You see this bit of apologist argument for why the DS and Wii are dominating almost daily: the claim that Nintendo is not competing with Sony and Microsoft. And it's true, but not in the sense that those arguing it are implying it is. No company goes into an industry to compete with each other. The goal is never to fight the others in the industry, but to claim a share of that industry. And the process to do that does not involve battling those already in the market; it involves coming up with a business strategy which works well enough to nab a portion of the market. Attempts to "steal" the market from the competition with outright attacks rarely meet with anything resembling success. Indeed, they are often crippling failures that backfire horribly, and the wisest companies do not openly insult or belittle their competition for that very reason. In that context, Sony and Microsoft are not, strictly speaking, competing with each other, either (or at least Sony isn't; MS seems to be on an insult binge lately, which is more than a bit alarming given the backfiring nature of that tactic).
So what are they battling? Who is the great enemy in the so-called "console war" if nobody in their right mind attacks their fellow combatants? Simply put, the enemy is disinterest. No company can afford to battle anything else when attempting to sell a non-critical commodity. If your product cannot combat disinterest, then it does not matter how much you insult your competition; your product has failed. Your insults will only draw attention to the competitor and ultimately generate more interest for their product. And if your product is not generating interest on its own, doing this will ultimately only benefit those competitors at your own expense. This is why those of us familiar with the history of the home console are so troubled by Microsoft's recent intensity of focus on insulting Nintendo and Sony, of course.
None of the consoles has particularly failed this generation, it should be noted. Each has managed to generate a reasonable level of interest in them. The difference is largely that the Wii and DS have generated interest from a much larger base of users than the 360, PSP, or PS3. And that is the ultimate goal of any company, of course: to generate the most interest from the largest possible user base.
Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.
