Animal Crossing - brilliant and original game that fundamentally began a paradigm shift in how games can be viewed. While it wasn’t the first casual game, there were a few browser games by that point that did well (A game called Earth2025 and its sister game Utopia we’re doing freemium casual gaming in the 1990s) it was the first major casual game, and the one that got the new formula talked about. Animal Crossing didn’t encourage binge play, rather it encouraged short bursts at least once a day, and probably multiple times. My personal experience with that game was a living world where friends would come over and literally spend days playing the game, it was really addictive. But the series was a sleeper hit because while the fans knew it was special, it was relatively small, and its destiny was to grow bigger and bigger as a series until fifth iteration hit the Switch and becoming the #1 best selling game for a single dedicated gaming system (aside from Wii Sports).

I agree, the CDs would have made a gigantic difference on the N64. Many of the genres the Nintendo systems lost, like being THE place for RPGs and 2D platformers would have been there still. Although, Nintendo’s problems with third parties were deeper than the cartridges, I can’t help but think the CDs would have made the difference and would have made any wounds a lot easier to overcome. One of the major issues was most RPGs couldn’t run on cartridge without massive expenses and sacrifices to the audio and visuals, and that’s why almost all of them went to PlayStation. I also agree that N64 kind of felt like a fad. It was my #1 console for about 6 months or so, and then it was Playstation, and a lot of that happened around the holidays of 97 through Spring of 98 with key games like FF7 and Resident Evil 2—and I think a lot of Nintendo fans experienced a very similar thing (There were earlier games too, Resident Evil 1, Tomb Raider, Twisted Metal, Crash Bandicoot, and Wipeout come to mind). But, in Europe, at least, Sony ads touted how the PlayStation had X00 games on it, meanwhile Nintendo was like “We got TWO new games this month, NBA Hangtime AND F1 Pole Position 64! So, I think if Nintendo could have the quantity, then it would have been a different story. Not just the quantity, but price-wise the N64 games were kind of insane, from around 35% more to more than triple the price of Playstation games—that is also a side effect of cartridges vs. CDs. So, to date, I still feel that cartridges were Nintendo’s alltime biggest mistake, and the harm it did during the N64 generation is still healing at the end of 2022. Two major products Nintendo could have had on their consoles as possible exclusives are Final Fantasy and Grand Theft Auto—GTA was made by a “second party”/Dream Team studio, DMA (before it was Rockstar North), who was very close with Nintendo until the stresses of the N64 era. We also might have never lost Rare. But all three of those companies had other issues with Nintendo that went deeper (particularly DMA). Yamauchi was very insulting to Square and didn’t think Rare was worth the 200-300 million to buy. DMA, I’m not sure that was Yamauchi, but Nintendo was overly controlling of their vision, wanted them to make RPGs to fill in the gap on the N64, not vehicle games (Body Harvest, GTA, Space Station Silicon Valley), and that resulted in GTA getting pulled to windows and eventually PSX, and development on Body Harvest and Space Station for N64 was nightmarish.

Animal Crossing was effectively a new IP for the GameCube as the N64 game was never released in the West and even the Japanese game came out late in the N64's life cycle. So yeah, GameCube got a little benefit there, but it wasn't exactly a system seller at that time (2002). The GameCube was also almost a year old by the time it came out so it didn't even really help it in that crucial launch window period. 

Majora's Mask ... now that could have possibly impacted the GCN's fortunes early quite a bit, that's one of the greatest games ever made arguably and Perfect Dark would have been the best FPS (or one of them). 

N64 is just an anomaly in that I think it's a system that was legitimately popular (early N64 sales destroyed the Playstation's sales rate and N64 was THE hottest gift to get for 1996 other than the Tickle Me Elmo mega-craze), but it was crippled by one stupid design decision on Nintendo's part (to not accommodate CDs, especially when you could still have had a cartridge slot too). The fact that the N64 still sold the same as the SNES in North America and Europe despite having little 3rd party support and like a library only 1/4 the size of the SNES is pretty telling. If they had the 3rd party support they should have had (Final Fantasy exclusive, things like MGS, Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid at worst multiplat) ... it would probably be the greatest Nintendo system. 

The library it should have had would have been unbelievable.

AC was still a game from a prior platform which was your whole point but as shown this is nothing new AC also changed the way we looked at games, 2002 is also the launch year for PAL regions and ROW, GCN had WW, Melee and Prime in its first year it made little difference as the issues for the platform were much more fundamental.

There's a big difference between getting a Zelda or Mario Kart from a previous platform and some IP no one's ever heard of and has no established fan base.

The first 6 months of a Nintendo system especially seem critical for the system's long term success, the GameCube was already on thin ice because at the time people expected a AAA brand new Mario game to launch with every Nintendo system. 

GCN had a bad drought from about Jan-May 2002, it never really recovered from that. 

The other mistake Nintendo made was simply launching that late to begin with, giving Sony an 18 month head start when they're already the established market leader from the previous generation was just game over. 

They should have launched in fall 2000 which was the original plan anyway and moved Zelda: Majora's Mask (didn't run on the N64 without the Expansion Pak), Perfect Dark (which barely ran on the N64 anyway), and perhaps Paper Mario as your 2000 launch.

Probably still wouldn't have beaten the PS2, but I think a full year head start over the XBox would've effectively iced the XBox out of the market and given Nintendo a more solid 40 million-ish range userbase for the GameCube as it would've been the defacto alternative to the PS2. 

First six months have never been the issue a continuous flow of games through out the console's whole life was this is why Switch is doing so well, it's why SNES which started slow did so well in the end it's why 3DS recovered and did well, all platforms have droughts but GC had them every year as did the N64, you could literally take the latter's best offering and put it on GC still wouldn't solve the drought issue. As for new IPs well DS launched with Nintendogs and had no issues.

Xbox launched at the same time as the GC's Pal so a six month head start going by the Japanese release of the GC.

Super NES had a pretty strong first six months I would say. 

Super Mario World, Pilotwings, F-Zero, Sim City, Super Castlevania IV, Final Fight, Super Ghouls N' Ghosts, Final Fantasy II, Contra III. All of those games were exclusive and made specifically for the SNES too ... not bad. Of course it helps when you can release a year after the Japanese Super Famicom. 

N64 and GameCube had critical droughts at early points in their product cycle though, that definitely hurt them badly. I think droughts early in a system's infancy can cause more lasting damage. 

Like Nintendo didn't release a whole lot for the SNES in 1993 (Star Fox and basically Super Mario All-Stars ... a repackaging of older games) but it didn't really matter as much because 3rd parties would pick up the slack. 

But BOTW and Mario Kart 8 helped the Switch have a smooth first 6 months on the market. Even Splatoon 2 shares a ton of content with Splatoon on Wii U, without that probably that game doesn't make that release window. The Switch would have had a poor first 6 months on market without those games, the launch window was basically carried by Zelda + Mario Kart + Splatoon. 

A year after the Japanese release doesn't make it the first six months though it puts those games firmly in the second year so this does nothing in refuting the point and only highlights how staggered releases may help some regions. Early droughts are not a problem if you can prevent them being a constant later on, PS1 for instance had early droughts before third parties switched over and even PS3. Only thing Splatoon 2 shares with the original are weapons the game itself had different maps, new modes, single player etc...

Splatoon has 14 new stages and 9 old stages from the 1st game, so a huge chunk of its content is taken from the first game, otherwise there's probably no chance that game makes it out that early in the Switch product cycle. 

Nintendo's buyer base seems very finicky on launch windows for whatever reason. Like you would think maybe people would say "well, y'know we know we're not getting these Nintendo IP on other systems so we'll give you the benefit of the doubt and just buy the system now" ... but Nintendo seems to get no benefit of the doubt from its fanbase for whatever reason. 

They have to prove themselves again every time with a new system from day 1, which is pretty hard to do. 

Sony has had drought periods, honestly even the PS2 launch wasn't that great (especially the Japanese one), but their buyer base just seems to buy it no matter what. PS3 was the only rough stretch they had with a home console because the system was absurdly expensive for its time. PS5 barely has any exclusives worth owning and they pretty much instantly sell out anywhere but Japan it seems like. 

The 3rd party thing probably makes a big difference, Sony fans are happy if they get their yearly Madden, FIFA, Call of Duty, NBA2K ... those are the main IP, Nintendo doesn't get that kind of help from 3rd parties in terms of system seller content so they have to bring their big guns. 

If I was Nintendo at this point I'd just save new Zelda games for launch windows, Nintendo fans seem stubborn about buying a new system until you show them a new Zelda, then they just open up the wallet like it's no problem.