The console market would be way smaller than it is today... MS attracted a lot if PC exclusives gamer with their XB OG and then more with their online gaming... MS is actually one of the best thing that happened to console gaming in a long long long time.... I know me and most of my friends wouldn't be console gamers today without MS and most of my halo 1/2 clan also... They'd be mostly exclusive to PC

I don't think indie games and online gaming will be where it is right now, the xbox brand helped put a spotlight on those things and helped give them more market appeal. Although, I think PC gaming might have more of a retail presence as well since that would mean many of xbox/pc only games would continue to be PC only. At least during the first generation. A game like Doom 3 or Elder Scrolls: Morrowind would have to wait a whole generation before making it's console debut, or skim down the visuals and features even further.

I think you also have to wonder if Sony would have invested into the PS3 like they did if not for the Xbox. Perhaps Nintendo wouldn't feel the need to think outside the box with the Wii to compete with Microsoft and Sony. Meaning no form of kinect or move.

Of course we would have had Halo!! did people forget it was ORIGINALLY developed as a PC game? or has amnesia set in? :-p

We would have it, but would it as big as it is today? 

Then console gaming would be in trouble. Because ps3's high price would have prevented hardcore gamers to get console. Plus online gaming in consoles would be in primary stage still today.

Star Fox Adventures was underwhelming ... People are allowed to hate it because it wasn't a rail shooter. What people expect from Star Fox isn't a zelda clone, what they expect from the franchise are rail shooters. 

Another important thing I've learned is that publishers AREN'T responsible for game quality. The only thing they're responsible for is funding, localization, and deadline dates. Game quality is entirely dependent on the studio itself, NOT the publishers. The argument that publishers make the developers fail is in itself stupid and what's more is that some anti-Microsoft advocates are naive enough to make this their ammunition. 

That's like saying it's Sony's fault for turning Zipper Interactive into crap developers when that isn't the case. 

Yeah, but SOCOM had a fanbase in Sony. Rare on the other hand, did not have a fanbase in Xbox. Perfect Dark Zero could have been more if it wasn't forced as a launch title.

This.

Rare's output and diminished quality had nothing to do with being bought out. It had everything to do with pivotal members of the studio leaving for other ventures. By the time Perfect Dark on the N64 was released(2000), most of the integral developers(Martin Hollis, David Doak) that worked on it and Goldeneye had left the project. Now when they got bought out by MS and there were structural changes made, more people left Rare because the working environment became the polar opposite to what it was before.

Lets star with the alternate universe scenario:
1.Scenario : SEGA would have been acquired by Microsoft, and the online capability still ruled by Microsoft, The Dreamcast may have been close to PS2 in term of sales.

2.Scenario : Another big player would have been competed on the console market like Apple, Nokia (at that time Nokia it's still on good condition). Microsoft would still made another middle ware (OS and direct X for console like what they did with Windows ME for Dreamcast)

Microsoft didn't make the XBox.. they paid an another company to make it.. so they didn't take a full committment to something that wouldn't pay off. and it did better then they expected, so they created the XB divison...