The best console for me is easily the Xbox 360. The internet became a huge part of gaming with the Xbox 360 and it opened up so many possibilities. Online gaming was bigger and more refined than it had ever been. Broken games that shipped with bugs and glitches no longer had to stay broken due to the ability to patch them with online updates. We were given access to game demos straight from our consoles. DLC, while frowned upon by some, offered us all sorts of post release content ranging from as small as character skins and multiplayer maps to as big as hours of additional storied content to even brand new campaigns. But best of all, an internet connection gave us access to an entirely brand new digital library of indie, retro, and new games. And that's not even factoring in the stellar library of games and new IPs that we were introduced to during the Xbox 360's long 8 year run.
Halo was at its peak and utterly dominating the first-person shooter genre with Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo: Reach, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, and Halo 4. Microsoft got themselves another killer app with Epic Games' influential third-person cover based shooter, Gears of War. We saw the birth of many new franchises like Dead Rising, Saint's Row, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, Dead Space, Left 4 Dead, Batman Arkham, Borderlands, Red Dead Redemption, and Injustice. We got tons of stellar sequels, revivals, and reboots like GTA IV and V, Max Payne 3, Splinter Cell: Conviction and Blacklist, Far Cry 3, Fallout 3 and New Vegas, Skyrim, Street Fighter IV, Marvel vs Capcom 3, Mortal Kombat, and Tomb Raider. There were also just as many lower profile gems as well, such as Alan Wake, Bayonetta, Captain America: Super Soldier, Condemned, Dante's Inferno, Enslaved, Ghostbusters, L.A. Noire, Spec Ops: The Line, Vanquish, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and so many more.
The system was around through three phases of my life. Elementary school, Middle School, and High School. By the time it came to an end, it felt unreal to think that after so much time, gaming was finally moving forward. I still have a huge backlog of games from the Xbox 360 that I still need to catch up on and we're nearly 2 generations away from it. It is by far the largest library of games in my collection, and still growing. I'm still absolutely amazed by how much we got from it, because this generation just hasn't quite measured up. But if one thing is for sure, gaming was never the same after the Xbox 360, and I mean that in the best way.