Indeed. No one ever wins. :)

Nintendo and Microsoft won in terms of capturing the hearts of most people. Not N4G people who comment on games- they comment on the PS3 more than anything. The mass market.

The Wii won by selling to 'families'- being a concept that your 3 year old or your grandma could understand straight away. In its popularity, it sacrificed some of the things that made the N64 and Gamecube memorable to long time gamers.

The Xbox360 probably won by several factors- by replicating the broad number of types of games that the PS2 had, by a generally lessened popularity of the Sony name with the massmarket in the face of the likes of Samsung and LG releasing HDTVs, by the Xbox360 looking more acceptably sized and styled than the Xbox to be put in a living room, by people who had been aware of the Xbox but hadn't bought one deciding to give it a go in its second generation, by a downturn in the importance of Japanese gaming companies (but the Xbox360 had those anyway) and Japanese sales figures, by a large American fanbase on the internet. And finally it countered the Wii by launching the Kinect which had enough exclusive games to get attention.

The PS3 was hit by claims of being over-expensive (which stuck even when it reached bargain prices), by Bluray being slow to take off as many prefer downloading movies, by having a large Xbox library released before it as companies struggled with the Cell, by some inferior ports early on and perhaps still now, by losing some exclusives and the new exclusives sometimes being slow to catch on.

It's as if the PS3 has partly paid for the enormous popularity of the PS2 against all its competitors.
The casuals showed themselves to be just that- very casual about turning away from Sony. Ironically, it partly helped me decide to buy a PS3, now slightly seen as the 'niche' console.

Well, if you think that are you surprised? Everytime I see/hear somebody argue about which one is better it is generally an ignorant 12 year old, COD-playing, self-centred loser.

I never understood why people takes things so seriously. Even rooting for your sports team, people take it seriously. When I go see a movie it is about the movie. So if I want to discuss the movie with other people it's about the movie and maybe the acting. That doesn't mean I join the Brad Pitt or Halle Berry bandwagon. It also isn't about the studio who released the movie. I never hear anyone carry on about Dreamworks. Sure people talk about Disney but it's never malicious like we see in videogame forums.

Same thing with music. People have their own tastes but the arguments aren't about which record company is better. It's about the music. So why are games so unique? Why are gamers often viewed as being so immature? The answer could be very simple and that is how videogames are released.

When one buys a CD player or a MP3 player they expect it to play any music. Same thing when they buy a DVD or bluray player, they too expect it to play any movie. That is why when HD DVD and bluray were going at it they had to settle their dispute quickly because the consumer was not going to support two formats. So again why is gaming so unique? It comes down to feeling like you own something that someone else might not be able to play.

That's because companies like Sony and Nintendo and now Microsoft have decided to not only supply game hardware but also their own software. This created a barrier long ago back to the old Nintendo and Sega days. So gamers were accustomed to siding with one over the other because most families only had one system.

I see the console wars evolving into service wars. Where it becomes something like Steam versus Origin. You'll see the same thing occur with Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. It will be who has the best service and what content they sell online.

The console wars will keep going as long as we support an industry that wants to support multiple systems with unique software that can't be bought on any one device.