it was in the long run but not like ps4 now.  Wii dominated. and why does ps4 in japan badly right now ?

So it's basically:

Nintendo: The console for little kids.
Microsoft: The console for dudebros.
Sony: The console for normal people who like variety in their games.

Seems pretty obvious why Sony is winning this generation.

At least elaborate because that is a vague shot you just took at it, with no explanation.

OT: The guy is 100% right and I agree 100%. Sony is looking so good and "humble" in people's ideas that it makes the other two look really shaky in comparison.  It is never too late for MS and Nintendo, so long as Sony hits some sort of sour times (which seems unlike for now)

This is the kind of perception I keep running up against, and I've basically stopped trying to change this.

The thing is...the people at my school don't like Sony for ditching the Vita, but will buy the PS4 anyway!

I remember an E3 years ago when Microsoft showed off Call of Duty, Halo and Gears of War for the "core" and Kinect for the "casual" market. I could not help but laugh when they said had all the games core gamers wanted, unless shooters do not appeal to you.

I love Nintendo, but the lack of their parties makes their console a solid secondary system.

Sony with PlayStation gets me. I want RPGs and plat former and warrior games to compliment action and adventure and yes my FIFA. Infidels global global broad in tone and style and considerable depth to this genres, not a token entry.

You're focusing on an entirely different aspect; when diversity is discussed, it refers to genre, style, basically different 'flavors' of setting and content, and in that field, Sony really did have more breadth than Microsoft, especially during the last half of last gen. (I skipped the Wii generation as a gamer, so I'll let Nintendo gamers make the judgement for that console's variety. xD )

Look at the Xbox 360 during the last four years of its lifespan, or more specifically, look at its exclusives. The Xbox 360 USED to have some pretty diverse exclusive stuff, from superpowered police brutality in Crackdown, to Kameo, to a Banjo-Kazooie sequel (that was apparently admittedly met with mixed feelings,) mass zombie slaughters in Dead Rising, etc, etc. But the later half, around the time the Kinect came out, they lost most of that diversity. The only breath of fresh air came from a few games that were brought over from PC- such as Minecraft, Witcher 2, and a couple of other games whose names escape me (I think one was a Toy Soldiers game.) In the case of Microsoft's own exclusives, (the games you could buy solely buy on an Xbox 360, and no other platform,) there was first-person shooters, third-person shooters, racing games, and a remake of the original Fable. Only four of Microsoft's IPs were used during those four years, (three for actual sequels, the fourth being the Fable remake,) and no new IPs were produced.

Well, and a Sesame Street game.

Now, you might argue that the Kinect 1.0 had tons of games, and you'd be right, there were dozens of Kinect games in those four years... but as a consumer, especially if you own a 360, that only really registers if you own a Kinect, and if you get substantial enjoyment out of Kinect games. From what I've heard, the 1.0 was a bit... buggy at times, and was never really welcomed with massively open arms, which is why the improvements to the Kinect 2.0 were stressed so greatly. So anyone not excited about the concept of Kinect-only games were kind of out of luck, as after the Kinect launched, there were only a handful of exclusive titles that didn't cater to Kinect owners.

Meanwhile, Sony exclusives ranged from first person shooters in Killzone and Resistance, to third-person shooter/adventure games like The Last of Us, Ratchet and Clank, and Uncharted, to hack-and-slashems like God of War, to games that kind of define conventional gaming wisdom like Journey in that you wandered around with a magical scarf in the desert on a pilgramage, to games with simple, distinctive styles like The Puppeteer, to branching-story-centric games like Heavy Rain, to racing games like Gran Turismo, to craft-meets-platformer games like Little Big Planet, even took a crack at a Super Smash Bros-esque brawler with Playstation All-Stars. They even have an exclusive baseball series, for God's sake. xP

I'm not even counting the Japanese exclusives, because that would just make things plain unfair. =P

Which doesn't mean anything because Nintendo's handhelds outshine anything else on the market, and smartphones are outshining the handhelds.

Not to mention, UMDs weren't percieved as a bad thing, they were actually prefered to the digital distribution model of the PSP go.

I gotta say though, that Sony doesn't have all that good an image with me and select other crowds, but in general they do keep a strong profile.

It's pretty much indisputable that Nintendo has an image problem. They've been struggling against it for the past 25 years.

Xbox, I dunno. Their image as the dudebro machine isn't new. I'd attribute their success last gen to this image, which means it isn't a problem.

Not to take away from Sony, but the primary reasons they are winning are:

A. By default - Nintendo has fucked up royal in largely ditching the market that made Wii a hit, and MS was never really a major contender. They are non exsitant in Japan and their games and market is just like Sonys, and because of this, Sony has canibalized their market.

B. Third parties. Just like the PS2, third parties flock to Sony's console. This brings more games. More games brings more sales.