Also bringing PC gaming to consoles. Xbox Managed to create a whole niche of mature, western games like Knights of the Old Republic, Elderscrolls Morrowind, Half Life, Fable, Battlefield, Jade Empire. Essentially they predated the 7th gen and the slowly changing current that we saw arrive with AAA games. This is why I think they were able to ooutgrow the gamecube and find better support with third parties by the end of the generation. Intentional or not, they had their fingers on the pulse of what gaming was evolving into.

Halo+Xbox Live were of course a massive reasons too :)

As I said, "Nintendo decided to focus gaming experiences Sony wasn't offering or didn't do as well."

Part of the reason FPS games were so successful on N64 was because they were mostly garbage on PS1. Hence, console shooting fans flocked to N64. Playstation had no answer to that.

Or they had a lot of money to persuade third parties and Nintendo didn't.

Then why were there so many platform fans on PS1?

Shots fired. :p

Well PS1 had notable platformers. But the platformers Nintendo and Rare were putting out were something different than we saw on PS1.

Metal Gear Solid Twin Snakes and Resident Evil 4 say otherwise.

Outside of the PC experiences which came to the XBox due to its specs/ closeness to windows, Gamecube and Xbox shared 95% of third party games. The difference is that said games performed better on the Xbox then on the Gamecube as the generation progressed, eventually leading to some devs (a minority) dropping support from gamecube around 2004. The console exclusives Xbox had garned from PC like the above games I mentioned and tom clancy, doom etc fostered an audience more in line with what third parties were selling. Other then a few late efforts (Resident Evil in 2004 and Metal Gear Twin Snakes in 2004), the gamecubes portfolio was far more limited in appeal. Go look at the top selling gamecube games and you'll be presented with Mario Galore, sonic, animal crossing, Windwaker.... The only 2 exclusive games that really broke the mold were Rogue Squardron 2 and Metroid. Both were successful, Nintendo needed more of that diversity of exclusives, something the N64 had.

Other then the GTA collection in 2003 do we know of many titles microsoft paid for?

Do you not think N64 differentiated itself back then,  Nintendo's unique 1st party portfolio especially with Rare, its superior control pad and PC ports which weren't possible on playstation hardware. The Gamecube however didn't offer anything gaming wise that the PS2 didn't. I loved the platform but the gamecube didn't even have great platformers lol. It didn't excel the PS2 in anyway other then its graphical capabilities.

PS2's JRPGs, Action games, adventure games, fighting games >>>>

Xbox's FPS's, Western RPGS >>>>

Gamecube??? (Party games?)

Don't forget OG Xbox generally had the best ports. Xbox ports generally ran a lot better and looked a generation ahead. Gamecube often had an edge on ports over PS2 as well.

Maybe you're missing what I'm saying. With N64 and beyond Nintendo differentiated itsellf because it wasn't doing a good job competing directly against Sony.

Gamecube shined by having notable 1st party games. It also did a better job at getting 3rd party support than N64.

Uhhh...

First of all, lot's of PS2 games looked bad and ran poorly on the thing, it was hard to develop for. GC was cheaper, more powerful and easier to develop for. I love Battlefront, but it's a pain to play today because they barely used colour in that game. It's very grainy.

Let's also completely ignore games like Resident Evil 4 (the superior version), Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Animal Crossing, Metroid Prime 1, Metroid Prime 2, Super Mario Sunshine (a great platformer, unlike those PS2 R & C games people call platformers for some reason), Viewtiful Joe, Pikmin 1, Pikmin 2, Star Fox Adventures (Zelda clone), Soul Calibur II (it has progressive scan, PS2 version doesn't,oh and it has Link), Eternal Darkness (a horror game that is actually scary, truly a once in a generation game), Mario Kart: Double Dash (60 fps, even when playing with 4 people locally), Paper Mario: the thousand year door, etc.

Not to mention that you couldn't even play with 4 people locally on the PS2 without buying an extra add-on. 

So what games on the PS2 are like Metroid Prime 1 & 2, Animal Crossing, Eternal Darkness, Pikmin and Super Smash Bros. Melee?

Maybe worldwide, but it's the US that matters and 360 is second here and close to #1.