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[Alan Wake]

In hindsight it's Wii. At the time though Wii U was such a fuck up in every way it's hard to bypass it. I bought it after it was discontinued and had quite a good time with Nintendo's games. It has a decent lineup of platformers. But the Gamepad is a mess and the UI is slow as shit.

 

[HYDE]

But the Gamepad is a mess and the UI is slow as shit.

Not to mention cumbersome to use plus a mishmash of obnoxious cables everywhere.

 

[Neff]

DS

 

[Chukhopops]

I voted GC, to me GC has the worst entry in most Nintendo series: Mario Sunshine, Double Dash, Twilight Princess.

GC is imo the lowest point for Nintendo but that's a hot take I guess.

 

[Cakeboxer]

That's a tough one. Actually i liked all of them in their own way. If i had to pick one: Wii U.

 

[Baemono]

I'd say the Game Cube, I never cared for its games, which I can't really say about the Wii U as I played a lot of them on Switch.

 

[JohnSpartanLee]

Switch was close with its 20fps Zeldas but PAL N64 takes the cake with its 16.6fps Zelda (even though it's the best game ever) and the worst rubberbanding Mario Kart ever.

 

[Lokaum D+]

N64

 

[jufonuk]

Virtual Boy.

Every other main line console of theirs I've owned so far (waiting to own switch 2)

Despite the Wii hate. I liked it.

 

[Sintoid]

Wii followed by WiiU

 

[IDKFA]

Gamecube.

It had the worst Mario Kart, 3D Mario and Zelda games.

Also looked like it was made by Fisher Price.

 

[nikos]

GameCube - Don't remember playing it much.

Wii - 480p pretty much made it DOA. Controls were garbage. Still had some fun moments.

3DS - Was cool at first but the 3D was always kind of trash. I'd always mess around with its intensity before either disabling it or keeping it on the lowest setting.

Its hardware and displays were terrible and felt really outdated compared to Vita.

The New 3DS (non XL) finally started to feel somewhat decent, but it was still underpowered and overstayed its welcome. Street Pass was fun though.

 

[boo]

My first Nintendo game console was the N64. Loved it. Bought GBA, Nintendo DS, DS Lite, GameCube, 3DS, 3DS XL, WiiU, Switch, Switch 2. Did not buy the Wii. Every time I wondered if I should buy one I thought: But I already have a GameCube. Why should I buy a system just a bit more powerful with a new controller. If it had been something like a Wii HD , I would have bought that.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Wii

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

The GC, and it's not close.

The one time they had possibly some relevant tech advantages over Sony's console, and they squandered it all with the laziest, most rushed, most unpolished games for their main IPs. Launching with Luigi's Mansion, a game that's over in a couple of sittings and that spends most of it in repetition. Mario Sunshine is the worst 3D Mario by a landslide. The Wind Waker needed a lot more time in the oven, and even then, its basic concept of sailing through an ocean divided in perfect squares containing 99% of nothing was terrible.
GBA connectivity? Way overrated, and at a price that makes the Joycons sound cheap.
Their most gimped, less versatile controller ever. Imagine having to buy a third-party controller to get a decently-sized Dpad of all things.
Overrated third party support. The games that really counted never released on the GC, and most of the best third parties also released on PS2 anyway.

Imagine thinking that the GC's first- party library is better than the Wii's when the Wii had Galaxy 1 and 2, Xenoblade, the best Wario platformer, the best version of Twilight Princess, and many more, along with ports of GC first-party games that significantly improve on the originals (Metroid Prime with the Wiimote is leagues better than the original, it's a fact).

I hate how Nintendo had so much potential with the GC, and just didn't know what to do with it.
The one time they were seriously competitive in tech, and they squandered the chance with terrible executive decisions and an obvious lack of direction.

 

[Hyet]

WiiU by a loooong shot

 

[Radical_3d]

People who say Wii U must hate the Switch.

THIS. They basically re-heated the WiiU library with a slight jump in resolution. I actually first played BotW on the U.

 

[cireza]

The Wii was the lowest point. Abysmal gimmick.
N64 then, couldn't stand the awful visuals and controller.

 

[CashPrizes]

N64 for sure. The Wii had more good/great games then the N64.

 

[Midway-AGNC-]

The original NES was the worst. Now playing was fine and the level designs on the games were great indeed! However tons and tons of the games on NES were not savable. For instance Mario, oops no saving ever. Every single time you put the game in you start from the beginning again. It was just horrible and I hated it.

WTF, man? Very few games on any system from that era had save features, not just the NES. That was simply how games were designed back then. Even a ton of early PC games didn't have proper save functionality. And it didn't suddenly change with the next gen either — plenty of SNES and Genesis titles relied entirely on passwords or had no saving at all. It's just how the industry worked at the time, not some unique flaw of the NES.

 

[Hollowpoint5557]

Virtual boy, but it's not on the list for some reason so I voted Wii-U.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Wii followed closely by the N64

We are twins

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

GameCube was terrible; it killed Nintendo's line of high-end console
It sold almost as many units as the Mega Drive in Japan, so you understand what we're talking about here.

 

[Azelover]

They're all good, but the Wii U is the one that gave me the least enjoyment. So Wii U...

 

[Midway-AGNC-]

GameCube was terrible; it killed Nintendo's line of high-end console
It sold almost as many units as the Mega Drive in Japan, so you understand what we're talking about here.

I honestly don't get where this sudden "GameCube renaissance" is coming from. Out of nowhere, a lot of Nintendo fans are now treating the GCN like it was some top-tier pillar of Nintendo's history. And let's be real: that shift only started happening because the Switch is flooded with GameCube-era remasters and ports, which naturally makes people look back with rose-tinted glasses.

But during its actual lifetime? The GameCube was far from the powerhouse people now pretend it was. Release schedules were wildly inconsistent, the system went through long droughts, the third-party support was shaky at best, and most first-party titles — aside from a few standouts like Smash Bros. Melee, F-Zero GX, the Metroid revival, and the birth of Pikmin — felt underwhelming compared to the creative peak Nintendo had reached on the N64. The console simply never produced a unified identity or momentum.

And this whole "it aged well!" argument that gets thrown around today is just another form of revisionism. What matters is how the console performed and was received at the time, not how people reinterpret it twenty years later through nostalgia filters. If a system only becomes "great" two decades after the fact, that tells you everything about how it actually fared in its own generation.

 

[digoutyoursoul]

Wii U and im not much of a fan of the N64 either

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

I honestly don't get where this sudden "GameCube renaissance" is coming from. Out of nowhere, a lot of Nintendo fans are now treating the GCN like it was some top-tier pillar of Nintendo's history. And let's be real: that shift only started happening because the Switch is flooded with GameCube-era remasters and ports, which naturally makes people look back with rose-tinted glasses.

But during its actual lifetime? The GameCube was far from the powerhouse people now pretend it was. Release schedules were wildly inconsistent, the system went through long droughts, the third-party support was shaky at best, and most first-party titles — aside from a few standouts like Smash Bros. Melee, F-Zero GX, the Metroid revival, and the birth of Pikmin — felt underwhelming compared to the creative peak Nintendo had reached on the N64. The console simply never produced a unified identity or momentum.

And this whole "it aged well!" argument that gets thrown around today is just another form of revisionism. What matters is how the console performed and was received at the time, not how people reinterpret it twenty years later through nostalgia filters. If a system only becomes "great" two decades after the fact, that tells you everything about how it actually fared in its own generation.

GameCube only failed because President Yamauchi's ideas fell on deaf ears. Yamauchi was the greatest genius within Nintendo, while the master Gunpei Yokoi occupied a distant second place. The president's orders were precise; Sony had an advantage by launching first—we need to launch the GameCube first in the United States—but the hardware development was confusing, many ideas like 3D stereoscopy and motion sensors were considered, and they also rushed the GBA due to Bandai's entry into the handheld sector. So the GameCube arrived too late, and the Xbox stole the technological spotlight. Nintendo's developers made the mistake of prolonging the N64's life cycle, releasing Luigi's Mansion instead of Mario, and...
everything went wrong.

 

[Midway-AGNC-]

GameCube only failed because President Yamauchi's ideas fell on deaf ears. Yamauchi was the greatest genius within Nintendo, while the master Gunpei Yokoi occupied a distant second place. The president's orders were precise; Sony had an advantage by launching first—we need to launch the GameCube first in the United States—but the hardware development was confusing, many ideas like 3D stereoscopy and motion sensors were considered, and they also rushed the GBA due to Bandai's entry into the handheld sector. So the GameCube arrived too late, and the Xbox stole the technological spotlight. Nintendo's developers made the mistake of prolonging the N64's life cycle, releasing Luigi's Mansion instead of Mario, and...
everything went wrong.

I think you're ignoring one of the biggest self-inflicted wounds Nintendo created during the GameCube era: the aesthetic direction. The cube-shaped, purple console, the toy-like name, the multicolored controller — all of that only reinforced the "Nintendo is for kids" stigma that had already been weaponized by Sony throughout the PS1 and PS2 years. And of course Microsoft jumped on that narrative as well.

To make matters worse, Nintendo doubled down on that same visual identity in their software. Mario Sunshine, Wind Waker, and several other first-party games leaned heavily into a more cute, cartoony style at a time when the industry was shifting toward more mature aesthetics. That sent a very clear message to third-parties: GameCube is not the place for your more adult-oriented titles. And unsurprisingly, many publishers avoided the system or gave it watered-down versions of their games.

Iwata seemed to fully buy into the idea that Nintendo should embrace the "kids and families" image instead of fighting it — which only amplified the stigma that was already hurting the company. That mindset shaped the GameCube's strategy from the moment he took over and carried straight into the Wii era. And honestly, that disconnect from the broader market reality cost Nintendo far more than people like to admit today.