There wasn't a clear winner, to be sure, but there was Sony vs everyone else. That was kind of the thing at the time, often because the other standard wasn't infected with DRM and the notion that a customer could duplicate something without paying Sony for the privilege was beyond their tolerance. MiniDiscs were infected with it. Memory Sticks had their MagicGate. And don't forget about the time they sold about 22 million music CDs infected with rootkits to stop CD ripping.

The Sony of today is vastly less awful about this nonsense. PlayStation games are still copy-protected but that's just how that whole industry runs. I'm glad they started being mostly pro-consumer somewhere along the way.