Did Nintendo over-rely on EAD during the late-SNES and N64 eras?

[DonFerrari]

AngryLittleAlchemist said:

Jumpin said:

Errr, are you serious? N64 and Gamecube droughts were so bad that there were months with literally NO new game releases. I’m not talking only bad games, but nothing at all being released. 

Hm, that's an interesting statement but it doesn't make a lot of sense when you talk about the Gamecube in this respect. The Gamecube sold almost as much total software as the Nintendo 64 (208.57 million vs 224.97 million) despite the fact that it sold 11 million consoles less, and the attach rate for exclusive game series that appeared on both consoles was nearly the same from Nintendo 64 to Gamecube (meaning that Nintendo couldn't rely on the sales of these games to come close to the N64's total software sales, since attach rate is relating to total consoles sold). 

Gamecube's total software attach ratio was a whole 3 games higher than the Nintendo 64's too, even though exclusives were contributing less to total sales. And Gamecube's software attach ratio wasn't that out of the norm relative to other consoles at the time. 

PS2's software attach ratio - Around 10.7 games per console 

Xbox's software attach ratio - Around 11 games per console 

Gamecube's software attach ratio - Around 9.6 games per console 

PS1's software attach ratio - Around 9.2 games per console

N64's software attach ratio - Around 6.8 games per console 

Of course when you talk about a Nintendo console and relate it to a Playstation or Xbox console it should always taken into consideration that the Nintendo console will have a higher percentage of it's sales come from exclusives, but the point is that even with exclusives having a similar attach ratio - and thus selling worse on Gamecube than on Nintendo 64, the system still was very close to matching Nintendo 64's total software sales and ended up having a much higher attach ratio of overall software despite relying on exclusives left to make up that total. So the only logical conclusion is that, yes, third parties released on Nintendo and they were bought. 

Also, Gamecube's first year of release is absolutely filled with well respected exclusives (many third party) - though it does vary a bit based on region I suppose. I seem to remember however you stating a couple of times that Nintendo's Gamecube Era games were not very well made in your opinion, so I can understand that outlook. Nintendo 64, Gamecube, Wii, and Switch all had very great first years in terms of exclusives, and that's saying a lot because the Nintendo 64 launched with like two games. I think when you look at something like Gamecube, the biggest problem release-wise was that so much of the notable software was in it's first two years and not a lot after. 

I can see the general attach ratio being higher (which is seldomly common when you sell low number of HW), and I'm not doubting you, but you could put the attach ratio of the first party games that you are saying were similar. Because for more recent games we have seem total sales similar with attach ratio much higher on the platform with less HW sold.

TheMisterManGuy said:

DonFerrari said:
The question would be, did the other 3 R&D were shunned or they didn't met the challenge? Because the way you put all 4 were free to develop and had incentive to compete against one another, but one was much better than the other 3 so they came first. What should Nintendo do in your opinion? squeeze EAD and send their best devs to the other R&Ds and spread them?

Basically, R&D4 produced the most successful titles, and thus won the favoritism of Yamauchi. As a result, he put more focus on the now renamed EAD division, rather than focusing on growing the other studios within the company. Yamauchi didn't give all the departments a fair chance, instead he just put all the eggs into the basket of the division that got his attention the most, which happened to be EAD. The other studios just couldn't compete with Miyamoto and his team, and thus were sadly treated as afterthoughts. 

The way it was initially phrased the impression was that they were all gave freedom and incentive to compete in fairness, with R&D4 coming ahead and them getting the favour. That is playing to your strenght and usually the right thing to do. Then we would need to question if there were enough budget and talented people in the market to also pour some in the other eggs. Because considering all EAD done I don't think it would have been better to not give the resources they got and put in the others.