Hard to say, every generation has its positives and negatives and alot of it boils down to personal taste and nostalgia but generally here is what I think.

 

Atari generation: It pretty much started it all, the games were very simple and graphics and sound were quite primitive especially by todays standards but simple dosen't necessarily mean bad. A lot of these games are actually quite addictive even if they may not have the complexity of many of todays games. On the negative end of things there was a flood of crappy games that caused the gaming crash of 83.

 

8 bit generation: Got us out of the gaming crash and introduced us to countless gaming staples such as Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda ect with Nintendo clearly dominating. Sega had its master system around that same time but Sega would not be able to catch up to Nintendo until the Sega Genesis. Games could be saved for the first time with either password systems or in the case of Zelda an internal memory in the cartridge which allowed you to save your progress. It is something that is not a big deal today but was huge back then. One major problem with gaming during the time is that dust would get in the cartridges which would often cause people to blow into them to get them to work again which crossed over in the 16 bit era as well. Gaming was still relatively simple but markedly more complex than gaming during the previous generation.

 

16 bit generation: One of the most significant periods of innovation in gaming history, with Nintendo and Sega head to head to outdo each other it was one of the best times to be a gamer. Games became much more varied and graphics and sound became much more advanced with story taking a much larger role in many games. With games like Mortal Kombat on the rise "mature" games were for the first time getting mainstream market share. There were also innovations late in this period with 3D technology with the Super FX chip for the SNES pushing the boundaries of what it could do with the original Star Fox being the most notable example of this.

 

32/64 bit generation: This was when Sega started to screw up but Nintendo was not entirely innocent of mistakes either. The Nintendo 64 was a great system but Nintendo's decision to stick to outdated cartridge technology limited what games could be ported to the Nintendo 64 and caused them to lose market share to Sony with their Playstation. Nintendo still released great games though like Super Mario 64 and Zelda Ocarina of time but for the first time Nintendo was starting to lose ground. Graphics became more important as the Playstations superior power was one of the reasons why it outsold the Nintendo 64 but despite this the Nintendo 64 games I mentioned as well as a few others are still to this day regarded as classics.

 

Playstation 2/Xbox and Gamecube generation: Sony kept up its success and Nintendo though it still made good games fell behind once again due to lack of 3rd party support. The polygons from the previous generation smoothed out 3D graphics became more clear and defined. Microsoft also threw its hat into the ring but with the exception of a few exclusives had mostly the same games as the Playstation 2 did. With this generation exclusives became less and less common and cross platform titles started to become the norm.

 

Playstation 3/Wii and Xbox 360 Generation: With a wide variety of downloadable titles both mainstream and indie, the Wii tapping into the casual gaming market and crossover titles once again being common it was another time to be a great gamer. Of course there were some negatives that are continuing into the current generation as well like unfinished/buggy games being released way before they should have been (Skyrim and Assassins Creed Unity I am looking at you guys), over reliance on micro transactions and downloadable content (a few bucks here and there can really add up) and DRM bullshit being a few.

 

That was my wall o text for the day I think I am going to get some dinner now.

Source: Which Generation of Gaming is better?