lmao. That's another good one and worded just right.

I hate to follow the herd, but it's GOT to be the NES. Hands down.

Before then, it was all about arcades. People had to go to a specific place to play their games, and then pump in quarter after quarter after quarter. Not to mention, we are MOSTLY talking about kids and teens. So their parents had to drive them around and give them copious amounts of single dollar bills.

The NES, even though Odyssey and Atari came first, is what popularized home gaming. It MADE the console a thing, PERIOD.

The answer is NES, of course. This is obvious.
Done. Next topic.

Sure. All of those deserve some credit. But, they were more like proof-of-concept, than real, successful consoles.  Sales were tiny, relative to the Atari 2600.

When I made this poll, I expected NES to get about 50% of the votes, which it has. But, I figured Atari 2600 would have another 25 or so percent, with the rest scattered among the remaining consoles. I am really surprised to see so many votes for PS1 and PS2.

It would be interesting to know the age of Voters along with this poll. I wonder if it is hard for people to give credit to systems that they have never played....

well you really arent worth discussing with if you're just going to brush off what i said simply because im a Nintendo fan.

Sony accomplished alot with the PlayStation brand, they made console gaming mainstream in Europe & developing nations, they popularized the concept of consoles being multimedia devices, thanks to their heavy promotion of Final Fantasy VII they helped make the RPG genre mainstream outside of Japan, they had less restrictions on 3rd parties which helped them to grow, etc.

i will give credit where credit is due, Sony & the PS brand have done alot for gaming in the last 22 years but i will not give them credit for things they did not do.

Consoles were already huge in America/Japan and the console market was already transitioning to a stronger focus on teens/young adults in the years leading up to PS1.

NES or the Playstation one.

there was a 10 year period where playing games was just called "playing Nintendo".

I would have to say the Playstation one (alongside the saturn and n64).

That was the system that revolutionised how we gamed and what games could do. Voice acting, 3D worlds, CG videos, cut-scenes, etc. The PSOne made amazing things for such a weak system. Every piece of that hardware got pushed to the limit and changed how games were perceived. It paved the way for the ps2 and for games to become mainstream.

Personally, I'd say the NES. It's the console that arguably revived the industry after the crash of 83, as well as the starting point of many long time going companies and beloved franchises. It also set certain video game standards and inspired ideas for other future game ideas. Gaming would possibly look quite different if it weren't for the NES. So that seems quite important in the industry. There are other companies that were important, such as the Playstation, Xbox and Atari but the NES feels like it had the biggest impact overall.