late launch, very low amount of third party titles, many people called it "childish," blablabla.

ill never understand why the original xbox sold more than the gamecube, when the GC had SOOOOO much more games....

I loved the GC! My favorite system of last gen! :D

It is important to note that although the Gamecube was a disappointment as far as total sales as % of market, that it still was profitable. This left Nintendo in a good financial position to develop a new and apparently more succesful approach.

It will be interesting to see how the model of selling consoles at a loss in order to build market share plays out. So far, not so well.

But now they realised that they need to make a kiddy console without DVD support, and started winning?  

Hype aka marketing. One of the main reasons why product sells of fails to sell. PS2 hype was bigger than GC. These days obviously Wii hype bigger than anything else, things goes vice-versa.

You have Sony to thank for that. With the N64 promoting Pokemon games, Sony pointed out that little kids have Nintendo systems, while the mature crowd owns a PS2. Target that idea to every teenager who wishes they were older/more respected, and you have an avalanche. The GameCube was affected by the remnants of this Sony mudslinging, as they tried to make the GC seem more of a hardcore system with the Resident Evil series, Eternal Darkness and those type of games. Problem is, teenagers are stubborn creatures that love to be negative, so once a negative thought is in their head, it sticks for a long time.

Umm I had mine in black at launch =)

Great piece of hardware if you consider the ratio between performance and cost.
However the system was launched to late to garner any serious momentum from PS2 and it failed miserably to find a differentation factor ( the pad was a lttle different and with the idea to ease the control with the big A button but was too little to pass noticed to many people ).
Ultimately their failed attempt to differentiate retort over them and the console was appealing only to whom likes Nintendo games ( i.e. the millions of Nintendo fan ).

Ironically some principles later found on Wii was shared with the GC and the fact that its failure was evident early ( by 2003 ) gave the time and the will to Nintendo to try pursuing their philosopy with the right execution.

Because Microsoft had the money and the will to buy marketshare while Nintendo goal was to make a profit and then retry the next round to have a smashing success.

I cannot see how it's legitiamately conclusive that SONY was to blame.  As a platformer fan, all three Jak & Daxters, all three Slys, all three Ratchet & Clanks were great games.  That's a total of nine quality platformers, SONY exclusives, and all had a "kiddy" look.  Aside from those, there were also a slew of "kiddy" games on the PS2 because it had the largest userbase.  A lot of the rpg on the PS2 had a "kiddy" look, and we know that the PS2 had plenty of them.  Also, I remember that the "kiddy" stigma started to surface back during the SNES and Genesis days when comparing titles such as the multi-platform Mortal Kombat.  And by the way, I like "kiddy" games as long as it's a specific game I'm looking for, and it's quality.

But back on topic, I don't think the GC was a failure eventhough it was in third.  I might be seen as such by some because it didn't have the support like the PS2 had.  There is one thing that stands out from Nintendo systems, and that is its 1st and 2nd party games.  Nintendo catered to its fanbase at the very least and very successful at it.  Gamecube was cool and regardless of being in third, it served both its fanbase and Nintendo very well.