So, who won?

I wanna say the Xbox, but it pales in comparison to the massive library of games that the PS2 had. Granted, there was some significant hardware failure (at least among my circle of friends), but it was nothing a simple disassembly couldn't fix. It didn't have the best graphics or decent online play (when compared to live) but games like Shadow of the Colossus, GT:3 and 4 (both of which revolutionized the way i looked at racing games), and GTA (even though they came out later on Xbox), made the PS2 the must have system for me.
The Gamecube had great graphics and great first party games, but the third party support was seemingly nonexistent. And online play for only 2 games (IIRC) is just unacceptable, even though the PS2 didn't have great online capabilities from what I've heard.

EDIT: Why not make a poll?

I would like to say GC because of its concentrated good games but the lack luster 3rd party support hinders all. I would say the PS2 was a better all around platform and truly dominated. The xbox was more of a hardcore FPS/PC platform and really didn't dent the industry....I would say last gen belonged to the PS2.



Bless

I would say the PS2. No doubt its shear sales numbers helped. Everyone I knew had a PS2 so we all played the same games and we all had tons of fun playing Madden or whaever against eachother.

PS2 had great games in every category, everyone played (and for the most part loved) GTA III/VC/SA, MGS2/3, FFX/XII, God of War, and lots more (I'm totally drawin a blank)

I only had an xbox a year before I got my 360 so I only played the majors (Halos, Fable, Ninja Gaiden, a few others). But aside from the greatness of KOTOR and Panzer Dragoon (sooo good) I was never really amazed by it, and looking back at it, 360 crushes it in every way (the old XBL seems.... so old now).

The Gamecube I think was ultimately disappointing because the big name Nintendo games that basically carry Nintendo (lets be honest here, 3rd party support hasn't been too amazing with the big N and still isn't... yet anyway) like Mario Sunshine, Windwaker and Mario Kart Double Dash were very unwhelming compared to their N64 counterparts. Super Mario 64 was genius, Sunshine? FLUDD? *coughlamecough*. Windwaker? Looked AWESOME.... sailing for hours sucked ass. Mario Kart? *yawn* Plus I think most people didn't dig the controller, and I sure as hell didn't. The c-stick was annoying and the z button was a little weird. It had killer franchises to be sure, Metriod comes to mind, and some amazing 3rd party games (RE4, Killer 7, MGS:TS and a few others that I blank on ) but overall I think the Gamecube just seemed starved to me. I know a lot of people feel otherwise, but the cube always seemed like 'that other system'.

I'm gonna throw in a vote for Xbox, because of how hard it is to get into this market, and Microsoft managed to take a reasonable chunk from Sony and Nintendo.

michaelltd said:

I'm gonna throw in a vote for Xbox, because of how hard it is to get into this market, and Microsoft managed to take a reasonable chunk from Sony and Nintendo.

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Good point. Although MS's seemingly bottomless pockets helped them just a tad

My favorite games were on the Cube but if I had to go with only one system I would have picked the PS2 for the incredible selection of titles. My PS2 game library is 5 times as numerous as my Gamecube one. I owned very few XBox games. (Not a big fan of racing, sports, and FPSs games) As for the hardware design, I loved the Cube best even tough the XBox was more versatile. My favorite last gen controller was the Cube's. (Big green central button = clever)

There no longer has to be a winner, simply because Nintendo's route allows them to sell large numbers of consoles without taking sales away from Microsoft or Sony.


I'd say the winners are Microsoft and Nintendo.

Microsoft has gained the respect of the hardcore gaming community and developers in a way much like the PS2 last gen, being regarded as the system with the most games. It also got a lot of sales.

However, as a negative, the XBox 360's hardware problems in addition to the fact that it sells at a large loss have guaranteed that the system has lost far, far more money than it has brought in.

Meanwhile, Nintendo has regained most of the 3rd party support they lost with the Nintendo 64 and GameCube and won back the respect of most (whereas the GameCube was the butt of all webcomic jokes for half a decade). They're rapidly on route to become the top seller.

Nintendo took a huge risk, and it paid off.


If I had to elect one winner, it'd be Nintendo, but honestly both Microsoft and Nintendo will be happy with the results of this generation.

I say Nintendo as the bigger winner simply because...well, Nintendo made a profit off their success. And Nintendo's getting more media attention.

What system did Sega have? I thought the Dreamcast was 5th gen?

If it was last gen then I would vote for that. The Dreamcast was a phenomenal system with fantastic titles. It's the only Sega system I've ever liked. Too bad it fell so fast.

GFLPraxis said:

[Nintendo is] rapidly on route to become the top seller.

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They ARE the top seller. The Wii is killing the competition. Everyone wants one. I mean, they still sell out within hours how many months after release? Meanwhile, the PS3's collect dust even with the price break and the 360's sell every once in a while.

As a side note, if you read the first post, you'd know that he wasn't talking about this gen. He wanted to know who one last gen (and not sales wise).

QuarterSwede said:

They ARE the top seller. The Wii is killing the competition. Everyone wants one. I mean, they still sell out within hours how many months after release? Meanwhile, the PS3's collect dust even with the price break and the 360's sell every once in a while.

As a side note, if you read the first post, you'd know that he wasn't talking about this gen. He wanted to know who one last gen (and not sales wise).

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Ah crap, I totally missed that one critical sentence where he said 6th gen. My bad.

And Wii is selling faster, but the XBox 360 has moved more units overall due to the 1 year lead.


Okay, let me correct it then.


Last generation? PS2 won cleanly. XBox sold with a 16% marketshare and 4 billion dollar loss. GameCube sold with a 14% marketshare and a profit, but lost all support from third parties and was the worst selling Nintendo console (not counting portables like Virtual Boy). PS2 absolutely dominated with a 70% marketshare, dominant in every region, and all the third parties.


From a corporate standpoint, Sony won. In the U.S. Microsoft accomplished brand recognition with XBox Live and Halo and became popular, but not profitable or dominant.

And I'm talking ONLY about consoles. The GBA outsold the PS2 and the DS is on track to do it even faster. From a handheld perspective, Nintendo rules the world.

michaelltd said:

I'm gonna throw in a vote for Xbox, because of how hard it is to get into this market, and Microsoft managed to take a reasonable chunk from Sony and Nintendo.

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What determines success in your mind?

XBox was the least profitable of all three systems (the only system that took an overall loss after all was said and done, and $4 billion at that).

XBox was second place by a large margin in marketshare.

So if they were not profitable and did not have the largest marketshare, how can they be the winner? Building up a brand name and entering the market is a good thing, but if you lose money and don't get first place, you can hardly be called the winner.

Three winners, really all of 'em...just key areas for each.

Strength in numbers - Sony (100+ million Ps2s sold)

Online - Microsoft (Xbox Live)

Portable - Nintendo (without question)

I'd say PS2 - most variety of games, and the most sales, and enough clout to support all the unusual/niche/specialty games like SingStar and the EyeToy stuff and Guitar Hero.

GFLPraxis said:

What determines success in your mind?

XBox was the least profitable of all three systems (the only system that took an overall loss after all was said and done, and $4 billion at that).

XBox was second place by a large margin in marketshare.

So if they were not profitable and did not have the largest marketshare, how can they be the winner? Building up a brand name and entering the market is a good thing, but if you lose money and don't get first place, you can hardly be called the winner.

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It was more for a kind of honorable mention really than a winner. I give kudos for Microsoft managing to get into the market and begin to grow an install base which is pretty decent for a newcomer.

In my personal opinion though, PS2 due to its huge library.

In terms of more systems per home with my friends - the Xbox won. Everyone had the thing modded and was using it for Media Centre purposes, I actually think that was one the best reasons to own an Xbox. £120 customisable media centre, during the days that such a computer would be a good £500? Perfect.

Here it ran-

PS2 was launched and a few people bought them, mostly the same people who bought a DC on launch.
Nobody cared for Xbox for a long time. But then the flood gates opened.
Few had a Cube. My friend brought a mini-DVD in with some Cube trailers and nobody would believe it "can't be that small".

In a mega rough guess I'd put the PS2/Cube at about 30% each, and 40% had the Xbox.

If I were to say PS2 was the winner, which it was in sales, it wouldn't be on number of games. Where the Cube had about 15 must haves, the PS2 would had 10. Some gems (Ico, FF, SotC et al) amongst an ungodly amount of crap. I've never seen the ratio so steep before.

Everyone and their cat had a GBA. We'd all play Advance Wars, 4 teams, 4 members in a team and an appointed "CO". The good ol' days

I like my GameCube, but that's just my preference. First party support was excellent, but third party support was absolutely lackluster. I always if I want a third party game, I should just get it on the PS2 or Xbox. I think my whole library of GameCube games is first party games. Nintendo without a doubt had the best crop of multiplayer games.

I didn't like the PS2 for all of the RPGs. I am sure I hate Japanese-style, turn-based RPGs now. Final Fantasy was cool in the SNES days. Haven't played FF VII to this day, but after playing X for a short bit, I don't really care. Kingdom Hearts had a different battle system which makes it an RPG I can enjoy. I like RPGs that have some action to them, not just picking attacks from a menu repeatedly. However, I was impressed by several PS2 games. Shadow of the Colossus, Metal Gear Solid series, Guitar Hero, Karaoke Revolution (that's right, I said it), Jak and Daxter, and Ratchet and Clank. The PS2 was a very good single player console.

Xbox never really captured me. I loved playing a 4 on 4 Halo CTF match, but I still prefer Halo as a computer game. Almost every major Xbox title reached the PC, so I never felt I missed much. The only Xbox game I have currently, and I only bought it once I got my 360, is Jet Set Radio Future.

I bought my PS2 and GameCube near the end of their lifetimes, so I'm content I caught up on a lot of games for cheap. I say Sony won the war.

I'm still miffed that the Gamecube didn't come out in the colors they originally announced it with. You know, that nacho cheese yellow, lime green, gold, red... We got purple, black, and silver ("platinum"). Same thing with my original GBA. I wanted a white one with orange accents, instead I had to settle for grey accents.

I like the Gamecube's controller far more than either the PS2 and Xbox which made me enjoy playing it the most, but I think overall the PS2 had the greatest overall success, followed by Microsoft barely nudging out the Gamecube for second. The Gamecube's image did hurt it (plus having many of its games seem graphically limited even though the hardware was capable of much more as seen by games like RE4). The PS2's immense library makes it pretty difficult to top, though Microsoft and Nintendo both had their own killer apps.

This one's easy. All you need to do is ask if the Gamecube or the XBOX had Guitar Hero.

P-Worm

Forgot about the controllers:
-I hated the Xbox controller, i just couldn't understand why 1st and 3rd party developers occasionally mapped the black and white buttons to do important things (Switching grenades in Halo, yaw control in GTA).
-The Gamecube had the most comfortable controller, but i liked the PS2s controller the best, because that was the 6th gen console i mainly played

Oh as far as (official) controllers go - Gamecube, Xbox ....... PS2. A friend had some mini-wireless Xbox controller which was an absolute joy to use, I'm tempted to put that ahead of the GC one but it still had the grooved analogue stick.
Then the PS3 came along and added a (stupid) plano-convex trigger instead of a (wise) plano-concave.

I'm sort of hoping the rumbling PS3 controller will fix this and the other problems with the older controller. Just like Dell's attempts at making nice looking computers; you sometimes wonder how such a thing made it off the drawing board.

Who won this current gen.


The DS hasn't everyone got one yet ?

Jeez you make it sound like people only have to own 1

It depends on who likes what type of game. I think RPG fans could only say PS2

Personally, as many have said, my preference is GameCube. I think they had a great library all around with tons of really fun games - but I think a lot of people hadn't heard of the titles and never tried them.

Also, Dreamcast was indeed last generation. N64/Saturn/PS1, then Dreamcast/PS2/GCN/Xbox.

1999 - Dreamcast
2000 - PlayStation2
2001 - GameCube / Xbox

I think if DC could have stayed in the game, it just might have been a contender (if they could have done something about the rampant piracy).