Basically things would have been sped up to where we're at now when you think about it.

It really paints a bit of a picture that MS didn't really fit with the race. Sega fit more with the race than MS did, because Sega was there, MS was already with Windows and PC gaming before Xbox came along. 

Actually would have loved this.

Like imagine being in 2024 and there's less of that junk, more focus on polishing the games, instead of cutting them up to sell as extras or as a live service. 

GameCube would've been more appreciated and sold around 40-45+ million units.

Nintendo did a lot of things that gen that they don't get much credit for because the 2nd place race turned into a shit show.

Resident Evil exclusivity was huge, imagine Nintendo today getting an exclusivity deal on basically the no.1 or no.2 biggest 3rd party franchise of the time.

Things like Animal Crossing would probably be a bit more appreciated because Nintendo would basically be the only other game in town and with a cheap system, a lot of people just would've picked one up as a secondary console at least.

The GameCube hardware was really well made as well, even today games like Rogue Squadron II/III, Star Fox Adventures, F-Zero GX, Resident Evil 4, Zelda: Wind Waker, etc. look great. GameCube was just much better hardware than the PS2 and much easier to program for on top of that, if it was the only game in town I think it would have been more appreciated by developers. XBox kinda sucked the air out of all the work Nintendo did to make a killer piece of hardware because basically a PC-in-a-box subsidized to lose like $100+ per box was an even better proposition to some devs. 

In hindsight the best thing Microsoft could have done was to just cut a deal with Nintendo if they were so worried about Sony and kinda become like a defacto 2nd party supporter for them to stake them against the PS2. Make games like Halo and Project: Gotham Racing (precursor to Forza) but just console exclusive for GameCube and then port them to Windows PC later. 

Would've saved them probably 20 years of losing money, lol. A GameCube that would have Halo and Super Smash Bros. Melee and Star Wars Rogue Squadron in its launch window (along with support titles like Wave Race: Blue Storm and Super Monkey Ball) would be a pretty fantastic launch window. 

Hm...maybe STEAM doesn't exist in that universe, since MS decides to bet on PCs and makes extra effort there before Valve jumped in,

...Just Sony and Nintendo huh....

Honestly wonder what STEAM's absence does to the debate on pricing in games. 

I was more thinking in the line of MS focusing on PC, where there home is, instead of consoles and making something akin to STEAM before Valve did it.

One big difference is that Halo wouldn't have been owned by Microsoft. So the franchise would've most likely would've been Mac exclusive as originally intended. The whole reason Microsoft bought Bungie in the first place was because they were looking for content for the Xbox's launch. If no Xbox, they wouldn't have had a need to buy Bungie. Or Bungie would've gone bankrupt and closed since they were really low on funds and played a huge reason why they were willing to sell to Microsoft.

So in that universe, Halo wouldn't exist either at all, or anywhere near the capacity that it was.

More people would've bought the Game Boy Player too since the GBA was so popular! Arguably one of the most underappreciated accessories in gaming history. Using a physical GBA to be able to play my entire Game Boy collection on a TV?! Brilliant! 

It could have also allowed for MS to fully realise their GFWL ideal on the PC platform, because without Valve around, there would have been nowhere else to go (GoG may not have even existed without Steam as well, and even if it did, MS would have likely bought them out by then or squashed them). 

That is a LOT of money that would never have impacted the industry. Xbox funded quite a few larger games early on, then later funded a lot of indie games which prompted the others to follow suit. There never would have been the need for so many exclusives, timed exclusives, or marketing deals, all of which helped publishers and developers with cash flow.

That probably means there would have been less successful studios and less games produced overall.

As for GFWL, it was an utter and complete abomination. I still consider it the worst experience I've ever had in gaming. It deserved to fail. I like to think that someone would have taken Steam's place eventually, simply because GFWL was so awful. Also, never forget that Microsoft tried to force PC gamers to pay a subscription fee. I have zero doubt that the PC gaming situation would be far worse now if Microsoft had emerged on top.

All I can say for sure is at least Nintendo would still have Rare and wouldn't have had to scrap so many Rare games that would have potentially been awesome. But it would be sad to not see Halo (assuming it ever made it past it's early concept in this timeline).