I don't agree that the Xbox really hurt GCN sales... if M$ never threw their hat in the ring, last gen simply would have been PS1 vs N64 all over again, only with an even larger disparity between sales of their respective consoles.

I think if anything the Xbox took away more potential PS2 sales than it did the GCN, especially here in the west. Exclusives like Halo 1 & 2, the best online service on consoles plus ports of major 3rd party AAA games like the GTA and MGS games convinced alot of people to get an Xbox over a PS2. If Xbox didn't exist, I guarantee you that a minimum of 75% of its sales would have went to the PS2 instead, probably more.

I disagree, I think Nintendo spent years making the GameCube friendly to develop for and was poised to get a good amount of third party support but that was kinda upstaged by MS making an even easier platform to develop for (basically a PC in a box). All the Western devs flocked that way. So that hurt Nintendo.

Being the only viable alternative to Sony would've at least gaurunteed Nintendo a good amount of the spotlight too, with three consoles, the GameCube seemed to be the one that always ended up getting lost in the mix.

Hmmmm....if the Xbox took away more potential PS2 sales then why did the PS2 gain 50 million more gamers than their previous gen, leaving Nintendo with nearly ten thousand less gamers than the gen before, while the Xbox got in second place? Nintendo couldn't do much against both in a head on fight. With the Wii, Nintendo didnt fight head on they aimed at a newer market.

Because the gaming market as a whole expanded pretty drastically from the 32/64-bit gen to last gen.  According to the platform totals on here, the three major gen-5 consoles sold a total of around 146m units, while the three major gen-6 consoles (excluding the Dreamcast) sold around 205m units.  That's a pretty big jump, and it was even bigger a generation earlier when home console sales nearly doubled from gen-4 to gen-5 thanks to Sony entering the market.

One of the biggest reasons for this jump was the evolving image of game consoles as home entertainment hubs with the advent of the DVD medium, rather than strictly game machines aimed primarily at the under-18 crowd.  Both Sony and later M$ were able to capitalize on this growing trend in the industry, whereas Nintendo was stuck mainly catering to their niche audience that was growing smaller and smaller each year until the Wii.  That's why I suggested that if the Xbox hadn't existed, then most of its user base would have ended up in Sony's camp, because they both catered to a similar audience.

Which is exactly as I said to Jega, Microsoft likes to dominate markets themselves and cannot tolerate it when others do it. Microsoft likened themselves to Sony so they were virtually indistinguisable and beefed up the marketing. They are are sitting on half of the PS2 marketshare that trickled down to the seventh generation. Next generation Sony and Microsoft will finally face off company to company instead of one year after the other. This gen will make or break who really holds power. Now that Sony is about 50k closer to tying with MS and then passing them, all they need now is to launch GT6 and commence with the inevitable. 

I respectfully disagree with your disagreement.  Ease of development didn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things... the PS2 was by far the toughest of the three to program for by most accounts, yet it left the others in the dust in terms of software content and sales. 

I think what hurt the GC the most was Nintendo themselves.   Both the DVD medium and online gaming were really starting to take off at the beginning of last gen, and rather than embracing these new innovations with open arms, Nintendo went in the exact opposite direction.  They offered yet another proprietary storage format that, while it didn't have much impact on the games themselves this time, completely eliminated the possibility of movie playback, something that was a big selling point and added value to consumers with the PS2 and Xbox.  They also all but dismissed online gaming, instead offering up only ONE online title, while both the PS2 and especially the Xbox introduced online gaming to the living room in a big way and helped pave the way for great services like Xbox Live and PSN over this past gen.  Meanwhile, three generations later and Nintendo STILL hasn't figured out this whole online thing.

Oh, and last but not least... the GameCube looked like a damn lunchbox for pre-schoolers.  Yeah, not exactly the image you want your state-of-the-art gaming console to project to potential buyers, is it?

ok. thanks for the details.

I agree; we have 3 strong competitors in the market right now. This drives innovation. The ones that benefit most from this is the consumers.

I disagree. MS did a lot of damage to Sony. If they never entered the console market, there is little doubt that Sony would still be dominating it.

MS did a lot to push the gaming business. Not everything was great, but a lot of good came from them entering the console wars. Where would we be if they didn't? Can't really say anything for a fact, as it will all be conjecture.

I actually enjoy DLC, it can extend games that you enjoy with new content without waiting a few years for a sequel. It is there as an option, no one is forcing you to buy the DLC.

Sony stated that people would get two jobs just to be able to buy a PS3. I'm sure that had everything to do with just American corporate mentality. Companies are here to make money. If MS was not here to offer another option to consumers, it would not be a good thing.