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curl-6 on 22 January 2015
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Soundwave said:
curl-6 said:

As has been said, they seem to have adopted a mentality that, since the N64 and Gamecube were outsold by the PS1 and PS2, they shouldn't try to compete directly with their adversaries, but rather seek alternate routes. This becomes a problem when they let said adversaries then chase them out of market after market, leaving them with very loyal core fanbase but little appeal to the larger audience.

Rather than try to maintain footholds in markets like the lucrative 13-30 Western male crowd, they're surrendered these audiences to Sony and MS, and withdrawn to make a last stand in their inner sanctum of Mario and Zelda. They're fighting a defensive war instead of trying to expand their territory.


The GameCube really let Nintendo down unfortuantely (or vice versa). 

Had they been on their game a little more and given MS more of a bloody nose to convince them to stay out of the game business was were the dynamics really would have changed. 

But once MS got their foot in the door, they decided to stay, and in a market where Nintendo suddenly was up against two large corporations, they decided to run rather than compete from that point on, and it even worked for a little while until they got blindsighted by the smart device revolution.

If the GameCube could've held serve and whupped the XBox (the PS2 obviously did its job) so that MS could have been convinced to not go ahead with the 360, I think Nintendo would be a very, very different spot today. Especially with Sega also going belly up, Nintendo could've carved out a comfortable existence as the defacto alternative to Sony.

They should have pushed harder I think to release the GameCube in 2000 (a year earlier). That would've ensured a decent no.2 finish for them and wouldn't have allowed MS to get much momentum even with Halo. 

Part of the problem with the Gamecube was that for the most part, it made Nintendo's big franchises seem "uncool".

Mario 64 was cool, Mario Sunshine wasn't.

Ocarina of Time was cool, Wind Waker wasn't.

Starfox 64... ok, you get the idea.

GCN actively chased away core gamers with its "kiddy" image. (I know that image wasn't really justified, but that's how it was percieved nonetheless)