Having lived through all of them since Super Pong - I think the current PS3 vs Xbox 360 is the most dramatic - mainly cause they are so similarly matched as far as hardware - so it's the services and the drama of the fans that is most exciting. Plus it has gone on a long, long time.
I had an Atari 2600 and my friend an Intelevision. It had better graphics, but we had more games. Then we both got Atari 800 computers and were happy on that.
Plus there weren't the internet forums in the 1980's.







