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Gamecube In Danger?
mmmmbeer writes "This article at Daily Radar and this one at MCV share an unsettling development. Apparently, Hiroshi Yamauchi, President of Nintendo, has said that if Gamecube doesn't get a "positive response at E3," then they may not go through with producing the Gamecube. Personally, I doubt that Gamecube will get anything but great reviews, but it's worrying that he would have said that."
this really depends on what he means by "good reception".
Does he mean the press, or the developers? The press slamming it is not so bad a problem as all the developers going over to the Xbox. If they all defected, you can understand Nintendo sticking with what they've got, and not spending all their cash on marketing a dead product.
Screw Nintendo - they stopped making games for serious gamers a long time ago.
--Ryvar
They have to compete w- Sony, who already has 10 million + of their consoles in homes, and the XBox, which appears to be a media darling. Nintendo has to beat the "kiddie" console image Pokeman helped establish for them to be a serious contender in the console market
Check out this article on the good ol' shack.
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/13536/
Now if they could make some real games for the system. Mario and Zelda shoudn't be the only reason to buy a console. (Oh yea, forgot Mario Paint)
Haha surely this is a troll, but you've got to be kidding me. It would die and Nintendo wouldn't see a dime. The entire Open Source community is at best a drop in the ocean compared to the markets that any of these video games target. Even if you could get the entire Open Source community to buy it, it would not even cover Nintendo's costs. What's more, the Open Source community hasn't a clue or the equipment to develop modern video games (e.g., motion capture, sound and video recording studios, etc.), never mind skill, desire, and organization....
They'd do far better selling it to, say, Sega (not that that's likely).
This reminds me of when Ty announced they were going to stop making Beanie Babies, then shortly thereafter decided they were going to put it to a "vote" of whomever was willing to shell out fifty cents (which, to be fair, went to charity) to have their voice heard. Needless to say, we're still up to our ears in cloyingly-named animal-shaped hacky sacks.
I think the chance of the E3 reaction scuttling the launch of the Gamecube is about equal to the chance that anyone would have gotten a free taco out of Taco Bell's Mir stunt.
If you don't want my koalas, baby, don't shake my eucalyptus tree.
I NEED MY METROID!! I've waiting YEARS for my Metroid!!
Seriously, though, PSX and M$ are focusing on the adult/teenagers for their target audience. Nintendo has always appealed to the kiddies. Nintendo will always have a place in the console market until one of the consoles seriously attack the kid market. Even then, Nintendo's cornered the portable game market. I don't think we have anything to worry about.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I think they are just trying to build momentum towards the big launch at E3, by posting hype generating news like this. Nintendo is very secure, thank you very much, thanks to their Gameboy line of products. Even if the Gamecube does not do well, Nintendo can pull a Microsoft and pour cash into the Gamecube. Look at the N64. Good system at the time, but it was the games that made it. Still, the market share is nothing to write home to mom about. How does it still exist? Gameboy. Same will hold true for the Gamecube.
It will succeed. With the amount of kids out there, and the price point they are shooting for, it can only do well. Look at the Dreamcast! Since the pricedrop to $99, they have been selling faster then ever. One thing I admire about Nintendo, they are out for the gaming dollar, not this all-in-one home entertainment console.
Bryan R.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
As far as I see it, this was just a way for Nintendo to get some attention to the Game Cube. Now people will want to see this at E3 just see what the fuss is about and whether it will happen. They aren't serious about dropping this. This is business and most business won't just drop the money spent on R&D just because some people didn't quite like it. Nintendo will drum up some conversation to keep it on people's minds and hopefully their wallets will follow.
-- Wolfpup
"A man whose circumstances went beyond his control." -- Styx
...I can't believe most of the opinions in the comments I've just read.
When I first read about Nintendo's statement a couple of days ago my instant reaction was that they were really saying "at E3, we are going to blow all of your minds".
The hardware specs look good enough to compete with the XBox and PS2, and even more importantly they have the talent in games development (to this date nothing scheduled for the XBox looks to hot, and they lack Japanese support).
Nintendo aren't small or in trouble as some people here seem to think - the Pokemon franchise alone is worth _double_ what the entire US games industry is worth.
The GBA is an incredible machine (I've got one with F-Zero, and I can't put it down), and there are reportedly going to be some great uses of the GBA with the gamecube. The GBA is also the fastest selling console ever.
Nintendo don't just make kiddy games, they are fantastic whatever your age - "hardcore gamer" magazines such as Edge (in the UK) give 9/10 to most Nintendo games that I've seen.
Anyway, back to the point, Gamecube In Danger? IMHO absolutely not.
The basic problem here is Nintendo wasn't doing all that much better than Sega. If it wasn't for all the royalties they get from Pioneer for Pokemon I'm sure they be in deep water.
The problem is Sony is a marketing Giant. They know how to put together a campain, they have an in at every retailer on the planet, and they can play "unfair" (but not illegal) when the chips are down. I worked at Circuit City, it wasn't a random thing that they dropped all the other video game systems and only had play station for several years. (They sell most of the systems currently however.)
Nintendo is a pain in the ass company to work with. They have been nailed before for price fixing. Compared to Sony, it's a harder platform to write for. With Sony a lot of the low level stuff is already functionalized for you in the SDK. This is really key for fast game porting. This is not to say it will be an ultra optimized port. I wouldn't suggest it if you're trying to push the GFX to the extreme, but if you want to make "Who wants to be a gazillionare" for the PSX it's easier than start from scratch on Nintendo.
I can see where is comes from, the Former CEO of Nintendo in a recent interview talked about how thye liked to have unique titles. He doesn't like Rayman, or title of it's ilk that have been ported everywhere. But this puts you into a business model where you need a killer game in the channel each quarter if you want to keep profitable. In some cases Nintendo has done well at this. Let's look at Gameboy. By all rights that thing should have been put to pasture six years ago. But some games keep it going. But you don't have a killer hit Pokemon game each quarter.
Sony on the other has a lot of crap games ported to the platform. Hell the first year there were tons of crap 3DO games ported. But that's okay, Sony has a model that makes it easy for everyone to jump in the pool. And with a royalty for every game sold to a retailer they don't have to depend on a Pokemon.
Summary, I hope this does well, but Nintendo needs to realize that a couple unique games isn't going to cut it for sales. Some people really do want to play Rayman and Pokemon on the same system.
Ten years ago the big N was at the top of the heap, times have changed but IMHO management has done very little to keep the hot developers on board.
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crazy dynamite monkey
The only way to stop the crush from both Sony, and now M$ is for Nintendo to sign a big deal w/ Sega to have exclusive rights over all their games. Think of how awesome that would be.
Without that, I'm afraid we'll be down to only 2 systems, neither of which I'm all that excited about.
Another reason that the GameCube will fail is the decline of the N64, which suffered from an outmoded media format (Why did Nintendo stick with the cartridge? The PSX, Jaguar, Saturn and others had already moved on to CD-ROM. Nintendo gambled and lost.) and lack of consistently good games. Nintendo shifted their focus to the Pokemon/GameBoy craze, and will never recover their console market. The decline of the N64 led to something even more important -- the decline of their household name. When I was growing up in the 80s, Nintendo was so popular and well-known that "Nintendo" was used to generically describe all gaming systems. (Like "Kleenex".) Today, Nintendo doesn't even enter the mind of serious gamers, who are mired in their PS2s, DCs, and tricked-out PCs. Nintendo is making a lot of money off that yellow rat, but no one is thinking "Nintendo" when buying Pokemon merchandise.
The PS2 is huge. Those not enthralled with the PS2 will likely buy Xboxen when (if) they are released this winter. If Nintendo can't be shipping the GameCube by Spring 2002, all hope will be lost, for they will have fallen into the dreaded "lull" between console generations, when gamers who have just bought a PS2 or Xbox are unable to justify a new system. Nintendo can't afford to wait until the end of the lull (probably mid-2003), because by then their name will be all but unknown to the current generation of young gamers, all developers will be firmly seated in the Sony or MS camps, et cetera. There are just so many reasons why Nintendo is doomed, and they can blame it all on the yellow rat. Nintendo has been talking about the GameCube in different forms for probably five years at least... it's just too late to matter.
This "lull" deserves more discussion. For years, Sega and Nintendo had competing systems of the same "generation", at least in the eyes of we young'ins. The NES and SMS; Super NES and Genesis; N64 and Saturn. The Saturn failed miserably but by then the PSX had started to take off, and Sony replaced Sega as Nintendo's nemesis. These were three easily definable "generations" of consoles, and the lull in between, while not barren of sales, lacked the initial hype associated with a product launch. The generations are less easily definable these days, but the PS2, Xbox, and now-defunct DC will for our intents and purposes be competing systems. For the GameCube to enter into this rough market where everyone else has a head start, they would have to have amazing next-generation tech to get attention. I seriously doubt that Nintendo has the engineering clout to produce a system superior to both the Xbox and the PS2 these days.
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I like to watch.
The GameCube is not in trouble. It never was, it never will be. Why would Hiroshi Yamauchi say it is right before E3? Well, duh: To secure support for the product at a time when it is very shady as to who will win the console war.
If Yamauchi says "We won't ship this really cool game console that will make us a lot of money on the Pokemon and Miyamoto game sales alone unless you people kiss our asses at E3," what do you think is gonna happen? The press is gonna pay attention to Nintendo's booths a lot more than they had planned on doing and Nintendo fans are gonna send tons of letters to their favorite gaming press reminding them to do so.
Fear not - Nintendo has mucho mula in their bank accounts. Yamauchi is doing this to make sure the money they spend on E3 is worth every penny.
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
Seriously, how many developers really 'defect' anyway. It isn't in their best interest.
So long as there is an install base of the machine, developers will develop for it. (for a time anyway)
Vermifax
Vermifax
Logout
There. The Gamecube will be produced, but depending on the feedback from E3, they might hold back the release of the console.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
My other
"they may not go through with producing the Gamecube"
Hiroshi Yamauchi never said that. He simply stated that they may stop marketing the game cube. Not producing it is simply an extrapolation by Daily Radar, a website known for having little- if any - journalistic integrity.
The press slamming it is not so bad a problem as all the developers going over to the Xbox. If they all defected, you can understand Nintendo sticking with what they've got
Nintendo already has a dead product (Nintendo 64) that it's been phasing out lately (notice only two announced N64 games in latest Nintendo Power magazine's Game Watch). But Nintendo has a nearly guaranteed winner in the GAMECUBE because kids are going to want one no matter what, as Nintendo has trademarks on popular franchises such as Super Mario, the series formerly known as Zelda (when was the last time you saw Princess Z being rescued? A Link to the Past?), and especially POcKEt MONey (gotta spend 'em all). Plus, Nintendo has an exclusive contract with Rare, who can squeeze the last bit out of even the hardest hardware. (Had Rare been developing for Saturn, the PSX likely wouldn't have killed it as quickly.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
I think gamers of all ages can enjoy games like Zelda
Background: All games marketed as "Zelda" have a character named Link as the hero. Three of them have rescuing Princess Zelda as one of the main objectives (Z1 and Z2 final objective; Z3 first objective). Calling Z4 (Link's Awakening) a "Zelda" game is just wrong; where does she appear? To use the terminology of NetBSD, Z4 is a "Zelda-like" game.
Z5 for N64, Z6 for N64Plus, and the Oracle series for GBC: Haven't looked at them too closely; they came out after I became a PC gamer.
Will I retire or break 10K?
But Nintendo has a nearly guaranteed winner in the GAMECUBE because kids are going to want one no matter what, as Nintendo has trademarks on popular franchises such as Super Mario, the series formerly known as Zelda (when was the last time you saw Princess Z being rescued? A Link to the Past?),
Hmmm... Princess Zelda was the subject of rescue during Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
That was a N64 game.
Obviously your assertion that "kids are going to want [GameCube] no matter what," is based off of past Nintendo history. If you were up-to-date on the Nintendo games and franchises, you'd know there was a Zelda in Ocarina of Time. And you'd also know that kids love affair with Pokemon is fading.
Nintendo's first party franchise games will be on the GameCube, but they're going to be more than just a kiddie system. Check out some of those "kiddie" games slated for the GameCube on IGN.com.
Christopher N Emmick
Christopher N Emmick
A good man, a better nerd.
Having a PS2 already, why would I buy an XBox?
Almost any game I'd care to own on the XBox will be (eventually) produced for the PS2 (and possibly the GameCube) as well.
In fact, if you can only own two systems the only thing that makes any sense is to make sure one of them is a GameCube.
Think about it, the GameCube will have a lot of great and very unique Nintendo titles that you just aren't going to get anywhere else. Each console will have it's own exclusive games, but I can't think of any other set of console-exclusive games you would rather have than Nintendo games.
My two choices for the upcoming console wars are the PS2 and the GameCube, really the only choices that make sense at the moment given what we know. Perhaps that will change after E3, but I don't think so. I'm already really happy with the PS2 and I trust Nintendo enough to know the GameCube will be enjoyable as well.
You are right about them being hurt by late shipping though. If they can manage to ship this year they will be set, but I'll have to admit that's a pretty big IF given thier track record in the past! Still, all reports I've read seem to indicate things are right on schedule. Perhaps they will pull it off this time.
And despite what you said about Nintendo not even registering in the minds of "serious" gamers, I think I can guess what will happen if you put GameCubes and Xboxen in the same stores at the same time, with the GameCube $100-$150 less than the XBox... hint, it involves a lot of "X"-tra shipments to landfills.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
(Heck, N64? screw that, they should go back to the SNES. Why isn't anyone producing games for the SNES any more?)
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What was Sony's launch title for the PS2? A fireworks game.
As for maturity, anyone that believes maturity is playing games that are just gorefests really should be asking themselves if they are mature.
There are more to games then violence. Oh, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with 'violent' or 'gory' games, they can also be fun. GoldenEye and Perfect Dark were great games on the Nintendo 64, and Half-Life and co on the PC are also great. However, if you think maturity is something along the lines of "Mortal Kombat is more appealing to a mature audience then Zelda because you can kill people", then you really don't understand maturity.
A mature person wants a game that has some depth to it, and/or is fun. Nintendo provides this in the majority of 1st party games. I am a mature gamer. My favorite games are the Marios and the Zeldas. Does that make me an immature gamer? I think not.
Everyone seems to think Nintendo is broke, but they do have money to throw around; the Game Boy hardware and software and N64 software have been making them alot of money in recent years. Your console doesn't need to be number one to be profitable, as N64 software has shown Nintendo (I'm talking 1st party stuff here, not 3rd parties). Nintendo will be content with not being number one if it's bringing them in profit.
Nintendo have already shipped hundreds of completed dev kits to 3rd parties, whereas Microsoft haven't even shipped finalised kits yet. Even with this fact, the masses still seem to think that the Xbox will be out this year, and Nintendo are the ones struggling to meet their deadline.
As for your Oct 2001 comment, well, you're wrong there too; the GameCube is being released in the US in Nov 2001.
And Pokemon, well, where have Nintendo made the impression they plan on launching the GameCube hoping for Pokemon to support it? The games Nintendo seem to have the most 'console selling' faith in are their traditional Mario launch title, and Metroid.
Anyway, I think this is why that AC had a shot at you. Calling you a dumbfuck was a little harsh, but people that read cube.ign.com fairly regularly do know the 'truth' behind the common GameCube misconceptions. And I do think just pointing people at that basic FAQ was a bad move...
The GameCube will launch this year, and it will not be depending on Pokemon.
Nah, gamers looking for a GameCube will buy a GameCube. This story is total rubbish; the GameCube will launch, and the GameCube will rock.
But, I agree, I'd rather see PS2 sales then Xbox sales...
Umm, it's not made by Nintendo, so porting their games to it are not going to sell their consoles.
And I could tell you why the GameCube is better then the console you already own, but that would just create a flamewar :)
Nintendo are a hardware and software company. They do both, and they do both well. The are alot like Apple in that reguard. I guess you want an x86 Mac OS X port too? ;)
I'd love a Virtual Boy though, should look into getting one off Ebay...
Anyone out there got one they want to sell? ;)
Got any URL's to backup your claims?
I wouldn't mind a few links to info about the RPG insults and the refusing of high unit selling developers.
And, Nintendo hasn't stopped violent content since Mortal Kombat 2 on the SNES had blood.
I know Yamauchi is eccentric (and that he had a nice shot at Square :) but I hadn't heard those 2 claims you've made, and I generally like to think I'm in the know about Nintendo... so I can't wait to see you back your statements up :)
Like Nintendo's 1st party games, such as Mario, Zelda, Metroid, StarFox, Donkey Kong...
Its worth noting that there is an article in this month's NextGen on major cutbacks and retrenching at Nintendo's first party Gamecube game studio in texas, Retro.
They've cut half their projects and laid off 20 developers.
Just another data point. Lord knows what it means.
I DO know the game industry in general won't let MS gobble it all without a fight...
I agree with you to a point -- I've certainly seen enough violence and profanity that it doesn't have a "novel" appeal. (Hell, two of my favorite games have been "Ocarina of Time" on the N64 and "Ape Escape" on the Playstation, neither of which would be unsuitable for most children.) While I cringe at gratuitous violence and profanity as an attention-getting tactic, I believe that's it's also sometimes appropriate for a game.
For example, in Metal Gear Solid (one of the best games ever made for the Playstation), you can sneak up behind your enemies, grab their head, and snap their neck, complete with a resounding "crack". While some might find that a little graphic (especially for, say, the target Nintendo audience of Pokemon-clad pre-teens), it's not gratuitous, in my opinion. Within the context of an unarmed special forces operative sneaking into a military facility, snapping the neck of an unsuspecting guard or two makes sense and adds to the feel of the game.
Hahah, you do know that Indrema is now dead, right? (All this before it even hit the market) Yeah, the true "powers" of OSS, the ability to send millions of dollars in capital to a speedy demise.
I used the examples of GoldenEye and Perfect Dark in my original post, but MGS is up there too as being a 'violent' game that happen to also be excellent mature game. :)