Systems that released too early or too late

[Wman1996]

Soundwave said:

GameCube is pretty much the test case for this.

It really, really (reeeeeeeally) needed to launch in like November 2000, which would've been a year earlier. 

Giving the PS2 a full year+ headstart (18 months in Japan) was too much and then having it release alongside the XBox while XBox had a killer app in Halo and the GameCube really didn't have a game on that level was a big problem.

GameCube should've launch in US/Japan in November 2000 with Zelda: Majora's Mask and Perfect Dark (taken from the N64, lets face it, Perfect Dark barely ran properly on the N64) as launch titles.

I think if this happens, do they beat Sony? No. But they probably would've had a healthy no.2 position, and XBox would've kinda been DOA, far too late in the game as GameCube would have a larger userbase with the year head start. 

I almost put the GameCube for some of the reasons you mentioned. Also keep in mind that N64 sales were dead after Q1 2000. The remaining sales for the next 2 years were under 3.5 million. 

GameCube would've sold better with an earlier start, maybe even hitting 30 million or more. 

Majora's Mask and Perfect Dark could look and run better than on N64, even if they didn't take full advantage of the GameCube. I know it's a cutesy life sim, but all the GameCube ports of Animal Crossing had N64 graphics and few seemed to mind.