Ranking EVERY Nintendo Console From Worst To Best

Having established a foothold in handheld gaming through the Game & Watch, Nintendo realised they’d need to evolve beyond it to stay relevant. Featuring changeable game cartridges like the NES and an 8-bit processor, the Game Boy launched in 1989 across Japan and North America. Being bundled with Tetris in North America made it a public sensation.

Game Boy wasn’t a cutting edge console for its time, being technologically inferior to its competitors at launch but following Yokoi’s Lateral Thinking philosophy, it didn’t need to be. Using 4 x AA batteries as a power source, it was praised for the long battery life and quality of software, establishing Tetris as a cultural phenomenon that ended up selling 35 million copies worldwide.

It's legacy lives on to this day, widely being recognised as a cultural icon of the 1990s and cemented Nintendo’s position within the handheld market. Combined with the sales of its successor, the Game Boy Color, it ended up selling 118 million units, a feat that went unsurpassed until the release of the Nintendo DS in 2004.