Why did the Gamecube fail?

[h2ohno]

The two biggest reasons the Gamecube failed were the Playstation 2 and the Nintendo 64.

Nintendo lost all momentum with the N64. The system sold well at launch and for the first half of 1997, but its sales fell off a cliff after that. People say the Wii was frontloaded sales-wise, but nothing can compare to how front-loaded the N64's sales were. And those early sales came from it being a Nintendo console at a time when Nintendo was coming off the SNES and the market leader. The N64, with its more expensive games, long droughts, and small library compared to the Playstation destroyed the allure of a Nintendo console even if it had some of the best games of all time. Nintendo's kiddy image didn't help either. By the time the Gamecube launched it had been 4 years since a Nintendo home console had sold well and people were used to not playing on Nintendo consoles. The Gamecube was an attempt at course correction which came too late to bring back the people the N64 had lost.

The Playstation 2 was also such a mammoth that there was no competing with it. It was following on from the first home console to ever sell 100 million units, had a DVD player, and had all the momentum and a 1-year head start. With no momentum and nothing that stood out about it the Gamecube was an 'also' console to the mass market. That's why Nintendo stopped trying to compete with conventional consoles and has gone for a more unique system ever since.