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Kai_Mao on 28 September 2016
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Soundwave said:
NightDragon83 said:

GC's release date wasn't an issue at all... Nintendo had plenty of software to release for the N64 in 2000 and wasn't going to try to rush the console out the door just to match the PS2's NA launch in fall 2000.  As mentioned previously, the biggest obstacles the GC faced were it's "kiddy" image thanks to the purple lunchbox design, and Nintendo's failure to appeal to the older / mass audiences with things like DVD playback functionality and groudbreaking mature games like GTAIII which singlehandedly won the generation for Sony.

Also, the marketing for the GC's entire life cycle was abysmal.  You hardly saw any TV commercials for GC or its games compared to the bombardment of PS2 ads, even the Xbox had plenty of advertising as Halo was everywhere and Halo 2 was a mega event.  The GC had a very good software library overall, but it sorely lacked that killer app like a Halo or GTA that moved tons of consoles and reached huge audiences.

 

XBOX would've pretty much been dead in the water launching a full year behind both PS2 and GCN. They should've just turned the cheaper N64 into a kids Pokémon machine in 2000 and switched projects like Perfect Dark and Majoras Mask to GCN launch games IMO. Those were wasted on the N64, PD basically couldn't even run without the expansion pack. They had that Pikachu N64 anyway. Banjo, Mackey Speedway, Pokémon spin offs for N64, Perfect Dark, Conker, Sin & Punishment, Zelda MM for GameCube launch. No purple, no orange, silver or black GCN only at first. Full sized DVD with the option to add DVD playback via a remote control accessorie. November 2000 launch. Bye bye Xbox, hello second place at least.

Hard to go for a Pokemon machine when the mainline games were going to be on the portables. Even if the console games sold well, they would probably pale in comparison with the Game Boy games due to their portable accessibility, cheaper games and portables, etc. As for the other games like Majora's Mask, Perfect Dark, etc., you would probably have to know the devs and producers and their thinking at the time.

I guess we'll find out if this kind of strategy will work since the strategy you mentioned is probably similar to what Nintendo is doing with transitioning from Wii U to NX. Zelda BoTW is gonna be cross-platform, new Mario, new Pikmin, etc.