The 10 Best Game Consoles Of All Time: Check Them Out

What are the best game consoles? If you are a game lover or aspiring to be one then this article is for you, we based the ranking on the best-selling game consoles in the world.

In the current generation of consoles, which in its early years some analysts condemned as the last series of machines dedicated to video games that we would see, several of the best-selling video consoles in history have been seen, with PlayStation 4 at the head (with 110.4 million units) and increasingly closely followed by Nintendo Switch, which is just three years has surpassed Super Nintendo sales with 55.77 million. Of Xbox One no official figures since 2015, but they estimated at around 50 million.

Although there are those who point out that the sales of games and consoles are not useful and relevant data for the consumer, rather it is the opposite: just as the success in sales of a video game saga allows them to be produced For more titles in that series, the fact that a machine dedicated to interactive entertainment places more or fewer millions of units in the players’ homes can lead to a video game being launched for that platform or not.

Not all brands give official sales figures (especially Microsoft in recent years), so when we mention data that does not come from the manufacturer we will indicate it.

The 10 Best Game Consoles Of All Time

Here are the top 10 best game consoles in the world with the number of sales each one of them has recorded over years.

10. PSP – More than 76.4 million

Best Video Game Console PSP by SONY

The first Sony portable console put us in our pockets and is rated as one of the best game consoles of all time, before we knew what a smartphone was and when Netflix did not exist, a device capable of running adapted versions of great video games like Tekken and Grand Theft Auto, where you could watch movies with a quality that had nothing to envy to a DVD and in which we could store our music library. 

The PlayStation Portable once felt like a gadget from the future. Officially the console sold 76 million units until 2012, but it continued to be produced until two years later, so some studies raise the figure to 80-82 million.

The 5 best-selling PSP games

  • 1. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (8.00 million)
  • 2. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (5.03 million)
  • 3. Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (4.90 million)
  • 4. Gran Turismo (4.07 million)
  • 5. Monster Hunter: Freedom Unite (3.80 million)

9. Game Boy Advance – 81.51 million

Game Boy Advance

Nintendo’s second handheld console that really meant a generational leap, the Game Boy Advance, arrived in 2001 as a 32-bit portable device that brought together all the good things that the Game Boy had brought (and backward compatibility with it) as well as a return to the Super Nintendo era, with adaptations of games from that console. 

The 81.51 million units sold (43.57 of the GBA SP model) show that in the midst of the polygonal era, the players still wanted sprites.

Top 5 GBA Games

  • 1. Pokémon Ruby / Pokémon Sapphire (16.22 million)
  • 2. Pokémon FireRed / Pokémon LeafGreen (12.00 million)
  • 3. Pokémon Emerald (7.06 million)
  • 4. Mario Kart: Super Circuit (5.91 million)
  • 5. Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 (5.69 million)

8. Xbox 360 – 86 million approx

Xbox 360 - Best Video Game Consoles of all time

For its second console, Microsoft delved into what had worked for the first Xbox: it improved online gaming, gave even more relevance to its main sagas and studios such as Rare and Bungie, and continued to bet on power;

But it also focused on something that gave it quite an advantage over the PS3 during the early years: the platform’s accessibility for developers, which made many cross-platform games perform better on a relatively less powerful console than its competitor.

The console was sold with different sizes of hard drives and had two revisions. In 2014 Microsoft announced that it had sold 84 million units, but adding the sales figures in various territories the total figure rises to approximately 86 million.

The 5 best-selling Xbox 360 games

  • 1. Kinect Adventures (approx 24.00 million)
  • 2. Grand Theft Auto 5 (18 million approx.)
  • 3. Halo 3 (14.5 million)
  • 4. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (13.7 million)
  • 5. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition (13 million)

7. PlayStation 3 – Over 87.4 million

PlayStation 3

Sony’s third home console did not get off to a good start. It reached the market at a price of 600 euros, which was €200 more than Xbox 360 and 350 euros compared to Wii.

However, the machine was having revisions that lowered functionalities, such as backward compatibility, in exchange for a decrease in price. As big exclusives like Uncharted 2: Thieves’ ReignHeavy Rain, and Killzone 2 arrived, the tables turned. 

With The Last of Us, its catalog of exclusive games was closed, one of the reasons why it placed more than 87.4 million as of March 2017 (it stopped being distributed in Japan in May of that year).

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The 5 best-selling PS3 games

  • 1. Grand Theft Auto IV (25.00 million approx.)
  • 2. Grand Theft Auto V (21.3 million approx)
  • 3. Gran Turismo 5 (11.94 million)
  • 4. The Last of Us (7.00 million approx.)
  • 5. Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (6.60 million)

6. Wii – 101.63 million

Wii

Announced before its launch as Nintendo Revolution, Wii hit the video game market by sweeping everything, running out of store shelves (and causing second-hand units to command exorbitant prices), and reintroducing Nintendo into the battle to you with its competitors.

The influence of the machine has been noted in the accessibility of video games, party games, and above all, motion sensors that Microsoft and Sony replicated. The console sold, with only one revision (Wii Mini) 101.63 million units, partly due to the difference in price (which translated into a difference in power): while PS3 started at € 600 and Xbox 360 at the 400, Wii was released in December 2006 for 250 euros and with a free game that is among the best sellers in history: Wii Sports.

The 5 best-selling Wii games

  • 1. Wii Sports (82.88 million)
  • 2. Mario Kart Wii (37.24 million)
  • 3. Wii Sports Resort (33.11 million)
  • 4. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (30.28 million)
  • 5. Wii Play (28.02 million)

5. PlayStation – Over 102.4 million

PlayStation - Best game consoles of all time

With the first PlayStation, Sony entered the video game market as a steamroller. Features such as the reproduction of music CDs and a video game catalog that appealed more to young people and less to children, the console managed to eliminate, in part, the idea that interactive entertainment is for the smallest of the house.

In its catalog, there are gems of this entertainment such as Metal Gear SolidFinal Fantasy VIIWipeOutGran Turismo, and countless other games.

The 5 best-selling PlayStation games

  • 1. Gran Turismo (10.85 million)
  • 2. Final Fantasy VII (9.8 million)
  • 3. Gran Turismo 2 (9.37 million)
  • 4. Tekken 3 (8.30 million)
  • 5. Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone (more than 8 million approx.)

4. PlayStation 4 – 110.4 million

PlayStation 4

Despite the fact that many predicted that this would be the last generation of consoles and that in its first months it did not have a particularly brilliant catalog, PS4 was a bestseller from day one, and almost seven years after its launch it has already surpassed to the mythical PlayStation: as of December 31, 2019, Sony has sold 110.4 million units.

Part of the reasons is on games like God of WarSpider-ManHorizon: Zero Dawn, and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, but also first-party games like the fireproof Grand Theft Auto V and FIFA.

The 5 best-selling PlayStation 4 games

  • 1. Grand Theft Auto V (19.39 million approx.)
  • 2. Call of Duty: Black Ops III (15.09 million approx.)
  • 3. Red Dead Redemption 2 (13.94 million approx.)
  • 4. Call of Duty: WWII (13.40 million approx.)
  • 5. FIFA 18 (11.8 million approx.)

3. Game Boy – 118.69 million

Game Boy

Game Boy revolutionized the portable video game and swept against the proposals of SEGA, Bandai, Atari, and other companies that tried to replicate its success taking advantage of its limitations. 

But this small device with a monochrome screen (something that was corrected with the Color version in 1998) managed to sneak into homes and backpacks around the world thanks to the Tetris phenomenon, but also by having a vast catalog made up of jewels like The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and Kirby’s Dream Land. And, of course, Pokémon.

The 5 best-selling Game Boy games

  • 1. Tetris (35 million)
  • 2. Pokémon Red / Pokémon Blue / Pokémon Green (31.38 million)
  • 3. Pokémon Gold / Pokémon Silver (23.10 million)
  • 4. Super Mario Land (18.14 million)
  • 5. Pokémon Yellow (14.64 million)

2. Nintendo DS – 154.02 million

Nintendo DS

Few anticipated the success of the Nintendo DS. The Japanese company made the risky decision to abandon the Game Boy brand for the dual-screen handheld console

The choice was right because since the launch of the console in March 2005 (December 2004 in Japan) two fronts have been attacked: the sagas and typical video games of the Big N continued to be supported, such as New Super Mario Bros., Pokémon, and Mario Kart DS; and it was innovated with proposals that created new players with Brain TrainingNintendogs and many others.

The successive revisions with Nintendo DS Lite and Nintendo DSi and their larger models made Nintendo DS sell almost 50% more than the mythical Game Boy with 154.02 million units sold.

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The 5 best-selling Nintendo DS games

  • 1. New Super Mario Bros. (30.80 million)
  • 2. Nintendogs (23.96 million)
  • 3. Mario Kart DS (23.60 million)
  • 4. Brain Training (19.01 million)
  • 5. Pokémon Diamond / Pokémon Pearl (17.67 million)

1. PlayStation 2 – Over 155 million

PlayStation 2 - Best game console of all time

PlayStation 2 is the best video game console of all time, it was released in 1999 with a high price for the time and accompanied by television commercials directed by David Lynch. The most popular console in history followed the path of the first PlayStation.

 PS2 had a DVD player that allowed it to enter the living rooms of many homes, just as the first PSX did the same with CDs. Also, if PlayStation was the example that video games could appeal to an adult audience, PS2 established that idea. 

Among its circuits, works such as Ratchet & Clank and Jak & Daxter have been executed, but the Silent Hill saga was also developed, the JRPG expanded with Final Fantasy X and Dragon Quest VIII, the buzz for open worlds was generated with Grand Theft Auto III, and other ideas were explored with Shadow of the Colossus and ICO. As of December 31, 2019, it has sold more than 155 million units.

The 5 best-selling PS2 games

  • 1. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (17.33 million)
  • 2. Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec (14.89 million)
  • 3. Gran Turismo 4 (11.76 million)
  • 4. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (9.61 million)
  • 5. Final Fantasy X (8 million approx.)

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