freebs2 said:
It doesn't sound very convincing to me. People are always willing to buy new products as long as they find them attractive. If poeple was satisfied with what they have we wouldn't have consumerism to begin with. I can think of at least three good reasons why it didn't sell very much, even as 2nd console. One reason is that people simply didn't knew it. The console was barely advertised and at the time you couldn't get nearly as much information and footage online as today. Another reason is of course terrible marketing, or more precisely terrible marketing positioning. In the eyes of consumers the Gamecube wasn't seen as a suitable 2nd console, because Nintendo didn't market it as such. The image of the Gamecube was quite incoherent: it was indeed a more powerfull machine than the PS2, it had adult-themed and horror games, just the kind of games you expect to see on PS, but on the other hand it was less expansive and it looked like a toy. So uninformed people just saw it as a cheaper, lesser (or kiddy) verion of a Ps2. Third reason, Nintendo just didn't have the proper hit-game to appeal to a largely wider market. Mario and Mario Kart were quite uninspired (though not everyone would agree), Zelda took that cel-shading approach that alienated some of its fans, Metroid was great but not a really mass appealing game. The only true hit they had was smash bros. |
Consumerism isn't limitless & gaming is a casual hobby for many people. Once you buy a bed douvet, other douvet's no matter how nice they look, are signifcantly less likely to be purchased by you(terribly analogy but it applies). Of course here on VGC, we adore games so its natural we would own multiple consoles.
Looking at each generation of consoles sales though, I don't see why we believe multiconsole ownership is the norm. To me theres clearly loose/win/draw scenarios depicted in console competeing for audeinces. The Wii and DS are the only anomolies and unsurprisingly both are/were adored by non-gamers.
