Bad luck..... or good luck. How else do you explain almost the same hardware losing one generation & leading the next? The GC's failings I think had something to do with MS & Sony way overemphasizing the opinion of the "core" gamers (purple lunchbox, kiddie controller, small disc, no good games except Resident Evil, etc...) and allowed Nintendo to score and uncontested victory in the mainstream market.

In hindsight, by about 2005 the average person was getting bored with the overdone CGI & movie license crapfest that had become a staple of the PS2 world.

^ the ps2 absolutely destroyed the other systems software wise in every genre, number of exclusives, and depth of games available in each genre. there were crap games but those hardly defined the system. It is silly to try to marginalize the ps2 like that.

Did you ever walk through the gamecube section in an electronics store in 2004 -2005? It was a sad sight indeed. Ofcourse it had a few gems, but the ps2 had far more to offer everyone, and had a ton of quality titles amidst the shovelware (something the Wii currently struggling to accomplish).

ameratsu, what topped sales charts & what gems were on the shelf are two different things. The trends of the PS2 generation were story-driven CGI cut-scenes, open sand-box game designs, and outward licensing. (all things from the GTA soundtrack, Madden, & Enter the Matrix)

That trend has obviously run it's course otherwise the PS3 would be selling better....

In a few years from now the mini-game wagglers & perf craze will become passe. It's the nature of the video gaming mass market beast.

One of the biggest reasons was the colour. Shape and the handle were both great, but the colour kind of ruined the thing as a whole. It should have been released as black, instead of purple.
PS2 had already the brand image from previous gen, so the PS2 momentum was nearly impossible to break, so the "leftovers" was for the others to compete.
Lack of 3rd party support was one of the biggest problems. GC started well, in terms of 3rd party support, but it dried out quickly due to bad hardware sales.
Related to previus point, the mini-DVD hurt in terms of 3rd party ports (despite most of the games fitting to a mini-DVD), Xbox used DVD-9 and PS2 DVD-5.
GC was also lacking the "casual" titles that PS2 had and the ton of cheap shovelware, which both do appeal to public.
The lack of GC being the "hot" item.
And the system didn't really differentiate itself from the competition.

As for the lack of DVD player, i don't see that really hurting GC. It did help PS2 a lot, but it wasn't the main selling point for it and propably wouldn't have been a selling point for GC at all.

^ the ps2 had games on cd (purple bottom, early games), dvd-5(vast majority of later games) and dvd-9 (a few games)

@ameratsu: True. Original technical specifications are for 4,7GB discs. I don't know whether the early models worked with DVD-9 or not.

didnt gamecube win?

well the gamecube had phantasy star online ep 1+2 before anyone else, so that sealed it for me,

Was Wii really that Niche? Its the only console I had last gen, and I got like 40 games for it. Some of them are really fantastic. Why did Gamecube get great games like RE4, RE0, Skies of Arcadia and Tales of Symphonia if it was Niche?