Ranking EVERY Nintendo Console From Worst To Best

The original Game Boy was a revolution for Nintendo, establishing a dominant position in the handheld market that continues to this day. Even at its prime however, it was technologically inferior to competitors and its successor, the Game Boy Color, did little to build on the original. Four years after GBC launched, it was finally time for a significant upgrade.

Nintendo brought out Game Boy Advance in 2001 to great success. Featuring a 16-bit processor, its hardware closely matched the SNES, was backwards compatible with previous Game Boy titles and featured a strong library. This varied from new franchises like Golden Sun and WarioWare, sequels to Pokémon, Mario, Donkey Kong and F-Zero, and a wide range of NES and SNES ports.

It didn’t break the mold but proved a necessary evolution to the Game Boy lineup, with the 2003 SP redesign bringing in an illuminated screen that’s now standard for handheld consoles. Coupled with a solid games library, it sold 81 million units and was a fitting send-off to the Game Boy brand, followed up by the Nintendo DS in 2004.