I could be wrong, but IIRC N64 was also the first console to support anti-aliasing, perspective correction, texture filtering, and other graphical features that became standard going forwards.

True, N64 was first console to feature all those. It did however launch almost 2 years after PS1 and by that time there were already consumer GPUs with those features.

True enough, I wasn't arguing that it invented them, rather that it brought them to the console space for the first time. Either way, I feel like analogue, rumble, and games like Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, and Goldeneye 007 were N64's main contributions to console gaming.

Oh, absolutely - 3D gaming on PS1 was atrocious experience, from my POV, due to lack of perspective correction and all the wobble, unlike N64 which was such a smooth experience.

Yeah, consoles typically borrow heavily from PC.  Which is fine, building on existing ideas is smart.  

Overall Nintendo has had a lot of influence on gaming, same with Sony.  Neither one should be downplayed.

The Atari 2600 or the NES

runner up: Gameboy

I’d say the most influential would be the most popular of the necessary consoles for the existence of the industry in some form or another that resembles what we see today.

There are three that come to mind: Atari 2600, NES, and Gameboy.
No console that exceeded the Atari 2600, except the NES and Gameboy, was necessary for the industry to look like it does today.

Of these, the Gameboy was most successful. But at the same time I see how there’s an argument that the industry could still look relatively similar, even in the absence of handhelds. So that’s down to the NES And Atari 2600. The first two mainstream home consoles. Establishing that gaming could be big business in the home, and not just the arcade and niche hobby users.

The problem with the Atari 2600 was the bubble burst, and the industry “collapsed”. There is then the argument, did the NES bring it back? Was that success necessary?

But it could also be argued that the home gaming industry didn’t actually die, it migrated. While technically PCs and open platforms, the Vic 20 and C64 were mostly used as gaming machines (at least, by people of my age group, who were also the primary users) and were seen as closer to Atari and Nintendo than to Apple and Microsoft. While Microsoft and Apple machines were more PC-first, games second (if at all), the C64 style machines were more gaming-first and PC second (if at all). However, I’m getting away from my point, and that is it could be argued that the video game industry wasn’t really dead, it had just migrated to a different form-factor of “gaming console”. But the open nature of them came with the rise of piracy, and it might have been perhaps inevitable that big business would try to wrench that back… the question is did Nintendo’s success here come as an inevitability or a necessary development that wasn’t guaranteed?

So, my answer can go two ways - and I think both are possible enough that both are valid:

1. If it was inevitable that something like the NES would come along, cheaper, streamlined, and a purely dedicated video gaming console; then it’s the Atari 2600 that is the most influential.
2. If something like the NES wasn’t inevitable, then the NES was necessary, and therefore it’s the NES.

Gameboy for handhelds was a necessary machine. It wasn’t the first handheld, but it was the one that showed the industry how to do it right and established the handheld console side of the industry as we know it.

Ha, this thread went nuts. While I am not willing to go as far as to just call the PS1 a ripoff. Even if it did take a lot of things from competitors, it also refined the ideas a lot and standardised them. The PS1 dual shock is much closer in design to the modern controllers than the N64 controller was. Dual analogue (with sticks much more similar to modern ones), two “handles”, four shoulder buttons, four face buttons, build in rumble. Nintendo, Xbox and Playstation all basicly use this design today.

That being said, I actually think I want to change my vote to the N64. What it did for 3D gaming, I just don’t see any equivalent among its competitor. There were great 3D games on the Saturn and Playstation, but a lot of them still had a foot in the 2D game design World (Final Fantasy, MGS, NiGHTS) or they used 3D game design, that just didn’t become the standard (Tomb Raider, Resident Evil). While games like Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Mario Kart 64, Super Smash Bros. feel much closer to modern games if you look past the graphics. And yes even GoldenEye is very important for the FPS genre, even if it is a lot more dated than Half-Life that came out just a year later.

History has been written. Nintendo 64 was a trash console with cartridges and continued the tradition of Nintendo's shitty sales on home consoles.
Stop trying to change history.

NES + SNES + Nintendo 64 + Gamecube + Wii + Wii U = 280 million / 6 = 46 million average per console

Playstation 1-4 = 467 million / 4 = 117 million average per console