USgamer Community Question: If you Could Only Own One Console, Which Would it be?

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Here's an interesting poser. Imagine you find yourself in a situation where you can only own one console, plus however many of your favorite games you want. Which console would you pick - and why?

Would you go for a modern console of today, and perhaps a smaller collection of games, or would you prefer to have an older machine with a vast range of games? While you ponder your selection, here's what Team USG would pick if they could only own but one system.

Jaz Rignall, Editor-at-Large

I really feel like cheating this one, because a Hyperkin Retron 5 console would give me access to some of the greatest 8 and 16-bit games in history. The machine plays both domestic and import Genesis, SNES, and NES games, as well as Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance titles. I'd be spoiled for choice for games - a myriad of top titles immediately spring to mind, from classic platformers like Super Mario World and Super Metroid to Genesis sports greats such as PGA Tour Golf and NHL Hockey. Then for long-term challenges you'd have a veritable goodie-bag of JRPGs like the Phantasy Star series and Shining Force. And I could certainly do with playing those, since I never did the first time around.

However, tempting though a multi-game retro console might be, I think I'll be a little less of a cheat, and instead go for an old, fat PS3 with PS2/1 backwards compatibility. That right there would give me access to a selection of perhaps the greatest modern day ranges of games, spanning some 20 years to date. Sure, not everything is backwards compatible, but whether it's playing the latest Gran Turismo, which more than holds its own against next generation competition, revisiting open-world classics like Red Dead Redemption and Vice City, or enjoying some of the best coin-op compilations any machine has ever seen, I believe a fat PlayStation 3 offers perhaps the broadest and most interesting choice of games of any console out there.

There are also so many games I missed too: almost all the JRPGS, all of the Metal Gear Solid games, most non-soccer sports games, and classics like Mass Effect, Portal 2 and the Uncharted series.

Having written all that out, I now find myself browsing lists of "greatest PS3 games," realizing that perhaps I shouldn't relegate my PS3 to the back of the closet as I was planning to do in a big Xmas sorting of my under-TV electronics, and indeed buy up some of these games cheap and have a very happy Christmas playing them! That machine has still got some serious legs now I think about it - which is why it's my choice if I could only own just one single system.

Jeremy Parish, Editor-in-Chief

Unlike Jaz, I have no compunctions whatsoever about cheating. I'm going with a weird underdog system, the Wii U, precisely because it is a legitimate Swiss knife of a console. The Wii U itself plays host to some solid games (with quite a few more on the way next year), but then you factor in Virtual Console and you have a massive selection of classics available, too. And then you bring in the Wii backward compatibility, and that adds dozens of must-own greats. Oh, and the Wii's Virtual Console works just fine on Wii U, which accounts for hundreds of beautifully curated classics. And if you really want to be a smartass, you can do that jailbreak trick that allows Wii U to play GameCube games and bam — suddenly you have access to nearly the entire Nintendo catalog, save most of the portable stuff.

This was a hard call, though. My heart screamed for 3DS, because portable gaming is where my deepest affections lie. And my brain strongly recommended a first-generation PlayStation 3, which offers support for three generations of Sony games. The lack of big, meaty, open-world experiences on Wii U is a real negative for me, too. But in the end, I grew up playing Nintendo games, and I have a feeling that's how I'll go out, too.

Mike Williams, Associate Editor

Like Jaz, I'm going to go with the old, fat PlayStation 3. That's a system with full internet connectivity that's still receiving games. One hard drive swap and you have a 500 GB monster machine that can play PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation 3 games. Regardless of whether your disc has a black, blue, or silver bottom, everything slides right into that mechanical slot and boots up.

And the magic doesn't even just stop there. If you don't have the discs, there's still a number of PSOne Classics on the PlayStation Store. There's indie games galore that are hitting the PS3 with increasing regularly. The PlayStation 3 is even holding on with new retail releases; Guilty Gear Xrd might be a 1080p, 60fps marvel on PlayStation 4, but it's still rocking at 720p and 60 fps on the PlayStation 3.

The Wii U might be a solid option if you're fine with certain genres, but my fighting game slate needs more than just Super Smash Bros. Every Mega Man and Street Fighter game? PlayStation only folks. Racing action? Every Burnout game, every Need for Speed, every Gran Turismo, Sonic All-Stars Racing Transformed, Blue, and more answer the call. Countless coin-op and classic game collections. There's a depth of content you will not find on any other system, with something for everyone.

PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation 3 retail titles, PSOne Classics, and a host of inventive indies and smaller titles all adds up to one of the best gaming libraries in a long time. And that's before I even get to all the other services I tend to use, like Netflix, Crunchyroll, and Amazon Instant Video. Or the wide variety of PlayStation 3 peripherals, like some great fightsticks, that you may not find on other platforms. The original PlayStation 3 is a monster, and if I have to choose just one console, that's it.

Kat Bailey, Senior Editor

This is a really tough question. I'm tempted to say that I would be happy with just a Nintendo 3DS, but I know that I would really miss my sports games if I gave up my PlayStation 4. On the other hand, giving up the 3DS means no Pokémon. This is a regular Sophie's Choice here.

I'd like to say that I would keep my PlayStation 4; but in my heart of hearts, I know that I can't give up my beloved monster collection, so the Nintendo 3DS it is, I suppose. Actually, I've lived something approximating this scenario; when I was in Japan, I had a PlayStation 2 and a Nintendo DS and that was pretty much it. And you know what? I loved it. I had more games on the Nintendo DS than I could even begin to play.

Left with only a Nintendo 3DS, I would finally be able to catch up on the RPGs I've missed over the years such as Dragon Quest IV, and I would have plenty of retro games to play via the eShop. Between the 3DS library, the DS library, and the smaller downloadable games, I would be busy for a very long time. Plus, the Nintendo 3DS is great because you can play it while doing something else, like marathoning Archer. That's why handheld systems are the best.

I suppose someone might argue that handheld games can't deliver the same experience as a console, but graphics honestly aren't a priority for me anymore. Handheld consoles are now quite capable of matching their console counterparts in terms of depth and complexity, and they are home to many games that simply don't appear on consoles that much (Exhibit A: Monster Hunter). Besides, when was the last time you were able to play PlayStation 4 on an airplane? Case closed. Nintendo 3DS it is.

Bob Mackey, Senior Writer

This choice may end up getting me crucified, but I guess now's the most appropriate time of the year for that kind of thing to go down: If I could only have one console, it would be a Wii U.

Picking Nintendo's newest console above all the rest made for an extremely tough decision. To be honest, the PS2 (or the first-run, backwards-compatible PS3) nearly won out, mostly due to the sheer size of its library—but the Wii U has a few factors going for it that other consoles don't.

To start off, I know the Wii U has a pretty modest amount of games available, but when I look its dedicated section on my DVD shelf, every single plastic box contains an absolutely outstanding experience. Mario Kart 8, Super Mario 3D World, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Bayonetta 2, Captain Toad and more have made for some of my favorite gaming moments of the past few years, and if I drop $60 on a new WiiU game—an amount I rarely spend thanks to being spoiled by Steam—I know I'm in for an absolutely well-crafted experience... Mostly because the majority of the Wii U's library comes from Nintendo itself. Even so, there's no denying those guys and gals know how to slap together a video game.

But what really pushes the Wii U to the top of my list can be found in its level of backwards compatibility that's absolutely unprecedented for a modern console. Yes, you can play your old Wii collection—there's no way I'm putting the Super Mario Galaxies in storage—but the Virtual Console provides access to a back catalog of Nintendo games stretching 30 years into the past. It's true this service doesn't release games nearly as often as it should, but if you're hungry for more, you can always jump into the Wii U's Wii shell and dive into that system's Virtual Console and everything it had to offer in its six years of existence. Yes, it's not the best setup known to man, but my Wii U still contains some of the best games ever made: It's a great feeling to switch on a modern console and have Super Mario World, Super Metroid, Final Fantasy VI, and Chrono Trigger sitting there, waiting for you.

At this point, it's not really clear how much life the Wii U has left, but, at the moment, it remains my favorite console thanks to its versatility and the sheer amount of Best Games Ever available for the thing. I mean, you can literally play every Legend of Zelda game on the Wii U at this point, right? Until another console can top that achievement, I'm sticking to my decision.