I agree that the N64 was a major turning point for Nintendo. Up until that point, Nintendo had been the ultimate innovator, that what Nintendo did determined the video game industry as a whole. The N64 is where that changed, While the use of analog sticks was the right interface direction, the holding onto cartridges was a backward approach which only had the benefit of saving some load time.

This is also where the toxic Nintendo fanboyism began, where Nintendo fans attacked disk technology for its load times and flimsiness, some people saying they liked how they could leave games all over the floor and not worry about stepping on them - arguments that were even too much for Nintendo fans. But the truth is, for Nintendo, the only thing they cared about was owning the format because after the start of the GameCube generation, Nintendo’s third party royalties dropped substantially... and this was with significant revenue in the handheld industry. But, one major issue with the cartridges is the price, a game company could only make a profit with an extraordinarily high minimum price, and anything below it was losing money to cut losses and clear stock... the result, few third parties wanted to do much work with Nintendo, and the N64 had the lowest number of game releases of any Nintendo home console, by far. The GameCube was the second lowest, it took until the Wii for Nintendo to begin to show recovery with third parties not named Ubisoft, and on the Switch, the recovery from that colossal N64 blunder continues to this day.

The other part of the N64 that was really problematic was this is where the “BURN THE LAST GEN DOWN!” strategy began. Nintendo basically abandoned the SNES in order to put all efforts into the N64, the SNES should have had support for no less than 3 more years...

That wasn’t the only thing, Nintendo began to shun 2D games and RPGs, with statements from their CEO calling all RPG gamers as basement nerds, effectively (ironic, because Nintendo was heavily pursuing first person shooters at the time while Pokémon was their biggest franchise of the time and 2D games were about all they did on handheld). Again, another trend that continued through the GameCube generation - though, not as fervently, especially since Yamauchi had stepped back and eventually down, and the era of Iwata began; but it’s a slow ship, and it wasn’t until the Wii That the true reversal began to be seen, when Nintendo again began to embrace the 2D style of design and pursue bringing RPGs to their home consoles, their strongest  statement here is was the purchase of one of the most highly regarded RPG dev studios in the world, Monolithsoft. Of course, the Switch is where it all really came back together.

But the Wii generation wasn’t perfect, Nintendo still utilized the BURN IT DOWN strategy at the end of the generation and killed off a successful market in order to force a new generation, the Wii U, that I don’t think people were quite ready for, yet. While home console sales had slowed, they were still relatively high in 2011, and software sales were some of the highest Nintendo had ever experienced on any console, ever, yet Nintendo cut down all of their services on Wii, stopped supporting VC, and stopped their major first party releases. Wii U, in many ways, felt like the N64 all over again. Although, I think there was a lot more hope this time because instead of Nintendo saying something like “screw all those people who left, they were losers anyway” it only took a few months for Nintendo to seemingly acknowledge “We have something else coming along” - they somewhat admitted their failure in the most corporately acceptable way possible. IMO, Nintendo was saying to their Wii DS fanbase “hold on, I know you don’t like this Wii U thing, but we’ve got something coming down the line you should like quite a lot... oh yeah, Project NX”

I think they wanted the Switch all along, but the Wii U was a compromise, and so they fabricated “asymmetrical gameplay” as a means to explain this weird half-bakes design. And it just didn’t fly. 

Anyway, I’m ranting and could go on forever, so I’ll stop here.

I went with the Wii U because most of its great games are available on Switch and the only reason I keep mine around is to play Wii games.

I've played NES, SNES, N64, GCN, Wii and Switch internationally region games, these are complete fine and my top favorite Nintendo consoles.

The WiiU is the only my least favorite Nintendo console, so allow me explain the reason.. Upcoming Wii U games were massively delayed n' moved to the other platform(Switch) due to the bad financial caused by marketing campaign and odd platform naming for the console, this is why ended up almost zero main Nintendo games but instead they released a lot of spin-off and best new IP and especially the forced WiiU gamepad require for system settings.

I owned all of them and would honestly have to say that the Gamecube was the one that I played the least. Of course, it didn't help that I also owned an XBox and a PS2 that gen (the only gen that I have owned both Sony & Microsoft consoles at the same time). So, Gamecube just got the short end of a severely divided stick.

Gamecube > N64 > Wii > WiiU

The one I did not have: the GameCube kkk.

I haven't played much NES (especially using the actual console) or SNES. But I'm going to have to give it to NES. I respect its place in history and it's probably objectively better than Wii U. But I can't really be bothered to play or complete almost any of the games. Most of the games are either too difficult or too primitive.

Ah noooo I accidentally clicked on Gamecube bc I didn't see "least favorite" in the thread title. The Wii U was kind of a bummer of a console, though at the same time I could say that personally N64 did the least for me because I wasn't alive when that generation was active and a lot of its games have aged extremely poorly, and I remember out of my entire library I only really enjoyed Mario 64, Smash, and Mega Man 64. However, I also didn't own Kirby 64, Yoshi's Story, and Starfox 64 and would have definitely enjoyed those games, and if I owned Stadium 2 along with a copy of a gen 2 title then I probably would have had a fun time with that... Actually scratch that, the Wii U is absolutely my least favorite home console. At least it had tv remote functionality though, right?
Oh forgot to add that the only home console I've never owned is the NES. A lot of its games are definitely crusty and old but I did have fun with a fair share of its games. I Metroid, Zelda 2, Crystalis, Mega Man 1-6 and Mother were some games I had fun with, but if I actually owned one I'd probably have more games for that console I like 

Opinions and all, but while Gamecube was definitely better designed hardware as far as the box itself goes, the Gamepad, despite its unnecessary screen, at least had two proper analogue sticks and a proper D-Pad, while the lack of such on Gamecube's controller made some games a nightmare to control. 

Same. I really only bought one because of the Zelda limited edition system.