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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Why did Gamecube get served???

No Rare... That's why I sold my original.



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The design (awkward size, awkward color and it has a handle sticking out), lack of DVD & 3rd party support, and ultimately weak 1st party games in general. They should have known when they release a Luigi game before Mario one. And, PS2 rode the PSX success, and Xbox was just that new thing that.

Another opinion - they just got lucky with Wii. Nintendo could have upgraded the hardware as they did with DS, updated the Wii Menu

Edit - Another awkward thing I forgot that someone has mentioned - Mini disc!



The design and the mini-discs.



"¿Por qué justo a mí tenía que tocarme ser yo?"

You jerks. Ignoring my posts. Assholes.



It seems to get a lot of retroactive love (much like the Dreamcast), but the GC almost killed off any interest I had in gaming with me basically stopping gaming for two years (a couple of exceptions aside), that's how poor it was to me.

Metroid Prime was the only Nintendo game that actually improved on its previous incarnations, and nothing that they introduced (Eternal Darkness, Pikmin) grabbed me in any meaningful way.

Add in the strongest competition they could possibly have in the PS2, and the XBox bringing about a bit of a change in the way things were done, and I don't think it was a surprise that it failed.



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I could understand how the PS2 sold more but the Xbox!? What the...

The Xbox had like... 3 really good games and that was about it (In my opinion). The gamecube had a ton of great stuff! I wish it would of have better, oh well..



RolStoppable said:

1. Lack of differentiation - The sixth generation saw a juggernaught in the PS2 and competitors who tried to mimic it instead of building an own identity. There wasn't much of a reason to own two consoles last generation, unless someone really needed to play the limited exclusive catalogue of the Gamecube or Xbox. This explains why the PS2 victory was that big.

2. Nintendo got innovative with its games - Nintendo games don't sell accordingly to the hardware base, rather the hardware sells accordingly to the quality of Nintendo games. The Gamecube had undoubtly the worst outings in many series with Mario using a watergun in his biggest game on the system, Link became a toon and Mario Kart had two drivers per kart. If it hadn't been for Super Smash Bros. Melee being a sequel like it should be, then the Gamecube would have sold less than 20m units. Also, another generation in which Nintendo didn't release a mainline Mario game.

3. Nintendo cared more for profits than marketshare - For the most part, this explains why the Xbox sold more units. Nintendo knew that throwing money at the problem wouldn't pay off in the end, so they rode it out and profited as much as possible. The Gamecube made money when all was said and done while the Xbox accumulated losses in the range of $4 billion. In that sense, Nintendo could have given $99 Gamecubes worth $4 billion (40 million consoles) away for free and still have been more profitable than Microsoft.

Things that are commonly mentioned, but aren't actual reasons:

1. Mini discs - The vast majority of games in the sixth generation didn't exceed 1.5 GB, so that really wasn't an issue. Besides, it's not like multi-disc was an impossible option.

2. Lack of DVD playback - In Japan, the Panasonic Q was a Gamecube with DVD playback, didn't help sales. The Xbox had optional DVD playback and didn't help its sales either.

Good thing some logic rolling around. It is very easily forgottent that while Nintendo lost in unit sales, they still made  profit with the Gamecube.



Above: still the best game of the year.



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Mostly what Rol said. GameCube was Nintendo trying to imitate, which Nintendo doesn't do that well: the controller looked toyish compared to the competition, punier discs (though as Rol said, GameCube disc space really didn't do much damage to the console, except that they and third parties couldn't apply FMV as liberally, but we know how much FMV is worth to sales), lack of online *was* what let the Xbox move ahead, as the people who flocked to the N64 for their multiplayer action largely drifted off to Halo

Playing Mario Sunshine again, you do recognize the mediocrity compared to the other 3D Marios. Sunshine's world was more "real" with citizens and fairly believable environments, even taking away FLUDD, it didn't feel like 64 or Sunshine did.

Metroid, of course, was sublime, but that series has always had limited mainstream appeal. Ultimately the weakness of Nintendo's own first party titles coupled with their console being a features-inferior copy of the competition meant you really had no reason to buy it. Thus the GameCube defined the Nintendo Core, because it reduced Nintendo's fanbase to those who liked Nintendo's development style and IPs as things good in and of themselves, and people to whom things like FPSes or Grand Theft Auto had limited appeal (also inadvertantly creating a core Nintendo fanbase inherently wary of third party games)



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

'twas because nobody liked Wind Waker.



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