Nintendo consoles ranked worst to best;

This entry needs no explanation.

These series of Pong clones were the first consoles released by Nintendo. They're at the near-bottom for obvious reasons as they're not at all worth playing today, but they were top-notch Pong clones at the time they came out, and it's a neat collector's item as well.

A fun portable for collecting purposes, but it's obviously not aged well for actually playing games on. The reason this console ranks lower than its predecessor is because this portable was barely an upgrade over the then 9-year old Game Boy from a technical standpoint as well as worse than the then 7-year old Sega Game Gear, the lack of a backlight despite the fact the Game Boy Light iteration of the original which came out before the GBC had a backlight, and many of the games on the console were abysmal 8-bit ports of N64 and PS1 games, not to mention many GBC games were actually forwards compatible on the original Game Boy as well. A nice collector's piece, but not worth playing today.

Props, this console kicked off the success of the portable gaming market, and it's also a nice collector's piece as well, especially the Play It Loud models which came out in 1995. Not to mention, the Game Boy Light, that iteration actually had a backlit screen, which the Game Boy Color and even the vanilla Game Boy Advance did not have. This console is primarily low because the games obviously haven't aged well and it's not really worth playing today, even compared to portable consoles from its own time like the Sega Game Gear, but still, props for helping the portable gaming market take off.

Before we get into the negatives, lets get the positives out of the way. The Wii does have quite a few high-quality games on the platform, it did backwards compatible much better than either of its competitors did, and the Virtual Console is also a big plus as well. The biggest drawback of the Wii was the Wii Remote, as well as the console standardizing jittery motion controls, as well as games that had you hold the Wii Remote on its side as a piss-poor and unbalanced-to-hold mimick of the classic NES controller. Plus, the hefty amount of party games on the console, and the fact that the console tried to appeal more as a party device than an actual gaming console. Not a bad console, but definitely the worst out of Nintendo's mainstream home consoles.

Once again, props, this console revitalized the gaming industry in North America, and helped standardize the gaming industry for the rest of the world. So why is this revolutionary console ranked so low on the list? Well, once again, a lot of the games on the NES have not aged well, and it's not because of graphics as the 8-bit nature of its gaming library does have a nice retro charm to it, but rather the lack of a saving feature, combined with arcade difficulty (arcade games were more difficult on purpose so you'd spend more coins), making progressing in these games more of a frustrating chore than a pleasure. Not only that, I would also argue the NES was not the best console to come out of the 3rd Generation, as the Sega Master System had better graphics and sound quality, as well as an RGB output which was way ahead of its time. The only advantage the NES had was in quantity of games, but that was because of Nintendo's monopolistic policies they had at the time, as high-quality as games such as Contra, Castlevania, and Mega Man were, they would've definitely been better had they been released on the Master System instead. Not to mention, the NES is the primary mining ground for the Angry Video Game Nerd as well.Again, fantastic piece of video game history, and it had plenty of high-quality games on it, but still with too many flaws to keep it from being higher.

This portable felt like the first proper successor to the original Game Boy, which was already 12-years of age at the time the GBA released. The Game Boy Advance was backwards compatible with all Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, and the Game Boy Advance SP was the first mainstream Nintendo handheld with a lit screen as well as rechargeable batteries. Not only this, but the GBA's gaming library has aged considerably much better than the gaming library of both of its predecessors did.

Ah, the N64, my very first game console... I'd like to rank this console higher, but I can't deny that this console had too many factors going against it to prevent it from being higher on this list. The console did help standardize 4-player multiplayer with having 4 controller ports on the front, much of the gaming library has aged considerably much better than that of the PS1 (albeit still looking quite dated), and it's also an ideal collector's piece due to being released in a wide variety of colors as well. Worst aspect about the console, the stock controller is awful, particularly because the joystick is terrible. That's not so much of a problem now as there are better alternatives online you can find such as the Hori Minipad, but it's still worth noting. Plus, the use of cartridges that limited how much data can be put into these games, as well as the fact that in spite of what I said earlier, many games on the console outside of ones such as Banjo-Kazooie or Paper Mario have not aged all that well, as the 5th Gaming Generation in general has not aged well.

Not that there's much of a reason to buy a Wii U today in 2021 unless you want the features of the Virtual Console or the Wii games, as the Wii U's gaming library has pretty much been completely cannibalized by the Switch. But still, those games all started on the Wii U, and much like the 3DS, the Wii U made neat use of DLC through the collectable figurine Amiibos. Plus, the gaming experience on the Wii U was far superior to that of the original Wii, as Nintendo was shedding that previous strategy of appealing towards those that just wanted to buy a party device.

Ah, Nintendo's purple lunchbox... Not as successful as the PlayStation 2, or as powerful as the Xbox, plus its use of mini-DVD which prevented the console from being able to play DVD movies, the GameCube is primarily a console for Nintendo fans above all else. They did make an attempt to appeal outside of that market with the Resident Evil collection as well as Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes, but it was primarily the first party software such as Super Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime, Luigi's Mansion, Wario World, Pikmin, Zelda: Wind Waker, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, and Super Smash Bros. Melee, and it's not at all a detriment as all of these titles have aged very well and are high quality titles in their own right. Plus, the Game Boy Player, which allows you to play all your Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance games on your TV screen, albeit you do need to watch out for the disc that goes along with it as well.

At 154 million units sold, the DS is the best selling game console to date from Nintendo, and the second-best selling game console of all time behind the PS2. This was the portable console that standardized 3D gaming on the go, with a re-release of Super Mario 64 being a launch title for the system. Like the Wii, this console tried to appeal to both gamers and non gamers, and titles such as Brain Age and Nintendogs were major commercial successes, but unlike the Wii, the DS was not hampered by awful controls, and the dual-screen setup along with the stylus pen allowed for developers to get creative with implementing neat gameplay styles, such as the minigames in both Super Mario 64 DS and in New Super Mario Bros. which were a blast to play. There was a huge software library on the DS to choose from for gamers interested in any gaming genre, and the DS Lite especially is a neat console to collect for due to its sleek design and wide variety of shiny colors, and it's much cheaper to collect for due to how common the handheld is.

While the initial selling point of visual-3D was a gimmick and has mostly been forgotten about at this point, the 3DS was a very successful handheld and arguably kept Nintendo afloat amidst the Wii U's failure. Now with a circle pad that imitated a joystick, 3D gaming on this handheld was made much easier, and the gaming library was made even better than its predecessor, plus the use of Amiibos for DLC as well. I would also argue that the Switch was in execution moreso a successor to the 3DS than the Wii U, but we will talk about that just a bit sooner.

To date, this was the only console from Nintendo that was definitively the most technologically powerful of its generation (N64 would've been if they used CDs instead of cartridges). The Super Nintendo had better graphics and sound than the Sega Genesis, and also was the console that standardized the saving feature, making playthroughs of games a whole lot easier, and also allowed for a much deeper gaming library beyond that of a home arcade machine. Not only that, but the Super Nintendo has aged far better than both the N64 and PS1 due to hitting a peak with 2D graphics instead of starting from scratch with 3D graphics. As I mentioned before, the Super Nintendo has a deep gaming library, with games from multiple genres, and the Super Nintendo's controller set a standard for what all mainstream gaming controllers today go by. Super Mario World, Super Castlevania IV, Donkey Kong Country, Metroid Prime, Secret of Mana, Earthbound, if you want your 2D gaming fix, the Super Nintendo is the console for you... unless you're able to emulate all these games on better hardware, you can do that too...

Ending the course of the Wii and DS brands, the Switch merged the world of portable gaming and home console gaming into one. In theory a successor to the Wii U but in practice a successor to the 3DS as the console is primarily used as a portable by most who own it, plus the use of carts instead of discs as well as the Switch Lite which doesn't connect to a TV at all. The Switch was the prime gaming console to appeal to both gamers and casuals alike, and is currently becoming arguably the only viable console on the market for casual gamers such as myself, as the PlayStation and Xbox brands are shifting course into becoming supercomputers and arguably focusing on making game-centric Rokus instead of dedicated gaming consoles. The Switch is the only gaming console out currently that really feels like a gaming console, and the games on the Switch have been top notch, including the Wii U rereleases which is actually a brilliant method of making it seem like the Switch is consistently getting new software. Check this console out, if you can.