NSMBU sold many consoles, in fact WiiU launch was quite successful. The problem wasn't NSMBU and NL but the lack of any other meaningful games for more than 6 months after that.

People were right also to say that games like Mario Sunshine, ZWW and others would be great assets for the GC the problem is that even before GC launched it was already a dead system because PS2 had already a huge installed base and even those games weren't enough to give it a chance to catch up. Thanks to its huge advantage in terms of installed base all third parties were going to support heavily the PS2 and didn't have strong incentives to even consider GC or Xbox. This time the WiiU doesn't have such a disadvantage and that's why the two situations can't be compared imo.

As someone who lived through the NES era all the way up through now, I don't need to be told how things were during the GC/PS2 days. But NO "drought" the GC had was anything close to comparable to what the Wii U has had in 2013. Not even close.

If you really want to compare Jan-June, we'll do that.

First off the bat, even back in Dec. 2001, GC had big hits like Pikmin and SB Melee, which helped drive console momentum. 

But beyond that, not strictly speaking of exclusives, GC had a steady stream of notable games, such as Cel Damage, NBA Courtside 2002, Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, NBA Street, Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, Spy Hunter, Bloody Roar: Primal Fury, Pac-Man World 2, Spider-Man, Burnout, Resident Evil (Remake), Virtua Striker 2002, Lost Kingdom, Bomberman Generation, WWF Wrestlemania X8, Tetris Worlds, and last but certainly not least, Eternal Darkness. And there were many other 3rd party titles besides those that also filled out the release schedule.

In that same Jan-Jun span for Wii U: Amazing Spider-Man: Ultimate Edition, Lego City Undercover, Monster Hunter 3: Ultimate, Need for Speed: Most Wanted U, The Croods: Prehistoric Party, The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Fast & Furious Showdown, Lego Batman: DC Super Heroes, Resident Evil: Revelations, Sniper Elite: V2, and Game & Wario.

The difference between the two, is that at LEAST 30+ titles were released, at a steady, monthly pace, on GC from Jan 2002- June 2002. What I've listed for Wii U, however, is quite literally every game, the ONLY games, released on Wii U from Jan 2013-June 2013. And 90% of that list was only released in March and May. NOTHING at all was released for Wii U in retail in January and February 2013, only ONE game (Injustice) in April, and only ONE game (Game & Wario) in June even. For THAT matter, only two retail titles are listed as having released in July 2013, Turbo: Super Stunt Squad, and The Smurfs 2. Both crappy shovelware ports. In fact over half the Wii U list could be considered such for 2013. The only quality titles that have been released for the console this year, have been Lego City, MH3, NfS: Most Wanted, arguably Injustice and RE: Revelations. And of course Game & Wario. Lego Batman 2 is stretching it, as a very old port.

The point being, that GC didn't have the "Drought" you speak of. Perhaps in terms of BIG Nintendo franchise releases, sure. But not in actual terms. The system had plenty of games to play on it, and that's what I meant. One area GC actually didn't suffer in that much, at least in it's first few years, was third party support, which was actually pretty solid. Wii U was supposed to have that, and did right out of the gate. But there was almost just as much of a drought of third party releases as first in 2013 thus far. The first two months having ZERO games released is inexcusable, for sure. Rayman Legends was supposed to release in Late Feb., which might have helped, but obviously Ubisoft went retarded and that didn't happen.

So like I said, Wii U has had it far worse than any Nintendo console ever has, in it's first year on the market. 3DS had a drought, for sure, but even then, it was still not NEARLY as bad as Wii U has had. From August onward, at least for the rest of 2013, things look substantially better. The question remains, will early 2014 also still be an improvement? Will third party releases exist in any meaningful way in the first half of 2014? We'll have to wait and see I guess.

Just because the Wii U is reaching new lows for a game drought, doesn't mean the panic button wasn't flipped on for the GameCube back in 2002 -- it definitely was. The message boards were filled with pretty much the same kind of chatter as there is today.

I remember the sinking boat images on Gaming-Age's message board back in 02/03 (lol) with Nintendo written on the ship.

Nintendo finding a way to top that GameCube drought is kind of a feat in and of itself, and that's really their own fault, but the GameCube had far harsher competetion going head to head against the PS2 juggernaut (best selling console of all time, even makes the Wii and original PSX pale in comparision) and the surprising XBox launch with Halo really being a blockbuster hit and catching Nintendo off guard.

One thing alot of people forget about is how wonky Nintendo got with some of there major franchises. Mario Sunshine def seemed like a spinoff, Zelda was too cartoony for most people, Star Fox/Donkey Kong/Kirby all switched genre, Metroid is the only one that beneffited from changing.

Just for a second replace Sunshine, Wind Waker, Star Fox Adventures, Kirby Air Ride, Jungle Beat/Konga with Galaxy, Twilight Princess, Star Fox Assault, DKC Returns, Kirby Return to Dreamland and. If thats what GC 2002-2004 line up looked like in addition to Melee, Double Dash, Prime then im certain GC would have sold much better.

That might happen again this gen just in a different way. People are already saying Nintendo played it too safe with NSMBU, the same could be true of Mario 3D World (looks an awful lot like 3D Land), DKC: TF, and Mario Kart 8 and so on.

Anyone know what games did the Gamecube have during that period ?

hopefully, after the wave of games starts, Ninty will be swimming in molah

Between the period of the GC's launch and August 2002, including 3rd party games, I would guess the GC had no less then 5 times as many games as the Wii U has had. Including Luigi's Mansion, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 2, Wave Race: Bluje Storm, Pikmin 1, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, NBA Courtside 2002, Resident Evil (REmake) and Eternal Darkness.

The major holes caused by the lack of 3rd party support is really visible when you see how well the GC was supported early on.

thats the exact opposite. Wii U major games that we know of so far are pretty traditional while GC were all experimental.