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javi741 on 12 December 2023
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Soundwave said:

The launch commercials in the US did, but the product itself, not so much. The N64 was much cooler with the sports car styling design and GoldenEye/James Bond and lots of other FPS games and racing games (genres that Microsoft basically bumped Nintendo out of) and epic Zelda games, go to Wrestling multiplayer machine, fair amounts of sports games, etc. 

The purple lunchbox design and Zelda looking like a Powerpuff Girls cartoon killed the GameCube's appeal to older audiences, it was deemed a kiddie machine by the teenagers/college aged kids of that era. Losing their hold on the console FPS shooter market to Microsoft hurt Nintendo a lot in the West. 

It was just a tough era for Nintendo pop-culture wise, being cool/bad ass was given a lot of importance. I remember my roommate laughing in a good natured/fun way about me buying Animal Crossing like thinking "what the fuck is this shit", lol, but today it's a huge franchise, back then it was like "oh what the heck is Nintendo doing" type thing. 

In terms of cool factor it's probably SNES > N64 > Switch > NES > Wii > GameCube > Wii U from coolest to least cool for the time they were released in. 

Definitely the big reason why Nintendo lost so much of the NA market with the GC. The sales losses in Japan & Europe for the GC were miniscule compared to the huge sales decline we saw in NA, and I believe it's mainly cause Nintendo lost that mature edge they once had with the N64. 

GC didn't have those huge FPS games anymore like Goldeneye and Zelda became kids looking for GC after looking dark.