I’ll just say PS2 is my favorite console of all time (games, games, games) and Xbox had Halo. I also disagree with many metacritic scores this generation particularly with many games being underrated PS2 exclusives. I can think of dozens of examples off the top of my head, but I don’t want to put a wall of text. This was the generation I played the most games, spent most time playing games, and the only generation I owned every console (along with both sony and nintendo handhelds). I feel strongly that gamecube is overrated, but I know this site has mostly a nintendo fanbase and many view gamecube high in their childhood so I’ll leave it that all three consoles this generation were good so it had the most competition.

I believe Gamecube purely from a library standpoint it is Nintendo's worst console and the worst console of the 6th generation. From a hardware standpoint, PS2 was the worst engineered. Gamecube the best followed by DC and Xbox. Not talking about raw power but in how balanced of a system they were.

The OG Xbox was a step up over Gamecube in regards to balance.

The Xbox's CPU was potent, but the awesome Soundstorm audio chip offloaded audio tasks, the GPU offloaded things like TnL from the CPU meaning the CPU could punch above it's weight... It came with a chunky amount of Ram for the time too which enabled games like Morrowind, Doom 3, Half Life 2 to be on the console which were traditionally PC experiences.

But relying on commodity PC hardware which had gone through decades worth of research and development already by that point, was a known quantity in regards to development nuances and balance, really hard to argue with that approach.

The Dreamcast was also fairly refined, but it was definitely memory limited, 26MB of total memory (16MB system, 8MB video, 2MB audio) was not well suited for the entire generation... But it did release in 1999 I guess.

Dreamcast released in 1998 in Japan. 1999 in the US.  I always kinda wondered if they were somehow pushing the DC launch to a WW release in 9/9/99 and able to pack in a Voodoo 3 with 24 MB of main ram (34 in total) a DVD drive and a second analog stick (I know the V3 is a stretch esp as they were originally going for a Voodoo2 before settling on PowerVR2) and if DC was successful enough to launch a 7th gen system. The hardware existed in Lindbergh arcade board. With a few tweaks.

I personally blame the C-stick and the controller’s overall bop-it energy.

Anyway, lots of discussion on details: mediocre library, bad image, problematic controller, uninspired vision.

Being ”a Nintendo” is a strength, but I don’t think GameCube convinced audiences it was ”a Nintendo” so to speak. It came off as a PS2 clonebox, something more like a cheap imitation brand PlayStation.

As a metaphor: GameCube was root beer instead of an actual beer when the expectation from Nintendo was a new single malt whisky.

I’m going to boil it down to one thing that these all lead up to: Gamecube wasn’t a compelling product.

nintendo still had the same mentality as before with n64 and tried to outgun ps2 but with a console released later than the competition, the problem is didn't have the support of the third party developers esp with limited capicity disc, from this moment onwards, nintendo realised that they were on a losing battle (echoes with wii u) and by 2003 onwards already starting a new console the wii but with different target market, the female market, the younger kids market or non savvy gamers with emphasis on motion control, hence why the performance of the wii and gamecube isn't that big of difference as there was no need to concretrate on performance.

it's interesting if they actually focus advertising and marketing animal crossing way back in 2001/02 ( i lived in uk during this period i don't recall seeing any adverts) and towards female market, they probably could off sold 10 mil more gamecube consoles

WE ARE SO FUCKING EDGY! LOOK HOW EDGY WE ARE! btw here is Mario and Pikmin.

Such a mixed message. Remember NOA at this time was going to change the Nintendo logo to Graffiti.

Same era as this.

Nintendo was literally this meme

There is a reason Reggie was hired to be in charge of marketing. To clean up this disaster. Reggie stopped them from the Graffiti logo. He created the Touching is Good for DS and the Wii would like to Play ads.

Heck, I'm a diehard Nintendo fan and I agree Gamecube is overrated.

VGChartz isn't really "mostly Nintendo" though, from polls Sony and Nintendo fanbases are similar in size, maybe 45% Nintendo, 45% Sony, 10% Xbox.

I'm 80s and 90s SEGA til I die. Can never love like that again. So maybe 9.9 percent Xbox. I am that 0.01 percent.