In your view, which is the most influential home console of all time?

[Relias]

If I had to choose just one... (Which is hard)

I would say the NES because it saved the console gaming and well gaming market in general.

However here is a list of systems that made an impact of some sort on the U.S. market.

Turbo Grafix 16- While I can't remember exactly if this was the first 16 bit system to hit the market... I do remember it was the first system to use a CD-Rom on a console system. It was also the first system to actually do a combined system of a regular cart(Actually Hu Cards) system and CD system in the Turbo Duo. Also, I believe the Turbo Express was the first portable that could actually play the consoles (Hu Cards) games on the market. However the system never went over well due to lack of great games in the U.S. as thus it is a rarity. However if you can buy one it's well worth it for the hard core gamer... it does have some great titles (No really in spite of what I said it does it's just that when you compare it to the choices on SNES or Gen. it doesn't have as many) It's kinda like a Sega Saturn of the 16 bit era really some great titles hit the shores of the U.S. and it's selection gets even sweeter if you can get some games imported. Of course you'll have to shell out the bucks for the best stuff because they are so rare... (And probably the system itself seeing as to how the numbers dictate under a million sold here in America and the Turbo Duo is the one you'll want)

Sega Saturn: Technically this was the first (major player in the gaming world anyway)CD-Rom based system of the 32 bit era.
It was known for it's Arcade ports(The best of it's time really kinda like Neo Geo) but some features that get overlooked is... It had a battery to save games unlike the Playstation(Sure you could only save about 1-4 most of the time but at least you could open the box and actually play a game without the frustration of having to run back to the store and get a memory card or buy one with the system) You had a net thing that could play games online(While not really the first adapter to allow you to do this the Saturn was the one that had any kind of known focus on this at the time) In addition for a system that was not known for it's 3-D graphics much to the surprise to many of gamers a very fondly though of series (At the time ground breaking in it's own way) made it's debut here. None other than Tomb Raider. Unfortunately, despite the fact that it had some of the greatest games of it's time(and to some all time) it died an early death. Most people say Sony killed it... A lot say FF7 was the deathblow and quite a few say N64 was... the truth is Sega killed it with some bad choices.

PS1: I have to give credit where credit is due. The PS1 expanded the audience(Though it's important to note the PC gaming market helped with this as well at the time a lot of people that played on PC's and didn't want to stop playing games was forced with a choice... upgrade their graphics card every month or other month for the games they wanted to play on the PC or buy a console system that will last for some years and just get games and a memory card as wanted or needed based on the PC gaming mag I had a subscription to they a lot went with the latter choice so in a way you could say Sony actually got lucky with timing but whatever) Two things I will say for Sony though... 1 they pretty much put the RPG genre on the map when FF7 hit their system which leads to 2... they have a great library of games... which has some of the best games of all time on it. It's also important to note that the PS1 upon launch was the most likely to crash and give you problems (Read disc errors were common) and is the most finicky system of it's time. Still... that being said the PS1 is a very influential system (and one of the most important systems) of all time.

PS2: Sony became the first major player to deliver a DVD console system. In a sense of irony upon launch it had just as many problems as the first Playstation and in a sense of irony some(all??) of the first games were done on a regular CD(with a blue bottom on it.... kinda makes ya wonder about those first few PS3 titles don't it) In the end however it continued to expand the audience(around here at least) and delivered some great hits along the way.

Wii: Basically the controls are well cool(if done properly) and has expanded the audience.