1. SNES - Pure gaming perfection. A wide and diverse library full of AAA games of all genres, control schemes that were easy enough for the novice gamer but allowed for enough complexity for more hardcore games.
2. Wii - Hard to deny its impact on gaming, even if you didn't support what it stood for. Playing Wii Sports for the first time felt like I was experiencing gaming again for the first time again, reminiscent of the first time I picked up an NES controller.
3. N64 - I have a soft spot for this console because it was the console I "grew up on". While it's library wasn't the largest, the games that were great on this console, were REALLY great. Mario Kart, Mario 64, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, etc.. All amazing games. The multiplayer really shines on this console too, and I still sometimes relive the endless fun of Mario Kart and Goldeneye with friends and faimly. This console also had Rare at its finest, who was second in quality only to Nintendo at the time.
4. NES - While I recognise that this console is probably techincally the "better" and more revolutionary console than the N64, most its lifespan occured before my time, with the exception of the stuff at the tail end of it like Mario 3 and Bubble Bobble 2, so I don't hold as much of that nostalgic experience to give it that bias. However, like the Wii, you can't deny its impact.. And its library, like the SNES, was just insanely good and diverse.
5. Gamecube - While still a great console in its own right (hell, I used it as part of my username), it was largely an obscure console, in terms of its actual appearance, odd controller, and its niche library of games. The games that were normally Nintendo's biggest franchises (Mario, Zelda, Kart) either had weak installments on the Cube or were missing alltogether.. with the exception of Metroid and Smash, which, strangely enough, had their BEST iterations on the Cube. The only other really great titles seemed to be niche games that weren't even created by Nintendo themselves, or else they seemed out of place (Tales of Symphonia, Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil 4, Pikmin).
Jury is still out on Wii U for me, as I have only put a few hours of play time into only Nintendoland and NSMB U, so I feel I have nowhere near enough time to give an accurate analysis yet, but I have a hunch that it will end up between the NES and Gamecube, based on my first impressions.
