Console wars have been around since the beginning of home video gaming. They are usually defined by the specific generation of systems on the market at the time, and the very first console war was between Atari, Intellivision, and Colecovision from 1980-1984. However, during this time, the video game crash of 1983 occurred, and many American companies went out of business. Due to that reason alone, the first console war also proved to be the most brutal.

A console war is the competition between video game console manufacturers. In this period of competition, these companies strive for the largest market share, fan base, and monetary success. This competition between companies causes an immense marketing push for the consoles, and every television, radio, and magazine is flooded with advertisements from each company.

The flooding of the mass media markets always creates fanboys for each console. Console fanboys change the console war from merely a business battle to a personal battle. They often argue on online message boards and in heated debates between people face to face, putting down competing consoles by using petty reasoning. Even though some arguments are valid, console fanboys tend to disregard it due to their firm beliefs, which fuel the war.

Although console wars seem to have a straightforward meaning, determining the winner can be hard to do if every single aspect of the war is taken into account. Due to this, the determining factors of the winner are simplified, and the winner of a console war is usually portrayed as the console that had the most sales.

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