Hardware First, Software First, Services First: How The Big 3 Sell Their Brands, As I See It

[Wman1996]

Pretty compelling points, which I mostly agree with. My personally sum of the big three boils down to this though...

Nintendo has the best first-party titles in the industry. In terms of their impact, their longevity over more than 35 years, their evergreen nature, I could go on. Mario. Zelda, Pokemon, Donkey Kong, Super Smash Bros., Kirby, Animal Crossing, Metroid, and others. Nintendo may indeed pull out of hardware at some point, but I think they'll make software until somehow their company could go under.

Sony is the best Jack-of-All-Trades. Capable hardware, multimedia, some killer first-party titles, a controller that's been more consistent for over 20 years than any of the other big three (though the DualShock 4 has shook things up somewhat with the touchpad, share, etc.).

Microsoft is the best at online and services in general. They invented a comprehensive online network, consistently support backwards compatibility (I get that the Xbox One wasn't BC at launch, but it's more than made up for it), Game Pass, Achievements (which Sony and Steam adopted), and the Xbox One S and X are multimedia juggernauts.

So...
Nintendo - Best First-Party Software
Sony - Best Jack-of-All-Trades
Microsoft - Best Online

Note that my assesment of Sony as the best all-arounder doesn't mean they have the best consoles every gen. It just means they do a terrific job with balancing first-party, third-party exclusives and multiplats, hardware capabilities, online, services, and the like.