With the launch of the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X/S coming up very soon, people understandably want to know which system is right for them, which dovetails with the contentious "console war" debates about which plastic box is better than the other plastic box.

It's well and good to get all the information and make an informed decision about which console to buy, since we're talking about hundreds of dollars. But at the end of the day, we should remember that the big three--Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo--are all playing different games, measuring success differently, and succeeding in their own ways. As a result, the idea of a console war is sillier and less productive than ever.

There are plenty of reasons to be excited about the launch of the new consoles this year, and this post will round up some of them. Of course, you may not be excited about or interested in next-gen, and there are plenty of very good reasons to hold off buying a shiny new PlayStation or Xbox until 2021. But this story aims to highlight what gaming is doing right in 2020.