What is the Greatest Game Console of All Time?

There's no doubt that the greatest game consoles are also the most recent ones - PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 offer levels of graphics and gameplay that would have been unheard of just ten years ago.  But if we're going to ask ourselves what the greatest game console of all time is, we'll have to be fair and consider each console against its own generation.  If that's the case, how do today's consoles rank against classics like the original Nintendo?  You're about to find out.  (Note: To get a good idea of the context in which this debate lies, check out CNet's take on the argument.)

Well, you can't start talking about the greatest consoles of all time without talking about the original Nintendo - the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES.  When you're talking about the NES, you're also talking about the kick-starting of some amazing franchises, like Super Mario Bros. and Zelda.  The NES is basically what kick-started many peoples' interest in gaming, and you can't deny that the Nintendo is perhaps the classic that brings back the most nostalgia.

You also have the Super NES, the next generation after the Nintendo, which brought gaming forward even more with more attractive games and enhanced control.  It may not have been the quantum leap that the Nintendo 64 was, but it was a classic.

Nintendo 64 brought gamers into the generation of 3D interaction, allowing gamers to finally experience games on a more realistic level than simply sliding across the screen from left to right or right to left.  Simply interacting with the new environment felt like a major step forward in gaming.

Of course, modern games dawned with the PlayStation and the Xbox, and it's hard to deny that the PlayStation was probably the pioneer of the two.  The Xbox series gets a lot of credit for bringing gamers online and pitting them against each other, which is a step forward in gaming that would have been totally revolutionary just a decade or two ago.

So after considering many of these worthy systems, which one is the greatest of all time?  We're going to go with the original NES.  This is a highly subjective argument, of course, and it may depend on your own nostalgia, but the NES is a classic that set the tone for many games and consoles to come.  Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean you'll want to own one today.