m. The demand is lower than PS5 it seems?
Did you ignore the post you quoted? Manufacturing obstructions (and they started later) of course it's going to be lower for now, likely if everything was even they'd be selling at or near the same, it's really when the manufacturing picks up and we see more stock on shelves where we start to see what kind of momentum Microsoft will have, and that likely won't be happening for them or Sony until summer. Like August Summer. Maybe July.
I lived next to a game store. You are right that Xbox took that shelf space. What you don't get is that if Xbox hadn't existed Nintendo would still have lost that shelf space, just to more PS2 stuff.
It wasn't Xbox driving Nintendo out of the stores. It was lack of interest in Nintendo's product.
Nintendo would not have sold more than 1m more had Xbox not existed. Their lack of appeal vs PS2 was the entire problem.
If Xbox wasn't around it's no doubt that the Gamecube would have gotten more sales to an extent, the issue though is it's not clear how much. They may have as you stated still lost a ton of shelf space at retailers in general including gaming stores, for consoles and games, they may have had stores where they just didn't sell Gamecubes.
Gamecube sales in places that Xbox did poorly in were pretty bad or underwhelming outside of Japan which was "decent".
In the US the Xbox had beaten the PS2 for some months, was having more and more sales momentum before them having to drop out and put out the 360, while the Gamecube for some time was declining even with price cuts, and even had to halt production, then they started having fire sale prices, bundles of games included, accessories included, change in marketing strategy, and they slowly started to reverse the trend, and even then that only started to become significant after the Xbox was heavily marketing, and then later releasing, the 360 in 2005.
This makes me wonder about the Gamecubes overall value perception to the consumers of the time and it may have been that even if the Xbox never entered the Gamecube may have probably only sold a bit more than it did at best and the PS2 may have either sold even more than it did, or sold the same but maybe PC or other consoles may have gotten more eyes on them. The other thing that brings up this question are the software sales for GC games after the first 1-2 years.
GC actually had more overlap with PS2 than Xbox as well, so one other theory is that the Gamecube may have actually sold LESS if the Xbox wasn't around because the Gamecube wouldn't really have anything to bring in the gamers who brought:
1. Halo
2. Project Gotham
3. Splinter Cell, or really Tom Clancy stuff in general (some where on Gamecube and were much worse than the Xbox versions)
4. GTA games (which Xbox got later due to it's mindshare)
5. Morrow wind or really any Wrpg on the system. Fable, KOtor etc.
6. Silent Hill
7. Metal Gear (well gamecube did have Twin Snakes but that's the only one it got, the small storage discs would be a problem for anything else.
8. Ninja Gaiden
9. Dead or Alive
10. Forza (Nintendo never had and still has never had a simulator iirc)
11. Sports games
12. Star Wars Battlefront
13. Mech Assault
14. True Crime
15. Max Payne
These are among the major best sellers on the Xbox platform, so unless Nintendo is able to cover these than in a scenario where Xbox never enters, the Gamecube is not likely to have these areas covered or convince devs to help them coer them, which as we know in reality, they already tried to some extent, and failed. So either the Xbox gamers would have just went to the PS2, or another consoles maybe Dreamcast has an about face, or they just stay on PC.