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Soundwave on 30 November 2022
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Wyrdness said:
Soundwave said:

There's a big difference between getting a Zelda or Mario Kart from a previous platform and some IP no one's ever heard of and has no established fan base.

The first 6 months of a Nintendo system especially seem critical for the system's long term success, the GameCube was already on thin ice because at the time people expected a AAA brand new Mario game to launch with every Nintendo system. 

GCN had a bad drought from about Jan-May 2002, it never really recovered from that. 

The other mistake Nintendo made was simply launching that late to begin with, giving Sony an 18 month head start when they're already the established market leader from the previous generation was just game over. 

They should have launched in fall 2000 which was the original plan anyway and moved Zelda: Majora's Mask (didn't run on the N64 without the Expansion Pak), Perfect Dark (which barely ran on the N64 anyway), and perhaps Paper Mario as your 2000 launch.

Probably still wouldn't have beaten the PS2, but I think a full year head start over the XBox would've effectively iced the XBox out of the market and given Nintendo a more solid 40 million-ish range userbase for the GameCube as it would've been the defacto alternative to the PS2. 

First six months have never been the issue a continuous flow of games through out the console's whole life was this is why Switch is doing so well, it's why SNES which started slow did so well in the end it's why 3DS recovered and did well, all platforms have droughts but GC had them every year as did the N64, you could literally take the latter's best offering and put it on GC still wouldn't solve the drought issue. As for new IPs well DS launched with Nintendogs and had no issues.

Xbox launched at the same time as the GC's Pal so a six month head start going by the Japanese release of the GC.

Super NES had a pretty strong first six months I would say. 

Super Mario World, Pilotwings, F-Zero, Sim City, Super Castlevania IV, Final Fight, Super Ghouls N' Ghosts, Final Fantasy II, Contra III. All of those games were exclusive and made specifically for the SNES too ... not bad. Of course it helps when you can release a year after the Japanese Super Famicom. 

N64 and GameCube had critical droughts at early points in their product cycle though, that definitely hurt them badly. I think droughts early in a system's infancy can cause more lasting damage. 

Like Nintendo didn't release a whole lot for the SNES in 1993 (Star Fox and basically Super Mario All-Stars ... a repackaging of older games) but it didn't really matter as much because 3rd parties would pick up the slack. 

But BOTW and Mario Kart 8 helped the Switch have a smooth first 6 months on the market. Even Splatoon 2 shares a ton of content with Splatoon on Wii U, without that probably that game doesn't make that release window. The Switch would have had a poor first 6 months on market without those games, the launch window was basically carried by Zelda + Mario Kart + Splatoon. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 30 November 2022