The thing that gets me is having to buy 3 different systems to play all of the games that you want to play. This isn't really a cost issue as the console packages available are very cheap. The issue is that it's another 3 things to be integrated into your AV setup. Most of us with have a DVD, VCR, set top box(sky/cable) and possibly an extra amplifier. To have 3 games consoles connected as well is a nightmare and to be honest they all have to be connected at once or it becomes a right pain swapping over connections. I've always felt that the hardware should be secondary and the market competition should be with the games themselves. This doesn't mean that Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft can't still make the consoles - just that they will run standard compatible hardware and your choice of box will then come down to how well it is phisically designed. The gaming market is the only one where this doesn't happen (with the current exception of recordable DVD where the winning format has yet to be settled upon). Sky - standard set top box, DVD - standard format, VCR - standard format (although there were obviosly 3 initial formats Betamax, VHS and V2000). I guess there is a hardware difference regarding Sky vs Cable but this is slightly different as they are different delivery methods.
Video gaming has come on massivly since the late 70's / early 80's and is now a major home entertainment format, and games consoles are no longer just classed as toys. I think the next big step for the industry is to move to a standard format as it's not really economically viable to run cometing systems in my view. Just think how many more titles of Say Zelda the wind waker or metroid prime that Nintendo would have sold they were not only available to people that owned a game cube!
This whole issue has been a bugbear for me since my first computer (the Dragon32) which was a great machine in it's day. Unfortunatelly it wasn't as successful as other formats and I was eventually 'forced' to buy another more popular machine. Then the machine I bought was the Spectrum +3! Back then the waring formats were the Spectrum, C64 and Amstrad CPC. We move on almost 20 years and on it's launch day I became the proud owner of a Sega Dreamcast! Here I had a great machine with some fantastic games (Soul Calibur, Power Stone, MSR, Virtua Tennis, Shemnue etc) but as we all know the console died a death as the Marketing machine that is 'Playstation2' hit the market. So again if I wanted to play current games I had to change formats and begrudgingly bought a PS2. Now the same multiformat battles are still going on with PS2, X-Box and GC, 20 years after the Sectrum, C64 and CPC hit the market.
For the good of gaming in general I hope the industry leaders (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and although no longer in the hardware market Sega) can get together with other leading hardware producers (Nvidia, ATI, Intel, AMD, Creative, maybe even Pace) to produce a cracking single format games machine!