ROFL man.
The difference is that back in the day you didn't have the internet. We're having fanboy wars since Genesis vs SNES I think!

it was ever thus,i hail from the spectrum vs commodore days

as with everything because of the 24 hour media and the internet it is ever present,we use to take breaks for tea,cake and a chat but there was still fighting,its in our nature

mine is bigger than yours,no it isn't,yes it is,etc

Or Atari vs. Magnavox.

Oh wait, that wasn't much of a war at all.

Troof.

in real life nobody cares... you're kidding me ???? back in the days arguing in real life was the only way.... and today a lot of people involved do care in real life.... how many time I saw kids argue at school or at gamestop.... or guys trying to push a console over an other in stores.... or even me I'll admit that every time I have a friend comming over and asking about consoles.... I do push for what I have or at least what I believe would suite his needs....

but I would agree that the war today is tame compare to the past IMO... people get extreme on forum but at the end of the day we all know that depending on what you are looking for each consoles has its pros and cons..... where in the past.... you had sega and nintendo and they were pretty close to be the same so you had to fight over IPs new add ons (mega CD, etc....) .... now a day I have seen myself recommand Wii or PS3 over 360 depending on what the person I was talking to was looking for... in the past I would have never advised to take the opposite brand no way lol (yeah I was a dreamcast owner :P I still believe it was the right choice :D)

it was even more rampant. You had the actual companies airing commercials just for fanboyism. Sega does what Nintendon't. I mean if that isn't fanning the flames what is. Sony did similar from what I remember.

I love how know the gaming community can also be divided over whether fanboyism is more rampant now or before.

my dear fellow, did you browse back2 the first page of vgcs forum? guess what u see there...:P

Yeah, I'm quite sure that happened when Nintendo started churning out kiddy, casual crap and Sega started doing what Nintendon't.
I'd obviously have no idea whether it's worse or not, but I can say that it's pretty bad right now, :O. I have 11-year-old PS3/360 CoD players making fun of my Wii, DS and 3DS in real life and I have 41-year-old ones making fun of my consoles online.
It's prolly worse now 'cause, you know, the internet happened.

the gaming community was just as divided, it's just that in the 7th gen the winner won by a lot smaller margin. Add in the fact that the 2nd and 3rd place home consoles are more similar, it gives the impression of a more fractured market.