Why was the GBA Successful but the Gamecube wasn't

[RolStoppable]

Jumpin said:

RolStoppable said:

It was running the business at a loss that did the trick. Microsoft lost $4 billion on the Xbox over the course of four years. $4 billion is the equivalent of Nintendo hypothetically giving out 20 million $200 GC consoles for free.

The original Xbox was a failure without question and also easily a bigger failure than the GC, so get off this train of rewritten history that pretends that Microsoft somehow did a better job than Nintendo during that generation.

GC + GB/GBA/DS did better than Xbox. But Xbox did better than GC. Even with the booming success of their handhelds Nintendo was not only unable to achieve relatively major profits, but saw their first quarterly loss in over 50 years. That was GameCube’s commercial failure that did that.

Had Microsoft sold 110 million GBCs, GBAs, and DSs as part of their Xbox division, it’s hardly far fetched to suggest they would have had comparable, if not superior, revenues and profits.

Your assertion is not only farfetched, it's outright impossible because the Xbox was such a money sink that it averaged an annual $1 billion loss throughout its lifespan.

While it's true that Nintendo posted a quarterly loss during the GC era, it was a small loss (IIRC something between $20-40 million) and only in a single quarter throughout the entire generation and it was partly caused by an unfavorable exchange rate at the time. Over the course of its entire life, the GC didn't finish with a loss. After all, Nintendo sold a lot of first party software and accessories for it. While the console itself was temporarily sold at a loss, memory cards were mandatory separate purchases to go along with the console, so the damage was limited.

The most important point here is that hardware units sold don't scale with level of profit. The Xbox sold more units than the GC, but the GC was profitable while the Xbox generated tremendous losses. On a sidenote, GC+GB/C+GBA+DS generated more profits for Nintendo in the span from 2000 to 2006 than PS1+PS2+PSP did for Sony despite Sony selling more hardware units.

The maths I listed in my preceding post - Nintendo being able to gift away 20 million $200 GCs - wouldn't even have dropped Nintendo's profit level for the GC alone below Microsoft's Xbox. If we really went the whole way and assumed a scenario where Nintendo loses as much money as Microsoft on video games for the duration of the Xbox's lifecycle, then Nintendo could have given away a total of 40 million $200 GCs due to their handhelds bringing in the necessary profit for that figure. Now, if someone pointed out that the GC didn't cost $200 throughout its life, they would be right; it dropped to $150 not too long after launch and by 2004 it was selling for $100. If we applied a $150 average to the money Nintendo could lose per console in the hypothetical scenario that matches Xbox losses, we'd have an extra 60 million GCs to add to the 21m that it actually sold.

So what's left to say? How about an explanation why you posted something so preposterous: It's because your hate for the GC runs that deep, so there is no limit to irrationality.