But you said the NES saved the INDUSTRY. In the 80s, console gaming did not equal the industry. ;) 

There was one rise, and one crash in the US console market. And yes, Nintendo did stabilize it, with controls and regulations meant to reign in the Wild West console gaming became after Atari lost control of their platform. But there would have not been an industry for Nintendo to stabilize, without Atari and their Pong consoles.

Storytelling was already growing in the SNES days.  See Final Fantasy IV, VI, Chrono Trigger, etc.  Yes, the PS1 was the first dedicated 3D console but that's less an accomplishment and more of an inevitability, that's where technology happened to be, Sony didn't invent any of that.  Worth pointing out as well, the industry pre-PS1 wasn't just surviving, ut was thriving and growing.  What little sales data we have from pre-FFVII PS1 vs N64 sales show that had no PS1 been made, Nintendo would have had an exceptionally successful generation as most of its partners stuck around rather than migrating to PS.  The Saturn also may have had a substantial boost from some devs migrating there.  Point is, the Playstation is historically significant for its sales numbers but not in the way of massive influence compared to systems like the NES that truly changed...well everything.

Huh ? I also don't remember the NES selling 80m units either, it was closer to 62m units ... 

The Magnavox Odyssey straight up wasn't even a tiny blip in the market place whereas the Atari 2600 had as high as a 10% penetration rate at the time in the US ... 

You're mistaken if you think I'm downplaying the contributions the Odyssey made and I highly doubt Atari could've easily been substituted by just about any other console manufacturer at the time ... 

Fairchild didn't care about making software hence it's paltry library and it sold less than the first Magnavox in the end and the rest of the players we're too late ... 

Nope none of the games you listed are first party.  Also Captain Planet is not even a Genesis game its a NES game.

Atari 2600

#1 It launched consoles into the mainstream
#2 Most dominant console compared to its contemporaries in history, for the ps4 to attain the same dominace it must sell at least half a Billion, which is not going to happen

the only reason i didnt go with Atari 2600 is because it also killed the market it created.

Good point, I'll stick that as #3 remember from the OP its 'By significant, I mean the one that had the most impact on the industry/hobby of gaming.' the videogame crash of 1983 certainly was an significiant event

#1 It launched consoles into the mainstream
#2 Most dominant console compared to its contemporaries in history

#3 It almost killed the console market in the USA

Based on these facts the atari 2600 is obviously the most important console in history, anyone claiming otherwise is deluding themselves

anyone that thinks in absolute terms of it being a specific console with no other possible answers has no idea about gaming history as you could easily argue for any of the 3 consoles. the Magnavox, the Atari 2600 and the NES (I had them all), of those I would put the Atari 2600 first and the NES 3rd simply because without the Atari 2600 success their may not have even been a NES and while the Magnavox was revolutionarily it didn't have the mass market success of the 2600. I will agree on anyone voting for PS(anything) or Xbox (anything) obviously has zero knowledge of console history

sure the crash was significant but in the opposite sense of what the OP is talking about.

Sorry, yes, I mixed up the numbers. My main point stays: that the numbers alone don't say anything about significance.

The first movers are usually a tiny blip compared to the market if properly covered. The first movers have to test out things, establish for customers that the possibility for this type of product even exists and so on. That is why first movers usually don't seem to be big in hindsight. But the 350K sales for Odyssey were more than enough to prove that a market for home gaming systems is sustainable. That was the important part.

And Atari on the other hand - it came into the market together with a lot of other contenders. Not only fairchild. 1975 and 1976 saw a lot of new contenders. Without Atari one of them would've been market leader. To be precise: the first Atari-system (Home Pong) sold only 150K and was outsold for instance by Colecos Telstar. 1975 also Magnavox discontinued the original Odyssey- but for a series of Odyssey machines (Odyssey 100, Odyssey 200 and so on). Ataris sales champion 2600 was really late, it started in 1977. So it is easy to see, that Atari could've been replaced easily. Also the game that pushed Atari a lot was Pac-Man, a licensed game. Someone would've probably done that. I would assume without Atari Coleco and Magnavox would've fought for market leader, but that is speculation.

But while Atari could've been easily replaced, without Ralph Baer and the Brown Box (that became the Odyssey) the market would've been created at that point. Atari, Coleco, Mattel, Fairchild - they all tried this because the Odyssey showed this is possible. Without it it would've taken years and at that point would've been met with serious competition of PC-gaming. Console gaming would look very different.