The 19 Greatest Rivalries in Video Game History

Two names, one grudge, and decades of people picking sides. A few of these outlived the companies that started them.

1. 1
   PlayStation vs Xbox

   Two decades of console generations traded between Sony and Microsoft.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Atari vs Intellivision

   The first console war, fought with comparative TV adverts in the early 1980s.
   611pts
3. 3
   Daigo vs Justin Wong

   The individual rivalry behind Evo Moment 37, the most replayed clip in competitive gaming.
   517pts
4. 4
   Mortal Kombat vs Street Fighter

   Midway built Mortal Kombat as its answer to Street Fighter II, and the two have argued over the fighting genre ever since.
   517pts
5. 5
   Call of Duty vs Battlefield

   The annual shooter argument, tight corridors against large-scale destruction.
   517pts
6. 6
   Grand Theft Auto vs Saints Row

   The open-world crime argument, one playing it straight and the other refusing to.
   423pts
7. 7
   Mario vs Sonic

   The mascot war: a plumber against a hedgehog, later reduced to co-starring in Olympic games together.
   310pts
8. 8
   FIFA vs Pro Evolution Soccer

   Licences on one side, ball physics on the other, argued for twenty years.
   0pts
9. 9
   Nintendo vs Sony

   Nintendo walked away from a CD-ROM deal with Sony in 1991, and the abandoned project grew into the PlayStation and a thirty-year rivalry.
10. 10
    Dota 2 vs League of Legends

    Valve and Riot's MOBA giants, split over the Defense of the Ancients legacy and competing for players and esports audiences for over a decade.
11. 11
    Guitar Hero vs Rock Band

    Harmonix left Guitar Hero to build Rock Band in 2007, and the plastic-instrument war with Activision ran until the genre crashed around 2010.
12. 12
    Gran Turismo vs Forza Motorsport

    Sony's driving simulator against Microsoft's answer, which arrived on the Xbox in 2005 and has fought it over realism and car lists ever since.
13. 13
    Madden NFL vs NFL 2K

    Sega sold ESPN NFL 2K5 for $19.99 in 2004, and EA answered by signing an exclusive NFL licence that ended the 2K football series.
14. 14
    World of Warcraft vs EverQuest

    EverQuest defined the online role-playing game from 1999, until Blizzard's World of Warcraft launched in 2004 and took the genre over.
15. 15
    Half-Life 2 vs Doom 3

    Valve and id Software's 2004 showdown, two long-awaited shooters released months apart to show off rival Source and id Tech 4 engines.
16. 16
    Fortnite vs PUBG

    Epic added a free battle royale mode to Fortnite in 2017, months after PUBG's hit, and PUBG Corporation sued Epic for copying in 2018.
17. 17
    Counter-Strike vs Valorant

    Riot's 2020 tactical shooter took aim at Valve's Counter-Strike and pulled a wave of professional players away from CS:GO.
18. 18
    Billy Mitchell vs Steve Wiebe

    The Donkey Kong high-score feud between a reigning champion and a challenger, made famous by the 2007 documentary The King of Kong.
19. 19
    NBA 2K vs NBA Live

    2K's basketball series overtook EA's NBA Live in the 2010s, leaving Live to skip seasons and stop annual releases after NBA Live 19.

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