Best Nintendo consoles

1464 duels later, NINTENDO SWITCH is still #1 in the Nintendo ranking, with WII close behind.

NINTENDO SWITCH holds the top position with 1488 ELO points, but WII trails at 1370 points—a 118-point gap that separates first from second place. NINTENDO 3DS and NINTENDO DS follow closely in third and fourth, separated by just 8 ELO points at 1334 and 1326 respectively. GAMECUBE rounds out the top 5 at 1225 points with a 52% win rate across 220 duels. The podium reflects the enduring appeal of hybrid and motion-control platforms, though handheld consoles remain strong contenders in the top ranks. At the opposite end, GAME & WATCH ranks last with 924 ELO points and a 26% win rate across 144 duels, while VIRTUAL BOY sits just above at 963 points despite winning only 35% of its 204 duels. The bottom positions suggest that early hardware and experimental designs struggle to capture the same affection as more recent generations, with NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) landing at rank 12 with 1116 points.

This ranking draws from 1464 duels involving 37 players across 14 contenders, updated on 12 October 2026. The community has weighed in on Nintendo's full hardware lineage, from handheld pioneers to home console innovators. Cast your vote in head-to-head duels and shape the ranking with your own preferences.

Updated on October 12, 2026

How this ranking is computed

Every duel won lifts a contender and every loss drops them, by an amount that depends on the opponent's strength: beating the leader is worth more than beating the last. It is an ELO, the same principle as in chess. Duels are not drawn at random — an adaptive entropy sort puts the least predictable match-ups first, which settles the ranking far faster than a full round robin. A worldwide ranking is only published past 30 completed plays. Known limit: a contender who has faced few opponents keeps an approximate score, and the bottom of the table moves more than the podium.

How our rankings are made →