The challenge with this question is that not everyone has played in every console, so like, for me, I can only comment on the Atari 2600, the Wii and the XBOX 360.
From that small sample, the wii wins hands down. I loved the motion controllers a lot.
The Wii brought gaming to the general public in a way nothing else had. Like most modern Nintendo consoles it was under powered and gimmicky but the gimmick worked so well for people new to gaming, point at the TV or wiggle the controller as you would to do the thing in real life was a huge step to making an abstract concept make sense to people.
For longer gaming sessions or more "serious" games the Wii controls were generally lacking but damn if Wii sports wasn't good fun.
I get what @berttheduck said about long games / serious gamers but can you imagine your grandma trying to play most Switch or PS5 or other new console games now?
Nintendo 3DS. Extremely hackable, not too shabby selection of games, and... I swear I must be the only person on Earth who likes the 3D feature, but I love the 3D feature
PS3 is my favorite too. I love that era of gaming. I emulated some I missed out on like Asura's Wrath, Shadows of the Damned, and Lollipop Chainsaw and they really hold up well still with the art style chosen being more cartoon than realiatic for its time. And I've hopped in for short sessions in Red Dead Redemption.
The lazy answer for me is PS2, since that's how I was able to play all the PS1/re-released games I missed out on. Pretty much all the Final Fantasy games, Chronl Trigger, Chrono Cross, Star Ocean.. And then there was also FFX and Twisted Metal Black, some of the PS2 highlights for me.
I think SNES still has my heart though. I feel like most of the major titles were better (more perfected) than their N64 counterparts. The Legend of Zelda LttP absolutely consumed me growing up and is still my favourite game of all time. Many years later I find I'm still interested in games that look like they could have been released on SNES.
Same for me. Lots of consoles have lots of great games, and I really like the idea of the PS2 library's depth and quality. I bought a 1TB MicroSD card for my Steam Deck OLED and loaded it with a 1TB image of curated roms from a private tracker thinking I'd play a lot of the ones I missed...
...But the only non-Steam game I've played is FF5 for the SNES. I've wanted to play it since I found out Final Fantasy "III" was a lie. The Steam Deck is the ultimate SNES RPG machine.
That and my SD2SNES in my childhood SNES gets a lot of play time with my 6 y.o. son. He's almost able to beat world 1 of SMW solo, but he prefers Kirby Super Star, where he can beat world 1 and most of world 2.
If this is some kind of question like "you can only play this in your lifetime" I'd pick up a DSi XL or closely a 3DS, I enjoy the DS library more, so it would be a downgrade doing it there, unless things have changed since the last time I checked.
The reasons are simple, it has tons of great titles and many of them have a high replayability value.
GameCube. Lots of fun with that console, and Skies of Arcadia Legends is a highlight.
Close second would be N64. The games were really unique, partly because designers had to work with limited hardware and a really bizarre controller. Mischief Makers is my all-time favorite for that one.
PSP, hands down. So many incredible games, it was a RPG powerhouse, that screen was great for the time and for me it was an "everything" device (I remember browsing the web and reading mangas on the PSP... Janky but incredible all the same).
The Vita comes close - nigh "home console" games on the go and the OLED screen to make those shine.
PSP, followed by Gameboy Color, followed by Advance SP.
I recently got a Retroid4, and took an amazing trip down memory lane with Mana Khemia, MG:AC!D, FF Tactics Advanced/A2, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, and a bunch of pkmn ROM hacks. All of them easily held up today.
Unless SteamDeck counts, in which case it wins hands-down.
PS2 for sure. So many great games that made my childhood and its easy to mod and repair.
SNES is close second. Was lucky enough that I got one growing up (it was 10 year old console at that point) and the 16 bit graphics and the music always take me back.
It's obviously pc for me because that's pretty much all i use for 30 years. But i always liked the nes because it's pretty satisfying to put in a cartridge and pushing it down.
While I really like the Genesis/Megadrive, and PS1, I have to say the SNES is an almost perfect console. It had everything that made the NES great, but with beautiful 16 bit graphics.
This is a really hard question for me to answer.
So I'm going to go with a bit of a catch-all.
I really like the GBA. But the DS can play DS and GBA titles.
But the 3DS is great too and can play all 3 and then some.
I guess the 3DS. There's just so much that can be packed into it. I haven't played mine in a while. I wish it was easier to install a capture card in them. There was something special about the games from the GBA to 3DS. The limitations of the hardware had developers experimenting, and we ended up with so many interesting titles. If you factor in the couple n64 games ported over to the 3DS, it's just so much nostalgia in one handheld.
If I had to go with a runner-up, I think it would be my series X. Being able to play so many backward compatible games is also super nice.
If I truly had to pick single consoles only, with only the games designed for that specific console. I would probably go with the 3ds and the xbox 360.
The 3DO or Dreamcast would come after as they had so many unique titles.
I never got to play the ps1, ps2, or psp and vita. So I've been curious what I've been missing out on over the years.
Portable: my black Gameboy Advance SP, playing my original Gameboy games on it (Donkey Kong Country and pokemon Blue)
TV: this is gonna sound weird, but I absolutely love my PS5, it's just so sleek and I love the controller haptics and finally having most games running at 60 fps. Again I mostly play older games on it, but a lot of them got PS5 updates like Death Stranding, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon, Spider Man, Days Gone...
You and I would have been enemies in the 16-bit era, but I adore the Sega Genesis. (However, I'm also a sleepy bisexual, so I'm gonna say we're probably nowhere close to enemies.)
It was an arcade monster and got a ton of amazing games from the arcades and purpose-built for the machine — many the SNES also got, but some exclusives that really took advantage of what the Genesis could do well. I'd argue that the gritty FM sound chip was better for certain types of game music as well, though that's not to say that the SNES wasn't largely superior on that front.
At the end of the day… yeah 16 bit stuff looks amazing
I have no idea if they hold up today, but I really enjoyed Zombies ate my neighbors, Mickey Mania, World of Illusion (another mickey mouse game), and Taz Mania.
Not counting PC since that is easy mode, I would probably say the Wii for me personally. I have had: n64, gc, gameboy (pocket, color, and advance), DS, and ps2 besides the Wii. But I think I put more hours on the Wii than any of those. Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime Trilogy, Zelda Twilight Princess, smash bros, and mario kart wii. Very solid catalogue. Plus it had the virtual console and was what allowed me to play some old classics like Super Metroid and Donkey Kong Country 2. I never had a snes growing up so that was pretty huge to me. I even cut my teeth on some FPS games like call of duty, world at war and conduit lol.
The Wii might be cheating a bit too since a lot of my fondness for it does come from its backwards compatibility with the Gamecube, and gamecube games were still very relavent during that time. Metroid Prime 1 and 2, part of the Trilogy of course. Smash bros melee. I even had the Zelda collectors edition disc which had GC ports of zelda OOT and MM.
So yeah Wii was definitely kind of cheating since in some ways in my nostalgia I mix it up with basically every Nintendo system that came before it heh. But even on its own it had a solid lineup IMO.
The VCS is an old console, not a POS. When it was new it was state-of-the-art.
About the Lynx, the catalog is not long. You can get all the games (76 in total and the max size is 2 MB) and try some. I'd say California Games, Klax, Batman Returns, Toki, just to name a few.
It's the ps4. I have a lot childhood memories with the Ps2. Then i played a while mmorpg and other stuff, got bored by it and Mostly the ps4 let me experience good games again. Playing the first time fighting games on a more advance level, going to tournaments and meeting people or play a lot jrpg's. The ps4 bought that back to me
Probably snes for me as well. Then again, I missed a couple generations by being busy/poor (I still hate trying to play anything on n64 or it's cursed controller).
I had Atari 2600, nes, genesis, Gameboy, snes, playstation, switch. I think I may have had or borrowed a gamegear at some point. In my first apartment, one of the other guys had a playstation 2.