My preference is now, watching (for the most part) exclusives die is great for gamers.  1st party exclusives make perfect sense and I have no problems, but I am glad to see stuff like Pragmata get released everywhere.

I am 100% in your camp.  I don't believe in brand wars.  I go with what makes sense.  

First of all, either is better than modern situation that most games come to all consoles and there's benefits of neither option.
When you have a dominant console, there's quantity of games which inevitably creates some great ones and the challengers have to try wild things.
True competition causes much imitation of what's successful on others, but that kind of clone wars put emphasis on popular genres and that's not necessarily bad thing.

I lean to one-sided. But then again, I only have gen 3&6 consoles, so I'm biased.

Hard to say when Nintendo and Microsoft say they're not competing with anybody lol :/

But realistically, we all know competition is good for the consumers so it's likely the better choice overall.

Well, may favorite gen was the NES generation, so that should mean I'd say lopsided. But the SNES/Genesis generation was so much fun so, I don't think I have a preference.

I think I prefer more competitive gens, or failing that, gens where my console maker of choice is at somewhat a disadvantage (Nintendo did some great stuff for consumers from 2012 to 2016).

I started gaming in the 4th gen so that one has a very dear place in my heart, and Gen 7 is one of the best in my view also since the heated competition between 360 and PS3 made them my favourite Xbox and my favourite Playstation as they were both going all out to gain the upper hand.

I did very much enjoy the one-sided 5th gen as both PS1 and N64 were fantastic, and Gen 6 was a little bit of a letdown for me as I didn't really like the Gamecube as much as other Nintendo consoles.

All of which is to say I generally find competition pushes companies to excel.

I will take those two diamonds. Thanks. (Even down to the SKUs and revision, Jasper V2 for the 360, and late 2008 / 2009 FAT PS3s.)

Two of the best consoles of all time IMO, so many greats games between them, both shared and exclusive. While there's little point owning both an Xbone and a PS4 or an Xbox Series and a PS5, it was absolutely worth owning both a 360 and PS3 as each had killer games that shouldn't be missed.

Peak of gaming.

I feel like Nintendo’s software output was by far at its weakest in its history during the Wii U/3DS days, though they certainly did have some hits on their hands (Splat, Mario Maker, MK8, BotW, SMOdyssey).