Favourite Retro Game Consoles Revealed in Online Survey

Last Updated on June 7, 2021

Ever thought about what your top retro game console is? A recent online survey seeking to find the internet’s top consoles might be able to help.

TopRatedCasinos.co.uk investigated which game consoles are considered favourites, relying on social networks to gauge interest in devices. Researchers looked for mentions of Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft consoles across Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, and TikTok. Popularity points were then assigned to indicate popularity.

How the Survey Worked

After compiling the list of devices, researchers created a list of naming variations (e.g. ‘playstation1’, ‘playstationone’, ‘ps1’, ‘psone’, etc.). These were compared on Instagram using its hashtag feature, and the results recorded. Similarly, they were checked on TikTok to find the number of times videos with those hashtags were watched; each variation mentioned in the r/Gaming and r/Games subreddits was also counted. On YouTube, videos were counted if they featured the console, information about it, or came from an official account.

Finally, data was assigned a score of 0-25, while consoles were given a score out of 100 to establish their social popularity overall.

While the Xbox One (2nd) and Series S|X and PlayStation 4 (1st) and PlayStation 5 unsurprisingly did well, a few retro systems also made their presence felt in the survey.,

The PlayStation 3, for example, was the third most tagged console on Instagram,and the second most talked about console on Reddit with 574,572 mentions.

Survey Results

As you can see, Nintendo’s 21st century systems did surprisingly well in the research, with retro game consoles such as the Wii and Wii U scoring well.

	Instagram	TikTok	Reddit	YouTube
Playstation 1	1408800	173500000	222139	61524758
Playstation 2	2014100	483499600	314764	32786690
Playstation 3	9358800	362502293	574572	15748871
Playstation 4	41380500	20102971900	951486	88204527
Playstation 5	4401100	12302324300	157920	95483124
PSP	1044300	137300000	78270	15259538
Playstation Classic	50200	2578757	4269	7623364
NES (Nintendo Entertainment System)	2008000	151700000	162238	40015654
Nintendo 64	876000	44100000	20465	14267577
Nintendo gamecube	986000	106500000	156283	9679757
Nintendo Wii	1798000	1854700000	529371	13370900
Nintendo Wii U	1548000	1370200000	260259	46270435
Nintendo Switch	7200000	1700000000	83435	158377343
Nintendo DS	2017600	167400000	192764	10146516
Gameboy	2714000	1961536000	117728	80368421
Nintendo 3DS	2956000	15300000	254889	15103728
Nintendo 2DS	248400	11279200	19041	17687816
Xbox (Original)	19900	769801	68925	15767028
Xbox 360	4402000	473630400	209075	18582898
Xbox One	22067300	2021434900	537848	53134485
Xbox Series X/S	2151900	1161900000	162870	45295075

The scores above were converted into more readable points, providing researchers with a score out of 25:

	Instagram	TikTok	Reddit	YouTube	Social Popularity Points
Playstation 4	25	25	25	22.5	97.5
Xbox One	23.75	22.5	22.5	18.75	87.5
Playstation 5	18.75	23.75	10	23.75	76.25
Nintendo Switch	21.25	18.75	6.25	25	71.25
Playstation 3	22.5	12.5	23.75	8.75	67.5
Gameboy	16.25	21.25	7.5	21.25	66.25
Nintendo Wii U	8.75	17.5	18.75	17.5	62.5
Playstation 2	12.5	15	20	13.75	61.25
Xbox 360	20	13.75	15	12.5	61.25
Xbox Series X/S	15	16.25	12.5	16.25	60
Playstation 1	7.5	11.25	16.25	20	55
Nintendo Wii	10	20	21.25	3.75	55
NES (Nintendo Entertainment System)	11.25	8.75	11.25	15	46.25
Nintendo 3DS	17.5	3.75	17.5	6.25	45
Nintendo DS	13.75	10	13.75	2.5	40
PSP	6.25	7.5	5	7.5	26.25
Nintendo gamecube	5	6.25	8.75	1.25	21.25
Nintendo 2DS	2.5	2.5	1.25	11.25	17.5
Nintendo 64	3.75	5	2.5	5	16.25
Xbox (Original)	0	0	3.75	10	13.75
Playstation Classic	0	1.25	0	0	1.25

As you can see above, the score for the Nintendo Wii U is particularly surprising, perhaps underlining how much it is admired by Nintendo die hards. Its current role as the must have homebrew platform for Nintendo users probably has some impact on this.

Take a look at the tables above. Did you spot any surprises?