Here’s who won each console war

War. War never changes. Especially console wars.

Ever since the Sega Genesis took on the Super Nintendo, gamers have taken sides and voted with their wallets as companies competed for the industry’s top spot. Of course, Venturebeat could subjectively debate about which systems were the best for their times, but Venturebeat also have sales figures that undisputedly tell us which consoles won their respective wars, at least in terms of market share.

[NattyGraham]

Sony has won 2 out 3 since PS started....and 3 out of 4 with this one.

The total numbers are not even close. Just pure domination.

[Abash]

I say the last gen console war is still going, I really think the PS3 can hit the 100 million sold mark sometime in the PS4's lifecycle

[DVAcme]

Agreed. And historically, whenever their new console comes out, Sony will still support the previous one for a while, instead of just killing it immediately. There's still a sizable number of games coming out for PS3, and at its current price and library, it's a hell of a good investment.

[badboyz09]

Sega and Xbox have never won :(

[BitbyDeath]

Even if PS3 does edge ahead of Wii in terms of sales it'll always be wii who dominated last gen... Imo

[Madock]

PS1 & 2 Got hacked & i have seen millions of units sold in loads of countries due to that fact
They were also the cheapest music CD player, DVD player and Bluray player with the PS3 which automatically sold less when it wasn't hacked
i know that for a fact cause a shop owner told me they were selling 100k ps every year, hacked with a copy of winning eleven or fifa downloaded from the internet, and that's 1 chain from 1 country
the consoles were illigally imported from america in south america and from europe to middleeast and africa which messes up the regional sales chart

[Jilokle]

The Dreamcast and the X360 also got hacked. Plus, for the X360 you have to add all the systems sold due to the RROD. But even the X360 being hacked, here in my country (third world) the PS3 sold (and still selling) much better than the X360.

[darthv72]

"While the previous console war was close, this one was a massacre. Sony entered the hardware business and dominated with the PlayStation. The Nintendo 64 could only move 32.93 million units, almost a third of what Sony accomplished. The Sega Saturn, however, was a disaster. It only sold 9.5 million."

sony really took the gaming world by storm. But the saddest part was that while the saturn is a great system...people just didnt care. I'm proud to say that i still play my saturn as much as my other systems. Especially when i do my own comparisons of games like In the hunt on PS1 and Saturn and tomb Raider and even Resident Evil.

Classic games ftw.

[Boody-Bandit]

8 meg ram cartridge FTW when it came to 2d fighters on the Saturn. I still have mine too.

I was just playing mine a few weeks back when we had a gathering at my place. Our wives hung out back around my pool having a few drinks while me and the boys were getting nostalgic in my gaming room.

The Ram cartridge still works like a charm. 2nd coolest thing Sega created to enhance their console. The 1st was the VGA adapter for the Dreamcast.

[Psygnosis333]

satrun have 2 cpu -22mhz each.. psone 33mhz single core...i liked the idea of saturn for aditional upgrade ram storage ..
i dont know obaut co procesors they are not tipical GPUs in thous sistems but i think PsX is better...and the sound card in psx is way superior

whers 3DO by Phillips and Apple Bandai Pippin in a 32 bit era?

[Fullmetalevolust]

It had classic games like you mentioned...
booted up mine this week and played some Guardian heroes with my friends and then continued on my road to nostalgia with Burning Rangers and Virtual on!
I have all three episodes of Shining force 3 that I'll replay once in a while and panzer dragoon saga. I didn't own a Ps1 til much later cause Sega was churning some instant classics on the Saturn.

[3-4-5]

Just pure sales does NOT = winning.

* Look at what the N64 and some of it's games are responsible for.

* Look at what Ocarina of Time & Goldeneye & Mario 64 have inspired other people to make.

There is NO War, just tons of good games.

Just because that person over there doesn't drive the same car as me, doesn't make them my enemy.

Media calls it a war, because wars splits sides into 2.

It's easier to control & read 2 groups of people, rather than 350 million.

PS4,PC, XB1, Wii U, 3DS, Vita.....these are all good options.

[TongkatAli]

True, but no feelings would get hurt, no arguing, no insults and there would be no number boasting :(

That sounds awful.

[modesign]

lol and star wars, 007, perfect dark are non existant on nintendo consoles, wonder why.

[3-4-5]

Yes but they spawned hundreds of similar games because they were made to near perfection the first time. They were polished.

PS1 definitely had hundreds of more games though.

[Back-to-Back]

They could have been 3 for 3 if they would have priced ps3 more competitively.

[harrisk954]

He forgot Atari vs. Colecovision vs. Intellevision :)

[choujij]

There's a lot of systems he forgot. :\

[uth11]

Yeah, I love how anything pre-NES is considered pre-history.

There were really two generations there:
Atari 2600 vs Odyssey 2 vs Intellivision

and
Atari 5200 vs Colecovision

[harrisk954]

I know.... my comment was meant to be tongue in cheek...

I actually had an Atari 2600 and a Colecovision. My buddy had an Intellevision and we would swap systems over the weekends.

I had an Atari 5200 which died when I was away at camp... Remember playing Congo Bongo on it :(

Never had an Odyssey system. Had a knock-off Pong machine from Radio Shack! :)

[uth11]

I remember Congo Bongo- game looked amazing in the arcades, but every home port of it was pretty bad.

I remember my friend got a Fairchild Channel F at a garage sale. It was a 2600-era console, but the games were so bad that we made up our own games using the systems drawing game :)

[harrisk954]

Yeah... Congo Bongo, sort of a mash-up between Frogger and Donkey Kong... Here is the arcade version (lost a lot of quarters in this one!)

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

EDIT: I am dating myself, but I actually owned one of these... saw it in a magazine and talked my parents into buying it. Didn't do much! lol

[Macdaddy71]

They are 35 million live members on the 360, most of them when they upgrade they going to X1 for the easy cross over just like it did, I have a ps4 but my online gaming is done on X1...

[SoapShoes]

Then why do my friends who had a 360 now have a PS4?

[gfk342]

This is also the case with my friends too. They had only the 360 last generation and now they have only the ps4.

[Illusive_Man]

My friends are all moving to X1 soon or sometime in the near future because they prefer X1 exclusives, features, and services over Sony's. The few that did move over to PS4 moved on early because early launch multiplats looked a lot better on PS4. Some are considering trade ins or just being an X1 to go alongside the PS4.

BTW PS2 won its gen but lost a highly significant number of users to Xbox 360 which had essentially won its gen (technically Ninty won but a lot of those buyers never came back) by mid 2012. MS also made a ton of money even after the red ring disaster. Sony only wins if you go to 2013 where it pulled even and for a while exceeded sales of the 360 in a race that was essentially a tie from a sales perspective. From every other perspective the 360 won.

[ziggurcat]

@illusive:

"BTW PS2 won its gen but lost a highly significant number of users to Xbox 360 which had essentially won its gen"

uh... no. X360 was last in total worldwide sales.

[ScorpiusX]

Don't think you're friend's equal out to 35 million people he was referring to .

[Paprika]

@illusive

Statistically the ps3 caught up by then.... probably earlier tbh, but as a gaming device for good games... it was winning by 2010 easily. I was growing jealous of the games on ps3 with my 360 playing multi plats... I switched last year was great playing cool exclusives. I'd grown bored of gears of halo... Alan wake or the witcher 2 however were great.

[whybag]

@Illusive_Man
My friend got an X1 at launch and now constantly tells me he wants to trade for a PS4. Anecdotes are fun!

[MonsterChef]

Yeah a lot of my friends that had 360 are transitioning to the ps4 this Gen, and they were die hard Xbox fans but they got comply turned off by Xbox 2013 e3 conference, and ever since plus I've done all my online gaming on the ps4 so

[NattyGraham]

A lot of those will hop onto PS4 and there are a ton of live members on the PS3 as well...who may hop on the PS4.

[ScorpiusX]

My friends did the opposite they trade in they're PS3 and have joined Xbox ranks. they didn't feel the need to buy a console to play a majority of indies they played on pc and still play. Me being the good friend I showed them the games , the fun and the light . Lol

[Allsystemgamer]

Castillo

Funny you should say that as the majority of x1 "exclusives" are coming or are on PC. Does your friend group consist of 2 people?

[Paprika]

35million on live.... yet 5million sold for Xbox one. So either millions of those ignored next gen, or ran to ps4 or another system like PC or wiiu. Either way, Xbox one is not taking any benefit from those Xbox live figures.

Btw, I had a 360 from 06 - 2013, amassed over 120k achievements. Switched to ps3 snd it was a breath of fresh air... now happily ps4. I'll buy an Xbox one for quantum break. But IMO its been win, win and win since ps1.

[skoorydook]

2 things.

1. Sales alone is a little bit of a shallow argument.
2. The Snes vs Genesis weren't really the 1st generation, can try and say they don't line up that well earlier but there are gaps in most gens

[NattyGraham]

I'm guessing it was the first "war".

[skoorydook]

Nes vs Master System

He says it's because the Nes completely dominated but doing a quick search I just got some rough numbers of Nes = 61m and Master System 10-13m.

Around 6x advantage to the Nes, according to his numbers the PS2 also had an advantage of around 6x, so by his very own rules that means the PS2 gen shouldn't count either

[thebudgetgamer]

Atari and Intelevision had a war going with commercials going at each other.

[caseh]

"I'm guessing it was the first "war"."

It's the first time I recall any buzz-words used to create hype, like BLAST PROCESSING on the Gensis. Pwoar, the awesomeness eh.

Sega openly targeted Nintendo, probably because they got mauled in the 8-bit race.

[snookiegamer]

Since the end of the Cartridge era, PlayStation has won them all ;)

*PS4 fans please support my college BFF new youtube channel. Subscribe to Playstation News Now. It's a quirky little UK PS4 TV thingy, yup lool

[deafdani]

Except with the PS3.

If we're talking purely about sales, of course.

[snookiegamer]

Ok you're right, Wii sold more than PS3, but it doesn't seem so, but yup it did...

Are you going to subscribe to Playstation News Now Dani? ;)

[deafdani]

Sorry, where did that subscription question come from? Lol.

Is that a website? Or what? I'm out of the loop here.

[snookiegamer]

A college friend's Youtube PS Channel. I'm just tryna help him out. He's a cool Brit ;)

[americanGTA]

(from oldest to current)

NES
I'd have to go with a sega, but that may because I didn't have an SNES.
N64
Playstation 1
Playstation 2
Wii Was kickin ass until Playstation Trizzle took over and annihilated everything.
Playstation 4

Currently Nintendo equity is lower than its IPO. Do something Sony!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Father__Merrin]

I refuse to accept Wii as winner, it's software support was pulled years before it's successor was released. even now ps3 and 360 enjoy full game support. so Wii may have sold literally most when it was in fashion but that's it, they did not retain market share there's no games out for Wii heck there was none last year. so IMO Wii lost last Gen

[uth11]

as a Wii owner last gen, I agree with this. Even though Wii technically won, owning a Wii for the last few years of that gen felt like it lost.

[FarEastOrient]

In terms of software sold for the generation, the Wii didn't outsell the Xbox 360 and PS3.

[deafdani]

Third party software, maybe. But in terms of first party software, the Wii had the highest selling games of the generation, by far and large. Not a single one of Sony's or Microsoft's own properties have come close to the ridiculous selling numbers of Mario Kart Wii, Wii Fit, Wii Fit 2, Wii Sports Resort, New Super Mario Bros Wii and other games, many of which surpassed the 20 million sold mark.

[ps4lifesucka]

wii sold a lot but did nothing for games outside the same ole mario and zelda games. All those other systems had games that made you feel like you had to have those systems. Where as Wii was just another nintendo with a hyped up controller that didn't revolutionize gaming at all... if anything it made it worse for a year or two as focus shifted to motion gaming and nothing came out of it but shovelware.

[PrinceOfAllSaiyans]

Sony has never lost a generation. As for last gen the Wii doesn't really count no serious gamer bought that to do real gaming on. The people who bought the Wii where only Milf, old people, and girls that usually don't even play video games.

[GodGinrai]

I cant wait for future fanboy wars where we are in forums via VR headsets... throwing virtual flames at each other ( N4G can sell us flameproof shield DLCs, needed for protection from FUD). I wonder how the bubble system will work, by then?

[Godmars290]

The Wii/PS3/360 is going to be the most controversial since the Wii had the numbers but was generally ignored, the 360 had the publicity but then stressed publicity over facts, and the PS3 started in a hole, is the last place console in the biggest world market, the US, but overall in the world market its 2nd. "Technically" first.

[RPG1201]

Ugh... the Genesis went against the NES not the SNES.

Way to start and article. Besides sales mean shit when you love something it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. There are some people out there who love the Virtual Boy for that matter.

[Dasteru]

No, it didn't. The Genesis released about 2 years before the SNES but both were part of the 4th console gen and they were both 16bit systems. Also all of Segas advertising was targeted against the SNES.

[sungam3d]

I won the console war by not buying into it.

[metaltales49]

I won by not caring and saying it doesn't exist and that people that think it does are morons

[CervantesPR]

playstation has won all console wars since it came out.

[InTheLab]

How does he lit the 360 at 84m and the ps3 at 80m? The ps3 surpassed the 360 back in 2012. Back in 2011, the ps3 hit 70m 3 months after the 360 did and narrowed that 3 month lead through 2012.

So how does the 360 have 4m more?

Also, why start at gen 4?

[Dasteru]

He seems to be using the shipped numbers for the 360 and sold through for PS3. He is also ignoring almost a full year of sales for the PS3 while counting them for the 360. The actual numbers atm are just under 84m for the PS3 and 81m for the 360.

[stonecold3]

ps3 and 360 are still supported so i cant see that gen ending for quiet a while the wii supported has stopped a few years ago but i know that gen is still going and it still has supporter of developers until either sony or microsoft stop production on there consoles

[D-riders]

Wii won last gen

[Revengeance]

Sony has won every generation except for last due to Wii, but it has and will always beat Xbox in every aspect.

[Picnic]

The Saturn was lucky to sell even 9.5 million. It was so attractive to hardcore fighting game fans but so unattractive to nearly everyone else.

The Dreamcast only sold 10 million however it did so in a very short space of time- about 18 months. It was heavy budgets on games like Shenmue and panicking about the PS2 coming out (especially because Japan hadn't taken to the Dreamcast in big enough numbers) that meant that they thought that the numbers were never going to add up enough.

The Saturn did alright saleswise considering how niche it was on the whole. I mean, it didn't even have a Sonic platform game on it unless you count Sonic Jame which was just a Megadrive compilation.

[ATi_Elite]

GOLDEN ERA......Snes vs. Genesis = a friggin Tie.

Snes was getting beat down by the Genesis having faster sports titles while sports games on the Snes suffered from HORRENDOUS slow down, screen tear and flicker.

Snes didn't catch up until the at that time the GOD ALMIGHTY Snes Street Fighter 2 launched and really shook things up as the most popular arcade game EVER was perfectly reproduced on a console.....with some slow down of course.

Don't forget the Turbo GFX-16 Neo Geo and the Peak interest in Arcade machines (Quarter munchers) at this time including those SILLY PC Gamers and their STUPID online Games.....what a joke! Playing counter strike in their moms basement over 56k dial-up and buad modems.....sheesh morons.

Sega Saturn vs. Nintendo 64 vs. Sony PlayStation

PS1 = winner

i wouldn't even call this a war as the PS1 DOMINATED while the Saturn and N64 lacked Next Gen muscle to make Next Gen games at that time. PS1 Metal Gear Solid and Final Fanatsy VII END OF STORY!

Nintendo GameCube vs. PlayStation 2 vs. Xbox vs. Sega Dreamcast

PS2 = winner

Technically if the Dreamcast had proper support we would be playing on a Dreamcast 4 right now instead of talking about PS4 but as it may Sega lacked long term vision and the GREATEST CONSOLE ever made had to take a back seat to two competitors who just had bigger wallets.

PS2 was a non stop machine of units being sold weekly. it was so mechanical in it's approach that many gamers had bought 3 Ps2's in their lifetime including MYSELF. San Andreas Vice City were some of its gold marks.

me personally I thought the Gamecube was a joke.

Xbox = Halo introduced PROPER console MP and so it began!

PlayStation 3 vs. Xbox 360 vs. Wii

this is a 3 way tie!

Nintendo took over where the PS2 left off as a non-stop machine of weekly sales so mechanical like that it just felt normal to at a moments notice to just buy a wii for no reason at all. Wii sports did provide a reason.

PS3 and X360 provided some great games as the era of multiplats took off like never before as dev/pub made sure their games looked identical on two totally different systems with various differences. if you were not playing COD it's because you didnt have a PS3/x360

Ps4 Wiiu XB1

Winner PS4

this Gen is OVER! WiiU is a Joke and Zelda can't save it, XB1 is under powered but will produce some great games but it's lack of power will cause it to loose sight of great games,

PS4 will eventually drop the 1080p stance and make some really next gen 900p games and move far ahead of the XB1.