you really haven't been following me have you? some friend you are.

PS2 was my first real jump into being a hardcore gamer. i really didn't know what a genre was last gen. i just new there were shooters, fighting games, and racing games. i was essentially dum before this gen., but what i know of Ninty and Sony is the difference between the new ip and old, and that is this gen.

Similar for me, but I'm glad I didn't make the jump. Though I didn't have my beloved Final Fantasy, Megaman and Castlevania, I got FF on my PC thanks to Eidos and MM I missed :(

But in the mean time, I got to enjoy OoT, one of the best games ever made, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Kart, Mario Tennis (my fav sports game of all time), Donkey Kong 64, Banjo Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Conker's Bad Fur day and a bunch of high-quality games I would have missed out on, OoT being the biggest one. And I still got to play FF. When FFIX came out, I gave in.

That's why I tried to explain my choice as being closely tied to my own personal taste.  Different people like different things.  I would trade Donkey Kong and Mario for Final Fantasy and Mega-man without a moment's hesitation but I know it's not the same for everyone.  Zelda is probably the only Nintendo property that I really miss; most of the rest of the games you listed interest me very little.  I didn't even really want a Wii until it started getting RPGs.

The other part of what I was trying to say is that, like myself back then, a person who really only has experience with one gaming eco-system might discover something they love even more if they try the other side.  I think the OP would have been better off with a PS3 at this point in time because it would have opened a lot of new doors for him.  Maybe he wouldn't have liked what's behind those doors as much as what he had before, but at least he would have been able to see for himself.

You initially said:

"when the 6th gen. started i went straight to the GC., but soon found myself backing Sony, and with Sony creating new ip at every turn. how could i possibly stick with tried and true Nintendo?"

It just didn't make sense to me. If you got a PS2, it's because it was the mainstream console of choice, and it had Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid, and Tekken. Not new IPs, not any of them. Neither was Suikoden or Starocean.

lol, i jumped 3 gen.'s without mentioning the 5th lol. and i didn't know about not one of those games until 2 yr.'s after the 6th gen. ended with the exception of Tekken which i never played at that time, and i knew of FF7, but never officialy played it.

the term franchise meant nothing to me at that time as i new nothing of them. 

so you can get a better picture, i'll list everything i played on PS2:

PS2: wrestling games, R&C, FF10(the only one i ever beat or officialy played), Def Jam Fight for NYC, and Black.

sad isn't it.

again i jumped 3 gen.'s 

Well, FF10 redeems you there :) And R&C and Black to a degree. FFX imho in and of itself makes the PS2 a must-have console.

i failed to mention god of war, sega classics, and area 51. i played FFX and SvR 07 more then any other game, just nudging out R&C.

i played the hell out ofFantasy star, and had fun dieing and trying to fig. out............well you know how jrpg's go.

The thing about a lot of these games is that they're multi-plat, bar those I mentioned and GoW I&II.

yea that's another thing. everything here in Alexandria LA. up until the last 4 yr's was considered a Nintendo regardless of its actual name. older people still call all consoles Nintendos.

back then, i would have asked you one simple question. what's an exclusive, and to what, and why?