Before they were unified by the Switch, which Nintendo system line do you think was better, home consoles or handhelds, and why?

GameCube > Wii U > Switch > GBC > SNES> 3DS > N64 > DS > GB > GBA > Wii > NES

All other answers are false booleans.

I prefer the SNES alone to every dedicated handheld they ever had. I could take or leave their handhelds in general. DS and GBA were excellent. GB is eh and 3DS is so lame. Switch is just on another level tho to me. So so so many 90s games. Or modern games that appeal to me.

Nintendo Nintendo.

I’m a console gamer. I like the hybrid nature of the Switch, but mostly because it’s so easy to pack up on a trip or to take it from room to room (I have multiple docks).

I did enjoy my GBA for some Castlevania And Metroid, but didn’t go to much beyond those games.

On the DS I played Chibi Robo: Park Patrol, Metroid Hunters (which I didn’t enjoy that much), Nintendogs, which was an interesting concept, Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and the New Super Mario series.

But I much prefer to be playing video games on my couch on a big screen. I probably would have enjoyed a lot more DS titles if they came to the Virtual Console, but so far that hasn’t been in the cards.

I personally skipped most Nintendo handhelds and instead, went for their consoles so... Consoles!

I have all portable Nintendo videogame.

I skipped Gamecube ( played the good games on Wii), and Wiiu( same thing now with the Switch.

I love arcade games, computer games. So I m a portable guy with arcade and PC roots. 

So... hybrid Nintendo?

Their portables didn’t appeal to me aside from 3DS. It was the first Nintendo handheld that had clean 3D graphics.

Consoles graphics were always ahead of the competition until Wii. Those consoles had the better game catalogs too.

I voted home systems, but they might have the advantage simply by having more systems.  Home Nintendo systems had the highest highs, but also the lowest lows.

I'd rank NES, SNES, and Wii all as awesome systems, while N64, Gamecube and Wii U all kinda sucked.  Meanwhile, GBA was an awesome system while DS and 3DS were decently ok (and I'll say Gameboy is also decent even though I have little experience with it).  Home systems had the highest highs, but also the lowest lows.  Nintendo never had a bad handheld system though.  Closest was the 3DS, but it still had a decent library of games.  I guess if you count Virtual Boy, then that was their one real flop on the portable side.

For me, it’s flipped back and forth, but overall more on the home consoles side.
NES > GB
SNES > GB
N64 > GB/GBC
GBA/DS Fat > GC
Wii > DS Lite/DSi
3DS > Wii U
Switch Hybrid > Switch Lite (as a bonus)

So 4 - 2 for home consoles. And paradoxically, DS Lite was easily my most played handheld of all time, but Wii was just a damn awesome party.
There were times I liked GB better than NES, but usually those were short lived. Laying in a hammock and playing Mystic Quest on Game Boy, as a worry free kid at a cottage, was one of my favourite video game experiences ever.