Well, the ps3 has a lot going for it that the GC did not.

First, it doesn't JUST play games. The ps3 is currently the best Blu-Ray player on the market (the only one currently upgradeable to BD-J 2.0). It's also an excellent DVD upscaler, media streamer, and more capabilities are being added with each firmware update. The GameCube, in comparison, played GameCube games. That's it. Because of this, people may be more willing to purchase a ps3 despite it's lack of games in comparison to other consoles, something that has already been shown by many people on this very site.

Second, the ps3 caters to a much different market than the Wii does. It's the old gameplay versus graphics argument, taken to a whole new level. Of course, neither is truly lacking in either area, but the differences between the two are far larger than those between the GC and ps2. The ps2 was essentially an ever-so-slightly weaker GC that played far more games. As such, the choice between the two was obvious. This gen, the choice is much more subjective. The HD consoles still offer a wide variety of games to play in comparison to the Wii, so it depends on what you prefer - graphics or the Wiimote.

I personally think that the Wii is not the definitive casual console of choice this generation, unlike the ps2 last generation. I think that the 80+ million casuals that purchased a ps2 will be split among the Wii and the HD consoles, with the majority going to the Wii, but a very large chunk still going to the ps3/360 (moreso the ps3, due to brand name, and exclusives, but I'll touch on that later), because some people prefer button mashing their way through games like God of War with flashy, and very bloody, visuals, or shooting the crap out of random people in games like GTA, rather than actually getting off of their asses and playing Wii Sports.

I do think that the Wii will continue to sell like mad, but many of these sales will be from a new demographic, the "non-gamers" like my sister. The Wii is expanding the market, and not necessarily taking over the existing market. Because of this, I believe the that the HD consoles will still sell very well, much better than the GC/Xbox of last-gen, though the Wii will still dominate them both, excelling past even the ps2's total sales.

Unlike the Gamecube, the ps3/360 have a good amount of third party support. Many of these games will not be coming to the Wii, which provides an incentive for even non-graphics whores to choose a ps3 or 360 over a Wii (or in addition to a Wii). However, which one will they choose? I believe that by the end of the generation, a large majority will have chosen the ps3. Since 90% of all 3rd party games are multiplat ps3/360, this leaves 1st and 2nd party studios to give one console an edge over the other, and that is one area in which Sony (much like Nintendo) excels. These 1st and 2nd party studios combined with the fact that, out of the two, Sony is the only one with major 3rd party exclusives left (MGS4, Tekken 6, FFXIII), will help the ps3 end up with far more exclusives than the 360 in the end. These exclusives combined with a more popular brand name (just look at Europe), and a more feature rich console will lead to the ps3 eclipsing the 360's by a large margin in the end.

Needless to say, the ps3 is by no means the "GameCube" of the seventh generation. At worst it could be considered the Xbox, except I believe that it will at least triple the Xbox's total sales in the end.

Ans yes, I know this is a joke thread, but I still felt compelled to respond. :P

Yes, the PS3 has advantages over the GC and that's why the PS3 will sell more than the GC did, although I don't expect it to sell 70m like you do, more like 40m being the most it can do. Let me restate that I merely wanted to point out in this thread that the PS3 won't take off with price cuts for similar reasons as the GC never did.

1) I agree on this, Blu-Ray will be responsible for some of the PS3's sales. The Gamecube had nothing besides games as selling point. But still, games and popularity are the main driving force behind console sales.

2) It's true that the PS3 is catering to a different audience than the Wii (mainly the "hardcore" gamer), but just like the GC faced two competitors (PS2, Xbox), the PS3 is facing two competitors as well (360, gaming PC to some extent). But the brandname will certainly help the PS3 to gain marketshare.

The Wii is facing the problem that it doesn't offer some types of "casual" games yet (mainly GTA and sports games), because Nintendo themselves doesn't make them and 3rd parties so far ignored them. On the other hand, the HD consoles are still out of the price range most gamers are willing to pay. So it's a matter of who of the 3 companies gets there first. If the Wii receives these types of games before the 360 and PS3 hit a $200 price point, then most people will settle with the Wii, making your prediction of 70m PS3s sold very unlikely to happen.

PS3/360 sales will exceed the sales of GC/Xbox due to overall growth of the market, multiconsole ownership and simply for the reason that the systems are so different this gen (which basically will cause more multiconsole ownership). Another main factor is that the PS3/360 started out with all the possible 3rd party support, unlike the GC/Xbox.

Due to the high development costs and low ROI on the HD consoles I expect most publishers to shift most of their resources to Wii development over the next couple of years, making the PS3/360 less appealing to later adaptors because of a shrinking number of new releases, resulting in less floor space in stores, resulting in lower hardware sales.

And no, this isn't a joke thread, I don't know where you are getting this idea from.

Also, I don't mind that you (or anyone else) didn't answer the question of the OP. What bothers me is that a lot of people answered why they bought a GC which was totally not asked for in this thread.