Part of why those consoles were so dominant was that they didn't face the same level of entrenched competition or economic pressures we have today.

It's pretty much impossible for a console in the 2010s or 2020s to dominate the way say the NES did in the 80s, we just live in a completely different world today.

I think that is true with the atari and nes, but not ps2.  The ps2 had, in theory, competition.  But the ps2 simply decimated the GC and xbox.  The S1 has won it's generation, but it did not dominate the competition.  

My answer is still the ps2.  I think what the ps2 actually was, gets undersold here on VG.  

If we're talking about commercial success, as measured by net profit, in the absolute-then the most successful consoles are the Switch,PS5 and PS4. The Switch 2 and PS6 are basically guaranteed to join the top 5.

What this shows is that profit margin now is massive compared to the past. First party digital games have about double the margin of physical. Third party digital games are more than double the margin for platform holders. A super high margin product like PS+ generates something like ¥600b a year now. PS+ probably generates more profit per year than the entire PS2 ecosystem.

I'm not trying to change your mind or argue the PS2 didn't dominate.

Market circumstances were just different; take the PS4 for example, it had pretty much everything going for it, and both its main competitors shot themselves in the foot before the race even started, but it wasn't able to dominate to the extent that the PS2 did.

Between mobile gaming, the growing popularity of PC, people being increasingly tied to their chosen ecosystem, and later the economic turmoil of the 2020s, modern systems just generally have more to contend with older consoles did.

Fair points, though I would argue the ps2 popularized gaming, which is how the market got to where it is today.  I am not a historian, but I recall many people, who weren't traditional gamers, grabbing a ps2.  It really turned gaming from niche to actual legit mass market.

During the ps2 eras there were a lot of questions about if Nintendo was sustainable as first party in the home market.  The trend from SNES, N64 to GC was not good.  Nintendo deserves credit for turning the ship around.  But the main point, the ps2 was so dominant people were wondering if the competition would survive long term.  This didn't happen with the S1, the competition is doing incredibly well.  

Yeah systems like the Atari 2600, NES, PS1, PS2, Wii, DS, etc were able to grow the gaming market by bringing in those who hadn't gamed before; most of that growth now I would expect is coming from PC and mobile, as consoles get more expensive and economic pressures drive people to cheaper options like just playing free to play stuff on the phone/laptop they already own.

PC is an interesting one.  I tried it back in the day and hated it.  Compatibility, drivers, etc.  Nothing worked.  PC I think is becoming more viable because of plug and play.  Once Nvidia is installed, Windows and Steam..  plays like a console.  

Well from another perspective, Switch took virtually 95% of the handheld market and established a whole new market of console gaming (hybrid).

Also how are you measuring market share? Consoles sold in its associated generation? If so… then I have to ask which generation Switch is being considered apart of? I’d argue a better metric would be to look at annual marketshare.

I’ve got a 20hr flight so maybe I could look into this sometime today lol.

Handhelds are largely phones and tablets.  I don't think they took the market, it shifted elsewhere.  

I put the Switch 1 in with the ps4 and xbox one.  I figure S2 is in the ps5 generation.  

Annual market share, I would be baffled if the ps2 doesn't slaughter the Switch in percent.  I mean the GC sold 20 million, the xbox 20 million, the ps2 sold 160 million.  It was a slaughter.  While the Switch did well, so did the ps4.  

I think the Switch has changed gaming from a tech perspective.  I don't think the world will change back, so the Switch is heavily influential.  I just think ps2 has it beat for commercial success.  Reminds me of Bill Russel, just domination that was typically observed previously.  

Edit

I wouldn't be shocked if the ps2 was close to selling more in a year than the GC sold lifetime.  I bet it ain't far off.  

Edit

Via Copilot, the GC sold 22 million lifetime.  The xbox sold 24 million lifetime.  The ps2 in 2003 sold 22 million.  When someone sells, in a single year, what the competition sells lifetime..  I don't know how is that anything short of obscene decimation?  

The GC's best year was 5.76 million sold.  The ps2 has 11 years better than Nintendo's best year.  ..  11 straight years better than Nintendo's best year.  

Most commercially successful hardware of all time? Possibily but you need to quailify that with something that is quantitative and trackable. Such as profits. And its gonna be kinda hard to define that without knowing the production cost of the Switch at different time or the overal profit generated by the hardware. Also, you can include thing like the profit generated by sales of games (including platforming income) on that platform and services as well

The last time I checked PS4 is the number one console as far as game sales of all time. Sony probably generated an order of magnitude more subscribtion income on the PS4 than Nintendo with the Switch. By the same token Nintendo never dropped the price of the Switch and it actually is higher than ever, so I would assume that the Switch generated more profit on te hardware itself (and yes I know that ram cost and tariffs really make this hard to nail down.) on top of over 150 million in sales.

Alas, I feel like answering this question requires more information than we have access to. We can speculate, but thats about it.

PS, we are only dealing in profit here. If we are talking about straight rev on hardware sales, then the PS5 is clearly the most successful.