| Soundwave said: Some of that honestly I think is revisionist history to a degree though. GameCube for example was really, really well deigned as a hardware platform. Cheaper than the PS2 while simultaneously being more powerful and much easier to develop for, eliminating most of the problems the N64 hardware had. A lot of GCN games still look quite nice today even when emulated at an HD resolution ... F-Zero X, Wind Waker, Wave Race: Blue Storm, Star Wars Rogue Squadron, Star Fox Adventures, etc. The DS, Nintendo didn't really know what the heck they were doing with it for a long while, even the concept is a fluke, Yamauchi just wanted two screens for no real reason and then they had to figure out why they even needed the 2 screens, lol, even Iwata thought it was a dumb idea but they wanted to humor Yamauchi I guess and not embarrass him (this is also probably why Nintendo gave the 64DD the most token release possible ... Yamauchi really backed the 64DD idea even though it was clear it should just be canned). GameCube needed to launch in 2000, and the only way that could have been feasible would have been to take N64 projects and repurpose them for the GCN ... but that wouldn't necessarily have been a bad idea. Zelda: MM, Perfect Dark really could not run on the stock N64 anyway without the RAM Expansion Pak that only a small minority proportion of the N64 userbase had anyway. Conker's Bad Fur Day also ran poorly on the N64, the game was too ambitious for that hardware. And Zelda: MM as a launch title for the GameCube would've calmed some of the controversy over Wind Waker later on being toon shaded, think people just wanted that Ocarina of Time sequel first and when Nintendo went in a dramatically different direction artistically, there was a lot of angry backlash and it didn't help the "Nintendo is kiddie" reputation that seemed hyper-magnified in the image conscious early-mid 2000s. |
It's revisionist on the part of those who overlook the flaws GCN had huge droughts every year that alone kills appeal, the design they gave it was also an odd look in regards to grabbing consumer attention it had some nice games but many were released far apart from each other.
DS was aimed at the blue ocean, it was targeted towards more casual players hence why it's flagship title was Nintendogs which highlights they knew what to do with the added screen and where they wanted to go with the platform. This even shows in how DS is the device that inspired Apple to embrace the use of touch screens as a result (first with iPod then iPhone) due to it's resonance with people and the ideas that the software was executing.
GCN would have still ended up in the same position it's like you're ignoring the fact that it had these constant large droughts, it doesn't matter when it released the problems weren't due to launch software it was a fundamental problem that even the N64 had. Goldeneye, PD, OOT etc... didn't remove the kiddie title so why do you think MM would? Fact is it would have made little difference.
