Well in the defense of the 90s Fps', at least they were really really good, goldeneye, perfect dark, counterstrike, quake, doom, half life. Ah the good ole' Fps days eh

4th followed by the 5th.

6th is without a doubt my least favourite.

Same here! {has memories of only owning a gamecube and a crappy PC for 90% of it}

^^

This

It's a toss up between the 5th and 6th.

I think I'll lean towards the sixth mainly because of the PS2 and it's incredible library of games spanning all genres. And the Xbox for making FPS's on consoles awesome, and popularizing online gaming on consoles.

Sixth, with fourth and seventh coming just after it.

BTW there was more then one Console in the First, Second and Third Gens. 

oh and the Atari 26000 is Second Gen.

I started Gaming in Third Gen in 1986 at 5 years old with a SEGA Master System all my frends had NINTENDO Famicom/NES so I played a lot on that console to.

I have loved every Gen that I have been around.

My favorite Gens in no particular order are The fourth Gen, Fifth Gen and SIXTH Gen.

This Gen is not over yet but so far the SIXTH Gen still is still far superior.

overall favorite Platforms in no particular order are

SONY PlayStation , PlayStation 2, SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis, Dreamcast, NINTENDO Super Famicom/SNES,

This Gen

SONY PlayStation 3, NINTENDO WII( for Japanese Imports Games)    

Edit: as I see it alot of the Game deign Ideas Third Gen were beyond what the 8bit system could do and these Ideas were perfected in the Fourth Gen also the Fifth Gen was another Experimental Gen were a number of Games tried to puch Gameplay design and Graphics beyond what the 32bit/64bit System were Capable of. The SIXTH Gen is were these Gameplay and Graphics design Ideas  were perfected. 

The SEVENTH Gen is yet another Experimental Gen for new HD Game deign on Console it is again likely that the Eighth Gen will perfect what the Seventh Gen Started as well.

1. Yeah, I know, but I decided to only include the better known consoles, because a) I didn't feel like doing research, and b) there wasn't enough room to include all ten of the second gen consoles, or all twelve of the fifth gen consoles.

2. I know, but there's a maximum of six poll options, so I lumped generations 1 & 2 into the same poll option.

Fifth generation:

The sheer number of ground-breaking titles is astonishing. It was the advent/rise of 3D graphics in games which meant devs ahd to think up new control schemes and games pushed lots of new ground.

Started this gen: Gran Turismo, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid (yes I know, Metal Gear was out before), Half-Life, Starcraft, Age of Empires, Unreal.

Look at influence of this gen:

• Half-Life: start of a huge and revolutionary shooter franchise, introduced proper storytelling, AI, proportional damage, puzzle solving etc. in the FPS genre, gave birth to Counterstrike, Team Fortress, Day of Defeat and a huge range of user mods and later Steam
• Gran Turismo: Really the first driving sim to release on consoles, was that start of a 5 game series with each selling nearly 10 million copies
• FFVII: First FF to release in Europe, showed JRPGs could be popular outside of Japan
• Goldeneye: Revolutionary and showed FPS could work and be popular on consoles
• Zelda: OOT: First 3D Zelda and is still considerred one of the best games created by many
• Resident Evil: Popularised the Survival-Horror genre and started a franchise that's still going strong today
• Silent Hill franchise started this gen
• Metal Gear Solid: Amazing storytelling and popularised the stealth-adventure genre
• Tomb Raider: started this gen and showed there was a market for a platform game with mature undertones (although likely played by pubescent teens!) Likely influenced Prince of Persia and Uncharted.
• Mario 64: Great platforming game which laid the foundations for all 3D Mario games.
• GTA and Driver started this gen and sowed the seeds of the sandbox games of later gens
• Introduction of analog stick followed by the dual analog control scheme utilised by every console since
• Introduction of rumble
• Tekken and Virtua Fighter games started this gen
• Starcraft came out this gen and went on to sell > 10 million copies and spawned a sequel. Bacame a national sport in Korea
• Age of Empires released this gen and spawned a 20 million unit selling franchise.
• The popularity of Quake II online signalled the rise of online gaming with MP focused games like Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament and Counterstrike and becomming hugely popular
• Unreal franchise started this gen
• Baldurs Gate released and the advent of Bioware as a top WRPG developer
• Original Fallout games released this gen

I'd say the last two gens owe a lot to the minds of the fifth gen.

This is how I feel.