Collider just put out a full ranking of every sixth generation console, and reading through it felt like flipping through a photo album of my teenage years. The PS2, the GameCube, the original Xbox, the Dreamcast, the Game Boy Advance. That stretch of hardware basically raised a generation of us.

The usual answer to "which one wins" is the PlayStation 2, and it's hard to argue with the math. It sold somewhere north of 155 million units, it had a library deep enough to drown in, and it doubled as a DVD player when that alone justified the price. I've logged more hours on PS2s than I care to admit, mostly in FFXI parties that ran way too late on school nights.

But the fun part of a list like this is the fights it starts. The GameCube people will show up armed. Double Dash, Melee, Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, that little purple lunchbox had an absurd hit rate even if it got mocked at the time. And the Dreamcast loyalists, rest their brave souls, will tell you Sega went out on the highest note possible. Shenmue, PSO, Soulcalibur's home port, and a built-in modem in 1999. The Dreamcast was doing online console gaming before most of us had internet that could handle it.

Then there's the GBA, which is the sleeper pick of the whole generation. It wasn't fighting in the living room at all, it owned the bus ride and the backseat and the under-the-blanket hours. Golden Sun, Fire Emblem breaking in the West, Metroid Fusion, Advance Wars. Handheld libraries don't get much more iconic than that.

Xbox rounds it out as the newcomer that muscled in with Halo and Xbox Live, the thing that laid the groundwork for basically all console online play as we know it. Whatever your guild looks like today, some strand of its DNA traces back to that green circle of friends lists.

My take after reading the whole ranking: the PS2 deserves the crown, but "best" and "most beloved" aren't always the same console. Ask anyone who hosted a GameCube party in 2003 and they'll fight you on it. The thing is, this generation was less about one winner and more about the fact that every single one of these machines built a community that's still arguing about them 20-plus years later. Watching people still care this much two decades on might be the real win.

Check Collider's full list for the actual order and the reasoning, then come argue about it. Which one sat under your TV? Or under your blanket, if you're GBA gang? Drop it in the comments, I want to see the Melee defenders come out swinging.