I know that the reason why the Gamecube sold so poorly has been discussed a lot (and is only part of what this thread is about), but it seems like the general consensus always ends up being that it was primarily because of the lack of third party support.  Well now the Wii is here doing phenomenally, and it is doing it without the help of many big third party titles (Sure there are a couple games like the GH franchise that have done well but they aren't selling the system).  The Wii is selling off the strength of Nintendo's own IP's.  But most of those were on the Gamecube as well. In fact a lot of those games were on the Gamecube, and they sold almost as well then as they have on the Wii (yes I'm shamelessly promoting my own thread), except games like Mario Kart or Mario Party. Games like Smash Bros.,Mario, Zelda, Animal Crossing and Metroid have all seen only 30% growth over last gen or less, compared to the ~144% the Wii hardware has already grown over the Gamecube.

  Now let's compare the sales of the GC's software to PS3's software.  Yes I know the GC had longer to sell that software than the PS3 has, but the GC has more million sellers 41 to 32, more really big games (5 million+), and of those games many more of Gamecube's titles were exlcusive than PS3's are.  Yet the PS3 has already outsold the GC's lifetime sales. So are software sales less important than people think? Will the release of Nintendo's 3 big Wii titles this year (yes I just did it again), actually be enough to boost hardware sales back up, or do they need to find what other factors are important for hardware sales? If software really is the driving force behind hardware sells than that makes the Wii's new IP's like Wii Sports/Resort, Wii Fit, Wii Play even more impressive than their huge software sales. 

A thread that started by a simple question has become fairly convoluted, so I'm going to summarise the points I'd like people to talk about.

- If it wasn't the lack of big third party software (because Wii is doing fine without it), why did the Gamecube do so badly?

- Why weren't all of Nintendo's titles, that sold well on GC, enough for it to move more hardware than it did.

- If Nintendo's franchise games are only selling a little better on the Wii than on the GC, are games like Wii Sports/Resort/Wii Fit/Wii Play really able to account for the huge increase in sales for the Wii (It seems likely the Wii will sell a 100 million or more than the GC when it stops selling)?

- Is Iwata wrong, does software really move hardware?

it was because of ps2

DVD, both the PS2 and XBX could do DVD and that point having a DVD was 'in' third party supports for the Gamecube was fine pretty much till 2003-2004 (look at Capcom and Ubisoft games) but in the end the lack of a DVD player made the Gamecube look like it was missing something when compared to the other 2

gc didnt do bad. In fact it made the most amount of money from the consoles last gen.
As for the sales, brawl already out sold melee and still selling, same goes for other games as well especially mario kart.

The reason is simple. All that is needed to understand why it did so poorly is a picture. Does that look like a system that is going to sell well?

In all seriousness, I concur with ODC's post.

I love the Gamecube, both the controller and the shape of the console, and the library is really good too, it has Star Fox, Metroid Prime, F-Zero, Pikmin, Super Smash Bros Melee and Luigis Mansion just to name a few

Lack of outside developer support, and the reputation as the kiddie console did not help.

PS2 and Halo

I blame "purple" as a design choice.

      People are free to talk about what they'd like, but I intended this thread to be more about the effects of software sales on hardware sales, and why despite having big software releases was the GC not able to sell well. Mainly the summary points at the bottom of the original post. I.E., please comment more about the content of the original post, instead of just the thread title.
      I'm sure that the tough competition didn't help the GC, but the fact that the PS3 and 360 are still doing well despite the Wii selling better than the PS2, makes me think there are other factors than competition that are important.