In the second part of J Nash's investigation, FG looks at the last of the three big games machines and asks, "If bread's a nickname for money, and dough's a nickname for money, why isn't bakery a nickname for a bank?". We also let Mr Nash talk videogames.

If you missed FG22's episode, here's a brief summary of our man's findings..:

The PlayStation is a highly professional shiny box from Sony. Its games hold few surprises, with the emphasis on well-known series in a handful of genres (driving games, shooters and beat 'em ups, mostly). The first-class games are smothered by thousands that couldn't care less about.

The PC has a more interesting range of games (including that whole emulation thing) but is hampered by being unusably horrid, and impossible ever to own completely (the process is called 'upgrading' to make you feel superior, but is more accurately described as 'robbery'). If you must own a PC, buy a Dreamcast instead.

To conclude...

THE N64
Nintendo are totally ruthless. Each of their consoles uses a proprietary cartridge format, the idea being to completely control the games market while maximising their own profits. (As publishers have to buy carts for their games, Nintendo makes cash even if the game's a flop.)

Tengen once tried to produce their own carts, but Nintendo's president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, pressed a button and Tengen's office filled with a deadly green-tinged gas. But everyone loves Nintendo because they are consistently the finest games company in the world. And Yamauchi-san's reach is long.

Nintendo's list of achievements is terrifyingly complete. So much of the vocabulary of today's games is down to them. Mario 64 alone is entirely responsible for the, well, Mario clone genre. Go back to the NES and you find they invented the D-pad. Invented the D-pad. Crumbs. It's like that Italian monk and the comma: so commonplace, you think it's always been there.

Off on a slight tangent about the Game Boy now, as it's probably the finest illustration of Nintendo's cleverness. With the emphasis in handheld machines on more colours and bigger screens - think the Sega Game Gear, or Atari's genuinely lovely Lynx - the Game Boy was scoffed at for being black-and-white and tiny. But that's exactly why it destroyed its rivals utterly - the batteries lasted for ages. And it had Tetris.

Now we have the Game Boy Color, making the original look absurdly brickish and carrying on the tradition of quick-go-while-in-a-queue titles. It's unquestionably the purest games machine around as there's nowhere for a poorly designed game to hide, and it's probably the last format for anyone wanting to break into programming, as you don't need a cast of hundreds to write for it. (End of slight tangent about the Game Boy).