Every Console* Ranked
Every video game console I've ever owned and how much I enjoyed It
This list was inspired by a recent Nintendo console ranking by Dylan Cornelius . Go and subscribe!
For months, I’ve spluttered and declared like Henry VIII that no lists or ‘filler’ articles will ever clog my precious Substack! But the truth is, my last list did really well and I enjoyed some of the conversations in the comments, so I decided this probably wasn’t a hill worth dying on and wrote another.
I’ve been a gamer since I was 4 years old I consider this hobby and my other great love: the written word to be the best escapes from the humdrum of everyday life. Throughout my life and especially since beginning my retro journey I’ve played many consoles, some great and some are the Xbox One, this list will be an entirely opinionated ranking; the only metric is my enjoyment and memories. So, if your favourite winds up quite low, assume I just haven’t spent the amount of time with it you have.
We’ll be moving backwards and I’m excluding the Switch 2 for obvious reasons and the Series S/X and PlayStation 5 because I’ve never owned one.
Nintendo Switch - S
The original Nintendo Switch is a console that aged quite poorly within its own lifespan in my opinion and it had a few too many persistent flaws for me to put it at the absolute summit but the Switch also probably has the greatest Nintendo library of games ever made and revived my interest in gaming at a time when I was considering packing it all in to spend the money on textbooks and courses. The Switch is bound to go down as a classic, very easy S-tier.
Xbox One - Xbox One (Hell)
I absolutely detest the Xbox One.
A combination of puberty, my chaotic teenage years, the dour state of mid-2010’s Triple-A and Microsoft’s continual failure to maintain the quality of their IP’s mean I just associate the Xbox One era with disappointing games, the deaths of my favourite franchises and generally not feeling comfortable about myself or the world I was living in. It didn’t help that the thing was riddled with adverts, could barely run PUBG and had the eerie ability to turn itself on when you walked by the Kinect. I almost gave up gaming thanks to this shit machine but thankfully, the Switch and a gaming PC granted me salvation.
PlayStation 4 - A
I’m going to let you in on some personal bias before we go forward: apart from the PS2, I’ve just never been into Sony’s consoles so they might fall lower than you expect. The PS4 blows the Xbox One and Wii-U pretty handily out of the water and I enjoyed my time with it… but this is still my least favourite generation of gaming, I don’t enjoy Sony’s exclusives that much and I’ve never liked the DualShock controllers, so it gets an A from me.
Wii U - B
I find online discussion of the Wii U is too hyperbolic: it’s always either the underrated greatest console ever or an absolute disaster but in my opinion? It’s just okay. I enjoy how cheap most of the games are and the hardware is fun to use but let’s not kid ourselves, this isn’t a particularly great console even if that era of Nintendo was something we remember fondly.
Nintendo 3DS - B
Just like the Wii U, the 3DS feels like a step in the wrong direction but it was a great handheld with a fantastic library despite its features and form-factor being in constant flux. I might have ranked the 3DS higher but it’s still expensive to buy today and I just don’t think it’s worth as much as it costs.
Wii - S
As a piece of hardware and competitor to Sony and Microsoft? The Wii is an underpowered, old-hat disaster but for Nintendo fans, non-gamers and the enjoyment of simply operating the console? It goes far beyond most other systems. I always feel the Wii is my guilty pleasure, I won’t defend this console if you dislike it but it’s a system I have great affection for and always boot up every once in a while, especially to replay Metroid Primes 2 and 3.
PlayStation 3 - C
The PlayStation 3 is my least favourite console from my least favourite console manufacturer, it has some amazing games: I love Uncharted, Killzone 2 and God of War 3 is my favourite in the franchise but otherwise? I just don’t like this console very much. The UI is kind of weird and ugly, the DualShock 3 is a crap controller and every third party release on this thing looks worse than on the weaker Xbox 360.
Xbox 360 - Top 3
Lemme grab the gif…
The Xbox 360 is my favourite video game console ever. It had the best versions of every game in the greatest era of Triple-A gaming, the exclusives were amazing, the controller is pure bliss and no longer constrained by Sega, Peter Moore: then head of Xbox was able to usher in the online age of gaming and get ahead of the competition with pioneering social features and distribution. Its peripherals and hardware had the durability of an ice cube in Summer but I’ll elect to ignore that, this is my list damn it.
PSP - C
I have a feeling the gut reactions to this ranking by many will be to get the pitchforks but here’s the thing about the PSP: you always hear people talking about how technically impressive the handheld was (which is very true and I agree, my first experience of online gaming was on this system) and people love the aesthetic of the PSP… but nobody ever talks about the games apart Vice City Stories and a few others that are almost PS2 quality, I think it’s an awesome piece of hardware but I can’t think of one great game that plays, looks or feels distinctly PSP. It lacks an identity.
Nintendo DS - A
For much of my childhood, my DS was firmly glued into my pocket; any trip in the car or any hint that somebody was going to be breaking theirs in to play Pokémon at school and I was in. These days I think the DS is full of shovel ware and it’s hard to recommend you buy one instead of the backwards compatible 3DS but rest-assured, this is a fantastic console and one I have great fondness for.
Gameboy Advance - A
The Gameboy Advance took a while to get off the ground with a crap original model and an excess of SNES ports but eventually its hardware saw enormous improvements with the wonderful GBA Micro and the GBA SP and the library began to churn out some absolute classics. From ages 7-10 I must have lost most of my life outside of school to playing Pokémon Emerald on this thing.
Gamecube - B
Here come the death threats! Listen, I grew up with the Gamecube: it was my first home console ever, I really enjoy a lot of the games on it and the controller is a delight but I don’t love this console and I personally feel it can’t hold a candle to its competitors; in any other generation it would be an S-tier but the PlayStation 2 and Xbox were just too good.
Xbox - S
Easiest S-tier ever. The Original Xbox had amazing ports of some of the best PC games ever, was the birthplace of Halo and Forza and was the first console that really took us close to parity with the PC; someone should have gone to The Hague for designing the Duke but the S-model controller was the best of the generation. I love this console.
PlayStation 2 - S
The absolute peak of PlayStation and another easy S. The PlayStation 2 had hundreds of amazing games that looked great, it could play films and the Slim model was mind-blowingly compact. I gravitated towards the Xbox as I grew closer to an age with double digits but the PS2 made up the bulk of my childhood gaming.
Dreamcast - Top 3
The Dreamcast was the coming of age for 3D gaming. While Nintendo 64 games had been foggy, laggy and blurry and PlayStation 1 games had crinkly textures, muddy visuals and also had the laggy framerates, the Dreamcast dispensed with all that and dragged us into the glorious new century of gaming with crisp, colourful 3D graphics, perfect arcade ports, a wonderful controller and a suite of amazing exclusives. Sega’s final console was a home run as far as I’m concerned and you can feel its influence in the original Xbox and beyond.
Nintendo 64 - Top 3
There it is: own personal triforce of greatest video game consoles.
The Nintendo 64 is deeply flawed: the controller looks like it was made for a vortigaunt, the framerates are piss-poor and a lot of non-Nintendo, non-Rare titles have aged very poorly, the trouble is… those Rare and Nintendo titles, in my opinion are the greatest games ever made. I know every retro guy on the planet shares my opinion but Ocarina of Time is the greatest 3D Zelda; it’s also the first video game I ever played on a home console. But I could go on listing 10/10 N64 games and I still wouldn’t land on your favourite because there are just so many. The N64 gets extra points from me too because its games are very cheap in the UK and these things are nigh unbreakable, my N64 has a hole in the back, visible rust and I’ve dropped the entire console before and it reads cartridges instantly.
PlayStation - B
A common opinion that gets parroted around today is “Early 3D games have NOT aged well!” *insert YouTube thumbnails with bright red arrows and a 40 year old making a face like a toddler* But when you examine the claim: when you actually look at the games people consider to have aged poorly, 9/10 times they come from one place and one version of said game, so let’s rephrase this. PlayStation 1 games have not aged well. I respect this console’s place in gaming history, it has an excellent library and Sony had the foresight and the balls to fully commit to 3D when Sega couldn’t (and Nintendo were dragging their feet about getting the Nintendo 64 to market) however, I find this console extremely difficult to enjoy today. If you want to play some of the best PS1 games than the Dreamcast is a good place to do it.
Sega Saturn - A
This is a console I never know my true feelings on. I really enjoy using it, it has a great library of games and many of its versions of the PS1 greats have reasons to play them instead despite weaker graphics. On the other hand, its games and peripherals are outrageously expensive, the Saturn doesn’t reach the highs of the other 2 consoles and you’ll be relying on imports if you really want to make the most of this system… but there’s something about it I really like despite all that and only owning 3 games for mine, I’m not sure what else to say.
SNES - S
If I was making an objective list and not one based on my own feelings, memories and enjoyment then the SNES would be my pick for the best Nintendo console. Its library is timeless, its controller is the most influential ever made and its 16-Bit graphics and little sound chip transported millions to unforgettable worlds, it was also one half of the most well-known console rivalry in history.
Gameboy and GBC - C
The worst way to play a game library that already is mostly only remembered for Pokémon, Tetris and Metroid 2. I appreciate its place in history but the hideous screen and diminutive form factor make this system impossible to enjoy today, even if the GBC is a wonderfully aesthetic device. Tried to play through Metroid 2 on a GBC and the worm-light glare gave me a migraine.
Mega Drive/Genesis - S
I’m not picking a side in the rivalry in case someone molotovs my house and because I consider these consoles to be equally matched; when it comes down to the wire, I think the SNES has a slightly better library but the Mega Drive excels in certain genres more and owing to its add-ons and darker colour palette, I think I very slightly prefer the graphics on the Mega Drive and its best-looking titles. The Mega Drive also has Sonic soundtracks on its side.
Sega Master System - A
The Master System is a console I’ve not owned for very long but already I consider it to be excellent. As was the case with most Sega consoles, it doesn’t quite hit the highs of what Nintendo were putting out but it makes up for it with a better controller, better hardware and more consistent games; if it had a better Pause button, I might like it more than the NES but instead it ends up on-par.
NES - A
I will always consider the NES to be the most important console ever made, it revived gaming in the biggest gaming market: the USA, took Japan by storm and established a media empire that today rivals Disney but is it good today? Well, to be honest most of the NES library is pretty crap but there are plenty of classics in there too and the console along with its games are quite cheap, so zero complaints from me.
The End
And there we have it: every console I’ve owned/own from worst to best. This is a top-heavy list simply because I think there have been far more great consoles than not so great ones and I personally like at least something about every console I’ve played… even the Xbox One.
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Thank you very much for reading.
You're not the first to say this -- I also recall AVGN saying it -- but I'm always surprised by the take that Genesis graphics were comparable to, or even superior to, the SNES. Not framerate, slowdown, "Blast Processing", etc., but just plain ol' visual fidelity.
Graphically the Genesis could do a few things the SNES couldn't, while the SNES could do a LOT of things the Genesis couldn't. Starting with launch titles like Pilotwings and F-Zero.
I'm fully prepared to accept that the Genesis was the better all-around console for many. It comes down to the games. E.g. there's no SNES brawler that plays as good as Streets of Rage 2. But surely there are SNES brawlers that LOOK better! Honestly I think the OG, Final Fight 1, looks better. More detailed, more colorful.
The N64 was the first console I ever had. Because of that, I've never really resonated with the critiques of its controller because that was the default for me.