I'd say the Atari 2600. It proved there was a huge market for game consoles (in the US). Regardless of the NES, sooner or later, someone would come along with a console, because you don't just ignore a huge market like that. The Atari managed to sell 8 million units in a single year, which was pretty huge back then. Even though it crashed, someone would rise from the ashes, even if it wasn't Nintendo.

Wii U, if it wasn't for that console the industry just wouldn't be where it is today! That great success of a industry defining console should ever be be forgotten and Wii U shown everybody how it should Be done. All hail the Wii U

yep lets just ignore trends that were already happening before PS1 even released, that makes a whole lot of sense........

also what Sony games are you referring to that were so different during the PS1 era? again, you have to look at trends that were happening previous to PS1.

in the years leading up to PS1, developers were releasing more and more games aimed at teens who were kids during the NES era and developers were able to start exploring with new game concepts/genres thanks to 3D gaming becoming more prevalent.

you keep talking about PS1 breaking sales records never imagined, this is true for Europe which Sony completely deserves credit for, but in America/Japan the console market didnt see a massive change in trajectory.

America

Atari era=~30 million

NES era=~40 million

SNES/Genesis era=~50 million

PS1/N64 era=~60 million

Japan

NES era=~20 million

SNES era=~25 million

PS1 era=~30 million

Europe

NES/Master System era=under 20 million

SNES/Genesis era= under 20 million

PS1 era=~45 million

Sony's biggest contribution with PS1 was making gaming mainstream in Europe but the other things were already set in motion and happening with or without them.

The top 3 would be Atari 2600, NES and the Xbox.

Ps2 or ps1 made the industry gigantic.

This thread turned out exactly like I guessed it would just by reading the title. Your biases are showing, VGC. Nintendo getting way more credit than they deserve, Atari getting way less than they clearly deserve, Sony and MS's contributions are largely dismissed, ignored or credited to Nintendo or surprisingly Sega.

It's pretty clear in this thread there's many users to appear to believe that the games industry only really exists in the USA. Do some more reading folks!

The shift from Cartridge to CD Rom was most significant. Sega does what Nintendont, and then Sony made it mainstream with PS1, which paved the way for PS2 dvd, which also paved the way for bluray in PS3 and PS4 and Xbone. Meanwhile Nintendont.

Probably the NES.

This is about the most important console of history, not the consoles(read:plural).And NES takes that place.

And why dont you name one then, instead of just complaining?It is the whole point of the thread, anyways.

Fact of the matter is, the video game industry's history is a complex web of contributions from a multitude of different companies, many of which never even made a console. I mean, in both Japan and Europe, computers, NOT consoles, were the major gaming devices. Japan had the MSX, the U.K. had Amstrad, ZX Spectrum, and the BBC Microcomputer. Even during, before, and AFTER the video game crash, US gamers were playing on Commodore 64s and various Atari 8-bit computers, among other machines. 

To even credit the 2600 as "the most important console" is a bit of a stretch. Sure, it was the first successful gaming device that utilized cartridges, but it didn't build that success on its own. Its foundations were the Pong home console and arcade machine, which were the first gaming devices to Introduce digital gaming to the mass market successfully. It built off the success of these machines. And Pong itself was inspired by the Magnavox Odysssey, which was a commercial failure but pioneered a lot of basic concepts like game controllers, light guns games, and the Pong game itself. 

Even when you go this far back, you need to consider whether commercial success or innovation is more important when answering a question like this. Generally, I consider commercial success to be more important, which is why I essentially "voted" for Pong.