I am in the same boat as mist Ian most of the time largely because I did sit through the N64 days wishing I had either a PS or Saturn BECASUE of the lack of games. I did the same with GC I spent a lot of time wishing I had one or both of the other 2 BECAUSE GC was lacking in games.
I ended up getting both of the otehr 2 and I was still disapointed with PS2 so eventualy got rid of it, as for Xbox well It hasnt goten as much play as I thought it would but it still is nice to nolonger have to sit back and get pissed I wont be abel to play a game I have been anticapating, now I am not restricted. In the SNES days itw as different, even if you were a Nintendo only fan or Sega only fan it didnt matter, the 3rd party supports was basicaly equal and the 1st party stuff on either system was more than satisfying.
Also yo haev to factor in, dont take this the wrong way either, the fact that nobody is goign to be very excited abotu rooting for the loosing team and GC was undenyably the losing team.
I have doubts as well about Nintendos stratgey in regards to the rev but where Ian sees doom I actualy see some major improvemnts that gets largely over looked. Mostly what I see is Nintendo is TAKING AWAY everything that makes Xbox great, and thats whats going to win them in the end, tehres no argument this next time. Xbox inticed a lot of 1st person shooters fans by having the best lineol up and the best control for the genre, GC was pretty good also but its missing buttons did make a difference.
GC didnt have any good 1st person shooters and rigth now Nintendo is doing evrythign they can to show that as far as 1st perosn shooters are concerned teh rev is THE ONLY option, its going to have the perfect interface, its goign to be online, also have LAN single disk play, its going to have voice chat (recently confirmed) and its online is goignt obe FREE. Right tehre they take EVERY thing that Xbox has and basicaly shoot it down, Free is always superior to costly in consumers minds, and 1st person shooter fans are going to most likely flock to REV once they get their hands on it.
Then theres the HD thing, but unliek Ian and others I see this as ana dvantage not a disadvantage because first off by the time tehres enough HD TV in houses xbox 360 ps3 and rev will all be old news. Sony and MS are building it into thei rsystems not to sell systems but to sell HD, plain and simple. For NIntendo to stay out of this right now is better because for one it saves them money and they dont have to cater to a certain limited market, expamle, on a HD TV Xbox 360 is fantastic and is worth getting the system and trying some games, but for a normal TV that doesnt suport HD and doesnt support tha aspect ratio and such ytur goign to be nmissing out on a lot of the game it your going to feel liek yu got cheated if you got an xbox 360 and no hd tv especialy when everytime yo goto teh store and see it running on HD TV your going to feel more cheated, or liely will buy an HD TV which is all MS or Sony want you to do.
Nintendo wont have that feeling yu will play it on any TV and it will look great no matter what. It will still support Progressive Scan so if yo lay it on your HD TV you are still getitng a good pciture so tehres hsouldnt be any complaints there.
Ltes say for instance Nintendo was going to go with HD also heres what I see, peopel who DONT have HD TVs are going to see the difference and are going to feel liek they got ripped off and arent going to suport the system any longer, now since Nintendo is the only system taht wont have that "i got ripped off' feel that gies them a major advantage. a consumer is going to want barain and feautres. Rev offers a major bargain and plenty of features for the average consumer, and offers plenty of neat stuff for the hard core gamers. All thats left is for Nintendo to make great games to show case what it can do and thast where the toruble is rigth now, can Nintendo still maek great games? Well DS certainly has a few but GC hasnt had any really great games in along time, the best they have look better when you see tehres nothing else avauilable but when yo compare to other great games the ebst for GC sstill dont stack up as well, not saying they are all crap cuz tehres still some great games, but its been along time sicne they made a game that was really truely great, tahst why Zelda TP is so impoirtant if it is as good as we all want it to be than they will have acheived 2 things regain conficende in the fans and possibly win back some strays who jumped ship.
Reasing TOP close to REV and making it KNOWN that it will work on the REV wiull also have a major impact.