If Microsoft or Sony had Motion Controls.....

[Sullla]

How in the world did this turn into a debate between the Wii remote and Sixaxis?

As far as the actual topic, I think the reception would have been pretty much the same if Microsoft or Sony had chosen to base their console around motion controls. In my experience, fans of each system dogmatically support their company of choice (and toe the corporate PR) regardless of the situation. So if Sony had chosen to build an underpowered system based on motion controls, the Sony fans would be screaming about how "graphics don't matter!" and "look how Sony is innovating and pushing the industry forward!" while Nintendo fans would be laughing about how the graphics in Mario Galaxy would put to shame the PS3's "two PS2s duck-taped together." It wouldn't be any different - fanboys are like little kids.

However, the whole situation is an impossible theoretical because neither Sony nor Microsoft would ever have gone out into left field and based their console around something as unproven as motion controls. Companies that are leading in their field rarely innovate, because there is little incentive to do so; new developments usually come from upstarts or companies that are far behind in sales. As the market leader for the last generation, Sony had zero incentive to innovate their new console; it should be no surprise that the PS3 isn't noticeably different than the PS2. It's more expensive, but the design philosophy is the same (create the most powerful console possible, sell at a loss, use the system as a multimedia center). Microsoft stuck to their same strategy as well - leveraging financial strength into market share through aggressive pricing - with the 360. Only Nintendo did poorly enough last generation to make a really wacky console an appealing option.

In short: the situation wouldn't be any different if the other companies had created motion controls, but it never could or would have happened that way.