Good points. It's easily between the NES and PS1. Other consoles had an impact but nothing close to as groundbreaking in the Video Game scene

However the NES was the first home console that had what could be considered "modern" games (Mario 2 & 3, the MEga Man games, + many other series that were brought from Japan).

The NES also established the business model all gaming console companies follow since then (with some slight variations) - I.E. the publishers have to get their games approved, then they pay a fee for every copies they sell to the platform owner, consoles prior to this did not have this fee, nor did the platform owner care about which games and what their content was.

I was also ugely popular in its day.

By the way, gaming did not "die", the home console market collapsed, but arcades still flourished during the crash, computer gaming was still perfectly fine, like nothing had happened... it just cleared the field for new, better, players (Nintendo + Sega)

I'll come back to this post but some corrections:

3rd generation for the 3 consoles = 77.48M

4th generation for the 3 consoles = 92.75M (don't round it up to 100M)

5th generation for the 3 consoles = 144.68M (don't round it down to 140M)

So the newcomer, the PS1 outsold the whole of the previous generation by itself. Sony wasn't lucky to enter a market with no competitor like the NES.

All of the consoles you mention here require addons to give the console functionality, the Dreamcast was the first console built with the modem installed out of the box as I said.

As for not being the first but most influential? No, that like others said here, the X360 was the machine which bought online play to the mainstream gamer, not the original console, which didn't even have online for the first year of availability.

To suggest that future consoles having features from previous generations means that those previous gens created the "norm" just doesn't work unless you are going for revisionist history, consoles use what is available technology at the time of their release to try to get the most out of the system. The original xbox just wasn't the first machine to be designed with online in mind, nor was it the most influencial in bringing it to the mainstream.

N64
Rumble
Analog control done right
3D gaming
four control ports
Expansion Pack

Although I understand where the other guy is coming from in regards to Xbox and online I agree with you here that DC is the execution that got the ball rolling as I remember playing games like PSO with 4 others online as well as Quake 3 which even had cross platform play with PC and it was the first time that quite a significant number of peopler had experienced that on console.

At the same time I disagree with you that Xbox wasn't the machine that brought online to the mainstream because it was and one game flat out highlights this, Halo 2, Live is the template for online services/platforms used by consoles and showed platform holders how to go about it. Halo 2 was heavily active for years after its release until the Xbox was phased out with people clocking tonnes of hours in online play, 360 built on what Xbox brought.

I am aware many were addons, that's not the point.  My point was that online gaming didn't start with Dreamcast in the console space.  It was the second one the have it out of the box, sure, but my point was that it was no different than those former atempts:  it was novel.  A neat trick.  A fun little distraction.  A minor addition.  It didn't propel sales, it didn't compell competitors to get on board, it did none of those things whatsoever.  The rest of its competitors launched with no thought to online.  Because it influenced nothing, drove nothing, compelled its compeition to do *nothing*.  

And it is not revisionism to use hindsight to judge a the reality of how thigns influenced others.  If I were doing what you said I was doing I would be arguing that the Pippin was the most influential.  Or the Dreamcas- oh wait that was your argument.  And no, consoles don't just include features because they can, the manufacturers have to feel there's money in the inclusion OR someone has to dare to attempt the untested.  The Xbox I list as more influential than the 360 because the whole reason MS went all in on the 360's online, the only reason Sony and Nintendo launched with standard online, was because the Xbox showed the potential in online functionality.  It was the first domino, the one that started that revolution.  By the end of gen 6, online gaming had gone from a throw away novelty to a standard feature everyone EXPECTED to see in future machines.  And none of that would have happened without Xbox Live and the original Xbox.  If MS had not done with the Xbox what they did, there's no telling how radically different the path forward would have been.  How many more failed attempts, throwaway novelties would have come and gone before someone dared to go all in and make it work?  I don't know, but the Xbox ignited a movement that changed console gaming.  360 followed up on it, but the Xbox undoubtedly, incontravertably was the first domino, the starting point.  

Also, another point:  The Dreamcast only included a dial-up modem, not a broadband connection option, making it...well kinda useless.  The Xbox shipped with an ethernet port for broadband connection, making it far more viable for gaming.  

I'm willing to bet that SMB1 would be recognized over Crash Bandicoot 1 in pretty much all over the world. It wasnt just about the amount sold, it was a whole movement that started with the NES even in Europe. In Sweden for instance at one point every sixth home had an NES. That's batcrazy. 

Then obviously Playstation 1 cranked it up a notch or two and took the console business to a whole other level.

The new Atari console. Trust me. It'll be huge. We're goin to Mars on it. Trust me. I've got sources from high places. This shit's confirmed.

PlayStation people: "lol at delusional Nintendo fans"
Nintendo people: "lol at delusional PS fans"

How about we meet halfway and say the Nintendo PlayStation?