Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: History of Gaming

Switch Is Now The Most Sold Nintendo Console

Posted on by Viljami

Nintendo Switch passed Nintendo DS as the most sold Nintendo console of all time just recently. There have been over 155 million Switch video game consoles sold worldwide. This console was released already in 2017. Only Sony PlayStation 2 has sold more than Nintendo Switch. We saw earlier last year how Nintendo got to release the sequel and it was named Switch 2.

Current situation of Nintendo tells us a lot about how popular gaming really is today. Many people do still have the first Switch. It is also available for a game consumer to purchase. There haven’t yet been any decisions about how long will the first Switch stay in production and available for purchase. I don’t know if it will ever succeed like PS2 did. PS2 was for many people something even more than a device to play your latest video games. It was also for many a very working and first DVD player for watching also the latest movies. Currently PS2 holds the record of most selling gaming console with over 160 million units sold.

PS5 has also sold well. It holds the eight place in the list of most sold gaming consoles of all time with over 92 million units delivered. In this discussion we can also add Xbox Series S/X that have to this day sold almost 30 million units. PlayStation 4 has sold over 117 million units and Switch 2 a bit over 17 million units already. Switch 2 hasn’t been in the markets for even a year. It was released in June last year (2025).

As I am a hobbyist in this field I do have a Nintendo DS gaming console. I also do own Nintendo Switch Lite and Switch 2. I barely use a Switch console in the handheld mode. I keep my Switch 2 docked and connected to my television. As Switch 2 is fully backwards compatible with the first Switch it made a perfect sense to actually remove Switch from the setup when I first got my Switch 2 last year.

Nintendo DS is a funny and retro style of a gaming console. It offers a portable option for playing video games while being in the move. I got it just out of curiosity. It was first introduced in 2004. This was way before the modern smart phone as a gaming format was introduced. There were cellular phones but the first iPhone we did saw in 2007. With this in mind during the 2000s it would have been reasonable to buy a Nintendo DS and actually many people eventually did buy it.

I got my Switch two or three years ago. I wanted to purchase it for my somewhat intensely growing gaming setup. It offered some interesting games that weren’t available on any other system. I’m talking about games like Super Mario Wonder and Link’s Awakening and every other Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda game out there. Nintendo just seems to have this certain ability to entertain every one from children to senior. If we really go back to the 1990s we can see how first Sega and later Sony tried to destabilize Nintendo. Sega and Sony tried to offer things like blood and violence while SNES for example had their own modified and not-so-bloody version of a game like the first Mortal Kombat. Also, with SNES, the NHL hockey game didn’t include fighting at all.

Nintendo has always been for the whole family. They have been and still are a very successful gaming company. It has to be stated that Nintendo was the company that gave a console called NES or “Nintendo Entertainment System”. They were the company that made video gaming popular again back in the 1980s. Nintendo had games that were of a very high quality. The quality of the games seems to be the key to success they’ve managed to  hold even today.

If you want to read more about different video game consoles and how they have sold (the website keeps updating) you can head to:

This Wikipedia page right here

The Role of SNES In The History of Gaming

Posted on by Viljami

There was a time in history of gaming when SNES was the most powerful and the most newest gaming console in the markets. This period of time was followed by many years of dominance from Mega Drive, or Genesis as the system was called in the USA, that in turn was a following of dominance from Nintendo Entertainment System, or for short, NES. What had happened earlier, before Nintendos dominant era, would be known as video game crash. It was a time when video games weren’t selling so well. NES begun the new era when video games started to begin to be popular again.

What makes Super Nintendo, or SNES, so significant is reflected in these games that were released for it. They were beginning to look like something that could be considered a true form of art and not just some entertainment for kids. There were stories that were told through these games. There were some limitations about the amount space available and also some considerations about how to, for example, save a game with this technology. However the progression was fast and SNES had its time when it was actually considered the greatest gaming console of all that were available.

Now, you can debate on which one is better, Mega Drive or SNES but actually the way I see it is something like this. NES was the best during 1983 to 1988. Mega Drive dominated from 1988 to 1991. And SNES was the greatest console between 1991 and 1995. After that it would be the era of PlayStation 1 which would continue all the way to the era of the generation in which PS2 would belong to. Take this as just an idea and not something I could somehow actually prove to be true. This is a sort of a theory.

How were the games that were released for SNES? I would point out that there were games like Street Fighter II and Super Mario World. They were full of action and included graphics that were very impressive at their time. There were also some role-playing games that I think moved gaming very much forward at this time in the history of gaming and playing video games. These games brought us closer to the games that could be later found on PS1. I think that when PS1 came actually as popular as it would show to be we were actually starting to realize the full potential that video games actually had. RPGs on SNES were something like a bridge to more complex and modern gaming.

So, the whole scene of gaming was advancing very fast at this time. Everything I have told you here makes me think how little I have spend playing SNES. I have several RPGs to explore if I choose to go to that path. I am thinking that this system, SNES, has some great games. But the question in my mind seems to be “are they actually worth playing”? I ma thinking this because they are old games. I don’t have so many memories of playing SNES back in the 90s. I have more memories about Mega Drive.

I am still thinking about this. Some good games for SNES include titles like many of Final Fantasy titles, Secret of Mana, Dragon Quest VI and III, Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG. It also had many good games that weren’t actually RPGs. These titles include Super Mario World, Super Mario All-Stars, Donkey Kong Country, Star Fox and F-Zero just to mention some of them.

If you are a retro collector you must have heard how there was a device that would have actually been a Nintendo console that would have had a CD drive of some kind included with it. This was actually something that would have been a collaboration of Sony and Nintendo. We never saw this machine and Sony went on to release its own gaming console. PlayStation, later. This leaves my imagination with many possible outcomes of what we would have had as video gamers if it would have come to reality.

SNES is a huge part of history of video games. As I am more of a Mega Drive and PlayStation 1 fan I have lots of playing to do if I wish to get into SNES a bit more. There is a lot to explore. Some games might not be ones that I will spend tens of hours or even hundreds of hours playing since they are already a bit old as video games. I might play some newer video games instead. However it is great to acknowledge how these games shaped the way we experience gaming today.

What to Think About Diablo 1?

Posted on by Viljami

Diablo 1 was a real game changer when it was first released back in 1996. We saw a PC version and the game was also ported to Sony PlayStation 1. Diablo has been topical and we have seen lately games like Diablo II Resurrected and Diablo IV. After the first original game we saw a sequel, Diablo II, in 2000. This game was almost insanely good and it was the game that made me addicted to not only action-RPGs but to playing video games generally.

We saw also a third game back in 2012. After a long while Blizzard was able to bring fans a decent addition to Diablo games. As I already stated Diablo had these more recent games getting released lately. We have to add this one game to the list of Diablo games. That game is Diablo Immortal. I haven’t palyed that game at all but I heard it wasn’t actually up to these high standards that this series actually has.

I did play the first Diablo game with my PS1 back in the end of 1990s. You might think about that featured image I have attached to this blog post. This is the actual copy that I have bought several years ago from a flee market. I remember that it was ridiculously cheap. I think I bought it for one euro or something like that.

“How do you get this game installed?”, one might ask. If you don’t have, and few of us gamers actually do, an optical disc drive (CD/DVD/Bluray) in your PC setup you are going to need an external DVD drive. I have actually two of them. One is also compatible with Bluray media. I wasn’t able to rip PS3 games with this device but for installing Diablo 1 it is actually sufficient.

You can at first install the game as is usual. If you don’t want to use the disc every time you launch the game you can just apply a patch for the game to function without a disc. There are some procedures and you can find help online. I had to copy a huge part of the game to my hard drive and also apply some patches. After that the runs pretty well.

What is it like to play a game like Diablo 1 that has been released almost 30 years ago. The game feels pretty nice to me. Graphics are a bit outdated as you would suspect. The actual game play feels nice. I only played it with mouse and keyboard and found it very much functional. First you get to create your character. There are some character classes like “Warrior”, “Rogue” and “Sorcerer”. I went with the Warrior since I very much like the melee action that Diablo delivers.

It can take up to 14 hours to complete Diablo 1. I have to be honest and tell you that this time I only played this game for some hours. The point still is that Diablo 1 is still relevant as a game. The impact it had on the role playing genre of computer and video games is huge. Think something like Sega Mega Drive’s NHL 94 with some role playing elements added to the mix and you surely get the point here. I definitely recommend Diablo 1 if you are into retro games and/or gaming history. This game is very significant to wholeness of video games and it brought us many elements actually the first time for us gamers to enjoy.

You can actually buy Diablo 1 as a digital copy if you don’t have the physical one which can be hard to find. Just look from “GOG dot com” or “Battle dot net”. It does cost you (on Battle net) ten dollars. That’s a cheap price. If you are lucky you might find it somewhere as a CD ROM. I don’t think that you can buy it for as cheap price as I did as I mentioned earlier in this blog post. I was very lucky.