DS. It Combined innovation with a killer software line up including GBA BC. Also the DS lite still looks better on my desk than the 3DS :P

Of course in this current moment the 3DS is best device, but relative to its time the DS provided me with a much better gaming experience and was better suited for its purpose.

Gameboy

3DS, for playing both 3DS games and DS games. Next after that would be the GBA, which played both GBA and GB games.

You should have included the option of NX, because that is always funny to see new consoles getting higher number of votes, even if the generation just started.

3DS.

Proper online support, full 3DS/DS library, Virtual Console.

While it has a lot going for it, many of the most voted best GBA games have similar(and in some cases superior) iterations on the DS or even 3DS; Final Fantasy Tactics, Mario & Luigi, Mario Cart, Iga-vania games, etc. It has the most remakes in it's top list of games: Mario, Donkey Kong, Metroid, Final Fantasy and Pokemon. And hugely jarring is GBA's lack of an original Mario game, of all things.

It has some amazing original experiences(Wario Land 4, Metroid: Fusion, PKM:RSE, Zelda: MC, FIRE EMBLEM 7), and Metroid: Zero Mission is the best 2D Metroid experience to date. But it relies too heavily on remakes to pad it's offerings to be considered the best, not with DS and 3DS surpassing it in every quality way.

3DS for sure; many unique experiences with access to DS' catalog.

Going with 3DS but the only drawback is that only ambassador GBA games were released on 3DS. Surely with the New 3DS they could have released GBA lineup on VC but they probably didn't want to spend anymore effort and stuck with just adding SNES. Having GBA games on Wii U makes little sense and it doesn't make sense not having them on New 3DS.

Dividing the Virtual console offerings like that doesn't make much sense in general, imo. The 3DS/new 3DS should get everything it is capable of playing and the WiiU should just get everything. As someone who actually saw VC as a major incentive to get a WiiU, I'd never have gotten a 3DS to get to gameboy VC titles.

Thankfully for nintendo I love handheld systems and had a 3DS already before I ever got the WiiU. Thankfully for me I get the full VC access dispite Nintendos bad handling of it.

The 3DS actually makes a great case here, I never expected that back when it released, but it has a wide library with great games. Among them a handful of all-time favorites for me. Without a doubt the best system of this generation and the best handheld in a long time.

I never really got into the DS as much. Obviously the system had a gigantic library, but relatively few ever interested me. I own less DS games than 3DS games and even less of them would I consider on the same level as my best 3DS games. Still, good times to be had.

Long had I considered the GBA to be quite mediocre, and it is my least favorite of the handhelds. It never got an original Mario game and it has one least favorite Zelda and Mario Kart games. Most I played on the system were ports of good SNES games. In hindsight though I did miss out on some what turned out to be awesome games like Metroid Fusion and Fire Emblem The Sacred Stones, but by then the damage had been done and my interest was elsewhere.

Now the GameBoy and GameBoy Color I had tons of fun with back in the day. My library is the biggest of all my handhelds and there's some games here I was genuinely addicted to. Good games, good Mario games, good Donkey Kong games, Pokémon, smaller games such as Alleyway and the definitive Tetris, some among my all-time favorites but still on average probably inferior to the 3DS. So 3DS wins? Well there's a catch. GameBoy is home to the pinnacle of handheld games. Zelda: Link's Awakening. The game's absolutely brilliant, and puts it's big console brother, even though that one's also among my favorite games, to shame.

So it's 3DS with a high overal score, versus GameBoy with an above decent score plus the absolute high-point. The question becomes, if I had to choose one, would I rather have all of the 3DS, or Zelda: Link's Awakening?

GameBoy wins.

DS is what make me become Nintendo fan, but 3DS is great too