12 will enter. One will leave.
They don’t make ’em like they used to. With Xbox 360’s abysmal failure rate and PS3s often falling victim to the yellow light of death, it’s a strange that so many consoles from the 90s are still running just fine. To test these vintage video game platforms’ durability, the folks at Wired decided to experiment with which ones could survive a 15 foot drop.
Ranging from Super Nintendo to PS3, 12 consoles were selected for this grueling test of valor.
Read on for the results:
The SNES outsold the Sega Mega Drive (or Genesis, as it’s called in North America) by about 9m units, but only the latter maintained some functionality after the death-defying drop (albeit with some flickering image output).
When it came to the next generation of consoles, the Sega Saturn’s and PlayStation’s drops proved fatal, but the N64 remained vigilant.
Moving on, the original Xbox and PS2 broke into several pieces, so they were obviously toast. The Gamecube likewise failed to boot. The Dreamcast, however, may not have survived the retail market, but it could survive a 15 foot drop.
And finally, the most recent generation. The Wii turned on, but wouldn’t accept a disc, the PS3 wouldn’t launch, while the Xbox 360 inexplicably worked just fine.
This brought the surviving consoles to the final round: where they were subjected to having Mountain Dew poured over them. The Sega Mega Drive, N64 and Xbox were all defeated by this crushing blow, but the Dreamcast kept on ticking, making it the clear victor in the durability department. All hail the Dreamcast!
