Thank you for point that out.

The poll is asking about the third console from these console makers. As such, the Saturn shouldn’t even be in the equation.

If you are framing it like that you should also mention the CD drive they tried to develop for the 64 which ultimately spawned Sony getting into the console business.  A pretty big blunder. Bad for Nintendo good for gamers.

Going down that route Nintendo's third console is technically the Color TV-Game Racing 112.

I choose PS3 not cause it was the biggest stumble but because it was so easily avoidable, I see them making the same mistakes now with their success and it's so easily avoidable. They should know that gamers are a fickle bunch and nothing is set in stone, everything is one bad fuck up away from Ruin or recently for them a snowball of smaller fuck ups that' may well lead to a moderate fuck up sending them back to the starting line.

Well pointed out, sir! Shame on all us others we just jumped on the topic without giving this a proper thought/ research. 

Yeah the SEGA SG 1000 is SEGA's first I just came to the defense of Saturn since so many have not experienced it and think it's a bad console. It's an amazing console.  SEGA fans just got the Saroo going. So it shows the fanbase is still passionate and active. Something Xbox One will never have. But I guess Xbox One is also technically MS's 4th attempt as they had the MSX in the 80s. But it also technically wasn't a console even tho it was mainly used for games and was the birth place of Metal Gear.

Yes SG-1000 was Sega's first console, it actually released the exact same day in Japan as the Nintendo Famicom, so they were direct competitors. And the Famicom was *way* more powerful and obviously far more successful. The SG-1000 generally failed and was never released in North America so most people think the Sega Master System (which was actually the sequel to the SG-1000) was Sega's first console. 

That said even if you consider Saturn the 3rd Sega console, I mean honestly the history of Sega consoles was more or less failure.

SG-1000, Sega Master System, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast (guess you can throw 32X and Sega CD into this pile too) all had mediocre sales numbers ... if anything the Mega Drive/Genesis is the singular outlier.

Even the Sega Game Gear only sold 11 million units worldwide, which ... isn't really great. Genesis/Mega Drive is the only system they ever sold over 15 million units. Everything else they made sold less than the Wii U. 

You could really just say the Saturn was actually a return to form for Sega, as it sold in line with all their other hardware minus the Genesis. 

We could certainly look back years from now and say Xbox One depending on how things play out. Sega Saturn is probably the right answer since it lead to their demise, but I'm going to go with the N64. Nintendo going with cartridge lost them every single rpg they had as Square, Enix, Capcom, etc all left Nintendo for Sony. I had a great time with the N64 as Nintendo, Rare, and Acclaim were firing on all cylinders this generation. If not for the Wii, and Nintendo's handheld systems the N64 and the resulting Gamecube might have ended them.

I think the N64 was the biggest whiff because all they had to do was compromise on the CD format and they likely would have won that generation easily.

GoldenEye, Mario 64, Zelda: OoT were likely 3/4 most popular games of that generation and Mario Kart 64 was way up there too, the hardware was definitely better than the Playstation overall, they just killed themselves by pissing away all their 3rd party support. The bigger 3rd party games they had like WCW/NWO and Turok 2 still even sold very well. 

If the N64 had relatively equivalent 3rd party support to the Playstation, over time it would have pulled ahead.

So with N64 are we ignoring Nintendo's TV Color Game system released in 1977?