However, they retained their lead in the handheld console market, with the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance models. The Dreamcast, released in 1998, PlayStation 2, released in 2000, and Microsoft's Xbox, released in 2001, would eventually relegate Nintendo to third place in the international market, despite the release of the GameCube. Nintendo and Sega would both lose a significant portion of the console market towards the end of the 1990s, as Sony's PlayStation became the most popular console, beating the Nintendo 64, though Nintendo managed to sell more than Sega Saturn.

In the early 1990s, Nintendo's market lead began to decrease although the 1990 Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) was a strong seller, the Sega Genesis was a very strong contender. In 1989, Nintendo released the Game Boy, which became the first handheld console to sell in large numbers. The NES restarted the video game industry after the video game crash of 1983, and was an international success. Their first systems to achieve worldwide success were the Game & Watch handheld series, before achieving greater worldwide success with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), originally released as the Family Computer (Famicom) in Japan in 1983. The company's first console, the Color TV-Game, was a success in Japan but was never released outside of Japan.

As of September 30, 2021, in addition to Nintendo Switch, Nintendo has sold over 863.07 million hardware units.

The Japanese multinational consumer electronics company Nintendo has developed seven home video game consoles and multiple portable consoles for use with external media, as well as dedicated consoles and other hardware for their consoles. A size comparison of the (top to bottom) Wii (2006), GameCube (2001), Nintendo 64 (1996), North American SNES (1991) and the NES outside of Japan (1985)

Nitro pdf professional portable 64 bit