The PS3 doesn't need to be saved; same with the Gamcube. The Gamecube made Nintendo a shit load of money with the games you've listed being some of the main reasons. You seem the be bashing the Gamecube simply because it didn't do the the impossible. There was no way for the gamecube to sell 120m or more and beat out the PS2. Why should it even be considered a failure or not based on what other companies do? Thats bullshit, and a poor way to judge a console. As long as the console made money and lasted a resonable amount of time, it should be considered a success. Sony claims to have been making a profit on the PS3 before the price drops, so I would assume that production costs are going down rapidly. With a long life spand, the PS3 should be able to make Sony a ton of money as well. I really, really don't see why these consles need saving. Also, why is it that people think that the Gamecube just got trashed and finished waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay in last place? It's pretty much tied with the Xbox for 2nd with Dreacast being the console thats 3rd.

Bunk. The notion of brand loyalty is mostly bunk. As Rolstoppable stated, brand loyalty will move a few million systems to a small group of diehard fans, but the large (LARGE) majority of consumers could care less. Look at the Japanese sales charts for the early to mid-90s. Nintendo absolutely owned Japan back then, routinely doing 80% or more of the hardware + software sales between SNES and Gameboy. Yet by the late 90s, Nintendo was getting killed, killed by Sony's new Playstation. What happened to all that brand loyalty to Nintendo? Conversly, look at how dominant Sony was in Japan just a few years ago. The PS2 completely carried the market, doing a large majority of sales. But today, DS + Wii sales are routinely outdoing Sony's products 5:1. What happened to the Sony brand loyalty from, say, 2004?

And what about the legions of Sega fans that we had in America and Europe during the Genesis/Megadrive days? Their "loyalty" to Sega didn't stop millions from swapping over to the Playstation once it became obvious that Sega was failing to provide the service they wanted. Or outside of video games, what happened to all those Walkman users from a few decades ago? Their brand loyalty didn't stop them from swapping to superior products (like the ipod) when they came along. Ditto for Americans and Japanese cars; once it became obvious that Ford/GM/Chrysler didn't have the best products, "brand loyalty" and "Made in the USA" disappeared pretty quick.

Consumers buy products, not companies. Brand loyalty does have a sway over some, but only a minority of the market.

The reason that Nintendo was so Profitable durring the Gamecube generation can be easily explained:

Name	Console	Publisher	Japan	America	Others	Total
	Pokemon Ruby / Sapphire	Nintendo	5.37	5.65	4.13	15.15
	Pokemon Fire Red / Leaf Green	Nintendo	3.09	4.23	2.81	10.13
	Pokemon Emerald	Nintendo	2.02	2.56	1.72	6.30
	Mario Kart: Super Circuit	Nintendo	1.00	2.66	1.79	5.45
	Super Mario Advance	Nintendo	0.92	3.10	1.30	5.32
	Super Mario Advance 2	Nintendo	0.96	3.16	1.16	5.28
	Super Mario Advance 4	Nintendo	0.84	2.88	1.31	5.03
	Super Mario Advance 3	Nintendo	0.63	1.72	0.47	2.82
	The Legend of Zelda: Link To The Past	Nintendo	0.34	1.67	0.57	2.58
	Famicom Mini 01 Super Mario Bros	Nintendo	1.39	0.63	0.23	2.25
	Warioland 4	Nintendo	0.54	0.83	0.80	2.17
	Kirby Star: Fountain of Dream	Nintendo	0.91	1.12	0.11	2.14
	Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga	Nintendo	0.47	1.46	0.19	2.12
	Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon: Red Rescue Team	Nintendo	0.76	0.73	0.57	2.06
	Donkey Kong Country	Nintendo	0.21	1.11	0.52	1.84
	Golden Sun	Nintendo	0.40	0.86	0.41	1.67
	Metroid Fusion	Nintendo	0.18	1.08	0.29	1.55
	Kirby Star: Great Labyrinth of The Mirror	Nintendo	0.77	0.69	0.06	1.52
	Pokemon Pinball: Ruby Sapphire	Nintendo	0.37	0.62	0.42	1.41
	The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap	Nintendo	0.27	0.83	0.24	1.34
	Golden Sun: Lost Age	Nintendo	0.30	0.59	0.29	1.18
	Donkey Kong Country 2	Nintendo	0.12	0.71	0.30	1.13
	Wario Ware	Nintendo	0.70	0.28	0.12	1.10
	F-Zero: Maximum Velocity	Nintendo	0.46	0.40	0.18	1.04
Totals (24 matches)	23.0	39.6	20.0	82.6

Name	Console	Publisher	Japan	America	Others	Total
	Mario Kart: Double Dash	Nintendo	0.89	3.85	1.86	6.60
	Super Smash Bros Melee	Nintendo	1.44	4.06	1.08	6.58
	Super Mario Sunshine	Nintendo	0.87	3.73	1.31	5.91
	The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker	Nintendo	0.89	2.44	1.05	4.38
	Luigi Mansion	Nintendo	0.46	2.21	0.72	3.39
	Metroid Prime	Nintendo	0.12	1.92	0.73	2.77
	Pokemon Collosseum	Nintendo	0.71	1.17	0.62	2.50
	Animal Crossing	Nintendo	0.66	1.68	0.15	2.49
	Mario Party 4	Nintendo	0.92	1.13	0.39	2.44
	Mario Party 5	Nintendo	0.73	0.96	0.36	2.05
	Paper Mario 2	Nintendo	0.46	1.23	0.26	1.95
	Starfox Adventures	Nintendo	0.32	0.95	0.58	1.85
	Pikmin	Nintendo	0.56	0.78	0.27	1.61
	Mario Party 6	Nintendo	0.60	0.85	0.11	1.56
	Kirbys Air Ride	Nintendo	0.45	0.96	0.12	1.53
	Mario Party 7	Nintendo	0.47	0.87	0.11	1.45
	Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour	Nintendo	0.25	1.03	0.15	1.43
	Metroid Prime 2: Echoes	Nintendo	0.07	0.80	0.37	1.24
	The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess	Nintendo	0.04	0.85	0.28	1.17
	Pokemon XD	Nintendo	0.35	0.58	0.21	1.14
	Mario Power Tennis	Nintendo	0.46	0.52	0.15	1.13
	Super Mario Strikers	Nintendo	0.21	0.43	0.42	1.06
	Donkey Konga	Nintendo	0.46	0.43	0.17	1.06
	Pikmin 2	Nintendo	0.56	0.35	0.14	1.05
Totals (24 matches)	13.0	33.8	11.6	58.3

48 Million selling games with a total of over 140 Million copies sold; and this doesn't include the hundreds of profitable Nintendo titles that sold less than 1 Million copies.

Compare that with Sony on the PS2:

Name	Console	Publisher	Japan	America	Others	Total
	Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec	Sony	1.89	7.11	5.84	14.84
	Gran Turismo 4	Sony	1.10	2.49	4.52	8.11
	Eye Toy: Play	Sony	0.20	0.82	2.84	3.86
	SOCOM	Sony	0.06	2.64	0.74	3.44
	The Getaway	Sony	0.05	1.15	2.17	3.37
	Jak and Daxter	Sony	0.15	2.01	1.05	3.21
	Ratchet and Clank	Sony	0.58	1.36	0.94	2.88
	SOCOM II	Sony	0.06	2.14	0.45	2.65
	Everybodys Golf 3	Sony	1.39	0.94	0.29	2.62
	God of War	Sony	0.02	1.93	0.53	2.48
	Ratchet and Clank 2	Sony	0.26	1.35	0.81	2.42
	Jak II	Sony	0.00	1.59	0.71	2.30
	ATV Off Road Fury	Sony	0.00	1.99	0.19	2.18
	Ratchet and Clank 3	Sony	0.31	1.14	0.72	2.17
	ATV Off Road Fury 2	Sony	0.00	1.77	0.14	1.91
	Everybodys Golf 4	Sony	1.34	0.28	0.12	1.74
	The Getaway: Black Monday	Sony	0.02	0.41	1.24	1.67
	Jak III	Sony	0.00	1.11	0.46	1.57
	Gran Turismo Concept 2001 Tokyo	Sony	0.43	0.00	1.13	1.56
	SOCOM II	Sony	0.04	1.21	0.30	1.55
	Gran Turismo 4 Prologue	Sony	0.79	0.00	0.57	1.36
	Twisted Metal Black	Sony	0.00	1.12	0.13	1.25
	God of War II	Sony	0.00	1.08	0.00	1.08
	Sly Cooper and Thevious	Sony	0.00	0.95	0.11	1.06
	God of War 2	Sony	0.00	1.06	0.00	1.06
Totals (25 matches)	8.7	37.7	26.0	72.3

I suspect that if Sony only sold 20 Million consoles they would be in some serious trouble ...

Erm, Sony were NOT making a profit on the PS3 prior to price cuts. Even in the incredibly unlikely scenario that they were selling the consoles at a profit, this does not mean that the PS3 was making them a profit.

GC made Nintendo money because it was profitable from the word go, and because Nintendo sold a large portion of the games. Sony in one year lost the PS2's lifelong profit. If Sony sells the same amount of systems as the Gamecube it will be a real problem keeping the PS3 profitable.

I agree with those mentioning the N64. People say "OMG Lair is coming out next month, PS3 sales will skyrocket!!!"
But with the N64 it was like BAM, here's Mario 64, BAM, here's Ocarina of Time, BAM here's Goldeneye, BAM, here's MarioKart, BAM, here's Banjo Kazooie.

And Nintendo had a huge fanbase, while the PSX was new to the game industry. I mean PSX started with no franchises and had zero fans up. It went up against the 20 million fans plus of Nintendo, and their massive first party lineup and the fact that 3rd parties were used to working with them in the past. Yet the N64 still failed.

What about Metroid Prime 3?

It all depends on how you define success I suppose. I owned a GC and loved it, Prime and Pikmin being 2 of my favourite titles ever. Seeing as we're on a sales website though I think it's understandable that a system which was in a three horse race & secured only around 13% of the market in hardware be seen as a failure. If this site was called VG Profitz then it would be a different story.

Also apart from pretty uninspired hardware sales I don't think the GC and PS3 have much in common. GC was profitable almost from day 1 and N made a killing from game sales as most were Nintendo developed. The massive R&D costs along with the loss leader strategy(I still believe Sony are losing money per unit sold) plus the fact that most of the software will come from 3rd parties, meaning only a cut of each game sold means that PS3 will struggle to ever be profittable. In fact at this point I'd say it's all but impossible and think that if Jack Tretton were offered a chance to break even this gen he'd accept it in a second.

Right now Sony's biggest exclusive game is actually GT. But the market seems to be getting flooded with racing games so will it stay top dog this generation? Most of Sony's big franchises have lost a lot of sales with each new release. Nintendo has faced that problem as well but seem to also consistently create a few new franchises each generation (Pikmin, WiiSports/Play/Music/Fit, Animal Crossing, etc).

Sony sold more games on the PS2 then Nintendo did on the GC, and thats all that matters. Even when Nintendo was the only one making games for the system they still can't outsell Sony.


@Biggerboat, i may not have explained my position best, but i was trying to say that new games made for home consoles. And that each system will have their own games, but they wii just can't match the power of the PS3/360. PS3/360 can make games like FF13 while the wii can't, but they will get their own style of games, like you pointed out with DQ9 for the DS.

The PS2's userbase was 6 times the size!

There were (essentially) no barriers that prevented people from buying most of these PS2 games because people already owned a PS2. How many of the people who bought God of War or Sly Cooper would have bought a Gamecube or XBox to play those games? How many of those game sales were caused by someone seeing an advertizement or reading an article and saying "I think I'll pick that up when it comes out"?

The truth is that Nintendo software sales on the Gamecube had a glass-celing that Sony never faced on the PS2 because few people would buy the system to play one game; had the userbase of the Gamecube been as large as the PS2's userbase there is no doubt in my mind that these games would have outsold the PS2's list and many more titles would have been added to Nintendo's Gamecube Million Seller list.