Think with me, if consoles are usually sold at break even prices, or even lower than production prices, what matters is the software sales! So, the winner of a generation should be the one that sells the most software, not hardware !

And by that logic, xbox 360 won 7th generation !

Not exactly, since all of the software money doesn't go to the console maker, some outweigh others when it comes to software sales

There's also bundles and free games that can throw this all off. Most likely, the wii won software wise because it has mainly has just 1st party games and the prices drop very slowly.

Hardware: Money goes to the console producers
Software: Money goes to the console producers and third-party studios

Hmm... 927 ml for the X360, 896 ml for the PS3. And this according to vgchartz, which isn't exactly reliable and it doesn't include the digital sales. That are supposed to be higher in the console that launched with an internal HDD simply because it could store the digital games since launch.

I wouldn't be surprised if the PS3 is winning against the X360 even there. And this launching 1 - 1/2 year later.

Highly doubt that the 360 has a lot more digitial games then the PS3.  Plus since it also has a megaton of indies it has a ton of games that can be easily be downloaded to a flash drive so no HDD is needed.

Exept for sony, that was losing money with every PS3 they sold for the whole generation.

But then there's hardware that is so expensive to make that a company hopes to recoup losses and see profit in accessories and software sales, like the PS3.

Then you have the Wii which was a money-making machine for how cheap it was.

OP:

Instead of looking for a definitive winner (which will be a pointless opinion battle), there is something more interesting and constructive to do: identify the different aspects that determine the performance of a console, list them, and see how each consoled fare in each one. This would give way for a more interesting thread.

If they're not, then your entire train of logic breaks down.

False.

http://kotaku.com/5575994/after-nearly-four-years-the-ps3-finally-turns-a-profit