The Seven Greatest Gaming Systems Ever Made

The eighth generation looks like is going to be a PS4/XBox One battle, with Sony winning every region, XBox One posting the best numbers in the United States, and the Nintendo WiiU crashing and burning probably even worse than the Nintendo Gamecube. With the race being just two systems the competition will definitely ease a little, especially with Microsoft fully knowing that it will not catch up to Sony for the next half-decade. With less competition and less drive to create competition, I doubt we will see the new variations top the quality of the seventh generation systems.

As a matter of fact, besides Grand Theft Auto V we haven’t seen any modern games to be true game-changers. Our best fighting game still isn’t Melee, our best racing game ruined battle mode and still lacks the arcade personality of Burnout (Mario Kart, Forza), the top platformer is essentially a 3DS game (Mario 3D World), and even the top game is already on PS3/XBox One (Grand Theft Auto V). There are good games, but we aren’t seeing an influx of spectacular games like we saw in other time periods in gaming history.

Its doubtful that any system from this generation will find its way into gaming history as one of the best----even if they might become one of the most successful. It just shows you the power of the gaming industry nowadays and the power of the multimedia aspect of each console. With Netflix, Hulu, HBO, YouTube, and other channels of entertainment seeping in to each system there’s plenty to do when the games aren’t as plentiful. So now the question is, what are the best video game systems of all-time? And what makes them the best of all-time? Well, glad you asked:



Honorable Mention: Nintendo Gamecube

With better third-party support, this system could have been one of the greats. The first-party lineup was stellar (Mario Sunshine, Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Melee, Animal Crossing), the second-party/partnership lineup of games was even more impressive (Eternal Darkness, Metroid Prime 2, F-Zero GX), and of course boasted the best game of the sixth generation (Metroid Prime).

But utter lack of games, too many delays, and the overwhelming superiority of the competition made it fail with just north of 20 million copies sold. But one can argue this was the last truly hardcore Nintendo system, as it was followed by the mainstream-friendly Wii and the disappointing and 3DS-lineup doppelganger WiiU. But it does deserve a mention; the Gamecube had a slew of spectacular games in the midst of all the disappointment.







#7: Nintendo 64
Generation: Fifth
Sales: 32.9 Million
Position: Second Place
Best Game: Super Mario 64


The Nintendo 64 is the greatest offline multi-player system of all-time. That alone propels it into this list. Mario Golf. Mario Tennis. Smash Brothers. Goldeneye 007. Perfect Dark. Mario Party 1-3. And of course, Mario Kart 64. The original Playstation definitely had more games, definitely had a better single-player experience overall (Final Fantasy VII, Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night) but when friends and family are close by it did not get any better in the 90s than the N64. Too many delays and terrible hardware choice doomed the N64 ultimately, but its cluster of amazing games propelled it to have the superior legacy in the fifth generation, and would become the precursor to multi-player gaming being an extremely important aspect to gaming.





#6: XBox 360
Generation: Seventh
Sales: 84.7 Million
Position: Third Place
Best Game: Grand Theft Auto V



I am getting this out of the way: the seventh generation was the premiere and ultimate era in the gaming industry. All three systems were phenomenal, and delivered a slew of amazing games ranging from AAA masterpieces right down to indie gems that couldn’t cost more than $10. Microsoft learned from all their XBox mistakes and revved up its first/second party offerings, while improving the multi-player experience and even made swift attempts at getting a Japanese audience. Halo finally had some company with Bioshock, Call of Duty, Gears of War, among others. The XBox 360 is the ultimate American-made gaming system (Which is something the XBox One should gun for), which makes sense as to why it’s the best-selling American console of all-time.





#5: Nintendo Wii
Generation: Seventh
Sales: 101.1 Million
Position: First Place
Best Game: Super Mario Galaxy



Yes, the image of the Wii has been tainted as it’s a has-been system, a has-been trend, and became the system that shredded the relationship between the hardcore gamers and Nintendo. Nonetheless, during the peak Wii years there was a stellar lineup of games that appealed to everyone. Ranging from the mainstream friendly (like Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, Guitar Hero III, Mario Kart Wii) to great hardcore titles (Metroid Prime 3, Super Mario Galaxy 1-2, Donkey Kong Country Returns) to even the much-maligned-but-still-tolerable Virtual Console (Which gave us even Sega Genesis, arcade, and Neo-Geo games), the Wii gave us a quantity of games that were severely lacking in Nintendo systems in the previous decade. It was a fine multi-player system, a good value, and a different and more interactive way of playing games. Nintendo not giving it an HD version and not attempting to continue the momentum has led to its downfall and the failures of the WiiU.






#4: Playstation 3
Generation: Seventh
Sales: 85.4 Million
Position: Second in Generation
Best Game: Grand Theft Auto V



The Wii was the mammoth success, but the Playstation 3’s final bow was so epic it propelled itself to second place and made the race overall a lot tighter than when it first started. Sony’s biggest improvement here was the amazing first/second-party lineup of games that although it’s no Nintendo it’s definitely not something to laugh at (Uncharted, God of War, Little Big Planet, The Last of Us). Then throw in the usual third-party support and a sudden surge in indie gaming (it would utilize this way before the competition) and you have a system with plenty of amazing titles, plenty of gaming options, and then topped by the most rewarding online functionality. The Playstation Now and the Playstation Store is everything Nintendo’s Virtual Console should be.






#3: Nintendo DS
Generation: Sixth and Seventh
Sales: 154.8 Million
Position: First in Handheld
Best Game: Mario Kart DS



The Game Boy/Game Boy Advance definitely deserves a place on this list somewhere. However, the Nintendo DS is a ridiculously incredible piece of hardware that delivered dozens of new franchises, tons of great first/second/third party games, had backwards-compatibility to compliment the equally-amazing lineup of Game Boy Advance games. Yes it had a slow start, but once the original and innovative games started pouring in the DS went on a great winning streak that combined new installments of classic franchises (Mario Kart DS, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl) as well as fresh ideas (Professor Layton, Phoenix Wright). Once the ball got rolling, there were very few disappointments as nearly every major Nintendo franchise got love and attention, and we even saw some Japanese favorites find their way to the States. It was the perfect handheld.





#2: Playstation 2
Generation: Sixth
Sales: 157.6 Million
Position: First in Generation
Best Game: (Tie) Gran Turismo 3, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City



About 80% of the best games during the sixth generation were on the Playstation 2. No system will ever have such third-party dominance ever again, as Sony had all the major exclusives (Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto, Metal Gear Solid, Kingdom Hearts, Tekken, many more) while mixing that with excellent first-second party offerings (Gran Turismo, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, God of War). Then let’s throw in online-support, easily one of the best controllers of all-time, backwards-compatibility, and you have yourself a system that was worth every penny no matter what type of game you played.

You like racers? Burnout 2, 3, and Gran Turismo. You like shooters? Call of Duty, SOCOM, Ratchet and Clank. You like fighters? Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Tekken 4. Do you like sandbox games? You couldn’t come even close with beating the trifecta of GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas. This was also the last generation with great sports games, and it doesn’t get better than MVP Baseball, Madden, and NFL 2K in the same console. Despite being underpowered when compared to Gamecube and XBox the PS2 had over 1,200 games to choose from, and so many more exclusives than the others, you had no choice but to go Sony. We will never see pure quality dominance like this ever again.











#1: Super Nintendo
Generation: Fourth
Sales: 49 Million
Position: First in Generation
Best Game: Super Metroid (I might change my mind next month, like I always do) 


I might be a homer for this. But pound for pound, game for game, there is no greater system. If you are to take the 50 greatest games ever made, a majority of them will be from an SNES. Let’s start with the hardware---powerful for its time, produced some of the best-looking games of the entire decade of the 90s and it was released in 1991. The controller set the bar for the way controllers are crafted and handled—PS4 and XBox One has a lot of SNES in its design.

Let’s go to the third-party games. Back in the good ol’ days, third-party companies picked sides and created rivals---leading to some grandiose art. Square gave the SNES Super Mario RPG, Final Fantasy VI, and Chrono Trigger, three of among the greatest RPGs you’ll ever play. Capcom gave the SNES the superior versions of Street Fighter while also handing out some great beat em’ ups and stellar Mega Man games. And even if the Genesis had the superior version, the SNES were treated to great franchises like Mortal Kombat, Contra (Contra III was the best), NBA Jam, and the infamous Disney games.

Now, the exclusives. There is no better lineup. Super Mario World, Super Mario World 2, Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Donkey Kong Country trilogy, Super Mario Kart, Killer Instinct, F-Zero, Mario Paint, Kirby Super Star, Kirby’s Dream Land 3, Super Punch-Out, Earthbound, Tetris Attack. If I had to rank the 20 greatest games ever made, I can see myself putting 5 or 6 of these games on the list. I could be a homer for this, but the ratio of spectacular games was the absolute highest in the Super Nintendo---whether the games came directly from Nintendo or didn’t. Mine still gets playing time to this day. To this day, it remains the best console ever made, and major part as to why modern-day Nintendo can still survive despite the entourage of bad mistakes.