Square wanted to make GBC and GBA games.  The bad blood between them and Nintendo over the defection to PS1 was what held things up.  You'll notice Nintendo always kept on good terms with Enix.

Sony secured lots of exclusivity, but a big part of that later on was the strength of it's platform, which was driven almost entirely by 3rd parties in the first place.  Your examples are odd though, given RE1 and Tomb Raider were both actually on Saturn (RE1 was originally PS1 exclusive too, yet still got a Saturn port), and Ridge Racer was originally announced for it too. :/

 Also my take on third party support is that 3DS will get alot of the Japanese guys behind the device (Who'll put stuff on the NGP too) however the western publishers (Outside of Ubisoft) will just neglect the device pretty much like they did the DS. The NGP fits very well with what EA / Activision do nowadays, in terms of specs and demographic.

Er, Capcom and Tecmo Koei honestly had pretty shitty DS support, yet they're front of the line for 3DS.  And Level 5 is like Japan's one real 3rd party success story this gen, their whole rise pretty much discounts everything you said about 3rd parties struggling on or being apprehensive of Nintendo systems earlier.  

You make a good point about looking not just at empty commitments of support, but at the actual games these companies are bringing.  Games like a new fullscale Resident Evil, a new internally developed Kingdom Hearts, a "dream project" from acclaimed creators like Time Travelers, the first DOA game in a half decade, a near perfect conversion of SSF4, Mega Man Fucking Legends 3, a full 3D remake of Cave Story, a new ground up Inazuma Eleven trilogy ... and you can contrast that with what's likely to be another annual Call of Duty port.  Which exactly says "cash grab" to you?  Which leads you believe the platform is likely to lead in innovation and uniqueness from 3rd parties?

This is pretty much what I expect.  Japan's going to move wholesale to 3DS, while the west ports all their HD stuff to NGP.  And honestly, I think there's a decent market there for both.

None of those games you mentioned are unique anymore and NGP will have alot of those too, and frankly resident evil on a handheld does scream cash grab to me, don't get me wrong I'm sure there will be good 3rd party games on the 3DS it's just they will be of familar franchises that people know will sell, when it comes to new and innovative games NGP is going to be the platform of choice for 3rd parties

Enix made GBC and GBA games just fine though.  So why would Nintendo be the problem?

If PS1 had struggled, then Saturn would've gotten Ridge Racer though.  And Saturn got Resident Evil anyway.  These examples aren't exactly highlighting how PS1 would've avoided a Saturn like 3rd party landscape if N64 had gone CD-ROM...

Time Travelers isn't unique?  Mega Man Legends 3 isn't unique?  How unique is Call of Duty or Dynasty Warriors exactly?

lol @ RER being a "cash grab".  Mercenaries?  Sure.  Revelations?  If you really think that, then I say you have almost no understanding of what Revelations actually is.  Was Code Veronica a cash grab?  Was Zero?  

No idea bout time travelers, Mega Man legends no, since theres been like 100 megaman games, and yes call of duty and dynasty warriors are even less unique, as for the other games I really can't comment since I haven't played them or know what you're talking about, when I say you unique I mean new IP with a different kind of gameplay then we've seen before unique okay 

Well i wasn't saying that either ;) i think its a matter of personal interpretation, your intentions were clear as to show that if it weren't from CD rom PS2 wouldn't exist since N64 would had crushed PS1 rite?

All i pointed out was why go that far? The truth of the matter is if it weren't from Ninty backstabbing Sony, PS1 wouldn't exist let alone PS2

Ninty decision changed everything there are no IFs here

Sure you can say but what if Ninty used Philips CD drive on N64, but then again why did Ninty break its partnership with Sony, maybe they thought Cartridges were good enough for the next gen and the benefits outweighed the cons? See there really isn't a point of dwelling on past decisions

All im saying is that if you are going to use IFs at least go for the main reason which dates back to the NES and not N64 media choice which was more likely than not influenced by the previous event

And im not saying that The CD wasn't a big factor in PS success (and Ninty dethrone?), but truth of the matter is that there are several other factors that helped this happen, which is very peculiar and interesting how fate works.

Pretty much Sega screwed up with their console which help Sony gain momentum and market share with the PS1 which came at lower price point and offered better games (only Sega 1st party used the hardware properly)

• -The Sega Saturn was the more difficult console to program for with some titles being dropped during the development process

• - 3-D graphics on its third party games often lacked the luster of the PlayStation, a severe disadvantage at the dawn of 3-D games on home consoles.

• - Sega was also hurt by the plan to have a surprise four month early US launch of their console. This head strat failed for several reasons. One of the major reasons being there were few software titles ready.

• -The Sega Saturn was also US$100 more expensive than the PlayStation at its launch, and only available at four retailers.

• - Sony took an early advantage by initiating an expensive ad campaign and appealing to an older demographic who had grown up playing video games. The PlayStation was positioned as a necessity alongside the TV and VCR. The securing of this demographic is widely credited as the key to the system's success

• - Nintendo 64 was released later than the other two consoles with which it was originally meant to compete directly. By the time of its release, Sony had already established their dominance and the Saturn was struggling to keep momentum.

• - Its use of cartridge media rather than compact discs alienated developers and publishers due to the space limits and the relatively high cost involved (compare US$3.50 for an N64 cartridge to 35¢ for a PS1 disc), though the Nintendo 64 had much faster load times because of its cartridge media

See what I'm getting at? while i agree 100% Media choice, more precisely CD was a big factor, but there were a number of other factors that ultimately lead to PS1 success

Also your point "I was saying a CD-ROM based N64 would've precluded PS2 happening because such a system would've held on to Nintendo's overwhelming developer support and likely crushed PS1" Is rendered useless or null by the fact that:  By the time of its release, Sony had already established their dominance and the Saturn was struggling to keep momentum. Which translates into Dev support rite? or am i mistaken?

Is it possible that the NGP could outsell the 3DS? Yes ...

Is it likely? No ...

There are reasons why the successor to a market leading console has never been outsold by systems that are released after them. If a console can achieve strong sales during their time alone in the market, they can rapidly develop the userbase lead, library advantage, and the price advantage that attracts greater third party support and justifies the stronger sales later in its lifetime. To make matters worse, if the sales on the later console would be lower anyways (for some reason) this is likely going to be dramatically worse.

To demonstrate my point, suppose you have two systems of equal desireability and the same support that launch a year apart

Year 0 - System 1 0%,     System 2 0%
Year 1 - System 1 100%, System 2 0%
Year 2 - System 1 66%,   System 2 33%
Year 3 - System 1 60%,   System 2 40%
Year 4 - System 1 57%,   System 2 43%
Year 5 - System 1 55%,   System 2 45%

(the percentage indicates both sales percentage and game library percentage)

Assuming constant support, it takes 5 years for the second system to make the competition close. Now, where things become problematic is that the earlier system's manufacturer will try to "hog" all of the development resources by trying to use their userbase advantage to ensure that most games are either exclusive to their system or at least released for their system; and if they're successful they may be able to sell a lot more than their competition simply because they have more/better games.