The PS3 and Xbox 2 are both coming out in 2005, if i were u, i'd hold on till then, else ur just gonna waste a lot of money!! And i will agree with a what a lot of ppl have said on here. Go with the console that supports the games that best suits you. I bought an Xbox caus there are a lot of games exclusive to that console that really appealed to me...and the same with the PS2 (mainly for Final Fantasy!!) Personally i'm not on a hype to get a game cube..they're good and all, they i just can live without the games. Although i have thought of gettin game cube so i have all three...then there isnt a game i can't own!
But like i said, go with the console where the games appeal to u most:
Xbox has a lot of good RPG's but mainly shoot em ups
PS2 has both of those and also some cartoony but the downside is there isn't much variation in the plot line of each individual game, they're just producing too many
Game Cube is great for all the "fun" games, like Mario etc, all the nintendo classics, but have now started introducing games which already appear on the other two consoles.