What is the Most Addicting Nintendo System?

What Nintendo system is the best? Well, thats easy, it’s the Nintendo DS because it’s the best selling Nintendo system ever with over 154 million units sold. Or maybe it’s the Nintendo Switch because it’s the best selling non dedicated handheld with almost 104 million in under five years. Maybe it’s the NES, which brought gaming back from the brink of death and was likely many gamers first console. Although the NES sold 61.91, this was a system that was released in the mid 80’s and the potential gaming audience is much wider now. Using an inflation calculator that would be roughly 159.21 million which would place the NES as the best selling Nintendo console of all time.

The point is that to figuring out what Nintendo System is the best is like trying to figure out what is the best Legend of Zelda Game or what is the best Mario Game. There is no correct answer, because everyone has an opinion about which of these games is the best just like what Nintendo console was the best because that could be based on games, features, nostalgia or a combination of those ingredients and the great thing is there is no wrong answer.

There are certain ways that we can try to get some type of answer like using sales figures, but as shown this doesn’t always paint the best picture for multiple reasons because even a system like the Wii U, that only sold a measly 13.56 million copies, still had some amazing games that have gone on to be even greater on the Switch including Mario Kart 8 and Super Mario 3D World. Instead of trying to figure out the best or worst, we can easily figure out what Nintendo system had the best attach rate. An attach rate is how many games each console owner owned or the average units of software sold per hardware unit. When looking at this in a more simplistic view, this basically equates to what Nintendo console was the most addicting? As it turns out some addictions aren’t always a bad thing.

Attach Rate

The easiest way to do this is to take the total software sold and divide it by the number of consoles sold. Using this formula gives you the average games sold per system or the average games that each owner bought. For the longest time console manufacturers made a loss on hardware so they could make the big profits on software, therefore the console attach rate is quite important and can could be a good indicator of success in addition to what system sold the most.

It’s also worth noting that even though some of these systems over the years have underperformed for Nintendo, the company is still in a fantastic financial situation thanks to many years of success.

Portable Problems

Coming in last place is the Game Boy family which also includes the Game Boy Color with 4.22 games per system and if you subtract Tetris, because who didn’t own that game, thats a very low attach rate. Next on the list is the Game Boy Advance family with 4.63 games per system.

Next on the list is the 3DS family of consoles with 5.11 games per system. This brings us to our next on the list which is the best selling Nintendo console of all time with the DS family with 6.16. I don’t think there is a huge coincidence that the bottom four systems on this list are all of the dedicated Nintendo handhelds.

This could explain why Nintendo created the Switch as they were looking for the best of both worlds in a hybrid system but also wanted to make sure maximum software could be sold and with the data they had on portable only machines, software sales weren’t up to par when stacked against hardware units sold. A very big side note is that the DS has sold the most software overall with over 948 million but when factoring in attach rate, it doesn’t stack up against other systems on this list.

The first home console on the list is the N64 with 6.83 games per system. Considering that the N64 only sold 32.93 million, selling almost 225 million units of software is impressive.

Just missing the top five is the Nintendo Switch with 7.4 games sold per system, which is likely to increase over time as their software projections are usually high.

The Best

This brings is to the top five Nintendo systems with the highest attach rate and coming in at five is the Wii U at 7.63 games per system. Sure the console is by far the worst selling Nintendo console of all time with only 13.56, but their owners were dedicated selling over 103 million games. This speaks to the quality of the games on the system and clearly a reason that the Switch has seen so many Wii U ports.

Fourth on the list is the Super Nintendo or the SNES with 7.72 games per system. With a total systems sold of 49 million, this equates to over 379 million games sold.

Third on the list is the original Nintendo Entertainment System or the NES with an attach rate of 8.07. The figures on the first two Nintendo consoles are strong, especially when you factor in how many sales were reduced by the game rental business which was thriving during these years.

Second on the list and the system that I always thought had the highest attach rate is the Wii with over 9.07 games sold per system. This number is remarkable because even though the Wii was a very casual centric system, they were able to continue selling many more games outside of just Wii Sports as they offered other must play titles for casual games including Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit and Mario Kart Wii.

Finally, the Nintendo console with the highest attach rate is the GameCube with 9.59 games sold per system. The GameCube is basically the little engine that could because even though sales were only 21.74 million units, total software sales were over 208 million. Poor hardware sales of the GameCube were largely thanks to the best selling console ever, the PS2 and the hot new kid on the block with the Microsoft Xbox.

208 million software units sold is great when you consider the GameCube only sold slightly over 20 million units, but to put it into perspective, in FY2021, The Nintendo Switch sold more software in one year than the GameCube did in its lifetime, and the Switch is projected to do it again in FY2022.

Final Thoughts

If given the choice, Nintendo would rather have success on the level of the last place Game Boy with almost 120 million units of hardware sold with over 500 million games as well but an argument can be made for some of the systems in Nintendo’s storied history that have been declared failures like the N64, GameCube and Wii U. These systems that will be remembered by many for being failures but the attach rate shows that these systems will clearly be remembered by their fans for having great games and being an integral part of their gaming history. This list clearly shows that one persons trash is another persons treasure and there truly isn’t one right answer when it comes to figuring out the best Nintendo system ever.

Data used from Official Nintendo Investor Relations Site:

Switch 103.54/766.41 = 7.40

3DS 75.94/387.99 = 5.11

Wii U 13.56/103.45 = 7.63

Wii 101.63/921.85 = 9.07

DS 154.02/948.76 = 6.16

GBA 81.51/377.42 = 4.63

Game Boy 118.69/501.11 = 4.22

GameCube 21.74/208.57 = 9.59

N64 32.93/224.97 = 6.83

SNES 49.10/379.06 = 7.72

NES 61.91/500.01 = 8.07