13 Best Video Game Consoles – Most Popular Gaming Console Systems

Every three-to-five years, video game fans are treated to a new generation of consoles. In this way, gaming is different than any other artform—it’s as if someone invented a new way to experience music or movies every few years. Sure, technology advances over the decades in all mediums. But gaming is founded upon these so-called console generations.

At any given time, there are usually three massive companies duking it out for players’ attention: Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. In past years, we’ve seen huge systems from Sega, Atari, Intellivision, and others, but today, the big three absolutely dominate the console market. And, as the companies vie for dominance, the success of each studio ebbs and flows. Sega and Nintendo competed back in the ’90s. The online capabilities of Microsoft’s Xbox changed the game in the early 2000s. Now, the battle is on between the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5, both of which are fighting to etch their names in the gaming pantheon. (The Nintendo Switch, of course, has already earned its keep.)

But it’s not just specs and sales that make a console great. Games, of course, are everything. A system is only as good as the applications that support it. The quality (and quantity) of original and third-party titles can make or break a console. And while we’ve had some technologically powerful consoles over the years, only a select few have been propelled by a sizable catalog of exceptional video games.

Taking all of this into account, we ran back through decades of gaming to attempt to sort out the best—and most influential—consoles we’ve ever seen. Here are the best consoles in the history of gaming, ranked.