| Jumpin said: Most people, when they are describing what they think the Gamecube should have been, they essentially are saying in paragraph form "I want it to be a more powerful Playstation 2." I don't think simply making the console more of an expensive Playstation clone aimed at adults would solve Nintendo's problem. They would have still been sacrificing their market of Nintendo fans, just in a different way. This different way would have ended up with even lower home console sales.
What Nintendo should have done was make the console more like a true Nintendo system, one which advanced upon the interface in a significant way, one which catered toward the family living room. One which was centered around fun software that drew the family to the living room. NES, SNES, N64 and Wii all did this. The main reason for N64 failure was expensive games on expensive cartridges. It also wouldn't have hurt if the controllers didn't break so easily. |
The GameCube was more powerful than the PS2. It was good hardware done in by poor marketing, late release date, odd franchise choices, no GoldenEye type break out hit, and hardware casing decisions. Take the exact same system and launch it one year earlier, dump the purple model, and move some late gen N64 projects onto it (which didn't do great on the N64 anyway) like Perfect Dark and Zelda: MM, and they would've done much, much better even if everything else was exactly the same.
I've never met anyone that said they bought an SNES because of the controller. Most people bought it because it had the best games and best versions of arcade ports (by virtue of better hardware) like Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat II.
If aiming the console at adults would've effectively killed off Microsoft's console hopes and secured Nintendo a solid no.2, they should've gone for it.
Kids don't even like "kid consoles". Kids overwhelmingly chose the PS2 over the GameCube and PS1 over N64. They want to play what their older brother/sister is playing in most cases. The GameCube was aimed at families and the living room, I mean what other audience was it meant for?
Wii was an exception of catching lightning in a bottle with a radically off the wall idea. It works once in a while, but isn't a reliable strategy, as Nintendo is finding out right now with Wii U. Very hard to catch lightning in a bottle twice when you are betting the entire farm on a controller gimmick. If people don't go crazy over the controller, then you're pretty much screwed.
