For me it's 2004

Pikmin 2
Metroid Prime 2
Paper Mario TTYD
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (such an underrated game)
WarioWare Inc.
Tales of Symphonia
Mario Power Tennis (seriously the last good Mario Sports game)
Baten Kaitos

An underrated era of Nintendo for sure

I'll go for when the Switch came out. Nintendo reinvented itself in 2017 and they're having a bit of a renaissance right now.

The correct answer is 2017 for the Switch. I'm also partial to 2013 for 3DS.

Nobody mentioning the DS's 2005 yet? Before 2005 everybody thought PSP was going to crush the DS. And then the flood of games came. So many of the DS's games from 2005 were girl friendly. Really helped push sales of that system through the roof. 

	DS	Mario Kart DS Nintendo, 2005	91.43% 74 Reviews
	DS	Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow Konami, 2005	90.35% 71 Reviews
	DS	Advance Wars: Dual Strike Intelligent Systems/Nintendo, 2005	90.28% 61 Reviews
	DS	Meteos Q Entertainment/Bandai, 2005	88.13% 63 Reviews
	DS	Kirby: Canvas Curse HAL Labs/Nintendo, 2005	87.34% 61 Reviews
	DS	Animal Crossing: Wild World Nintendo, 2005	86.27% 66 Reviews
	DS	Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time Alphadream Corporation/Nintendo, 2005	85.23% 55 Reviews
	DS	Nintendogs: Lab & Friends Nintendo, 2005	85.05% 76 Reviews
	DS	Nintendogs: Dachshund & Friends Nintendo, 2005	85.01% 75 Reviews
	DS	Nintendogs: Chihuahua & Friends Nintendo, 2005	85.01% 75 Reviews
	DS	Tony Hawk's American Sk8land Vicarious Visions/Activision, 2005	84.46% 39 Reviews
	DS	Sonic Rush Dimps Corporation/Sega, 2005	83.23% 55 Reviews
	DS	Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Capcom, 2005	82.42% 64 Reviews
	DS	WarioWare: Touched! Intelligent Systems/Nintendo, 2005	81.83% 63 Reviews
	DS	Trauma Center: Under the Knife ITL/Atlus, 2005	80.30% 60 Reviews

2017 for Switch is my #2, but where I bought 7 Switch games in 2017, I bought 12 Wii games in 2010, so while both have stellar quality, quantity gives 2010 the win for me. 

BOTW tops anything in 2010 granted, but Mario Galaxy 2 is no slouch, and I'll gladly pit the games I listed in the OP vs Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 2, Xenoblade 2, Kingdom Battle, Doom, and Yooka Laylee. (The games I bought in 2017)

Objectively speaking: Fiscal Year 2009

This applies to both handheld and home console.

This is also a sales data website. While a year for new releases can be a good thing. Another good year is one of community building and effectively marketing a library for brand new gamers. Also, getting a wide variety of new experiences on top of those killer games.

Fiscal year 2009 was one such year for Nintendo on both home console and handheld front, when Nintendo sold 26 million Wiis, and 31 million DSs - 57 million units of hardware in a year, the most successful any hardware company has been ever, and it’s not even close.

This is when Nintendo auctioned change in their media strategy adding the Nintendo Channel to the Wii which would host Nintendo Direct-like content, treehouse content (interviews and such), as well as most of the sort of media you see on Nintendo’s youtube channel today. This is the year many were introduced to niche titles on this channel such as Little King Story and a number of others across both platforms.

Nintendo released monster hitters like Mario Kart 8, Smash Bros Brawl, Pokémon Platinum. Some heavies like Animal crossing City Folk, Super Sluggers, and Kirby Super Star Ultra. Some of your usual niche suspects like Advance Wars, Fire Emblem, Castlevania, Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons, and SimCity.

But then a ton of really interesting niche titles: World of Goo, Rune Factory Frontier, Disaster Day if Crisis, Rhythm Heaven, Fossil Fighters, My Life as a King, they also began expanding to non-gaming applications with eBooks BEFORE they became a popular thing on other platforms, cooking guides, and various other useful things.

The Virtual Console went nuts on RPGs with a Street Gangs/River City Ransoms, Secret of Mana, Mario RPG, Ogre Battle, all the original Phantasy Star games and continued that to 2011. Sega Master System, Commodore 64, and Arcade were all added to VC.

On further review.

Fiscal Year 2009 is the clear winner for best year on a Nintendo console, mostly on the Wii, but DS ties heavily into this too as Nintendo began to really synergize its marketing strategy between the two.


Not to mention Nintendo consoles sold 205 million retail software units on Wii, and 197 million on DS for a total of over 400 million sales of retail software that year.

2017 was a great year but how can I forget 1998?

In 1998 have seen the light:

- Half-Life
- Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- Banjo Kazooie
- F-Zero X
- Castlevania Symphony of the Night (or it was 1997?)
- Final Fantasy Tactics
- Resident Evil 2
- Tekken 3
- Panzer Dragoon Saga
- Radiant Silvergun
- Xenogears
- Parasite Eve
- Star Ocean 2nd Story
- Suikoden 2
- Metal Gear Solid
- Spyro the Dragon
- MediEvil
- Crash Bandicoot Warped
- Sonic Adventure
- Pokemon Yellow
- Wario Land 2

2008

Might I have the honour of being the first to welcome you to our dimension, from this wondrous parallel universe you hail from where the bolded games all came out on the N64? ;)

Interesting answer, what made 2008 the best in your opinion?

No love for de Blob? ;)

2017

My favorite games:
LoZ: BotW, FAST RMX, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Splatoon 2, Mario + Rabbits, Super Mario Odyssey, Xenoblade 2, SteamWorld Dig 2, Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove