Which console won the last gen war?

[Aulayna]

I'd go with the XBOX 360 to be honest. XBOX Live became a very robust service that Sony spent much of the last generation trying to catch-up with.

Given the huge brand loyalty Sony had from the PS2 generation, it's staggering that the 360 managed to end up on fairly even footing with Sony, and was even ahead of Sony at times, for most of the last generation.

XBLA also really forced Sony to review the way it treated independent and smaller developers as well as apps.

The 360 really caught Sony off-guard. At the beginning of the generation it really felt like Sony just assumed that "better hardware" and the "PlayStation logo" would ship consoles.

For me, as much as I've owned each PlayStation console - I actually even bought a XBOX 360, which is telling considering during the PS2 era I thought XBOX was scum on earth and Microsoft cashing in on a market where they weren't wanted. So I have to say it was the 360.

The tables really flipped with PS4/XBone though.

Although in terms of opening up the market and diversifying it: Wii hands down.

[Slothy]

I don't think it's give the Wii much credit for opening up and diversifying the market considering the market they tapped doesn't buy consoles anymore (hello smartphones and tablets) and they barely bought games for the thing. It was very much a fad that had no staying power. It couldn't even keep its massive sales going until the WiiU came out.

All they showed is that someone who's typically a non-gamer will occasionally buy simpler games to play occasionally in their spare time, but considering that was pop cap games entire business model for years before the Wii came out it didn't even prove that i suppose.

The Wii really is just an anomaly. It unintentionally made the right moves at the right time to provide something novel and bring in non console gamers before smartphones and tablets usurped it as the casual game platform of choice. It really hasn't had a lasting impact on the console market at all (unless you count the introduction of motion controls which are largely terrible for anything but casual games and have gone back to being a complete afterthought), and i doubt Nintendo even fully understands why it did as well as it did.

[Spuuky]

The PC won and will continue to win and every console will continue its march to PC-hood.

[Mirage]

That's about as relevant as bringing up formula 1 in a "car of the year" discussion.

[Spuuky]

I guess? Consoles and PCs are direct game platform competitors which anyone can buy.