Look, I used to write for Nintendorks and while I felt many of the hardcore fans were overly optimistic about the sales performance of individual games and generally touted "quality over quantity" way, way too much - they were not in denial about sales performance of the system. The fans would cling to arguments touting the image quality and graphics capabilities of the GameCube over its competitors, and which company would take second place - Nintendo or Microsoft?
But, those arguments were in the spectrum of reality.
Initially, fans went from optimistic that with Capcom exclusives and optical media, Nintendo had a shot to go after Sony, to whether or not they would beat Microsoft in worldwide units sold. There was no unrealistic hope that Nintendo was going to make a run for Sony about a year into the GameCube's life cycle.
Sony fans really, truly believe that at any moment, the company will launch so massive campaign to reclaim what was rightfully theirs and make a run for Microsoft and Nintendo. 10 year life cycle, exclusives, etc.