The Atari 2600 or the NES
runner up: Gameboy
I’d say the most influential would be the most popular of the necessary consoles for the existence of the industry in some form or another that resembles what we see today.
There are three that come to mind: Atari 2600, NES, and Gameboy.
No console that exceeded the Atari 2600, except the NES and Gameboy, was necessary for the industry to look like it does today.
Of these, the Gameboy was most successful. But at the same time I see how there’s an argument that the industry could still look relatively similar, even in the absence of handhelds. So that’s down to the NES And Atari 2600. The first two mainstream home consoles. Establishing that gaming could be big business in the home, and not just the arcade and niche hobby users.
The problem with the Atari 2600 was the bubble burst, and the industry “collapsed”. There is then the argument, did the NES bring it back? Was that success necessary?
But it could also be argued that the home gaming industry didn’t actually die, it migrated. While technically PCs and open platforms, the Vic 20 and C64 were mostly used as gaming machines (at least, by people of my age group, who were also the primary users) and were seen as closer to Atari and Nintendo than to Apple and Microsoft. While Microsoft and Apple machines were more PC-first, games second (if at all), the C64 style machines were more gaming-first and PC second (if at all). However, I’m getting away from my point, and that is it could be argued that the video game industry wasn’t really dead, it had just migrated to a different form-factor of “gaming console”. But the open nature of them came with the rise of piracy, and it might have been perhaps inevitable that big business would try to wrench that back… the question is did Nintendo’s success here come as an inevitability or a necessary development that wasn’t guaranteed?
So, my answer can go two ways - and I think both are possible enough that both are valid:
1. If it was inevitable that something like the NES would come along, cheaper, streamlined, and a purely dedicated video gaming console; then it’s the Atari 2600 that is the most influential.
2. If something like the NES wasn’t inevitable, then the NES was necessary, and therefore it’s the NES.
Gameboy for handhelds was a necessary machine. It wasn’t the first handheld, but it was the one that showed the industry how to do it right and established the handheld console side of the industry as we know it.
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
