How did the Gamecube do so badly with all those first party exclusives?

[MontanaHatchet]

09tarheel said:

MontanaHatchet said:

Software is 100% what sells a console. Nobody would buy consoles without software, and developers wouldn't support consoles if the software sales weren't adequate. The Gamecube sold poorly because it had a complete lack of appeal outside America. In America, it actually did pretty well. Not too far from the Xbox, actually. However, the Gamecube failed in Europe (which, at the time, didn't like Nintendo that much), and Japan, where the PS2 and GBA dominated.

That's a good point, the GC did do very badly in Europe. But that makes games like Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros, Animal Crossing,  which have sold about the same as the GC versions in America, but have done substanially better than the GC versions in Europe interesting. Ex. Mario galaxy has sold about 200K more in America than Sunshine did, but in Europe Galaxy has doubled the sales of Sunshine. So does that mean for some reason European gamers like old Nintendo franchises more this gen for some reason?  Or is it they buy the Wii for the new Wii games (Wii Sports etc.) and then branch out onto old Nintendo franchises, which would explain why the same franchises weren't enough for European gamers to pick up a GC last gen.

This question can be answered very easily. Look at the PAL sales for Halo 2, and then look at the PAL sales for Halo 3. You also see an increase. As the userbase increases, people new to the platform naturally look into and buy the biggest games, even if they're used to other series on a different platform. Mario is not only a big mascot for new gamers in Europe, but Super Mario Galaxy was also an incredibly good game, and it appealed to existing gamers as well.