Ranking the Nintendo Console Libraries

My favorite Nintendo Consoles based ONLY on their library of Games, focusing on their most well-known games. Not including Virtual Console, but including, to some extent, remasters and such.

I compared the consoles in 5 categories (each category stands for 1 point):

1. Variety: How complete was the library of the console? How many types of games it had? More of a quantity over quality. (I know it might be an advantage for newer consoles, but it's a factor still)
2. Exclusives: How was the exclusives lineup?
3. Must Play: How many unparallel games did the console have? How many masterpieces?
4. Main Genres: Which console had better RPG, better Action-Adventure, better Platformer? More of quality over quantity.
5. Innovation: NOT THE CONSOLE ITSELF, how innovative were its games.

If there's some sort of tie in a category or an overall number, the older console has the edge.

List items

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  1. Super Nintendo Entertainment System

  43 points

  The best overall console, with the most/best must-play games.

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  2. Nintendo Switch

  36 points

  The most variety of games and it came out already having two masterpieces in its first year.

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  3. Nintendo 64

  35 points

  Not huge on variety, but one of the strongest exclusive/must-play lineups Nintendo has ever had.

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  4. Wii

  35 points

  A well-balanced console with tons of innovation and a couple of extraordinary hits.

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  5. Wii U

  31 points

  An underrated console that it's boosted by Breath of the Wild's late arrival and innovative first party games like Super Mario Maker and Splatoon.

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  6. Nintendo Entertainment System

  30 points

  The NES was obviously the hardest to compare, being so revolutionary and having some phenomenal exclusives, but it's a beloved console that moved the gaming industry.

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  7. Game Boy Advance

  30 points

  The variety and overall quality of its library were way ahead of its time, for a handheld console.

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  8. Nintendo 3DS

  29 points

  Another console that I think ended up being underrated but had some of the best entries in some familiar series, and some of the best remasters Nintendo ever put out.

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  9. Nintendo DS

  20 points

  I always felt the DS was really good at what it did, which was: Having a bunch of games and using a new screen. But lacked great exclusives and more groundbreaking games.

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  10. GameCube

  19 points

  Even tho the GameCube doesn't have the greatest exclusives or an insane amount of games, it did start a number of new things for Nintendo and open wider the door for outside games that Nintendo usually worked with.

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  11. Game Boy

  13 points

  The Game Boy itself was innovative, and it was a great way to play a lot of games like Donkey Kong and Tetris, but outside of Pokémon, the consoles' games didn't bring much more then what we already had.

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  12. Game Boy Color

  9 points

  I owned a GBC, I loved it, but it mostly was made of re-releases and more colorful sequels.