Let's see, Ps2 sold more than GCN, at a higher price point, with hard development, and a "crappy" list of first party developers.
Anybody who sais Ps3 will do remotly bad is talking out of thier "butt"
Ps2 was Sony's last chance to fail, it has everything wrong with it. Price, Power, and development... all three work against Ps2, and Ps2 is kicking the hell out of the more powerful, lower priced, and more developer friendly consoles.
Nintendo has yet to make progress sense SNES.
MS... well, they are keeping up with Nintendo as a newbie, that probably do have a big future.
Stu is 100% correct, it Nintendo doesn't have a head start next time, it could be deadly.