I'm puzzled by it all. I've never quite understood it. I just buy or borrow the games I want to play and that's it.

#1) Why do they put so much emotional energy into their fanboying?

#2) What is their drive and motivation?

1. It's the internet. People put their energy into a lot of stupid things on the internet. They must have never gotten the memo that the most useful thing you can do is surf porn.

2. They want to justify their purchase, or they just feel the need to pick favorites. In either case, it's the other consoles that must suffer in their minds. Nobody wants to admit they may have made the wrong choice.

It's the same reason people get worked up about sports and politics, although only the latter makes even some sense. But that still doesn't justify being dicks about the other side,

Nobody wants to hear that somebody has it better than they do. In your real life, you can see that your neighbor has a better car or a nicer wife. You accept that. On the internet however, it's just you and your opinion. And your opinion is right! So you like the best movies, listen to the best music, play the best games, and own the best console. No amount of facts, polls, reviews, or argument is going to sway some people.

And those that go above and beyond to force others to accept their beliefs are fanboys.......

You mean the former, not the latter. Go G-Men!!

I think to understand fanboyism you need to really study what I do. Im probably the biggest/worst fanboy here.

Oh boy this is so epic fail.  You just know when people are faking it when they write it like that.

@GamingChartzFTW:  The Euro as avatar?  Is this kind of demonstration against the UK that they need to get the Euro aswell? (Considering you are from the UK like your profile says).

^^^^WOOOO! Drunken internet posting!! Does such a thing make one hardcore or just really really sad?

Depends on the context...

OH SHTI MY wife fis comin home...

Wow how many of these threads do we need to see.

Well at any rate, I think Price point is the biggest factor. I think if the average person could afford more systems and games (when they come out) this would be a lot less of a thing. For example owning a Wii and Xbox360 has exhausted my gaming funds. It's at the point where I would have liked to been able to afford more 360 games. I think people get agrivated when something like this comes a long: Sure I would love to play LBP and Resistance 2 which are $100 give or take by themselves, but then wait I have to buy a PS3 for $400 or however much it is, so we are talking $500 just for two games. I can't afford that and it would be great if we lived in a world where I could just pay $5 or $10 more to play them on my XBOX360 (somehow if possible) because of the companies competing, which may be healthy for the market, it means an economic no can do for me. Or something to this tune.
Another thing, which is big, is the people who realize that they can only afford one, or if they are younger their parents only want to give them one for christmas/birthday/hannukah whatever, and they have to choose. For someone who chooses, as with any purchasing decision, there is always the threat of buyers remorse. The differance of videogame consoles as opposed to any other major appliance or higher priced item, is that a great amount of it's estimability (word?) or long term value is based on what happens with it after its release. I.e. there might be an add-on or two for a vacuum, phone network, dryer(?), or whatever, but for the majority it's whether or not it physically lasts x amount of years, as to whether or not you got your moneys worth. So there wont be many people going around chattering that Kennmore is the best and rating Whirlpool electronics or whatever a 0 / 5 two weeks before they release because theres just not that much of an interest there for their owners to care whether its the best.

I'll admit I'm a Philips fanboy bigtime (which includes whirlpool products) and is the area where I originally hated Sony, but I'm pretty sure I'm in a small minority there. yet, some people, and I'm sure they are predominatly passionate intrnet forumgoers, are like me and are prone to be obsessive about such things. However back to my point, theres a lot of success or fail to be waged on a console in the years after it comes out as to it's success.

Debate ideology: some people are just prone to debate, and when they hear stupid shit like Laserdisc > Blu-Ray OMFG! theres bound to be casualties.
bit of an extreme example but I think you get where I'm going. People don't like their opinions to be challenged number 1 and B. Some people will argue anything just for the sake that it's there and whene they see it they must respond.

Why I care? I care personally because I carry the belief that people and market analysis can make or break companies and ideals. For instance, If my will be done, and SONY (I don't mean to flame or troll anyone here, but it's no secret, you all knoe of my fanboyness by now, or at least ruthless opinionism) were to sink and have to quit the industry, I think that the world would be better off (for me anyways). Personally I think (not reflecting on anyone elses opinion here) that SONY is a company that does the bare minimum. I personally feel that they have not tried to make an advancement on this market and simply milk it. Despite what people say about Nintendo, I feel that in the end SONY has catered to casuals the most, and is thusly responsable for a ton of shitty games bieng released (feel free to disaprove of that statement and flame it to your hearts content, it deserves it). PS2 was (my opinion) the worst videogame system ever produced in the entire history of the videogame market. I say that because some of the specs were so bad (less RAM than an N64) that it's underpoweredness was worse than the Atari VCS, and in defence of Atari it WAS CHEAPER not more expensive than the main competition, that was the trade-off to Ataris inferiority. With PS2 there was no tradeoff, only a crappy DVD player that didn't look any better than my VCR.
So what you can pull from that rant, as it may be disgusting to witness, but it's my point. Rationilize that all you want, but the standing property is. Its real. It's how I feel. Knock it, love it, bash it or embrace it. Right, wrong or indifferent that is how I feel. As much as some people around here hide behind diplomatic posting there are others here that could probably write similar things in respect to their opinion. The main reason why more people here don't is the same reason I don't. We don't wanna get banned.

I've got work to do. That was a lot..... let me knoe if you want me to shed any more light on the matter.