Its everything from nintendos lack of vision to MS not knowing their market and blowing it at E3 and sony captialized on it.

Remember the closed door meeting MS and Sony had before the next gen systems were even announced, when it was still orbis and durango. Sony could have setup MS for fail because they prob both agreed on the digital and drm thing at first.

The media has a part in it too. Pretty much every gaming site is saying that PS4 is miraculous while Wii U and Xbox will give you cancer. I wish there were more objectivity in gaming press. Objectively all 3 consoles are fine. PS4 is the best value for power, while One and U offer alternative new tech for gaming. They're all sturdy and well made, have good controls and all output good looking games. The only problem I see is that the other two are still too pricey Wii U should be at Wii's price and One should be equal to 4. It'd be nice if there were more discussion about trying out the product and games before you make an opinion.

Both. Sony made gaming cool for everyone to play and not just children. Their name is synonymous worldwide with gaming. The faults of Microsoft have aided their ascent, but at the same time anyone knows that naturally if Sony and Microsoft launched together people would truly have to decide which console would win. Nine times out of ten based on the way the brand operate on a worldwide level Sony would win. The one out of ten would go to America but I've heard that Sony is even beating them over there.

sony deserves it - they did everything right whilst microsoft and nintendo were hellbent on self sabotage

Sony did and excellent job. On top of that, Microsoft also did an excellent job at E3 to promote the PS4.

No, it noticably outperforms 7th gen but perhaps not by as much as the  serious gamers want. Besides, in theory to appeal to the Wii install base they only needed to massively outperform Wii, which it certainly does. But as I've said before, the problem was that most of the Wii install base either lost interest in console gaming all together, or were still very happy to stick with Wii and see no reason to move on. Nintendo just failed to read their reality and assumed they had an expanded committed fanbase.

Sony did many things right this time.

On top of everything, Sony did not try to give gamers what they weren't asking for, this time. People didn't want bluray and Cell in 2006. As much as they don't seem to want Kinect and the Gamepad now.

Good topic, and I say both.

Coming off of this gen, Microsoft could have easily owned NA if they had just repeated what made the 360 such a success: A $399 console that was focused on games and that developers were anxious for. Instead, Sony pulled a 180, and consequently, did a "360".

@boled:  Off topic, but  +1.

Nope, played it quite a bit though, and the gamepad is a gimmick and totally ditches the casual player that was so drawn to the 1st Wii.  I def don't hate it, but it is clearly too weird (or as Nintendo and its fans want to think "innovative") for anywhere near as many people to like it then won't like it. Agreed on Sepultura, I just use this name because I have it on a lot of sites and games and have been using it for 15 + years.  Sepultura is way better, and Arise is one of the best albums of all time.  Pantera and Slayer are better than both.  I doubt anyone would say Soulfly is better than Sepultura.  Their only great album was the first self titled one.  Arise, Beneath the Remains, and Chaos AD were amazing.  Roots, Morbid Visions, Beastial Devastation, Blood-Rooted were all pretty good as well.