Why did the Gamecube fail?

[curl-6]

Slownenberg said:

shikamaru317 said:

It's mind blowing to me that some people still think that. The specs clearly show it to be weaker than both Gamecube and Xbox, and the graphics on most of the 3rd party multiplat games that released on all 3 show a disadvantage for PS2 as well. Not to mention that most of gen 6's best looking games were either Xbox exclusives/console exclusives, or multiplat games running on Xbox.

	PS2	Gamecube	Xbox
CPU	294/299 mhz	485 mhz	733 mhz
GPU	147 mhz/6.2 gflops	162 mhz/9.4 gflops	233 mhz/20 gflops
RAM	System- 32 MB DRAM Graphics- 4 MB Sound- 2 MB	System- 24 MB SRAM + 16 MB DRAM Graphics- 3 MB	64 MB unified RAM for both system and graphics

PS2 only beats gamecube in having larger disc space and 1 MB more video RAM, and the few games that look worse on Gamecube than PS2 were mostly due to the storage size limitation of gamecube's discs, which forced devs to use lower quality textures and other assets in some cases just to fit on the discs.

Some people also claim PS1 looked better than N64 haha. I don't know what it is that makes people claim PS1 and PS2 had better graphics and were more powerful than N64 and Gamecube, but obviously anyone who has played both those systems knows it isn't true.

As has been stated, there were numerous reasons why GC failed. "Kiddy" design of console played into that kiddy stereotype, weird controller config, smaller discs, still struggling to gain 3rd parties after the exodus of 3rd parties on N64, the big games of the gen were basically Halo and GTA. I had a friend who worked at a toy store and he said he would actually dissuade people from buying a gamecube cuz he thought it was lame - I guess that pretty much sums it up, Gamecube was considered by consumers to be not as cool as the other two.

My Dad must've talked to your friend cos when we called up to buy us a Gamecube back in like 2004, the guy at the store talked him into getting an Xbox instead. Biggest disappointment of my childhood, haha.

Anyway, as far as specs go, power has never been any guarantee of success; most generations are won by weaker hardware. Gamecube easily bested the PS2 graphically, and could even give the Xbox a run for its money, yet at the end of the day more people would rather play GTA3 or FFX than Rogue Squadron II or Starfox Adventures, graphics be damned.