OMFG...I can't believe what I've been reading. How can anyone say the GCN is so much better than the PS2?! Think about if folks...
Firstly, I own a GCN, PS2, GBASP, a good PC setup, and a Dreamcast. Not to brag, I'm going to the UAT to get a degree in Game Design...upon receiving it, I will be making games for mostly Sony systems only. I have been playing games since NES and Sega Master System came out, although I have played other early systems as well such as Atari. I know a lot about video games, because I do RESEARCH...something people here seem to not do very much before they post.
Nintendo has, lately, been slacking off. Everytime they release a new game of theirs, particularly one of their big-hitters (Mario, Zelda, Star Fox, etc.), it's total crap compared to their predecessors. From what I have noticed, Nintendo's major game franchises have slowly been falling to pieces. Just look at the recent trend in their games...Wind Waker blew chunks, admit it. It was a great game, and worth a purchase -- but compared to the other Zelda games, it had crap for variety of puzzles, dungeons, and items...not to mention it was way too short. Mario Sunshine totally f-d the entire Mario series by introducing the "water hose". The main focus was still on the classic jumping platform formula, but every Mario game beforehand has always been about the classic run-and-jump idea...the water hose structure eliminates this feeling. Not to mention the majority of the enemies you don't even jump on to defeat, and the bosses were pretty lame. Don't even get me started with Star Fox...that was the biggest GCN disappointment to me. If I want to play an adventure game with hand-to-hand combat and whatnot, I can just go play Zelda...since both game engines are practically identical. Has Nintendo forgotten what Star Fox is? It's not an adventure game, it's a space-shooter. And now there's Donkey Kong...ever since Rare transferred over to Microsoft, Nintendo hasn't done a thing with this series -- until now. But what are they doing? Ruining a classic, just as they have been doing with Zelda, Mario, and Star Fox. Look into the new planned DK game, and you'll see it's music game!!! WTF?!?!?! I'm just speechless on this one. Donkey Kong is NOT A MUSIC GAME!!! It's a freakin' platform game like DK Country 1-3 and DK64! The only true-to-formula games on GCN I can think of are F-Zero and Mario Kart.
Don't forget about online play...which Nintendo DOES NOT HAVE! Mario Kart is the closest game to online play on the GCN. Sure, you can SAY you don't want online play...but who are you kidding? Wouldn't it be fun to play Mario Kart or Mario Party with someone on the other side of the planet? Or what about Soul Calibur online?
Now for PS2. It is a proven fact that the majority of gamers prefer the games on PS2 over the ones on GCN...I'm not saying all of them do. From what it seems, the majority of the people who have posted in this thread are die-hard Nintendo fans...so I know there's no way I can ever prove to you how PS2 has better games. PS2 has Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, GTA, Gran Turismo, Resident Evil (which Nintendo only has exclusivity for RE1-6...nothing else you Nintendo RE wannabes! read: "there will be as many RE games as there are James Bond films"), Silent Hill, etc. They have so many exclusive titles, it's just insane! Not to mention, EAs games have exclusive online play for their sports titles. You can argue that Nintendo has FF back, but then I would again have to prove you wrong...so I'll save you some time and do it now. FFXII, FFXI...job done. What? GCN gets FFCC and GBA gets FFTa? That's great...fine for them. Come to think of it, FFCC alone will probably be one of the GCN's saviours, along with Metal Gear Solid Twin Snakes (both of which are only third-party...showing how nintendo cannot support itself with first-party games). Besides, is there anyone here who has played both Final Fantasy Tactics (sony) and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (nintendo) and has like FFTa more? I didn't think so. The gameplay was underdeveloped and scaled down, the story was nowhere near as deep as FFT's, and there weren't NEARLY as many abilities and items to collect/learn. It also seems like Nintendo has been getting desperate to get sales up. They've released two -- read it, TWO -- Zelda bonus discs of games that have already been out before, they've had to lower the price of the GCN and offer free games with it, and they've been forced to reveal their next handheld...the Nintendo DS
Which brings me to my other point of why Sony is so much better: The PSP already has the support of a lot of major third-party developers such as Capcom, Koei, EA, and Konami...not to mention Square-Enix is probably hard at work on at least one title. Nintendo on the other hand...their handheld has one thing better than the PSP -- more memory. But who does Nintendo think they can fool? Do you really think any handheld games will need 1gigabit (yup, that's right, GIGABIT...not BYTE) of RAM? That's like owning a 256MB video card for your PC...no game actually makes use of ALL 256MB. Sony is the smarter of the two by using less RAM, thereby reducing development costs in the end. Also, Sony has its own uber-minidisc UMD format, which is practically burn-proof. Nintendo will obviously use cartridges again, which are much much slower than any disc format, since it has backward compatibility with GBA.
Nintendo has been slacking off lately and has been offering empty promises. Hopefully the already-in-the-works Mario 128 and "Wind Waker 2" will be regain their predecessor's lost glory.
Of course, if you're a REAL hardcore gamer, you would be like me, and accept that ALL systems are good in their own way, and NOT BE SUCH A DARN FANBOY!!! Grow up, do your research, and come to the realization that Nintendo is dying (which, if you've been keeping up to date, you would know that Nintendo has even said they may do what Sega did and drop out of the console business...proving they're becoming desperate in all ways).