Fanboy wars throughout the ages - Settled at last!

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We decide the winners of 27 years of system rage, so you don't have to

Too long have the playgrounds and internet forums run red with the haemorrhaging common sense of these brave if misguided warriors, so we’ve decided to settle things once and for all. We’ve gone through the five generations before this one and used inarguable scientific methods to determine each winner. Our judging criteria may seem ludicrous and arbitrary, and they may well be. But remember, this is fanboy war we’re talking about here, so our methods are completely authentic.

Gamecube vs. PS2 vs. Xbox

Before you complain, we're leaving the Dreamcast out of this console tournament for two reasons. Firstly, it came out early enough to be out of step with the rest of the generation and died soon afterwards. Secondly, we all know that the DC is the best thing ever, so it's completely unfair to put these three also-rans up against it.

Arguably the last traditional console war before the big competitors started branching off in their own directions, last gen was a fierce battle. Sony obviously had the rock solid brand domination of the original PlayStation behind it, and a cool factor that could have made a cryogenically frozen Fonzie on a skiing holiday look positively sweaty.And theXbox of coursehad raw, elephant-punching power and the mighty Microsoft dollar.

Nintendo's machine was far more technically capable than many give it credit for, had one of the best first-party line-ups ever seen from one of the best first-party developers (albeit a much smaller overall catalogue than the other two) and the then-unbreakably loyal Nintendo fan massive. The PS2 and Xbox had started to branch out into multimedia functionality, but the GC had a controller that looked weirder than a sumo gymnast but felt comfier in the hand than a hamster made of cushions.

So who really won? Truly, it's a difficult argument to settle in traditional terms, so lets cut straight to the fanboy science.

Even using cold, hard fanboy logic, a clear winner is hard to deduce, so we're going to bring another factor into play. One which throughout the ages has been the great reckoner. One which is universal to almost any hardware of any age as long as it uses a screen and has buttons. Yes friends, we're going to decide this based on which system can run Doom better.

The PS2 only had the PS1 version, which was fast and slick, but a bit gritty looking:

The Xbox not only had a good version of Doom, it could run BLOODY DOOM 3:

The Gamecube had no Doom:

Verdict:

David Houghton
David Houghton
Former GamesRadar+ Features Writer

Former (and long-time) GamesRadar+ writer, Dave has been gaming with immense dedication ever since he failed dismally at some '80s arcade racer on a childhood day at the seaside (due to being too small to reach the controls without help). These days he's an enigmatic blend of beard-stroking narrative discussion and hard-hitting Psycho Crushers.