The Xbox 360 and PS3 have been going at it tooth and nail this entire generation.  Their fanbases, too.  Lately, it seems that the 360 fanbase is a lot less vocal, though.  Anyway, was the battle for supremacy between the HD Twins the greatest video game rivalry of all time?  Or was there.......another.....Sky......walk....errrrrrr?

Super Nes vs. Sega Genesis:  This battle went from video game magazines to TV commercials to the playground.  "Genesis does what Nintendon't".  Genesis Blast Processing?  "A blast of hot air".  Me and my friends once broke into a kid's house and killed his dog just because he said Sonic was better than Mario.  You don't say stuff like that in my neighborhood without some retaliation.

Playstation vs. Nintendo 64:  Sony wasn't afraid to step on some toes with the PS1.  They featured ads that directly mocked their competition.  Showing Sega fans as angry and aggressive and Nintendo fans as childish and simple.  They even had their default mascot of the day going to Nintendo HQ in Seattle trying to call out Mario.  The battle played out in the magazines and press conferences of the day, too.  Once, me and my friends set a kid's house on fire because he said Crash Team Racing was better than Mario Kart 64.  11 people died.

Intellivision vs. Atari 2600:  Much of my childhood was spent listening to stories from my grandpa.  I'd sit on his lap as he'd tell me stories about how he and his friends wrote an angry letter to a guy that said the ColecoVision was better than the Intellivision.  There was simply no way that the competition could compete with the ultra realism of Intellivision's graphics.  The main event was the Atari 2600 vs the Intellivision, though.  One guy claimed that Pac Man on Atari was better than Pac Man on Intellivision (Or the "Telly" as the hardcore used to call it back then....).  They raped him and left him naked in a field.

Xbox vs. Playstation 2:  As far as sales were concerned, this battle was over before it even started.  The PS2 sold about 10 million consoles in its first year (If I remember correctly.  Can't figure out how to use VGChartz these days).  That's over a third of the competitions entire life span sold before they even hit the market.  Still, the Xbox had a very vocal fanbase that boasted getting a far superior version of many of the PS2's best games.  I was once in a bar in Florida where a fight broke out because somebody said, "Killzone is going to be a Halo Killer."  The event was later dubbed the fanboy massacre of 2004.

So what was the greatest console rivalry of all time?

SNES vs. Genesis by a gap that's really hard to communicate.

The most important thing here is balance, and there was no huge white elephant in the room overshadowing that conflict with a larger conflict.

Super Nintendo and the Genesis fought tooth and nail for years. People still hold grudges over that shit.

Hell I was on the wrong side of that argument

Makes me sick just to think about it. I was young, and impressionable

Got to be during the "golden era" of gaming.............. Super Nintendo Entertainment System vs SEGA Megadrive.

The battle between 360 & ps3 is far from over though, so that could overtake the "golden era" battle over time.

The X360 vs. PS3 is more a battle between Sony and MS than the gamers themselves. SNES vs. MegaDrive was a few steps short of a war.

When you think the many great games, and their quality, you would have to say Xbox 360 vs Playstation 3.

There is no way this should be this clsoe. This is preposterous.

The 360 vs. PS3 fight is like an afternoon debate club. SNES vs. Genesis was almost like the Somme, in this context.

The birth of real multiplatform arguments, exclusives prick-waving

It was the first public eye console war, and God we were bloody-minded at the time

well the internet fuels the fire,when i had my mega drive we still had dial telephones

The SNES -Mega Drive/Genesis rivalry was legendary. It was a proper scrap. It continued with the run up to the launch of the Saturn. I remember reading an advert for the Saturn slating the N64. It simply said "Who in their right mind would wait 2 and a half years for a plumber?"

All over rivalrys are no where near as fierce as the Sega/Nintendo one.

SNES vs Genesis. If you were around during those days, it's not even a debate.

I would like to point out that Intellivision vs Atari didn't happen since Intellivision was in competiton with the Colecovision and Atari was a few years earlier against the Magnavox Odyssey 2.

I dont think there was any fanboyism at all last gen, everyone accepted PS2s superiority, GC and Xbox were secondary consoles in households. All this fanboy nonsense this gen started with the PS3 song and xbox fans saying "ps3 haz no gaemz".