>>715851046 (OP)RROD was a side effect of them rushing the console to market in order to get fist movers advantage which worked.
Outside of that it just had a solid lineup of games the best running versions of any multiplatform games, the best netcode (even if you had to pay for it), and its primary competitor that cost 500$ compared to it being 300$.
Once the later releases fixed the Red Ring issue it just became a incredibly sold piece of hardware that was only killed in the 11th hour by a decision to chase motion controls over making real games.