely be interesting ) , but just from general experience. I'm including both home consoles and handhelds here...

OK, in my experience, the Game Boy family has been nigh on indestructable. My Game Boy Pocket (the first console I owned) has had all the following happen to it, at least once, and probably more:

• Dropped on the floor from standing height
• Dropped down a flight of stairs onto wooden flooring with the mains adapter block and cable
• Had various liquids spilt on it
• Repeatedly clumsily knocked against surrounding objects
• Endless abuse from my heavy handed usage (exerting something roughly equal to the force of an elephant stamping on the buttons )

My GBA has suffered similar misfortunes...

• Fell out of the boot of a (parked) car, onto a tarmac road, on a rainy day.
• Dropped on the floor from standing height
• Dropped down a flight of stairs onto wooden flooring with the mains adapter block and cable
• Had various liquids spilt on it (my brothers had nearly a whole mini-can of coke spilt on it- and then of course he had to clean it with water- and STILL it worked fine)
• Repeatedly clumsily knocked against surrounding objects
• Endless abuse from my heavy handed usage (exerting something roughly equal to the force of an elephant stamping on the buttons )
• I'm fairly sure it's been part trodden on a few times (Part trodden in that I soon realised I was about to put my whole weight on my GBA before I actually did). I'll still never know how it came to be on the floor in the first place though, because I'm usually very careful about such things

My DS... I thought this would probably be comparatively flimsy, but so far...

• I've knocked it several times against the edge of my bed when reaching for something (usually the power adapter)
• My brothers DS fell out of the inner pocket of his school blazer when he jumped onto a low wall. It came out of his pocket, landed on some tarmac (in a small car park for residents) and skidded a little way under a parked car. With no apparent negative effects!

Well, you probably see I've only included handhelds. This is because my GC has not really had much of a chance to get damaged- it remains in my living room . Of course, logically, handhelds are at much greater risk of being knocked about since they are generally intended for use away from home.

 

[Drak]

Haha, my friend accidently got a penny stuck in his DS's cartridge slot and it broke it.

 

[firefly1201]

I saw a thing a while ago which compared the PS2, Xbox and GC on how much they would withstand before they bit the dust, it suprised me when 1) PS2 stopped working after a mere whack with a mallet, and 2) Gamecube survived the longest, surviving a big drop and some other thing (it'll come to me soon).

 

[Goity]

My xbox died of obesity

 

[declaration]

definitely nothing made by Sony. They break just by being used

Nintendo stuff always seems pretty indestructible to me.

 

[Rayek]

Haha, my friend accidently got a penny stuck in his DS's cartridge slot and it broke it.

​

LMFAO! hilarious! :lol:

 

[Ferentix]

How'd they manage to get a penny In the DS slot? It's not an arcade machine

I always assumed Xbox would probably be the most robust home conole of the current generation, but then again, maybe that's just a false impression given by its bulk... and of course, the heavier something is, the worse it is for it to take a fall.

 

[Drak]

How'd they manage to get a penny In the DS slot? It's not an arcade machine

​

The DS and some loose change were in his pocket + P.E. = penny in Ds ;p

Since he didnt have a case for it.

 

[Jurrasic]

My Atari 2600 stood up to abuse, steppings on, droppings and food in the cart slot that would have reduced a modern console to the junkpile in 1/3 the time, and both the unit and joysticks are still functional nearly 25 years later.

 

[Draken]

My zodiac: I was listening to music whilst playing a small game in class. Teacher pulls out headphone out of my ears, causing the zod to slip out my hands, it litteraly flies through the air to land on the ground on it's screen, slie a bit and bump against a table.

That, and it fell a couple of times.

No damage, not even the screen is damaged, nothing, it's still as perfect before that happened, and boy, if you saw that smash...

My gameboy (and color): It fell a couple of times from stairs, against the ground, everywhere really. And it's still alive after so many years (I think it's 7 year old)

Latest handhelds I have have been treathed with care. (NGPC, DS, etc)

 

[Fishbong]

I second to this, the Zodiac is by far the most robust console i know...
I used to carry it in my breast pocket during the basic training of my military service, mainly to listen mp3´s and watch movies during breaks or rides, and quite often i found myself lying on it or crawling through the vegetation ....
Never got any problems...

 

[deadlychicken22]

i dropped my gp32 running down the stairs in my house and it bounced all of the way to the bottom! The screen flew off (i upgraded to a glass screen, never got it to stay on nearly as well after upgrade) and the batery cover and batteries flew out. I put it back togethor and booted it up and it played fine. And this was after bouncing down the stairs, not just falling once.

 

[skysnapper]

DS is pretty robust can't find the article but a two guys who went on an expidition out to the artic, the extreme conditions of their trip broke all there other eletronics equipment, the only thing to survive and still be in perfect working order was the DS.


So they could have been lost, freezing there arses of but at least they'd be safe in the knowlodge they could still play mario

 

[Vimacs]

gamecubes are undestructable, you can throw them across the room, out of the window, it will still work, nintendo rocks

 

[Draken]

Nintendo makes very robust devices, even though they look kinda childish, opposite to the stylish psp wich breaks if you even push a button too hard...

 

[aQwaBlaz3]

I smashed a Nintendo Wavebird to peices today with a baseball bat. It was fun.

I Nintendo!

 

[speedmike]

My gp32 dropped from my hands and bounced off my desk onto the floor. The damage was 1 dead pixel. :angry:

I had a sega saturn and I couldn't even move the thing before it would stop working. I took it home from college and it didn't work. I only got it to work after beating it! Man I hit that thing Hard!

My psx has falling many times off my tv stand and scraped against the wall... Works Great!

I just changed the battery on my wavebird which I thought was the coolest controller ever, but recently the thing can't go through anything blocking it from the GC it sucks! It used to go through walls!

 

[Ferentix]

Bizzare :s I did a test of the Wavebirds capabilities... I successfully played a game of something (well, successfully in that my test monkey (my brother) reported that the GC responded whilst standing in the back garden )

I have in the past, bizzarely, seen the robustness of nintendo consoles used as a point of ridicule by lame anti-nintendo fanboiz...

"OMG!!!THeYb bild thE(ire Sh11ty (onolZ 7uff so all 73h gai ch1lRen Pli em not brek them!1!!!" (or something along those lines. I may have exagerated the actual message a little, but that is essentially what they said. IIRC, this was on the Nintendo of Europe forums) <_< :huh: Most strange.

Hmm... I wonder if any console would survive a nuclear blast, like a cockroach?
Well, there's only one way to find out...

Donate as many consoles as you can. We'll heap them in the middle of a desert, and then...
Can anyone here HaXX0r a nuke?

Also needed: A volunteer to film the whole thing from a "safe" distance. Don't worry, you'll be well protected by the best radiation shielding I can create *gets out tin foil*

 

[Scratch]

Can anyone here HaXX0r a nuke?

Also needed: A volunteer to film the whole thing from a "safe" distance. Don't worry, you'll be well protected by the best radiation shielding I can create *gets out tin foil*

​

ehh, and what about the flying sand?? have you thought about that... I'll need a dustmask too ya know...

i dropped a gba of a friend of mine down the stairs once... glad it was alive afterwards, not a single scratch ! so he didn't noticed it, and i didn't told him either off course
if i look at my psOne , i don't think i'd have to try that...

 

[craigix]

I once saw someone throw a spectrum 128k +2 out his upstairs bedroom window in a massive fit of rage at us mocking him.

It survived and worked without any problems.

-Craig