Might expand on this list later. Just a rough draft for now

Criteria: Acclaim, Catalogue of Games, Influence, Popularity, Cultural Influence

1. NES (Nintendo) (3rd gen)
2. Playstation 2 (Sony) (6th gen)
3. SNES (Nintendo) (4th gen)
4. Playstation (Sony) (5th gen)
5. Game Boy (Nintendo) (4th gen)
6. Genesis/Mega Drive (Sega) (4th gen)
7. Dreamcast (Sega) (6th gen)
8. Atari 2600 (Atari) (2nd gen)
9. Nintendo DS (Nintendo) (7th gen)
10. Xbox 360 (Microsoft) (7th gen)

11. Playstation 3 (Sony) (7th gen)
12. Wii (Nintendo) (7th gen)
13. Nintendo 64 (Nintendo) (5th gen)
14. Colecovision (Coleco) (2nd gen)
15. GameCube (Nintendo) (6th gen)
16. Xbox (Microsoft) (6th gen)
17. Game Boy Colour (Nintendo) (5th gen)
18. Sega Saturn (Sega) (5th gen)
19. Sega Master System (Sega) (3rd gen)
20. Magnavox Odyssey 2 (Magnavox) (2nd gen)

Good to see SNES at the top.

Why is the Dreamcast so high? Why is the GameCube so low? 360 seems kind of high.

Dreamcast was one of the most innovative and acclaimed consoles of all-time. Created so many of the staples of modern console gaming - online gaming, donwloadable content, cel-shaded graphics, first VGA console etc. etc..

Most people consider it to be way ahead of its time and to have come a gen too early which actually led to its own downfall and most of its major games were ridiculously expensive and extremely ambitious and its poor sales caused Sega to almost go bankrupt and forced them to stop making consoles, but it's generally seen as incredibly innovative and influential and has been called the greatest console ever on more than one occasion.

GameCube was generally a commercial flop and received pretty mixed reviews critically. It is by far Nintendo's least selling major console (which is even more damning taking into account the huge growth of the video game industry since its early consoles) and probably its least acclaimed major console and lacked a lot of the features which had already became staples of its other competitors at the time. The same criticisms have been made to the Wii as well (an oft-used criticism is the GameCube and the Wii (and now the WiiU) is that they were a gen behind the rest of the competition) but the Wii was FAR more popular than the GameCube and innovative in terms of its motion controls, though how much lasting impact that will have on the gaming community remains to be seen.

360 might be a bit high, but it was the console which pushed consoles in HD, the first with fully wireless controllers which will undoubtedly be a feature we'll see across the board for many years now. It might be a little too high at this point, but I think it will definitely go down as the console of this gen just ending.

my top ten would be

1. NES
2. Playstation
3. SNES
4. Genesis
5. Playstation 2
6. Nintendo 64
7. Dreamcast
8. Atari 2600
9. Xbox 360
10. Wii


In my opinion the NES should be #1, the N64 should be in the top ten, and I dont know if handhelds should be on the list cause its kinda hard to compare

No way PS2 should be outside the top 2. It's comfortably #1 in Popularity. In terms of catalogue of games in terms of sheer quantity it's again comfortably #1 and in terms of acclaim of both games and the console, I'd say it's pretty much tied with SNES at joint #1. Only thing it really falls down on is innovation.

I don't think N64 should be top 6. Scores extremely poorly in catalogue of games having a pathetically small catalogue of games, the fewest of any major console ever and only a small number of highly acclaimed releases overall (albeit having 3 of the most acclaimed games of all-time). Also quite poorly in popularity compared to many others (even for its time, the PS1 outsold it 3 times over). Innovation is mixed, as it was the first to use analogue controllers, but also used outdated cartridges and was the console which began Nintendo's decline as the major force of console gaming.

What's the argument for SNES over the NES? I would argue it should go NES, PS2, SNES. Also, what's the argument for the PS3 over the Wii? The XBox360 also seems quite high. Actually, I'd say your 7th generation looks completely reversed.

I mean, it looks basically right. I'd tweak it slightly, but I'd be interested in hearing the reasons for yoru placements.

Maybe switch PS and PS2 for me, but i will say that the N64 has Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, and GoldenEye 007, arguably 3 of the top ten greatest video games of all time. And it featured a number of important features like the analog stick, and the rumble feature, and extremely fast load-times compared to the Playstation at the time.

Well the load-times was not an innovation or anything of the sort, since the reason for it was that they were using the same technology they had the last two generations. And while it did have a handful of some all-time greats, the overall catalogue of games was very lacking, as Avery said.
PS1>PS2 is never gonna happen.

I agree with this.

@Dubrow - I agree, but the console isn't just 3 games. The problem with the N64 was it had an extremely limited back catalogue, I mean check the numbers of games it had in total and the full list of games: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_n64_games It really didn't have more than a handful of games people talked about.

There's no doubting the N64 had 3 of the most acclaimed games ever, but there's also no doubting that a console is nowhere near being made by 3 games alone and in general there only really seems to be 12 or 13 odd games on the N64 which have high levels of acclaim and it seems to be the only console that when people are asked for their favourite games from it it tends to be the same 12 or 13 games coming up over and over again. It really did have an extremely limited catalogue when you look back at it.

Like I said, no doubt the N64 had innovation in terms of the analogue stick, but the controllers in general were pretty much derided and it could have quicker loading screens because it used outdated cartridges, which stored a lot less data - hence why several key 3rd party developers such as Square and Konami generally moved from Nintendo to Sony. So really I think it's innovations were mixed and that the plus points often also had negative points.

In terms of the current/last gen (depending on whether it has officially ended or not). The Wii beats 360 and PS3 in terms of popularity but the 360 and PS3 beat the Wii in terms of general acclaim (or lasting acclaim anyway). Surprisingly the 360 ended up becoming more of a sleeper hit and has comfortably outsold both the Wii and the PS3 in the last couple of years despite them beating it on original sales. As I said, I probably put the 360 a bit high, it was closer this gen than past gens, but I think overall it will be remembered as 360 > PS3 > Wii.

On 2nd thoughts, you're probably right, I should switch SNES and NES. Although SNES wins in acclaim, I think NES' importance is probably too much to beat the NES.

360 had by far the best catalogue of games as well, and gets points I imagine for being the first console with outstanding online support.

Yeah and it was the first HD console too and introduced fully wireless controllers (with no external needs - dongles etc.) From what I've read on forums etc. the 360 controller is also generally considered pretty much the best (or most ergonomic at least) controller ever and a lot of people use it for PC gaming as well because of that (some of whom who don't even own a 360).

With the exception of its format (cartridges over disks), the N64 was the most innovative of that generation. That said, it was also more expensive to both buy games and produce them. It's actually the problem that the PS3 is suffering a bit from now, although to a greater degree.

So, it has a few highly-rated games and quite a bit of innovation, but it gets hurt a lot in popularity and was still a bit backwards in a few areas. I think it could stand a boost from where it is, but it couldn't go over the Playstation.



Actually, no, that particular complaint about it being a generation behind was not used against the GameCube. The GameCube was actually the most powerful of that generation. The criticism leveled against the GameCube was that the minidisc format was a deadend format and a misstep. People saw the ability of the PS2 and XBOX to play DVDs and criticized Nintendo for not realizing that that was something people wanted. On top of that, the PS2 offered backwards compatibility, something the GameCube never could do. Lastly, Nintendo as a company was seen as not wanted to adapt to the changing gamer. They still had a policy of targeting kids over adults. That's part of what made Conker's Bad Fur Day such an astonishing game. If Sony had come up with it, people wouldn't have as made as big a deal out of it. It was these reasons that Nintendo was criticized for being behind the times with the GameCube, not the system's power.*

That criticism is completely fair to say against the Wii. Though it has other innovations.

*A quick specs comparison:
GameCube: Graphis (162MHz), CPU (486MHz), RAM (43MB)
PS2: Graphics (147.5MHz), CPU (294.9MHz), RAM (32MB)

On the first point: Based on what?
On the second point: That's definitely true and a big deal.



Does it deserve credit for innovating HD graphics simply because it hit the market before the PS3? It seems both Sony and Microsoft were working on it the same time, but that the XBOX360 was released first.

As for the controller, doesn't some of that have to do with Windows-compatibility than comfort? I do know gamers who use the 360 controller, but I heard that was the reason. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, so please show me something that talks about the controller's design.



People make fun of it (for the 3-hand thing), but I've never seen any serious criticism of it. It's fairly well designed if you just use the right side of the controller--not great, but ok. It's certainly iconic at this point. Other than the joystick, I wouldn't sing the controller's praise that much (no one is copying it, that's for sure), but it doesn't take away from the system. I never saw a review of Mario64 that complained about the controller.



You might be right. It's a bit tricky to assign acclaim for games that are on multiple consoles (Mass Effect, Far Cry, Batman). These games aren't on the Wii, so that probably hurts the Wii a bit. I feel its popularity and innovation make up for that, though.