I'm primarily a PC gamer, but recently bought a 360 so that I could play with my friends who don't have the dough for a gaming PC.  I thought it would also be nice to play some new titles without having to upgrade my hardware all the time, and to stop worrying about all the "PC gaming is dead" stuff floating around on the internet and in the gaming media.

But I forgot there is a whole other can of worms with consoles:  fanboys and the perceived "console war" that goes on every generation.  I know that this site is all about the console war, and not so much on the fanboys, so I figured this is a fair place to ask the following questions:

Why should I care about which console sells more in the end?  I know it's fun to talk about, and I love that this site tried to discuss it without all the fanboy BS, but what do I as a 360 owner really get out of the 360 selling more or less than the Wii or PS3?  There are tons of 360 games on the horizon for the next couple of years, and after that, there will probably be new consoles out, despite what Sony thinks about the PS3 lasting until 2011.  

So what do you guys think?  Why do people get so worked up about this?  I don't see a reason why I should care unless I'm a big wig at Sony or Microsoft.

The better console X sells, the more and better games that console gets. Dreamcast, Saturn and Gamecube flopped in sales, they also didn't get many good games. SNES and Playstation 2 had fantastic sales, so all third party games went to those consoles.

Besides that, it's like cheering for your favorite sports team. What do you gain from team X winning a match? Nothing, it's just because you're a fan of the team and hope they win.

Its all about a couple of things that matter and a few that don't.

Things that matter:
Dominant console gets more and better games over time.
Dominant console maker has a strong financial position to stay in industry.

Things that don't
LULZ I R BETR DAN j00 COS MY CONSOLE R WINNER!

Short answer: No.

Long answer, for your tastes (PC games) it really won't be affected at all, even if the PS3 outsells 360, 360 will still be the poor man's PC gamers console of choice.

On top of that, the cost of making HD games is prohibitive and vertually all games will be multi-platform so irregardless of which system is the leader, both will have 90%+ of all HD games available.

Ignore the fanboys. Just mind the games, there are the only thing that matter.

And the Wii? It's doing it's own thing and it's cheap enough you can always pick it up too.

Yeah, I get that part, but I think most projections are pointing to the fact that even if the Xbox 360 ends up coming in third, it will be a smaller margin than it was with the original Xbox vs. the PS2, right?  So I would think developers would consider it a very bad move financially to stop developing for the 360 just because it lost some war that largely gets fought on web forums anyway. 

For example, looking at the predictions you've made, the PS3 will outsell the 360 by 6 million units at the end of the generation.  I don't think developers would stop making games for a platform based on that small of a difference.  And Microsoft certainly has the money to keep paying to get great exclusives. 

Am I wrong on any of that?  

as i bought the game cube last generation i can say that games is the answer. yes, the game cube did get lots of great games but not as many good games. this basically limited the amount of choice i had when buying games. also, game support for the gamecube was pretty much non existent for the last 2-3 years of its life, and that sucked.

maybe it won't matter as much this generation but if the wii pulls way ahead of the combine sales of the 360 + ps3 you can expect third party support to be slim for those systems.  people will probably argue with me on that but two words: opportunity cost. 

I do kind of feel like the 360 and PS3 fanboys are arguing about this and not even paying attention to the fact that the Wii has been an absolute phenomenon that reminds me of the NES days.  I know it caters to a much bigger crowd, but if it continues on its current path, isn't the Wii the real winner?  Wouldn't Sony and MS BOTH need to take note of that formula for the next generation?

Lol.  I can guarantee you the PS3 will NOT outsell 360 by the 100m the PS2 outsold the xbox by (and still counting). The Wii likely will, but that probably doesn't matter.

As what it comes to the question in the thread title, no, it shouldn't matter, (as in industrywide) generation changes and raising dev costs makes the "war" actually more relevant, that it should be. Bet the wrong horse as a deveper and you're gone.

But just like the two first posters said, it's all about the 3rd party support. Developers go to the platform where the money is and others will be left without.

The fanboy BS isn't usually that much fanboy BS that it looks like, since usually there's just few noisy fanboys (pretty much everywhere), to who people try to talk reason and eventually it makes everyone look like fanboys, no matter how non biased you would be.

But by judging your first post, i happily welcome you on my behalf to VGChartz, i hope we will be seeing you in the future too.

Do you know how many websites would go bankrupt without the console warz?!? Plus, it would make people have to vent their petty anger down another avenue. It would be a totally different world.