Gamecube got beat for several key reasons:
- Odd kiddie appearance, console looked like Barney the Dinosaur's lunchbox
- Little support from third parties
- No 2D Mario, wich was the bread and butter franchise of Nintendo. The Mario game they DID release didn't come out until years after and had limited appeal. And Nintendo's first party lineup in general, which is generally the selling point for a Nintendo console, was pretty weak in terms of appealing to the mass market.
- Being crushed by the much more widely supported and popular PS2, which released a year earlier.
- Kiddie image.
- Nintendo was in decline coming off the lackluster performace of N64
- Odd controller
- No online
I agree though, it was very underrated, considering its low price and solid library. It's topped only by the Dreamcast in terms of underrated consoles. It certainly didn't deserve only 22 million sales. Many great games like Eterntal Darkness, Tales of Symphonia, Metroid Prime, Resident Evil, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, DK Jungle Beat, Donkey Konga, Pikmin, Smash Bros Melee.
While I think the Wii is the far superior console, Gamecube still holds a special appeal to me. The second half of my username is named after it after all :P
