Best gaming consoles

PlayStation 2 wins 61% of its duels and tops the Home Consoles ranking ahead of PlayStation 4.

The PlayStation era dominates this ranking, with PlayStation 2 at 1343 ELO points and PlayStation 4 trailing by just 9 points at 1334. The sharpest divide in the top five appears between ranks 2 and 3, where 20 ELO points separate PlayStation 4 from Nintendo Switch. This gap matters: it shows how the community draws a line between Sony's recent powerhouse and Nintendo's hybrid platform, which holds third place at 1314 points despite winning 62% of its 376 duels. GameCube and PlayStation 5 sit nearly level at ranks 4 and 5, separated by a single point. At the bottom, the ranking tells a different story about gaming's past. Atari's classic console languishes in last place at 756 points, winning just 17% of its duels, while Sega Saturn and Sega Master System occupy the two positions above it. The verdict is harsh but revealing: nostalgia has limits, and the community remembers which hardware truly mattered.

This ranking draws on 8650 duels cast by 139 players across 21 contenders, updated on 11 October 2026. Head to VAINKEURZ to challenge these results: vote in direct duels, shift the standings, and settle which console deserves the crown.

Updated on October 11, 2026

How this ranking is computed

Every duel won lifts a contender and every loss drops them, by an amount that depends on the opponent's strength: beating the leader is worth more than beating the last. It is an ELO, the same principle as in chess. Duels are not drawn at random — an adaptive entropy sort puts the least predictable match-ups first, which settles the ranking far faster than a full round robin. A worldwide ranking is only published past 30 completed plays. Known limit: a contender who has faced few opponents keeps an approximate score, and the bottom of the table moves more than the podium.

How our rankings are made →