Nintendo 64, or the original PlayStation?

@SteelHands N64 actually was less popular by a longshot, so it lost that contest as well. Check out the sales on consoles of that era:

@Keraunos How about game sales and platform longevity?

@SteelHands Not sure about game sales. PSX would obviously have to have outperformed N64 by default overall given the sales gap, but it definitely seems possible that some of the big individual titles on N64 did at least as well as the top-sellers on PSX despite having less available customers, as I think N64 was more a console people got for a tiny handful of exceptional games.

Platform longevity seems about equal to me, if you're rating that by the "timelessness" of their most beloved games.

@Keraunos Saturn was a great system.

They continued to make playstation games for years after it was EOL.

@Keraunos I'm surprised that the Sega Dreamcast isn't on there 🤔.

@Elegy I've always heard that about Saturn, but the words of "Sega kids" generally can't be trusted. I know, because I had a Dreamcast, and have thoroughly fallen under the spell of believing it was the best Sixth Generation console, despite knowing perfectly well it wasn't when I'm able to analyze that question objectively. Sega put black magic on all of their consoles to make those who buy them like them a lot more than they should.

@SubstantialKick Dreamcast was from the age of PS2, GameCube, and such.

Dreamcast is exactly the system to make you loose faith. I had one but I was pretty sure they were going to bail on it so I wasn't offended when it happened. For what it was and the time it came out it was amazing, they just had no faith in their system or their place in the market space. The Saturn had a ram card that gave you the storage space of a CD but the load speeds of a cartridge and it was amazing. You had to get it chipped for Japanese games to get the full use out of it but once you did there were a lot of great games for it like Panzer Dragoon saga. The first game I ever played that would refresh and redraw textures as you got closer to them. It was really amazing at the time and the system was bulletproof.

@Elegy Damn. Sega definitely went balls-out on their consoles in the old days. Unfortunately, the consoles that tended to do best were just whatever ones had the lowest production-cost for games.

I still [i]do[/i] like Dreamcast even when I'm stifling my purely emotional attachment to it. I think it had the overall best online play at the time, and the web browser was actually faster than my computer's at the time. Things like "Bleamcast" and "DreamSNES" were pretty great as well. It probably would have sold much better if it had been able to play DVDs, though.

@Keraunos You're right, it is a sixth generation console.

@Keraunos If I remember correctly the best games were... sega tennis, Crazy Taxi, Power Stone (which was a riot), Soul Caliber, Marvel Vs Capcom, Resident Evil, Blue Stinger and OMG Bass Fishing with that fishing controller.

@Elegy I'd add at least [i]Jet Grind Radio[/i], [i]Skies of Arcadia[/i], and [i]Phantasy Star Online[/i] to the list.

I do not recall Jet Grind Radio but the other two are legit. ;)

@Elegy [i]Jet Grind Radio[/i] was a game in which you played as a gang of teenaged hoodlums with magnetic rollerblades who skated all over town graffiti-ing shit. It got really ridiculous, with the police using lethal force to try to stop you, calling in army helicopter attacks on you, [i]etc[/i]., and you battled them and rival spraypaint-gangs (by just spraypainting either the people or military hardware that was attacking you).

It all built up to a final battle in which you had to prevent the CEO of a major corporation with lots of power in your city from using a cursed music record to summon a demon (by spraypainting it as well). It was definitely in the top five games for Dreamcast.

You could also use the web browser to save images online to use as your graffiti, making it potentially the only X-rated Dreamcast game I am aware of.

I do vaguely recall that now that you mention it.

@Keraunos I didn't play Jet Grind Radio, but I play the sequel [i]Jet Set Radio Future[/i] on the Xbox. I probably beat it about 25 times, but I never got tired of it.

@Keraunos The market methodology with Nintendo was very different. The original console that came with Mario brothers spawned game concept variants beside the foundation games themselves. Each successive game box had its own cartridges and controls, plug in options and increased complexity of the background and computerized challenge characters. I had DVDs go bad but the plug in cartridges were/are rock solid and most always handed off to a trade in or someone else.

I'm Certain that in terms of people using second hand systems and cartridges not falling into total obscurity Nintendo is the one that was put to use more. There's no way I can cite figures for this of course because the collective public recollection isn't likely to appraise game popularity in those ways.

@SteelHands Oh, [i]that's[/i] what you meant by console longevity. Yeah, figures or no figures, I'd say you're right about that, from what I've seen.

@Keraunos Diddykong racing and Mario Kart are also excellent 4 player competitions that don't require an internet connection and are good family oriented because they're geared toward casual or young game players. I think Nintendo was a gift to family type people.