I think what that shows is how videogames are becoming mainstream like music or movies. By that I mean in those mediums there is usually a large and clear distinction between the best selling movies and songs as opposed to those that actually win any awards. The serious experts in these fields usually have tastes that are completely out of sync with the general public.

EDIT: Very rarely do the yearly big summer blockbuster action films win any oscars, but they usually make a crapload more money than the oscar winners.

For clarification the wii branded games are kinda like the blockbusters, they sell alot but they probably won't win game of the year.

It really sucks that few people cared to talk about the rest of the post. I wanted to talk more about what if Sony and Microsoft really were game companies or if consoles were commoditized like DVD and CD players, but nooo everyone was sooo hung up on Sony and Microsoft not being video game companies.

I refered you to Trip Hawkins. Apart from that, you still can't just make up your own definition of what a "video game company" is, and expect everyone to agree with you.

This goes back to the question of reviewers and their integrity. Who the hell picks the oscars? Granted, it's a more refined field than games' journalism, if only for the far greater age of the medium, but ultimately you still have a small number of people in their ivory tower, isolated from reality, and sometimes quite hostile to it

Sales is the closest thing to an objective, level playing field of quality we have. It's certainly skewed by many factors, but ultimately it is the best way to guage the opinions of the masses on something that is otherwise unquantifiable in a world where there is very little consensus on exactly what makes something worthwhile. There is no standard of an absolute good, just a strength of public opinion. Example: i dislike the Godfather movies, quite sincerely, and i love League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The former regarded as one of the best sagas of all time, the latter widely regarded as rather bad, but that's different people applying different value sets to determine why Godfather is great, or why LoEG is bad, and my value set holds the Godfather and films like it in low esteem. Similarly it will apply to games, that there is no standard of values, and therefore there cannot be any level playing field of quality determined by reviews.

I don't think I'm making it up, either. It's seems to be a general consensus in the real world that whatever your core business is that's the kind of company you are.

I think I might agree with Trip Hawkins, but before I make up my mind please provide a link so I can read the quote.

I think the consensus is more like "a company making product "a" is a company making product "a", even if they also make product "b"".

As for Trip Hawkins, I suggest you just read the Wikipedia article and you'll understand what I mean.

Yeah, but that still doesn't make them a product "a" company.

I can't find anything in wikipedia referencing trip's thoughts on having several identical game consoles being bad for customers.

No. I want them to be video game companies. I want their business to rize and fall based on how good their games are. 

That was the entire reasoning behind the 3DO console, which was my point.

Why ?

Anyways I think sony makes the best games and all these type of threads manages is to make me facepalm.