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S.Peelman on 03 September 2012
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I think the N64 is the best console ever made, but then again how could it not with so many all-time favorites (at least, to me) and games considered to be the best in their genres.

For me, the N64 is not 'Modern Nintendo' though. I think the N64's 'philosophy' is similar to what it was in the SNES and NES days. Also the fact it is cartridge based make it to me the last of the 'classic'-age consoles. A point by the way I always defended against people claiming the Playstation was better because it was CD-based. I think Nintendo made the right decision, I hated the CD load times and the unreliability of them. It is too bad the vast majority of the 3rd party devs wanted storage space and low cost above all else.

I started gaming in what essentially was the SNES era, but at first I played more NES than SNES. My aunt was the 'gamer' of the family and she always had the consoles. When she got the SNES, her NES went to the guest room at my grandma's house where my cousins and I played hours upon hours of Duckhunt, Super Mario Bros. 1 and 3 and Soccer (the blackbox one).
SNES did got me interested in my all-time favorite franchise though; The Legend of Zelda. After my aunt got the Nintendo 64, the SNES went up to the attic, and later my cousin's room at their new house. There, while I finally had some consoles of my own, we played a lot of A Link to the Past, trying in vain to beat Ganon, and Yoshi's Island.

While the NES got me into gaming 'on the big scale', the SNES shaped my preferences. I'm not old enough to have been around for the start of the NES generation, so my gaming carrier was basically a Gen too late; I played 3rd Gen in the 4th Gen and 4th Gen in the 5th Gen (the latter along with the actual 5th Gen).

Those were the best times.

I think from the GameCube age onwards, Nintendo became a different company, not in the bad sense, but different.
Though I do find the GameCube and GameBoy Advance era to be the least interesting, so in that sense you could say I think the old Nintendo wins, but I don't necessarily rule anything from any Gen out.
I think it is because it seems in the 6th Gen era Nintendo hadn't yet found their new identity. I mean, everyone of their consoles had some sort of... all-encompassing idea, or novelty or innovation, whatever you want to call it. Everyone of them except for the GameCube and the GameBoy Advance, what did they have?

On the other hand, I think modern Nintendo is rapidly winning the handheld battle. For now, the GameBoy Color is still my favorite handheld of all-time, but the 3DS is gaining on it very fast. The sheer amount of awesome games both out and announced is already perplexing me. There has never been a console in my possession which gets this many support this early.
The DS certainly didn't amaze me this much, and the GameBoy Advance definitely didn't either. It surpassed the awesome original GameBoy by now in my mind, so only one more to go.

Every console has their share of memorable games though, and the offerings on GameCube, GameBoy Advance, Wii and DS were more than enough to keep me hooked on Nintendo primarily. I'm eager to see how they'll continue with 3DS and more importantly, WiiU.