Currently reading this. Excellent article. Some bits I just wanted to point out to those who followed my chat with Rol in the Ubi debate:
"At the time, Nintendo wasn't doing well at all," Quinn says. "It was rich, but it wasn't generating any good business. There were rumours about the chairman stepping down and other things, so we felt Sony would be a better potential partner for us."
If the cube had similar sales trends to the xbox, why would he have that perception? I think there was a stigma, and I'm bent on understanding why.
"The games industry tends to adopt ant-like business behaviours. One company's direction will often decide another's. If a publisher starts selling season passes for DLC, and it becomes a success, eventually all of them do. If one joins Steam, all join Steam. It's not so much about indecision as it is about hedging bets."
There's more!
"By 2003, executives at Nintendo began to notice how certain industry patterns were pointing to a grave outcome for the GameCube.
Aside from Virtual Boy, the GameCube was Nintendo's worst selling home console everFirstly, the retailer Dixons - the biggest UK seller of console hardware at the time - announced on March 10 of that year that it would no longer stock GameCube systemsdue to soft demand. It meant the system would not appear in subsidiary stores such as Currys and PC World.
Eight days later, Argos announced it too would pull support. At a time when brick and mortar retailers were a dominant force, the announcements proved to be catastrophic for Nintendo. Not only would the company sell less consoles, but the entire industry was signalled a new path to tread.
Two months later, publisher Acclaim said it would no longer support GameCube. By September, the CEO of Eidos declared the GameCube a "declining business" and said he would cease publishing on the platform too. Other retailers shifted the consoles at rock-bottom prices to free shelf space for Xboxes and PS2s."
