Actually, sales is the ONLY factor that matters AT ALL. You would know that if you actually read what I wrote instead of skipping to look at the rankings. Sales and sales alone determine the winner of the Console War. Everything else is just various indicators for possible future trends, but the current, FACTUAL (not MY rankings) rankings in the Console War are exactly as I stated them. 1: Nintendo, 2: Microsoft, 3: Sony.

The other factors are all things that eventually lead to fluctuations in sales. So basically, my logical prediction is that, because as you noted, Nintendo doesn't exactly have the fullest list of features compared to the other two consoles, the war will definitely get closer. I'm not so sure if the actual rankings will change, though, given how big a lead Nintendo has, and the fact that the Wii is only gaining sales momentum.

No one cares. If you actually read what I wrote, you'd see that very little of what I said is opinion. It doesn't matter who I think "RULES!!!!" (for the record, Nintendo as a company and 360 as a console), it's only the facts that matter.

Also, see below...

No, but I am a real worm, I am an actual worm.

This goes for ebyam07 as well: Learn how to read. If you did, maybe you wouldn't sound like morons when you try to (weakly) argue with facts...facts that you probably didn't read in the first place, just skipping to the bottom and going "N1ntendo LOLZ GHEY." I don't take subjective sides in this silly little "war," I just made this post to end the arguing with cold, hard, logical truth. If you can't handle it, then you're nothing but a pathetic fanboy, a drooling slave to corporate marketing.

If you want to actually read what I wrote and legitimately argue a point I made, then that's a-okay.

Sigh, you didn't read it either, did you?

Thank you for reading:

Thing is, they're not really my standings. Those are the current rankings in sales, though I do predict that those rankings will be the same at the end of this generation. I doubt that anything is going to stop Nintendo now (even the shortages will cause an explosion in sales once they get their act together), though the race between Microsoft and Sony is much closer.

I'm not sure how big a factor Blu-Ray is going to make, however. It depends on how soon the format stops being "next-gen" and starts being "standard," and it depends on price fluctuations for Blu-Ray players. I mean, I don't have a Blu-Ray player and I'm not exactly suffering.

The only way I see Sony truly trumping Microsoft is if:

A: They ramp up the exclusives. You can make as many frivolous Second-Life-esque online interfaces as you want, but ultimately, games sell consoles.

And B: they wrestle with the full power potential of their machine and emerge just steps away from the Uncanny Valley. While graphics are far from the first thing that I look for in video games, but you'd be surprised for how many gamers they are.

Exactly. Why can't more people realize that I'm God and my word is law?

Seriously, though, I think that conclusions derived from large amounts of logical facts can practically be considered factual themselves, depending on the circumstances. For example: evolution. And besides, I never said anything about which console is "better." That will always be completely up to opinion and personal preference. I'm just saying who is winning (fact) and who is likely to win (logical, objective opinion) the war.

O I C WAT U DID THAR.

Well, you heard wrong. As of now (according to Wikipedia, as of late March for Wii and late April for the other two), the sales of the three current-gen consoles worldwide are as follows:

1. Wii- 24.35 million units
2. Xbox 360- 19 million units
3. PlayStation 3- 13 million units

And the Wii's lead is probably even bigger, since those statistics are old and Wii sales have only continued to go up almost exponentially since then.

Yes, for each person personally, it's all a matter of personal preference. I didn't make this to argue which console is "best," because that's a stupid argument. It's really purely based on opinion, like you said. I made it to argue that the "console war" is an equally stupid argument for the opposite reason. Sales don't lie, and when you're talking about a competition between three pieces of hardware, commodities, sales is the only factor that matters.

I talked about those other factors to make predictions about possible future fluctuations in the sales rankings, but those rankings for the "war" at the end aren't my personal preference. It's fact, and my predictions are based on fact.

TL;DR: "l0lz wihc c0nzul iz b3st" and "omfg cons0l waar" are two completely different things, and neither of them are up for argument.

I guess it's partially because I kind of felt like throwing a bone to the unwashed Sony fanboy masses who would otherwise cry foul, partially because Blu-Ray may actually be a pretty big deal sales-wise (considering the fact that a PS3 is the cheapest high-end Blu-Ray player available), and partially because (even though I find the Microsoft services to be better) we can't forget that Sony's online services are free of charge.

Well, I first made this quite some time ago (but I still don't really think it needs updating).

And what do you mean by "reached its limits?" The 360 is still pulling consistent sales numbers, as is the PS3 (although the PS3 probably just had a momentary MGS 4-induced spike, though I doubt it was anything close to the Halo 3 sales explosion).

I'm actually hoping that the VC continues to expand its library. The more the youngsters can get into gaming history now, the less likely they'll make the same mistakes our generation did. They'll demand great gameplay experiences instead of pretty graphics and violence. And the exclusion of the Mother trilogy from the VC is nothing short of insulting.

Also, you shouldn't judge Nintendo's potential sales success on the quality of the software alone, per se. We're dealing with a whole different animal here. Most Wii owners will gladly consume shovelware, unfortunately.

The "console war," as I see it, is an argument over which console will be the most successful in a given generation, and as I've said multiple times in both the post and in my replies, that is completely different from which console is "best." I'm not an idiot. I know that different people have different opinions and different wants and needs in a console, and as such, I'm not trying to make an argument as to which system is "best."

But anyways, the only real way to determine the success or failure of a piece of hardware in competition with other pieces of hardware is to do so in the same way that the consoles' manufacturers themselves do: unit sales. All of those other factors I mentioned are just used to inform predictions in sales. In terms of determining which console is the "best," they only speak for my own opinions, but at least they're based on logic as opposed to brand loyalty, which is more than I can say for most of Newgrounds. I never claim that these things are facts, though. The only things that are factual are the final rankings, and they ARE indeed factual. I am not "the authority." but the NPD most certainly is.

Now, concerning my alleged fanboyism. I'll admit that I've always felt a certain nostalgic attachment to Nintendo, but nostalgia by definition concerns itself only with the past. I'm downright disgusted by almost everything Nintendo does these days, though I still feel that this is just them getting a little high on their newfound position of power, so I've still got a little hope in their future. 'Tis no matter, though. Corporations are corporations, and corporations run on dick moves. Few, if any, companies are exempt from that analysis.

But I digress. I own all three consoles as well, and of the three, it's the 360 that's far and away my favorite, the one that I think is "best," and my PS3 is fast gaining on my Wii, which I've also identified numerous times on the VG forum as a "dust-collector." So much for my allegedly blatant Nintendo bias.

Now, as for your statement that "numbers don't mean a thing (at least not in the long run)." I totally agree with you. Sales should never be a factor in determining the success of art, be it a video game, movie, etc...but we're not talking about art here. We're talking about cold, hard commodities, and the only true measure of their success or failure (though of course not necessarily of their quality) is how well they sell, and in those terms, I stand by my post as not just "right," but as fact.

Finally, concerning my "venomous" comments toward the PS3 and my "pissing and moaning." This is just me, but I've found that on this forum, it has been the PS3 loyalists who have been the most vitriolic and the most clearly conveying of severe fanboy tendencies. As such, I was more concerned about receiving incoherent, unnecessarily punitive responses from them than I was about other consoles' fanboys, especially considering that the PS3 is viewed in the worst light of the three here. But anyway, this post was written some time ago, and since then, I've had plenty of new joys and headaches with each console. As a result, my opinions on some of those factors have changed a little bit, but those segments aren't nearly as important as my overarching point here: that we cannot argue who is winning the "war" because the NPD charts can always clearly tell us, and we cannot argue who is "best," because the parameters for such a thing are and should be totally different for each person.

And as a side note, it's sort of odd that you'd call me out for these things, when it seems very apparent where your loyalties lie. But whatever, you were wrong about me, so maybe I'm wrong about you.