No, the main reason the PS2 sold so well was the PS1 (and the PS3 because it was so expensive at launch that people bought PS2s instead, thus giving it the massive legs it had).

If we agree that the whole marketing process is to let people know abut your product and how it works, then yes, it did his trick but you can't say that marketing was the only reason because that's like saying that nintendo and microsoft didnt marketed their product at all or Sony outmarketed both.  That doesn't make any sense.  The big three gave their fair share of marketing and people decided which one of the three met their needs.  If people don't like a product, you can spend all the money you have on marketing and it still won't change anything.

If your point was to say that there were others factors that lead to amazing ps2 sales aside from games, then I can gree with that such as brand recognition, DVD support, piracy.

My first console that gen was a gamecube, you want to know what was my system seller? a baseball game (all star basball 2003).  Few years later I bought a ps2, you want to know what was my system seller? Dragon ball budokai because the gamecube version released 6 months later and I coudn't wait.  Everyone has their system seller and it doesn't need to be a game in the millions range.

Burnout 3: Takedown

I mean imo it was two things:

1) The new thing effect - it was the new thing that did a lot of new stuff (DVD, Xbox Live, Internet)

2) It had some mega big games like Halo and Fable.  Sure Nintendo had all of the usuals but people wanted more mature experiences and MS delivered far better than Nintendo in that department.

Omg yes, this, I remember staying up late nights loading CDs onto the Xbox harddrive and then going through naming the songs slowly on the HDD just to enjoy them in a few games... playing GTA3 to my own music was just taking console gaming to another lvl imo.

One great seller for me with the original Xbox games was that it had 4 controller ports on it too, so if you wanted to get a game like WWE or 4 player driving game on either the PS2 or Xbox you had the lingering fact over your head that you needed to shell out €50 more for a multitap for the PS2 to be able to play 4 player.

Of course as others said tho Halo CE was probably one of the biggest and best launch titles ever to roll out with a console and having things like the beautiful DOA3 out next to it really showed how much horsepower was in that giant Xbox.

Shenmue 1 was not on the original Xbox, Shenmue II was indeed on the system and it included a "movie" which was a collection of the cutscenes from the first game. But the first game was only ever on the Dreamcast in playable form.

Lying? Using selective memory to push an agenda? Take your pick. Not really sure what kind of question that is or how it's in any way relevant to the discussion, but whatever.

And yeah, the PS2 had solid marketing but it's not like Nintendo and Microsoft's marketing were incapable of demonstrating what their consoles were capable of. The Wii U has had that problem, and I suspect that VR headsets will as well, but the GameCube and Xbox were very simple and straightforward products to market. Playstation not yet blundering is also a factor that I brought up in my post, so we're in agreement with that.

Pointing out the ludicrous nature of another person's claim doesn't strengthen my argument? Well yeah, that's what the multiple paragraphs above it were for. They're unrelated. At this point your post begs the question: if my criticism of another person's argument hurts my own, than what does criticizing my criticism of him do for your post? I think you need to take your own advice friend.

And of course. The idea of some companies having stronger marketing teams than others was never in contention. It was the idea of marketing being the sole or even primary reason for a product's success that I take issue with.

I have both and played them extensively. It was definitely marginal at best. Still I concede that Xbox graphics were slightly better. They both were certainly graphically better than the PS2. If I had to compare them, I would say that the difference (graphically) between the GC and OG Xbox compares to the PS4 and Xbox One. You hardly saw any difference. At least in my opinion.

LOL you gotta be kidding most people bought the original X-Box for more then just Halo it has a higher game attachment ratio then both the GameCube and PS2.  The fact is it was the most capable console of that generation and it had the most features it was the best platform to play 3rd party games on.