It doesn't take much to get gamers frothing over new hardware, with even the soberest of geeks prone to fanatical excitement over the driest, dullest tech specs and made-up-on-the-spot speculation about what it all might mean for The Future of Gaming.
But technology is, lest we forget, nothing more than technology without content – meaning that even if a system crackles with the power of a billion suns, if the games are rubbish, no-one will care in the end.
For a recent example one need look no further than Nintendo's 3DS. The glasses-free stereoscopic 3D gizmo launched on a giant crashing wave of hype and expectation. And then everyone sort of just lost interest in it. Why? Because, in truth, there was hardly anything worth playing on it.
That was, at least, until Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land rocked up, backed by a price cut, and normal service was resumed, with sales now back up to where most expected them to be.
All of which leads us towards the launch in a couple of weeks of PlayStation Vita, which Sony reckons has one of the strongest ever line-ups of software on day one.
We'll tell you exactly what we think of that claim and of the console itself in detail over the next week or two. But with the dawn of a new platform soon to break, what better time to reflect on the greatest launch games in console history.
Super Mario World (Super Nintendo)
Never mind best launch games, you'll find no shortage of advocates prepared to argue to the death for this masterful platformer's status as greatest game ever.
Super Mario 64 (N64)
It's easy to forget just how staggeringly huge the leap from 2D to 3D was that this title ushered in. It changed the world of gaming in an instant, and we're unlikely to see another leap as large again.
Tetris (Game Boy)
There's very little more than can be said about this puzzle classic, but it's still fairly remarkable that Nintendo's portable version remains unimprovably brilliant to this day.
Super Mario Bros. (NES)
Long before Mario 64 set a generation's expectations for gaming in three dimensions, the original "Super" title did it for scrolling 2D platformers.
R-Type (TurboGrafx/PC Engine)
NEC's chunky console never made it to Europe, but was a firm favourite amongst hardcore gamers for its solid range of arcade ports. R-Type, the definitive side-scrolling shooter, appeared on just about every format at the time – but nothing came as close to the arcade original as its PC Engine incarnation.
Ghouls 'n' Ghosts (Sega Genesis)
The ferocious battle between Mega Drive and SNES had yet to begin, but nothing gave a stronger taste of what to expect from the 16-bit era than this phenomenal coin-op conversion that launched with the US version of the console.
Virtua Fighter (Sega Saturn)
Even a great launch title can't save a doomed platform, which proved to be the case with Sega's horribly ill-fated system. But what a game.
Ridge Racer (PlayStation)
What on earth did Sony think it was doing taking on the big boys at their own game? With so much to prove, it couldn't have got off to a better start with Namco's breakneck arcade racer.
Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox)
If people questioned Sony's chances in the console market, they openly sneered at Microsoft's. Xbox needed to hit the ground running, but few expected it to do so with the genre-, system- and generation-defining class of Bungie's landmark shooter.
Wii Sports (Wii)
Wii was so different, it's arguable that launching it with a Mario game would, perversely, have seen it falter. Instead, Nintendo risked it all on a casual game that perfectly sold the concept of motion-control gaming to the world - and a revolution was born.
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