Best Game Consoles of 2026

There's no disc slot here, and that single omission decides who should buy it. Everything you play comes from the PlayStation Store, so a stack of PS4 discs or a habit of trading games with friends doesn't help you. What you get instead is the slim body, 1 TB of SSD storage, a DualSense controller in the box, and Astro's Playroom pre-installed to show off what the pad can do.

We think most people should take that trade. The SSD loads games fast enough that switching between two or three titles stops feeling like a commitment, 4K output is genuinely sharp on a good TV, and the DualSense is still the best reason to play on a PlayStation — the adaptive triggers do things a standard controller can't. At 8.9 pounds it's also the lightest of the big consoles here, which makes shifting it between rooms less of a chore.

Two practical notes before you order. The vertical stand is sold separately, and the slim model rests on two small clip-on feet when it lies flat — those feet are easy to lose, so decide how it will sit in the cabinet before it arrives. And if you're still on a 1080p TV, expect to see less of what the console can do; the difference shows up on a 4K set.

Twelve teraflops is the number that separates this from everything else in the guide, and it shows up where it counts: 4K output at up to 120 fps, hardware ray tracing, and a custom 1 TB SSD that keeps load screens short. Xbox's Velocity Architecture does the quieter work behind it, streaming data so worlds fill in without a hitch.

We came away most impressed by how little friction sits between you and a game. Quick Resume holds several titles mid-level, so you can drop out of one and pick up another without sitting through logos, and 1 TB means you're not deleting something every week. It's the feature we missed every time we went back to another console.

The all-digital part is the catch. Four generations of backward-compatible games are available, and many arrive upscaled and smoother than they originally ran, but they come as downloads — the 360 discs in the closet stay there. If your library is already digital, this costs you nothing.

Game Pass is the other half of the pitch, and it changes the math on ownership: a subscription turns the console into a rotating library instead of a run of full-price purchases. Between that and the back catalog, most people find something to play before they buy a single new game.

Compared with the Switch 2, this one gives up power and storage and keeps the better-looking panel. The 7-inch OLED is why it stays in the guide: deep blacks, rich color, and a picture that makes handheld play feel like a treat instead of a downgrade from the TV. The wide adjustable stand is the other upgrade that matters — it holds at a usable angle on a tray table, which the original Switch's kickstand never managed for us.

We think it's the right Nintendo for a household that plays in the car and on the couch more than on a big screen. Two things to plan for. The 64 GB of storage is gone after two or three large games, so put a microSD card in the same order, and test both Joy-Con in the first week — the right one has a habit of losing its pairing on some units, and a return is easier early.

Small is the whole idea. At 6.8 pounds this is the console that disappears onto a desk, behind a monitor, or under a bedroom TV, and it still runs the current Xbox library at up to 120 fps with the same Quick Resume trick as its bigger sibling.

What it doesn't do is 4K. This is a 1440p machine, and on a large 4K set you'll notice softer edges next to a Series X — fewer detail settings, less bite in the distance. Pair it with a 1080p or 1440p screen, or a monitor at desk distance, and the gap closes to the point where we stopped thinking about it. The 1 TB version is the one to get: installs are large, and a subscription library fills a drive faster than you expect.

Value is where this ends up for us. It's the least expensive Xbox in this guide, setup runs through the phone app in a few minutes, and the size means it can be the second console in the house rather than a replacement for the main one. Keep it out in the open, too — some units drop the wireless controller connection at random, and a clear line to the pad, or a cable, sorts it out.