Funny, I don't remember the Halo titles being really military shooters.

And last time I checked, Modern Warfare 2 was the first Call of Duty title in the franchise that was embraced by the mainstream. If it wasn't for that title, Black Ops, MW3, Black Ops 2, and even other developers' titles like Battlefield 3 wouldn't have been the gigantic hits they were.

... and if you play Call of Duty and Battlefield for the single player, you're doing it wrong.

... oh, and none of those were Microsoft's doing either. Weird!

Are the Spartans part of a military? Yes they are.

I don't play Call of Duty and Battlefield at all because they bore me. I play Bioshock, Fallout, and Borderlands for FPS.

Halo and Gears are Microsoft's doing. Microsoft's early original Xbox games like the Tom Clancy's games with all their tactical and military focus basically paved the way for this obsession with those types of games.

PS3's exclusives are much more diverse, and more artistically driven.

I'd classify Halo as action, science-fiction, and fantasy long before I would consider it a military title. I'd argue the same thing with Gears, especially it's more steam punk and, you know, a third-person shooter.

And to really argue, the two most popular FPS games consistently played online are actually Counter-strike and Team Fortress 2 on the PC. A game that originated fifteen years ago and another that is (now) free-to-play.

If anything, third-party developers are to blame for the obsession for these types of games. Valve perfected it on the PC whereas Infinity Ward perfected it on the consoles. COD4 laid the groundwork for IW to knock it right out of the park with MW2.

I also don't see what the problem with DLC is in this case. When it comes to games like the Call of Duty franchise and Halo, it's been that of additional ways to play online. That's DLC I'm completely okay with as it extends the life and longevity of the game. Halo 4 actually took it to another level with the Spartan Ops DLC as it was free to anyone who just purchased the game.

Bioshock, Fallout, and Borderlands are fantastic FPS... to play alone. If I want to get online, Call of Duty is where it's at in the console realm... because 343 dropped the fucking ball with the multiplayer on Halo 4.

Late in the Gamecube's life, Nintendo was all but irrelevant. There was talk of them getting out of the hardware business (not for the first time) and even the most optimistic fans were resigned to hoping for a niche console that did well enough to keep them afloat and publishing AAA first-party titles. They announced the Wii at E3 and everyone thought they were insane. Stupid name. Stupid gimmicky controller. Underpowered compared to the competition. Looked like a surefire loser.

For a good chunk of this generation, the Wii's sales were nearly as high as the 360 and PS3 combined. Even as it faded due to a variety of problems that are especially annoying to 'real gamers', it maintained a 40% of a market when Nintendo had been nearly universally expected to tank prior to the console launching.

And as far as software, I just skimmed a list of the 20 best selling games of all time. Of the 12 titles on the list that were for consoles, the Wii had 7 and the 360 had 1. And yes, several of the Wii titles were pack-ins with the console, balance board or controller, but the only 360 title was the pack-in for the Kinect.

Your argument seems to be that they had some missteps that positioned them to do poorly in the Wii-U/720/PS4 generation, which I'll agree with wholeheartedly. My Wii gathers dust just like a lot of other people's and the only game I've played on it in the last year left me disappointed (Skyward Sword). That said, given where Nintendo started the generation and where it ended up, there's really no way to say they didn't win this round.

In terms of overall sales the Wii won hands down. That one isn't up for debate.

I don't think anyone is really discussing "won" in reference to total sales.

This is the correct answer.

The companies who are trying to make money off of their consoles certainly do. Winning should be able to be measured objectively. If you aren’t going to talk about objective measures like sales and profitability, you should ask which console was your favorite.

I'm going to go with 360, as people have said the controller for the ps3 just isn't comfortable for me. but, i look at the above and its right, the exclusives were far superior for ps3, but personally, that's all i use my ps3 for (aside from a blu ray player of course).

Paying for live is a moot point for me, yes, I've paid the 35 bucks a year since i got it, but i feel that the experience of live is far superior to the psn stuff (i have not used ps+, but i do see a lot of value in it). The party chat, ease of use, and easier UI all make the 360 a better experience for me. again, probably just how much i've used it, but thats my feelings.

i'd go 360, ps3, wii, but thats from more of an opinion than anything else. the fact that the 360 and ps3 were complete home entertainment packages where the wii didn't have HD really took the wii out of my entertainment system. i don't even think i've turned it on in about a year. aside from galaxys, mario kart and super paper mario, i don't think i did much with that system.

The Wii jumped out to an early lead in console sales by capturing the casual market but sales of software and hardware have dropped off since the casual market has moved on to mobile platforms and tablets. 360 wins because they gained market share on Sony. (Remember Sony Dominated the past 2 generations) MicroSoft was smart enough to jump out a year early on PS3 and as a software company they had a better interface for the online experience. Sony learned their lesson and eventually caught up (I think worldwide console sales are even - though North American sales favor the 360 - Which I credit to RROD causing failures and making many gamers buy multiple consoles early in the console cycle)

Gamers win.

I think my main problem with what you have listed is the fact I liked the games more on paper than in actuality. Uncharted 2 was fantastic, Heavy Rain was cool and Ni No Kuni is killer nostalgia overload. Unfortunately I had to struggle to finish Uncharted 1 or 3 (both flamed out before the endings), I had played Ico and Shadow on the previous gen, had my fill of Jax and God of War on the last gen, got too impatient for Metal Gear 4, and, well Metal Gear Solid HD Collection is multi console.

Plus I really hate that controller.

I guess it doesn't hurt that some of my favorite games this gen were some of the less obvious titles, like Castle Crashers, Splosion Man and Ms Splosion Man, Fez, Super Meat Boy, and getting to replay Ikaruga. Echochrome is the only PSN title that I really loved, though I admit I may have missed a couple (I never got into the whole "It's art!" genre of Flower and Journey). I guess I should note that my favorite PSX games were Intelligent Qube and SotN, so I guess it's no surprise that I'm still more a fan of puzzle games and side scrollers.

Personally: PS3. For the gaming community: The 360. For the general public: The Wii.

Worldwide, I'd say PS3 won by a good margin due to its staying power over the Wii. In the US only, 360 by a landslide.

Console sales numbers are important, yes. But they don't tell the whole story. Nintendo sold a lot of consoles to non-gamers (both of my kids' grandparents have one -- and a Wii Fit each). But the thing about selling consoles to non-gamers is that they don't buy games. I can't find the data, but I'm pretty sure the attachment rate of total games purchased per Wii console is lower than the other two. I'm sure the lack of game sales hurt their bottom line somewhat. And their lack of quality control for third-party Wii shovelware hurt their reputation in the eyes of gamers. Plus they were selling their consoles and games for less than their competitors. Yes, the Wii was a boon for the Nintendo software industry and the Nintendo peripheral sales market. Maybe that makes them "winners" this generation. But I don't really think there were any losers this generation either.

Attach rate is difficult to determine, but yeah the Wii's was lower than the other two, in the US the 360 was #1 by a pretty wide margin for a while -- I guess a lot of people bought PS3s when Bluray players were still expensive since it could pull double duty.

In terms of reputation built during this generation I would say Microsoft is the most improved, Xbox was the new kid, the 360 was launched and kind of laughed at (the number of Xbox 1.5 jokes was ridiculous), sabotaged itself with the RROD and still managed to come out with a better rep.

The PS2 was dominate, the PS3 always seemed to be playing catch-up. So Sony definitely moved down a little.

The Wii started this whole "casual gamer" market but at the same time became a second console for most "core" gamers since, well, a lot of us grew up with Nintendo and like seeing the progression of those properties. Mario Galaxy was fantastic, the Zelda series took a bit of a nosedive.

Also, remember it's not just game sales where Sony and MS benefit. Think of all the DLC sales over the years that they got a piece of and Nintendo completely missed out on. As well as other digital purchases where Sony and MS led Nintendo by a really large margin. Also, I'd bet that MS makes as much money from a year of two of a Live subscription as they do from the sale of one console. Then there's the proprietary Hard drive they sell, while the Wii uses anyone's old SD card. And the Kinect sold really well for a brief period as well, at a period where nobody was really buying anything for the Will. The point is there's a lot more to a console's overall success than just the number of consoles sold.

I say the 360. It got the most third-party support and probably the best catalog of games overall.

Not that the PS3 was far behind. It had some great exclusives, and I don't regret the decision to get one at all (well, at least until the YLOD happened). The BD playback was a nice feature, although it became less important as time went on and standalones and HTPC playback became more affordable. They handled the HDD right, giving you the ability to use a standard drive.

The Wii was, well, the Wii: a fine system for Nintendo's own games, but they just don't crank out enough of them to match the others. The point about the Wii branding being toxic may be correct; my brother has a Wii U and was saying that some people think it's some sort of add-on for the Wii as opposed to a new system. Maybe "Nintendo U" would have been better? He thinks the Wii's original code name "Revolution" would have been great.

I do think all three "won."

The Wii definitely won over a lot of "casual" gamers and made Nintendo a tidy profit, but their strength is still 1st party titles and the weakness of the machine plus the gimmicky motion controls made 3rd party games more misses than hits. Had the other two try to play catchup with the motion controls (which unfortunately seem to be a huge thing in the next gen). Hardcore fans were left behind, and yet probably still bought most of the 1st party titles so Nintendo's laughing all the way to the bank.

The 360 seems to be more popular, though they didn't make many inroads in Japan despite investing money in some exclusive JRPGs (not sure how much they care). Xbox Live has been a much better system (probably to be expected as you pay for it) and they've trained a generation of gamers to pay for it. Sony had to play catchup in both achievements and a paid subscription model.

Sony invested heavily in Blu-Ray, which helped win the format wars but also really hurt them on the game front: the machine was way too expensive for what was basically equivalent to a cheaper 360 and the format also increased load times and necessitated long installs. Plus their architecture was hard to design for and at least early on this seemed to result in superior 360 versions of 3rd party software in some cases. Personally, Plus made a huge difference but it was fairly late in the game, and honestly the fact that all those free games won't carry over to the new system is kind of a downer.

That's the only way to honestly look at it. Each console "won" in a different category. Console sales(Wii), Online(360), Blu-ray(Sony). I'd also toss in Attach Rate(360).

At any rate I don't see how anyone could think a company going from top of the world with 120mil in sales to "Giant enemy crab!" "You'll want to work 2 jobs for it!" and "I'll personally pay anyone $2,500 for each PS3 seen in the wild!(cue multiple pictures of a wall of PS3s at Best Buy), and struggling for second place won anything.

Minor victory to MS for taking the mantle and carrying the torch from the WaveBird for best controller this gen.

The Mattel Hyperscan.

I wonder if I can use that in my office to expedite ADHD evaluations.

Wii games sold through December 2012: 863.53 million
360 up to December 2009: 353.8 million
PlayStation 3 games sold as of March 31, 2012: 595 million

Of course those Wii numbers include things like Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort, and the numbers via Wikipedia are also really top heavy. It's not surprising to see people with Wii's buy the party games and Mario games, but that's exactly the attach rate thing that Decker is talking about.

Top 10 best selling Wii games: 298.7M units sold.
Top 10 best selling 360 games: 121.6M units sold.
Top 10 best selling PS3 games: 88M units sold.

To note:

• Most of the Wii games were included in some sort of a hardware bundle (Wii Sports, Mario Kart Wii, Wii Sports Resort, Wii Play, Wii Fit, etc).
• All but one Wii title was a third-party title available on all platforms (Just Dance 3).
• Only one 360 title was included in a hardware bundle (Kinect Adventures).
• Only three 360 titles were console exclusive (Halo 3, Halo: Reach, and Halo 4).
• Only one PS3 title was console exclusive (Gran Turismo 5).
• FIFA Soccer 13, one of the best selling PS3 games, is the rare exception where the game sold more units on the PS3 than 360.

You're right, I forgot PS3 and XBOX 360 have never been bundled with games

No, but there were a slew of Wii games that were bundled with hardware. Not the console specifically like Wii Sports, but other goodies like:

• Wii Play gave you an extra Wiimote.
• Wii Sports Resort gave you the new Wiimote with Wii MotionPlus.
• Mario Kart Wii gave you the steering wheel accessory.
• Wii Fit gave you the balancing board.