RE: What I Miss Most About Being a Gamer
I grew up same era as you did. Wait, it was with you playing a lot of those games from Atari to NES to Sega and our times at the arcade games, even old computer (abandonware now). Yes every game had a different version on each platform we played.
Jurassic Park is a prime example of games that were different on every platform. the NES you would have thought would have been better graphics on SNES platform but no completely different game and on the sega Genesis again completely different game again.
Now games are the same with very minor differences mainly in graphics. You might get exclusive items or maybe a different title to a DLC but nothing big. The only time a game is different is when it is a exclusive game for one specific console or PC. Now all you are paying for is exclusive and finding out what console has the better graphics options. Otherwise just choose a XBONE or PS4 and you can play almost anything out there. But don't forget to get a Nintendo Wii-U or switch For the NES only content that is nearly all exclusive.
The problem today is innovation is dead. The platforms are nearly identical so there is no need on the end of the developer to push certain qualities, or even different games altogether, over others.
As you mentioned, the differences are minuscule. PS4 and Xbox One are quite similar in power so we see people arguing over which one does 4K 60 frames per second instead of which has games people would give a damn to play in the first place.