All Nintendo Console Generations & Models Released in Order

As their competitors like Xbox and Playstation argue about pixels and shaders, social functionalities and internet capability, the house that Mario built has always been steadfast in its belief that if you make memorable games, the gamers will come. That stubbornness has landed the company in hot water more than a few times throughout its long and storied history, but Nintendo has proven resilient, even amidst its failures, due to the quality of its first-party games. After all, if there’s anything Nintendo knows how to do, it’s making games.

Here we’re going to take you on a trip through time to take a look at the consoles that made Nintendo what it is today.

From the company’s technological innovations in its early years, the moment Nintendo made your grandma a gamer, to the unbeatable device for gaming on the go that is the Switch. These are all Nintendo console generations & models released in order.

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First Generation: Color TV-Game (1977—1983)

Unless you grew up in Japan in the late 1970s, there’s a good chance that you’ve never even heard of Nintendo’s first home console. The Color TV-Game was a series of home consoles that each came with a set number of hard-coded games. Despite being the highest-selling first-generation video game console with nearly 3 million units sold, the Color TV-Game was never released outside of Japan.

Produced in collaboration with Mitsubishi Electronics, the Color TV-Game consoles were meant to capitalize on the popularity of home video tennis games brought on by the overwhelming success of Atari’s home Pong system. Although the market was flooded with home Pong clones, the Color TV-Game was sold at a much lower price point than its competitors, allowing Nintendo to capture a massive chunk of the market.

Color TV-Game 6 (1977)

The first system, the Color TV-Game 6, was battery-powered and came with six variations of Pong.

Color TV-Game 15 (1977)

A week later, Nintendo released the Color TV-Game 15, an upgraded version of the TV-Game 6 with 15 games and detachable controllers.

Color TV-Game Racing 112 (1978)

The third machine in the series was the Color TV-Game Racing 112, which came with a clone of Taito’s Speed Race. The system came with a detachable wheel, two paddle controllers, and 112 variations of its racing game.

Color TV-Game Block Kuzushi (1979)

1979 saw the launch of the Color TV-Game Block Kuzushi, which came with six variations of a clone of Atari’s Breakout. The Block Kuzushi is notable for two things: it was the first home video game system produced entirely by Nintendo, and the system’s casing was designed by a young Shigeru Miyamoto.

Computer TV Game (1980)

The Computer TV Game, released in 1980, was the last Color TV-Game system. It came with a home version of Computer Othello, a tabletop arcade game released in 1978 that was the first video game product developed and published by Nintendo.

Nintendo ceased production of the Color TV-Game series in 1983 to prepare for the launch of their new system, the “Family Computer,” or Famicom. You’ve probably heard of it.

Third Generation: Nintendo Entertainment System (1985—2003)

Known as the Famicom in Japan (short for “Family Computer”), the Nintendo Entertainment System was Nintendo’s first home video game console sold in international markets. The wife of lead engineer Masayuki Uemara suggested the name “Famicom,” arguing that since the system wasn’t a personal computer, then Nintendo should say it is a “family computer.”

Famicom (1983)

After a string of successes developing video game machines for both arcades and homes in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, Nintendo began work on a new home video game console in 1982. Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi didn’t just want a console to compete with the Epoch Cassette Vision, which was the best-selling game console in Japan at the time, he wanted one that was both more powerful and cheaper, to boot. The goal was to create a home console that could run an arcade-accurate port of Donkey Kong.

The Famicom was released on July 15, 1983 with a launch list of Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Junior, and Popeye. Except for a few hiccups with distribution early on due to a faulty circuit, the Famicom was an instant hit, easily outselling the Sega SG-1000 and surpassing the Cassette Vision’s sales numbers by the end of 1984.

Famicom Technical Specifications:

Nintendo Entertainment System (1985)

Nintendo knew they wanted to sell their new console outside of Japan, with the United States as one of their primary targets. As Nintendo had no experience with the North American market at the time, they held talks with Atari for distribution of the console in the region. Nothing ever came of that deal, but if it had, the console would have been released under the name “Nintendo Advanced Video Gaming System” in the US.

Keep in mind that while the games industry was booming in Japan, it was on the verge of collapse in the US. Experts were certain the video game crash of 1983 was the death knell of an entire industry, and investors were pulling their money from video game-related projects.

Yamauchi realized that home consoles weren’t selling in the US, but saw hope in the recovering arcade market. And so Nintendo went forward with their plans to release in North America—a brazen move considering the state of video games in the US.

Nintendo’s gamble paid off. The NES went on to become one of the best-selling consoles of all time, with nearly 62 million units sold worldwide over its lifespan. More importantly, it breathed life back into a dying industry.

With the Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo became a veritable industry giant, cementing a place beside video game giants of the era, like Atari and Coleco. Nintendo’s technological successes and business policies—most notably, the now-standard third-party licensing policy—would greatly inform the direction of the games industry going forward.

Nintendo Entertainment System Technical Specifications:

Fourth Generation: Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1990—2003)

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super Famicom in Japan and Super Comboy in South Korea) was Nintendo’s follow-up to the wildly-successful Nintendo Entertainment System. Despite releasing several years after the Sega Mega Drive and NEC PC Engine, the Super NES still managed to become the best-selling console of its generation. The console remained popular well into the fourth generation of gaming consoles and was discontinued in 2003 ahead of the release of the Nintendo Gamecube. Worldwide, the SNES sold more than 49 million units.

Super Famicom (1990)

In 1987, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi announced the development of the Super Famicom. For a time, the company was unfazed by the competition from NEC’s PC Engine and Sega’s Mega Drive, both 16-bit consoles with superior graphics and audio over the NES. Nintendo renewed their focus when their market share began to wane.

The Super Famicom launched on November 21, 1990—more than three years after the PC Engine and two years after the Mega Drive. The game was instantly successful, selling out its initial 300,000 units within hours. The two- and three-year headstarts enjoyed by NEC and Sega ultimately didn’t matter in the end, as the SNES would quickly make up for it and become the best-selling console of its generation.

Demand for the SNES remained strong even after the industry had moved onto the next generation of consoles. To compete with the growing interest in 3D graphics, Nintendo released Donkey Kong Country in 1994, a side-scrolling platformer featuring pre-rendered 3D models and textures. Production of the SNES ceased in the US in 1999, mere months before the sixth generation of consoles began to establish market share. In Japan, however, interest in the console remained relatively strong, thus production of the Super Famicom wasn’t discontinued until 2003.

Super Famicom Technical Specifications:

Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1991)

A redesigned version of the Super Famicom was released for North America in 1991. Renamed the Super Nintendo Entertainment System for global markets, it saw limited release on August 23, 1991 before launching nationwide that September. Most versions of the console that were released in PAL regions kept the original Super Famicom design but released with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System label.

The differences between the Super Famicom and SNES are largely aesthetic. The SNES featured purple power and reset sliders and replaced the four-color face buttons on the Super Famicom controller with purple ones.

Having already established their brand in the US market with the NES, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System performed well out of the gate. To push sales, the console was released as a bundle with Super Mario World and offered a strong starting lineup catered toward western audiences, with launch titles including F-Zero, SimCity, and Gradius III.

Super Nintendo Entertainment System Technical Specifications:

Fifth Generation: Nintendo 64 (1996—2002)

The Nintendo 64 was the successor to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the company’s first machine designed for 3D gaming. While Nintendo’s competitors favored the larger capacity afforded by disc-based formats, the Nintendo 64 continued to use cartridges as its primary storage format.

Despite its superior technology, the Nintendo 64 was vastly outsold by the Sony PlayStation. Nintendo famously had a falling out with Sony that led to the development of Sony’s first console. However, the N64 has remained a pop culture favorite over the decades due to its strong lineup of first-party titles, including influential installments in Nintendo’s most popular series, like Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time.

Nintendo 64 (1996)

As part of its initiative to expand into consumer products, Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) approached both Sega and Nintendo to produce a video game console based on its MIPS R4000 workstation CPUs. While Sega demanded exclusive rights to use the chip, Nintendo was willing to accept a licensing deal, which would allow them to use the chip on a non-exclusive basis. Nintendo and SGI announced a development and licensing agreement in 1993 that would lead to the Nintendo 64.

The project, codenamed “Project Reality,” was initiated after a meeting between SGI founder Jim Clark and Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi in 1993. The console’s design was first revealed in 1994 with a playable prototype publicly demoed in 1995.

Initially slated for a Christmas 1995 release, the Nintendo 64 was delayed multiple times before finally releasing in Japan on June 23, 1996. As with the SNES, initial shipment of 300,000 N64 units sold out in a day, with the remaining 200,000 first-production units reserved ahead of their June 26 and 30 release dates.

Demand in the west for Nintendo’s new console was so high that a significant gray market developed in the months before its US launch. The N64 was released in North America on September 26, 1996 and in PAL regions on March 1, 1997.

Critics loved Nintendo’s new system. Time Magazine named it the 1996 Machine of the Year and the Los Angeles Times called it “the fastest, most graceful game machine on the market.” Nintendo sold 500,000 N64s in the US only four months after release; by the year’s end, more than 3.6 million units had been sold in the US alone.

However, due to the limited capacity of its cartridge format and high price of its games, demand for the N64 gradually waned. Newcomer Sony eventually caught up with the Nintendo 64’s sales, and would eventually leave Nintendo’s system trailing far behind their PlayStation.

The console was less of a success in Japan, where interest in the N64 dropped sharply after release. One developer attributed the console’s low popularity in its home country to the lack of role-playing games.

In all, the Nintendo 64 sold 32.93 million units worldwide, making it a success on par with the SNES.

Nintendo 64 Technical Specifications:

Sixth Generation: Nintendo GameCube (2001—2007)

Nintendo apparently identified the limited capacity of its cartridge storage format as one of the limiting factors to the N64’s success. The N64’s successor, codenamed “Project Dolphin” and later released as the GameCube, featured a miniDVD-based format that functioned as a sort of compromise between the full-sized DVDs of the era and Nintendo’s then-preferred compact cartridges.

Powered by a 32-bit IBM PowerPC and state-of-the-art ArtX GPUs, the GameCube’s exterior and circuit designs messaged a staunch refusal to succumb to the growing trend of game consoles as home multimedia devices.

The GameCube sold a disappointing 21.75 million units, far below the 50 million projected by then-Nintendo President Satoru Iwata. Considered a failure at the time, itts library of strong first-party titles—including The Legend of Zelda Windwaker, Super Mario Galaxy, and Metroid Prime—has made the GameCube a favorite of speedrunners and streamers alike, leading to a contemporary revival of interest in the system.

Nintendo GameCube (2001)

Following the success of the Nintendo 64, Dr. Wei Yen, a former SGI team member who led their Nintendo Operations, launched his own graphic design company called ArtX. In 1998, ArtX partnered with Nintendo to help design their next-generation video game console. In May 1999, Nintendo publicly announced their successor to the Nintendo 64 in a press conference, “Project Dolphin.”

The console’s final name, GameCube, was officially revealed on August 25, 2000. Unlike Sony and Microsoft, which were marketing their sixth-generation consoles as home multimedia systems with video playback capabilities and online functionality, Nintendo positioned its GameCube as a console made for play.

The GameCube was released in Japan on September 14, 2001, shipping 500,000 units to retailers. It launched in North America on November 18, 2001 and later Europe in 2002.

Critics praised the quality of the GameCube’s launch titles, hardware design, and relatively low price. In the first three days after launch, nearly 300,000 units were sold in Japan. In the month of its launch, sales of the GameCube outpaced those of both the Xbox and PlayStation 2.

By December 2001, more than 600,000 GameCubes had been sold in the US alone.

Due to the lack of online functionality and the limited selection of games for months after launch, the GameCubes failed to capitalize on its early momentum. Sales quickly sagged once early excitement died down.

The console had a short bounceback after its price was reduced to $99.99 in 2003, but by that point, Nintendo had already failed to establish itself as a real competitor to the PlayStation 2, with only 13% market share.

Nintendo GameCube Technical Specifications:

Panasonic Q (2001)

Panasonic developed the optical drive for the original GameCube, and as part of that deal, the company was allowed to develop its own version of the GameCube. Dubbed the Panasonic Q, it sought to transform the GameCube’s “play only” image by combining it with a DVD player, making the Panasonic Q the multimedia GameCube that Nintendo refused to make with video and audio playback capabilities similar to those of the PlayStation 2 and Xbox.

The Panasonic Q supported standard-sized CDs and DVDs as well as the GameCube’s miniDVDs. In order to play GameCube games, players pushed a button to activate its “Game” mode.

Poor sales led to the early discontinuation of the Panasonic Q in 2003.

Panasonic Q Technical Specifications:

Seventh Generation: Wii (2006—2017)

Following the failure of the GameCube, newly-appointed President of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, wanted to take the company in a new direction. To him, Nintendo was a family entertainment company first and foremost; they dealt in creativity and innovation, not necessarily technological superiority.

The result was the Nintendo Wii, a machine that, on paper, was underwhelming, but made up for its lack of raw power with a novel input method designed to bring video games to the masses. Not only was the Wii fun; its motion-sensing controls were intuitive enough that even your grandma could get in on the action.

Since the Wii was no longer competing to provide extreme graphics fidelity, it was much cheaper to produce both the console and its games, which allowed for a price point that positioned the Wii perfectly for impulse buying.

Sales figures for the Wii outpaced the PlayStation 3 and Xbox360 within a year of the Wii’s release, and by 2013, more than 100 million units were sold.

Wii (2006)

The GameCube revealed a harsh truth to Nintendo: they wouldn’t be able to compete with Sony and Microsoft on computational graphics and raw power. And so President Satoru Iwata declared a new direction for the company. It would target a broader demographic and stop competing directly with Sony and Microsoft, positioning their new system as a “second console” to be purchased alongside one of Sony or Microsoft’s offerings.

Iwata assigned game designers Shigeru Miyamoto and Genyo Takeda to spearhead the new console project, codenamed “Revolution,”  with creativity and innovation as its driving principles. He wanted Takeda and Miyamoto “to go off the tech roadmap” with the new machine, asking them to design a console with backward compatibility that would appeal to mothers.

The Revolution was first shown off to the public at E3 2005—without motion controls.  That September, Iwata unveiled the Revolution’s controller and showed off its motion sensing capabilities.

The month before E3 2006, Nintendo announced the console’s final name: Wii. Nintendo wanted a name that was easy to remember and represented Nintendo’s inclusive approach to games development, emphasizing that the console was for the whole family.

Nintendo received some backlash for the name, which critics feared would make the console appear “juvenile.” The system itself, however, was well-received, winning awards from a number of media outlets.

The Wii launched in November 2006 and was an instant success. During its launch period, it outperformed combined sales figures for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Demand was staggering to the point that it was hard to find Wiis for the first year after its release.

Later, a revised version of the Wii was released that removed GameCube functionality from the device.

Lifetime sales for the Nintendo Wii would exceed 100 million units, and it was Nintendo’s best-selling console until the Nintendo Switch.

Wii Technical Specifications:

Wii Mini (2006)

The Wii Mini was a revised version of the Nintendo Wii that featured a smaller form factor, a top-loading disc drive. It also removed all GameCube functionality, the SD card slot, Wi-Fi support, and online connectivity. The Wii Mini was designed to target those who had not purchased a Wii and gamers who wanted a cheaper second Wii.

Wii Mini Technical Specifications:

Eighth Generation: Wii U & Switch (2012—now)

Riding high on the Wii’s success, Nintendo sought to continue chasing innovation with the Wii U. The Wii U is controlled using the Wii U Gamepad, a tablet-like device with an embedded touchscreen that connects wirelessly to the main console.

A weak launch lineup and poor third-party support led to dissatisfaction among gamers. To make matters worse, poor messaging and marketing caused confusion among gamers, who were unsure of the function and portability of the Wii U Gamepad.

Poor sales pushed Nintendo to discontinue the Wii U in 2017, but not before they could mount a comeback with a new console, the Nintendo Switch. Unlike the Wii U, which critics and audiences found confusing, the Switch’s selling point was clear from the jump: take your console gaming experience on the go.

There was instant interest from gamers, bolstered by an excellent launch lineup that showcased the system’s capabilities and portability. As of December 2021, it is the best-selling Nintendo home console, with more than 104 million units sold across the globe.

Wii U (2012)

The Wii was a runaway success, proving that great ideas and innovation could still sell units. However, Nintendo knew that the general public perceived the Wii as a “casual” system, and they wanted a system to reel back in the core gamer audience.

Some of the issues the company identified were the Wii’s lack of support for HD graphics and poor internet functionality. According to Shigeru Miyamoto, these two things led many to consider the Wii a non-contender to Sony and Microsoft.

In 2008, Nintendo began work on the console that would become the Wii U. Since the Wii had proven popular thanks to its novel input method, the company was certain that similar innovation was necessary for its successor. And hence, the Wii U Gamepad was born.

Originally, the Wii U Gamepad was meant to be a simple controller with a small embedded screen. Later in development, the console’s development team found a way to make a full screen financially viable.

In April, 2011, Nintendo announced the new console would be released in 2012, with a promise that playable units would be available at E3 2011. Analysts were unimpressed with the new console, and Nintendo’s stock fell 10% in the two days after it was announced.

The system was launched in North America on November 18, 2020, followed by a release in PAL regions on November 30. Japan was the last region to get the Wii U; the console was released in its home country on December 8.

Reception to the Wii U was mixed, with many reviewers praising its Wii U Gamepad but criticizing its poor implementation of online functionalities that had long been standard in the industry. Many also had issues with the poor battery life of the Gamepad.

Despite the middling reviews, gamers still lined up to purchase the Wii U on launch day. In the US, Nintendo’s entire initial shipment of 400,000 units was sold out in less than a week, and 600,000 units were sold in Japan in the month of its release.

Interest took a free fall not long after. In January 2013, Nintendo sold a meager 57,000 units in the US—less than 15% of what the original Wii sold two months after launch. Nintendo cut sales projections from 5.5 million to 4 million for 2013, but shipped less than a million consoles for the whole year.

In 2013, major third-party publishers began to publicly pull their support of the console. In May, Electronic Arts announced they were reducing support for the Wii U. At E3 2013, Ubisoft said they would no longer be making Wii U exclusives until sales of the console picked up. In July, Bethesda announced it had no games in development for the Wii U, citing the Wii U’s underwhelming hardware as the primary reason.

Nintendo continued to support the Wii U with quality first-party titles. Games like Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and Super Mario World 3D re-emphasized the company’s unparalleled ability to make fun, light-hearted experiences.

However, the dearth of third-party support and consistently poor sales ensured the Wii U would never reach the heights of its predecessors. By the time Nintendo announced its new console in March 2017, it had become clear that the Wii U was on its last legs.

As of December 31, 2019, the Wii U has sold 13.56 million units worldwide, making it the lowest-selling Nintendo home console since the TV-Game way back in the late 1970s.

Wii U Technical Specifications:

Switch (2017)

For the past few generations, Nintendo appeared almost intent on giving its fans whiplash with how inconsistent the quality of its consoles could be from generation to generation. Often the lessons learned from one generation led to half-baked integration in the next, as was the case with the miniDVD media format in the GameCube and the lackluster integration of social features in the Wii U.

Following the record-breaking success of the Wii, Nintendo found themselves in financial dire straits once again with the unmitigated disaster that was the Wii U, and they need something new to revitalize their hardware division.

Nintendo began design work on the Switch not long after the Wii U was released in 2012. After weak early sales figures for the Wii U and the subsequent pulling out of major third-party support, the Switch became a “make or break product” for Nintendo.

Nintendo had been very successful with their handheld devices, dating back to the original Gameboy and all the way up to the Nintendo 3DS. However, the rise of smartphones and mobile gaming meant the market for dedicated video game handhelds was very much being eaten into by non-gaming entities.

With its new console, Nintendo wanted to bridge the divide between handhelds and home consoles. Part of the inspiration for the Switch came from player feedback of the Wii U. Wii U owners loved the Wii U GamePad, but were disappointed that they couldn’t play with it away from the console unit.

This led to Nintendo designing a home console that could be played on the go but easily docked to a television for a home gaming experience on a big screen.

Nintendo first went public about the new console in 2015, then known under the codename “NX.”  In 2016, Nintendo announced the console’s name, Nintendo Switch, and revealed a trailer that showed off the hybrid nature of the device.

The Switch was released in Japan and most Western markets on March 3, 2017. In its first week, the Switch was Nintendo’s fastest-selling console ever, with figures on par with the PlayStation 4’s launch numbers. By March 31, 2017, Nintendo had sold more than 2.74 million Switch units worldwide. In Japan, the Switch revitalized interest in console gaming, which had been waning following the rise of the mobile game market.

Nintendo’s bottom line was bolstered by the success of the Switch’s games. Although the system did not release with a pack-in game, the vast majority of people buying a Switch also purchased a copy of The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild.

While developers were working on their own Switch games, Nintendo remade and ported many of the more popular Wii U games to the new console, giving it a strong near-launch lineup.

The Switch has broken multiple sales records, including the highest first-year sales for a home console in Japan, eclipsing the total lifetime sales of Wii U units in only nine months. As of the start of 2022, Nintendo has shipped more than 103.54 million Switch units, a figure which includes both Switch Lite and Switch OLED variants.

Nintendo Switch Technical Specifications:

Switch Lite (2017)

The Switch Lite is a handheld-only version of the Nintendo Switch designed for gamers who exclusively play Switch games in handheld mode. Nintendo wanted to create a version of the Switch that was aimed at casual gamers and children, with a price point that would position it as an impulse buy.

Unlike the original Switch design, the Switch Lite is a single unit with integrated buttons and sticks. The controllers do not break away as they do with the original Switch. Additionally, the Switch Lite features a smaller screen and cannot be docked to a television.

In the ten days after it launched on September 30, 2019, the Switch Lite had sold nearly 2 million units. By the start of 2021, more than 13.53 million units had been sold worldwide.

Nintendo Switch Lite Technical Specifications:

Switch OLED (2017)

The Nintendo Switch OLED is a revised version of the original Switch that features a 7-inch OLED screen for more vibrant colors. Hardware-wise, except for the larger screen, it’s identical to the original Switch.

Initial reactions were mixed, as early rumors had led gamers to believe Nintendo would be announcing a new console to succeed the Switch.

Nintendo Switch OLED Technical Specifications: