It's a pretty quick fix to make the argument work again for the big 4.
Sega always loses, The weakest console of the others [in the generation] always wins.

Also held true for NES > Master System.

Of course there are many other consoles people forget or don't know about... I imagine there are dozens of cheap 'consoles' even in this generation that no-one considers... but back in NES and SNES days there were still a few "significant others" If we ignore the tiddly little consoles (Casio PV1000) then there is only 1 consoles that disproves the bolded statement. The Turbografx-16 is supposedly from the 4th generation, and it's earlier release means it was probably technically inferior to the SNES.

Oh and the battle between XB and GC is irrellevent to the original statement, the Sega point stands of course (which is why I corrected) it was "the weakest console always sells the most"... the PS2 was the weakest of the gen apart from Sega DC, and it won.

I get you, and you are not striclty wrong I guess, but...

Surely saying ''the weakest console always wins'' makes no sense whatsoever since the fact that the weaker console happned to win the console wars on a few occasions has nothing to do with it being weaker?

If there had been 20 generations then you would have a bigger sample space to make such observations, but I would have to say that many, many other factors played a more important role than the 'power' of the winning console.

You guys are forgetting about the Neo Geo which belongs in the fourth generation. It was the most powerful and even though the price wasn't consumer friendly it is in the history books as apart of that generation. So the most powerful system always loses considering it is the price point the usually makes it not the sales leader.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_%28fourth_generation%29

SHUT UP!!!  I HATE YOU!!!

*puts  TWRoO on the list...*

We'll be back with this when Sega makes a glorious return... all five Sega fans left here..

True, I just wanted to say Sega always loses (something I hadn't actually noticed before, possibly because the MegaDrive beat the SNES in PAL regions)

I would say up until the Wii, a big factor in the weak console winning scenario is that they usually come out before any major competitors (bar Sega) in the generation. NES brought video gaming back after the crash, and thus it became popular before most of it's competitors even launched (and they will naturally be more advanced tech if they release 2-3  years later) the SNES gen once again disproves me as the TG16 and MegaDrive released first, but one of them is a Sega console, even if it was the best one, and it was still a much more difficult win for SNES considering the market share the NES had (which was higher than even the PS2 managed). PS1 also released after everything but N64, but Amiga, 3DO and Atari Jaguar were not exactly competition, so they only had to crush Sega (albeit with some rather dodgy price altering) and therefore Sony managed to get a foothold in the market for over a year before Nintendo. And finally PS2 once again just had Sega to crush, and once again over a year before Nintendo came and MS muscled their way in.

Yes I know there are still other factors, but many of them would have been less effective without the earlier release. For example PS1 rapid price reduction for the USA launch, plus Sony's worldwide position in the walkman electronics market might not have helped enough had the N64 launched at the same time.

This generation would have been quite different had launches been moved around.... I think had the X360 not had a year headstart, it wouldn't have been able to compete against the PS3 because it wouldn't have got the initial support, but this would not mean the PS3 wins, instead I think it would have favoured the Wii more, as Wii could have crushed the PS3 when they weren't focusing on battling X360 for supreme HD console (I think Sony would have been fine with a victory over X360, and assumed their "future-proof" console would outlast the Wii, perhaps selling on more of a PS1 curve (slow at first).
Alternately, had the PS3 released 1 year earlier than Wii60, I think it would have been a much closer battle between PS3 and Wii, Wii probably catching up early on, but probably ultimately falling behind like it is now (but X360 would probably have struggled to maybe 30 million)
And if Wii had released early, then there would have been at least a dozen third party games in development with effort put into them before the PS360 launch, and it's rise would probably be even more meteoric.

SNES > Genesis says hi.

You guys are doing it wrong.  It's not "Weakest always wins".  It's "Strongest never wins".

• PS3 < Wii
• PSP < DS
• Xbox < PS2
• N64< PS1
• Neo Geo < Snes
• Master System < Nes
• Turbo Express/Lynx/Nomad/Game Gear, etc < Game Boy

The most powerful guy always makes a stupid mistake by pricing themselves out ot the competition, releasing too late, being too tough to develop for, etc.

It used to be that black consoles never win, too.  Then, last gen came and fucked it up by introducing a purple console.  Also, every console started having a black variation.  That's when everything went to hell.