If America lost, they'd be helpless without carriers and a Pacific base and they would be forced into an Armistice with Japan. Possibly even losing the Hawaiian islands. There probably would have been no war in Europe too.
If Japan lost, their offensive would be crippled and as it happened they gradually lost piece by piece their pacific empire.
The Japanese were worried too much and it got the better of them. Admiral Nagumo instead of finishing off the Midway Airbase constantly delayed by bringing back his planes into the hangar to rearm with torpedoes. It gave the Americans time to catch them off guard and sink them.
We were bold and determined. The Japanese grieved and worried. They had the advantage and they lost it.
I heard somewhere that after Midway, over the remaining course of the war, the Japanese were able to build seven more carriers.
In the same period, we built 70.
If America lost at Midway the inevitable destruction of Japan would have been delayed slightly. Japan had no capacity to force America into anything.
In my very HUMBLE opinion, it was Adm. Nagumo who lost the war for Japan and he did it on 12/7/1941.
He overruled the Japanese fliers and never ordered the launch of the THIRD wave of attacks on Pearl Harbor, and sailed back to Japan.
Behind he left INTACT shore facilities, dry docks, OIL storage facilities, machine shops, and supply depots. Thus he left the American Navy able to raise the PARTIALLY sunken battleships and fully restore them to combat condition. The undamaged dry dock is what enabled the repair crews to put the Yorktown baack to sea in only 3 days.
If Nagumo had, indeed, ordered the third strike, the remaining American, at sea, carriers would have been forced to sail back to the states for re-supply and fueling. Then, of course, there would have been NO Midway.
“There probably would have been no war in Europe too”.
There was already a war in Europe.
Hitler declared war on the US right after Pearl No war?
The Japanese were also horrible at basic tasks like damage control. The USN leaned from the loss of the Lexington & the heavy damage incurred by the Yorktown that once you fly-off your strike aircraft, you drain your fuel lines, fill them with inert gas, to minimize any secondary explosions. Contrast that with the Japanese at Midway... ordnance strewn around the decks, fuel lines strung out...
The Yorktown, as damaged as she was, absorbed an enormous amount of damage at Midway. Indeed had a IJN sub not snuck in while she was under tow, she might have survived and made it back to Pearl.