There are lies, damed lies and statistics ... and it seems like there are a lot of statistics being used in dishonest ways on this thread
The PS2's early competition was the Dreamcast which was poorly supported by third parties (EA refused to produce games for it) and was easily killed off by PS2 Hype (Sony compared the Dreamcast's 3 Million polygons per second in game to the PS2's 66 Million unshaded theoritical polygons, and Sony also released doctored screenshots of games claiming a massive power advantage); by the time the PS2 launched the Dreamcast was a dead system.
There were claims that the Dreamcast would have a comeback being that it was $100 cheaper than the PS2 but (as we know) no console has ever successfully come back.
When the PS2 launched it sold quickly even though it had no quality games. In the 12-18 months it had (depending on the reigon) between the launch of the PS2 and the Gamecube and XBox the PS2 built a massive library, 20 Million unit lead, and of most of its biggest titles (Metal Gear Solid 2, Grand Theft Auto 3, Gran Turismo 3, Final Fantasy X) either had been released or were soon released after the release of the XBox and Gamecube.
The "Console War" was over before the Gamecube or XBox released, and those were the only two consoles tge PS2 was really competing against.
In what way does this situation map closely to the PS3?
