PS Vita: Lots of great campaign games and with the PS Classic accessible gives a ton more in your library.

Wii U: I can't tell you how many hours I played on this system, the small handful of local coop/party games was well worth it for me and my friends.

This is a tough thing to quantify. But if you’re looking for the intersection of great software and lousy sales, I can’t think of a more worthy system than WiiU.

I understand WiiU suffered from poor marketing, game droughts, and a clumsy controller, but it still boggles my mind that a system with Mario Kart 8, Super Mario 3D World, Bayonetta 2, Pikmin 3, Tropical Freeze, Splatoon, Super Mario Maker, Smash Bros., and Xenoblade sold only 13.5 million.

Dreamcast and Saturn would be right there as well.

For me personally, it would be the Saturn. Funny thing is I rented both the Saturn and the PS1 from my local video rental store, each for a week. I could not figure out which one I liked better, so I bought neither system. A year later, my boss sold me his PS1, that he got for his girlfriend, for cheap money. I will tell you that if he had bought her a Saturn, I'm sure I would have ended up with that console instead.

N64 is a success by most metrics. It was profitable and had a lot of positive reception despite some critiques. 

Xbox is more debatable. It lost billions of dollars but also made billions of dollars. The console lost money, but the software and subscription were profitable. 

My pick would probably go to Wii U or Vita. GameCube if you consider it unsuccessful. That's probably fair to say it was. Even though it probably turned a profit, it was annihilated by the PS2 and even beaten globally by the newcomer Xbox. 

GameCube had a pretty great library for Mario alone (Sunshine, Double Dash, TTYD, parties and sports) not to mention Melee, Animal Crossing, Chibi-Robo and third-party games like SoulCalibur II (with Link).

N64 would probably be the first generation where a system got outsold by almost a 3:1 ratio but still had some of the most iconic games of its generation (Super Mario 64, GoldenEye 007, Zelda: OoT, Mario Kart 64).

I always thought the original Xbox was the biggest system out there when i was in school lol. Everyone I ever met was playing Halo, and hell, Halo 2 was the biggest entertainment launch in history up to that point. Which is crazy to think about considering how much the original Xbox actually sold and the number of major titles that had released all the years prior to holiday 2004.

Yeah as a kid I knew way more people with an Xbox than a PS2; I was kinda shocked when I first read that the PS2 sold about 6 times as much in total.

Similarly in the 8th gen I knew like 4 people with a Wii U but only 1 with an Xbox One. Guess it goes to show why anecdotal evidence tends to be inaccurate.

Someone said Brand damage. Wii U immediately gave way to the Switch. Where is the damage of the brand.

If anything the Wii was the brand damage. Sure it sold well, but to just casual gamers. What did the core gamers buy it for? It made such a stink on my mouth and probably others that they completely ignored the amazing Wii U.

Edit: But obviously I think the Wii U. N64 shouldn't be included in the list. Bought a gamecube twice, never had any games I can say I miss or experiences. Which kind of brings me back to how I feel about the Wii.

Now Wii U....I have endless fun memories of it, the 64, SNES and NES.

As I recall, GTA3 came to PS2 in 2001 and brought a huge boost in sales, hell I remember being blown away the first time I played it.

However, it did not come to Xbox until 2 years later.

That’s a big reason why I felt Xbox was bigger than it actually was. Even with an absurdly huge install base the PS2 had, Halo was just so massive, especially Halo 2 in 2004, that it had constant news coverage and even had Hollywood executives blaming the game for a huge drop in box office sales lol. Strange now to think that Halo at one point was at least a top 3 IP in all of gaming and was even outselling anything the PS2 was putting out. Insane to think about where one console outsold the other by a metric of 7:1 lol