Nintendo Profits Up Amid GameCube Worries

Thanks to Gamesindustry.biz for their report on Nintendo's announcement of significant first-quarter profits, around $95 million (11.5bn Yen), "buoyed by stellar Game Boy Advance console sales, foreign exchange rate gains in Europe and the well timed re-emergence of the Pokemon brand." However, the article cautions that GameCube's current prospects are "...looking increasingly bleak, with a mere 800,000 units of the underperforming console selling through from April to June. Targets of six million have been set for the end of its financial year, but it's looking unlikely that it will reach this unless it's prepared to heavily discount the console in the run up to Christmas - something Nintendo has traditionally been reluctant to do." What can Nintendo do to get out of this hardware slump? Update: 08/05 20:43 GMT by S : According to this Reuters report, Nintendo sold just 80,000 GameCubes to retailers worldwide, not 800,000.

Comments

Nintendo Doesn't Need to

[Schezar]

Nintendo is a niche console. The people who own it will buy the big games no matter what. They don't need market saturation because they have a significant base of loyal fans/customers. These people are a steady, reliable income stream.

See also: Apple Computers.

Re:Nintendo Doesn't Need to

[bafraid2b1]

This is 100% correct. I went out and bought a GameCube for two reasons: Zelda and Metroid Prime. Neither one of them dissapoints, but this isn't a game review. The important fact is that Nintendo has the best proprietary games out there. And Nintendo has made sure that with each successive console release these games are as strong as ever. The hardest thing for Nintendo is introducing new players to these titles at a time when most people value pretty graphics over good gameplay.

Re:Nintendo Doesn't Need to

[Drantin]

Bah.. the reason they are being forced to market the pretty graphica is because that's what they've been spoon-feeding to the masses in order to pump up revenue... if they were less focused on converting the infidels to their system they could concentrate on making the games even better than they are (generalization to every gaming company...)

Re:Nintendo Doesn't Need to

[Anonymous Coward]

You know we're talking about Nintendo, right? I would assume you'd need to have played their games if you want to post in this story.

Re:Nintendo Doesn't Need to

[Yorrike]

"if they were less focused on converting the infidels to their system they could concentrate on making the games even better than they are"

Yeah, I suppose they've only produced half of the 4 games to attain perfect scores from Famitsu. Shame on them, they should be doing much better </sarcasm>

Nintendo is doing alright. They're making plenty of cash, and considering the whole Sony group only made $9 million last quater, they shouldn't really be that displeased. Market share only goes so far, at the end of the day, despite what idiot share holders may think, profit is king.

Re:Nintendo Doesn't Need to

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot one:

Pikmin.

Don't let the E rating scare you, I had a friend's kids over and they were totally lost. Games can be cute AND hard.

Re:the answer

[Matchu]

Straight up.

Well, for one..

[Ophidian P. Jones]

What can Nintendo do to get out of this hardware slump?

Well, they could start selling more risque titles a la Playstation, but I don't think that's where they want to go. Nintendo has always been a family-oriented company and they'll just have to accept the lower market share associated with that theme.

Re:Well, for one..

[analog_line]

They have plenty of adult-themed titles. Blood Rayne, Dead to Rights, Hunter: The Reckoning, Resident Evil, Eternal Darkness, the revised and expanded MGS... These are not exactly little kids games.

I think Nintendo has more than once said that they are OK with the market share they've gotten worldwide, though I'm sure they'd like more. Game reviewers welded to this "console death match" idea are the ones that haven't accepted that Nintendo may have accepted it.

Re:Well, for one..

[mausmalone]

Sadly, I believe you're right.... Nintendo needs to market itself differently, or go in another direction all together. Either Nintendo needs to try to attract the more "mature" games (a.k.a. GTA, Silent Hill, Halo) to grab that 18-24 male gaming demographic by the short-hairs, or they need to start appealing to girl gamers and develop a new very loyal fanbase out of them.

There's something macho about the PS2 and the X-Box... both are daunting black boxes with sharp edges and the density of a brick. The PS2 controller is a nightmare for beginners, with 12 buttons and 3 directional mechanisms to master, and the x-box controller was just big and daunting. Everything about them is marketed as being macho, meaty, substansive, qantitative.

The Gamecube relies on smooth lines for its design, is light as a feather, and even has a "cute" carying handle. The controller is simple (when in doubt, hit the big obvious button), the games and the packaging are more colorful and less "gritty." The gamecube is the more stereotypically feminine console. It's experiental, qualitative.

So, Nintendo can follow both the PS2 and the X-Box, which, though not necessarily lacking in feminine games, market themselves as very masculine systems, or it can go the more feminine route and try to attract non-gamer girls to the market and make a fan base out of them.

After all, if you can get the neglected 52% of the market to all like your system, then you win. :)

Re:Well, for one..

[Metroid72]

Hmmm.. let me see... hmmmm... I guess that my black Xbox and PS2 go well with my Harley, leather jacket & boots and F-150 Supercrew....
Although you might have an interesting perception of the whole situation, I guess it's more suitable to focus on the software rather than the 'status' obtained by owning the console.
The question is... do you play games to be cool or just to have fun... I've been having fun since 1985..dunno about you.

Re:Well, for one..

[mausmalone]

I've been playing games for fun since 1985 also (I can still remember opening the NES at Christmas). I'm currently the proud owner of both a Gamecube and PS2. But that's not to say I'm immune to marketing hype, I just take a cynnical look at it.

Console manufacturers don't just make a system and hope the games will pull them through. They have to create an identity for the system, and then market it to get people interested. Sony and Microsoft both went with the overpowered (read some of the released specs & benchmarks) daunding black-box approach. Nintendo's specs & benchmarks were practically non-existant, and it's console looks like a toy. It's clear that they were marketing toward different audiences, but I can't say how much pull that has on consumers.

Re:Well, for one..

[indead]

Well, they could start selling more risque titles a la Playstation, but I don't think that's where they want to go.

The only console with an uncensored version of BMX XXX is the GC. Of course, that game is apparently terrible (I've never played it).

Re:the answer

[Niobium-41]

Couldn't have said it better.. Mario, Pokemon, Link, and Samus can only get you so far..

Underpowered hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can understand the kiddie games, since that's what Nintendo specializes in, but why is the hardware underpowered?

Re:Underpowered hardware?

[liquidzero4]

Why would you think that the Hardware is under powered. I own all three systems and it's quit obvious that the Game Cube blows away the PS2. It's a close second to the XBOX. I would really recomend spending some time with a game cube. It's a pretty great system.

Every house needs to buy 5 GCs

[bpb213]

But thats not going to happen, be realistic.

I am sorry, but 800,000 isnt a small number. Each household will only have a demand for a single gamecube, no matter what price you put on it. AFAIK, there is only one game for the GC that uses the internet: Phantasy Star Online. Given that, the lack of broadband adapters being a common accessory, and the fact that I can't expand on it and run Linux or similar, and the limited selection of games, all point to a certain saturation of the market that we appear to be reaching.

Xbox and PS2 can break the limit of 1 per household because they can run Linux (ie become a family or personal PC) and because they have networked games.

(all this comes with the disclaimer that I own a GC, that I bought way back when it was still new)

Re:Every house needs to buy 5 GCs

[eclipsemgp]

"Xbox and PS2 can break the limit of 1 per household because they can run Linux,"
Come on now, did you really just type that statement? I know many an XBox and PS2 user, many of them nerds, geek, whatever. How many actually run Linux on them? Zero. While fun and interesting to have Linux running on you console, is there really a need? The consoles were designed to do one thing, play games. And that's what most people use them for. To say that the Gamecube is failing to sell because it doesn't support Linux is ridiculous.

Re:Every house needs to buy 5 GCs

[PainKilleR-CE]

Ill buy a second GC either when the price comes down or when I can find an importer that carries one of the 'special edition' Japanese GCs that I might want. I may also buy a PSOne to save my PS2 from an early death, due to the number of PS1 titles I play, and eventually if the PSX price comes well below their currently estimated retail price I may buy one of those to replace my PS2 (or move the PS2 to another room).

That being said, the only real reason I want another GC is because I'd like to have a GC/GB Player in the other room, rather than using my GBA-SP when someone's watching something on TV I don't really care about. I don't play PS2 or XBox games enough to really want another one, though if they were significantly lower in price it wouldn't be a big deal to get another one.

Re:Every house needs to buy 5 GCs

[JGag21]

"Xbox and PS2 can break the limit of 1 per household because they can run Linux (ie become a family or personal PC) and because they have networked games."

Cause we all know that most people/families who play games would love to run Linux on their console. What percentage of console owners actually run Linux??? Honestly... not just people on this site.

Re:Every house needs to buy 5 GCs

[kmak]

800,000 _is_ a small number.. GC wants to sell 6 million GC's.. which is nothing, since Sony already sold 30 million PS2s..

Re:Every house needs to buy 5 GCs

[scot4875]

Sony sold 30 million PS2s between April and June? Wow -- what's that bring their total to? Eleventy bajillion?

Reading the article is helpful. Understanding what you're reading is even more helpful.

--Jeremy

Re:Every house needs to buy 5 GCs

[baerwb]

Xbox and PS2 can break the limit of 1 per household because they can run Linux (ie become a family or personal PC) and because they have networked games.

But honestly how many people do you actually expect will be modding their other consoles. That is a VERY small percentage of the population, probably not even enough of a number for either company to report or be concerned with.

On the other hand the fact that Nintendo products historically are built to last, and the PS2 seems to be built to break (disclaimer, I've had mine for almost 3 years with no problems). Therefore Sony sells lots of replacement PS2s I imagine (no numbers to back that idea up of course).

Re:Every house needs to buy 5 GCs

[Anonymous Coward]

I can give anecdotal evidence to back up the claim that Sony is selling more replacement units than either of the other two companies combined. I work part-time in a videogame store, and rarely does a shift go by where I don't sell some poor soul a new PS2 to replace theirs that either stopped reading blue discs, stopped reading silver discs, stopped reading DVDs (generally they pick one to stop reading), or crapped out entirely. So yes, I can support the claim that Sony's numbers are padded with replacement units, whereas I have never even heard of a Gamecube breaking. I've sold a few replacement X-Boxes, but the numbers seem small enough to be written off as an acceptible factory defect percentage.

--
FoolsRun

Re:Every house needs to buy 5 GCs

[Anonymous Coward]

"I am sorry, but 800,000 isnt a small number."

But 80,000 is.

Re:Every house needs to buy 5 GCs

[Stubtify]

Its easy to sell 30 million ps2's here's how they did it: 5million people buy ps2, They break and have to buy another, rinse, and repeat. I'm pissed cuz my POS ps2 broke.

Re:Every house needs to buy 5 GCs

[13Echo]

I have an Athlon with a gig of RAM for my Linux box. Why in the hell would I want to run Linux on an XBox? If I had an XBox, it would merely be for JSRF, PDO, SegaGT, and the other good games (albeit few excellent exclusives). I wouldn't buy it for Linux.

The hack factor is nice, but in reality, I've got a great PC that can do the Linux job... AND play games.

Re:Every house needs to buy 5 GCs

[13Echo]

This is not far-fetched. I know many people that have purchased at least two PS2s. Some of them have import systems as well as domestics. Others had to buy replacements. When taking into account that the GameCube has a warranty period that is 4 times as long as the PS2's or XBox's, then there are a lot fewer replaced Gamecubes. Also, it's important to note that the PS2 has had more than a year's head start on the other two machines...

It's it obvious that the PS2's replacement rate and head-start would contribute to having 3 times the number of sold GameCube machines. Having a larger game library with backward compatibility does help as well. I seriously think that a lot of zealots totally overexaggerate the Gamecube's "failure". It's done quite respectably, and still has some of the best games of the big three consoles (in my opinion).

Re:Every house needs to buy 5 GCs

[sheared]

Actually, I know 7 people that have XBoxes. Of those 7, 6 have modified them for uses (PRIMARY USES) beyond playing games. They all use them as media centers. They occassionally play games on them, but find them better for showing baby pictures to parents on the big screen TV. For gaming, they pretty much stick to the PC.

That's not what MS wants them to be used for (when selling at a loss).

Underperforming Console?

[MajikMan]

I work in a fairly large game retailer (Gamestop), and I'm curious to know who's standards the cube and xbox are underperforming by. I know in my company, the investors were told a story about last year's sales and expect to see the same kind of numbers. The problem with that is that there hasn't been a major price cut, and there aren't any new system-selling titles on the shelves.

End result? The company is on the rocks, the employees get griped at and have hours cut, and the people responsible (game makers for not making games that move systems and retailers for building up unreasonable hype) scratch their heads.

Deep discounts.

[RealityMogul]

Deep discounts like the $100 one I bought from Wal-Mart last night that included the Mario game? How much cheaper can they make it? I don't know if this is their new price or my particular Wal-mart just had a sale going on or something. They just had a standard wal-mart price sticked on it that said $100 and no other info.

Re:Deep discounts.

[Synic]

That was a retailer discount, not a manufacturer one-- in other words, only your particular Wal-Mart had the deal.

Re:Deep discounts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you got a reconditioned Gamecube. That's the typical price of a reconditioned unit.

Re:Deep discounts.

[kmak]

Or, they can go the route MS did - make it easy to pirate games.

I really don't know if MS did it intentionally or unintentionally, but that's how they got so many people (along with a more mature target audience), cheap/free games get people the console, so later generations will perform better..

I know, I'm probably stretching it a bit, but hey, look at PS1, it was easy as heck to burn games, and it really caught on.. and only now Sony tries to stop piracy - because it got enough people hooked - on the PS2!

Re:the answer

[Gr33nNight]

Yeah, its too bad they are marketing Eternal Darkness (a kickass game IMO), and Resident Evil to 8 year olds

...

not true

[bpb213]

I own both a GC and a PowerBook. My list of purchased games for GC is Super Smash Brothers, Zelda, Eternal Darkness, and Jedi Outcast. ED and JO i bought for $20 each. As regards to the apple, I bought quicktime pro.

Now, how do i fit in your uniformed opinion that all GC and Apple owners are raving mad consumers?

Re:not true

[hackwrench]

You raving mad consumer, you.

Nintendo needs developers!

[Fusion2k]

Nintendo has a major problem with their business strategy: their relationship with their developers. Nintendo still has the mindset of a console superpower and therefore treat third party developers like crap. I have developed for Nintendo before and this could be seen as a rant, but if they want to shape up that should be their focus. The reason PS2 and XBox are doing well is they support and encourage their third party developers (Heck Micro$oft even paid for the development of a lot of projects during the early XBox days) Nintendo on the other hand makes the debug kits and SDK hardware impossible to afford for small companies and the cart and burn fees are much worse than the same fees for Xbox and PS2.

Re:Nintendo needs developers!

[YomikoReadman]

So what you're saying is that Nintendo, which actually gives away dev kits, fails to support their 3rd party developers the way Sony does, when they actually charge an arm and a leg? The only factual statement in their is that M$ not only gave away devkits, but paid for a huge chunk of development costs.

The whole reason Nintendo is having such a hard time garnering 3rd party support is because all of it is either going to Xbox or PS2, because they feel that a vast majority of the games they are developing won't have a place on GC, which is a 'kiddy console'. IMO, that is a bunch of crap, because im certainly no kid, im 23, and own a GC. As far as whether or not some of the more risque games could do well on the GC, there's no way they could without being there, and its quite apparent that they can seeing as how well the ResEvil franchise has done, as well as Eternal Darkness.

Re:Nintendo needs developers!

[Elwood P Dowd]

Your hypothesis seems to be: "Nintendo needs developers."

However, the hypothesis that you have proved is: "Nintendo is bad to developers."

You'll have to explain what 3D party developers would bring to Nintendo (primarily a software company). Why can't they survive without?

Re:Nintendo needs developers!

[Fusion2k]

Wow I guess I missed out on the free dev kits at launch. :( I have mainly worked on the Game Boy advance side of things as far as development is concerned, but I have dabled a bit in GCube dev (mostly just argued with the big N).

Don't get me wrong, I have enjoy Game Cube and own both an XBox and a Game Cube (and I'm also 23) My dream has always been to develop on a nintend consloe, but things just arn't the same these days.

Re:Nintendo needs developers!

[Fusion2k]

Opps you caught me! I changed what I was originally writing about :) I guess I got caugh up in the heat of the moment. Well what I origianlly meant other than "Nintendo is bad to developers" is that as Nintendo has moved from 8-bit to 16-bit to 64-bit to its current iteration they have lost a lot of the mass apeal because they have lost a lot of the third party developers. This was because (IMHO) of Nintendo's "Quality over Quantity" agenda implemented in the N64 days. Which was a noble idea but I think that the impact it had was to severely limt the game library over the long run, which also sent developers away to work on PS1 games.

It can be argued that the massive PS1 and PS2 libraries may be larger but still full of crap games and that Nintendo's strategy was a good one, but they are still behind Xbox and far behind PS2 in terms of units sold. This continues to hurt the GCube because there will be less "Exclusive" third party games because of the limited user base. This will be a giant cycle of decline for the GCube and no amount of Nintendo originals or Squaresoft games will be able to fix it.

I really hope that Nintendo becomes stronger in their next generation of consoles and that the company gets back to the top of home video-game entertainment. In order to do that they have to suck it up and start learning from their mistakes. (Which it sounds like they are from the other posts that I have been reading, I havn't been following them since Hiroshi Yamauchi stepped down as Inoshiro put it)

Re:Nintendo needs developers!

[13Echo]

Where have you been? Nintendo and Square/ENIX built a co-op game company; the same company that is writing Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. Nintendo and Capcom have teamed up to make quite a few exclusive Gamcube games. Nintendo and Konami have teamed up to do the remake of Metal Gear Solid, which is being handled primarily by Silicon Knights (now a Nintendo company). Nintendo and SEGA co-developed the new F-Zero game. Nintendo and HAL Labs co-developed Kirby Air Ride. Companies like Namco, Square/ENIX, and MonolithSoft are making new games for the Cube and GameBoy, including brand new RPGs.

Where do you people come up with this stuff?

Re:the answer

[eclipsemgp]

Such a tired statement. Two games out of two hundred do not make up for the 150 kiddie games out there.

Easy

[SoVeryWrong]

They can get on Square's ass to release Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. I'll buy a GameCube as soon as that game is released.

If it would have come out this year like it was originally expected to, that would probably boost their profits and console sales.

Since Square is waiting until Feb 2004, I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Re:Easy

[WorselWorsel]

NoA is publishing FF:CC themselves, not Square. They're publishing all three of the announced Sqaure games for the Nintendo consoles (Sword of Mana, Crystal Chronicles, Tactics Advance) in North America.

Re:Easy

[SoVeryWrong]

So is the delay a development delay or the publishers pushing it off so they won't step on other product's release dates?

Re:Easy

[WorselWorsel]

I don't think the Japanese release date has changed, so I think it's Nintendo's decision. I think their crowded first and second party schedule for the end this year is a big part of it.

It could also be that they realized releasing Crystal Chronicles on the same day FFX-2 was a bad idea.

It won't be broken this generation...

[CashCarSTAR]

PS2 had a massive lead going in. Nobody would ever catch them.

The X-Box has higher sales in US, while the GC has higher sales overseas. Overall, both are about equal, with the GC with a slight edge.

The idea that somehow the GC is far in third-place, is frankly strage. There is a lack of third-party games for it, which is true. (Although, to be honest I don't miss much, at least when it comes to X-Box).

The unwritten rule, I suspect is that third-party companies want to keep out of the way of Nintendo..which one can't really blame them over.

Re:It won't be broken this generation...

[Fammy2000]

The idea that somehow the GC is far in third-place, is frankly strage.

It is, but the reason is media hype. The media has latched onto Sony and Microsoft. They are the new cool guys. Nintendo was cool when Atari ruled the roost. Then Sega was the media darling in the 16-bit days. Sony took over with the PSX. And now Microsoft, for some reason, can do no wrong in the media eyes. They lose money like it's urine and the media says they are in better shape than Nintendo.

Nintendo is turning the most profit, sitting almost dead even with Microsoft in terms of hardware sales, and everyone (the media) predicts their failure.

Frankly, it's strange.

Re:It won't be broken this generation...

[Ian_Bailey]

Nintendo is turning the most profit, sitting almost dead even with Microsoft in terms of hardware sales, and everyone (the media) predicts their failure.

Well, no one's exaclty predicting their failure yet, but in business, you have to be a little forward thinking to make an attempt to predict what will be popular in the future.

While the Xbox is losing money, it's not like Microsoft is currently experiencing a cash crisis or anything. Microsoft can (and most likely will) prop up the Xbox for as long as it takes to become profitable. I'm sure they can go 100s of years at their current pace, so it's not like they're in a rush or anything.

Nintendo, on the other hand, has nowhere to fall back on. The only two business are GameCube and the GameBoy. Currently, Nintendo makes most of it's money of the gameboys. During the upcoming handheld console wars (N-gage, PSP, Helix, better Cell Phones, etc, etc), Nintendo is not going to enjoy the healthy profit margins it does now. Unless every last competitor is inferior to the GBA in every way, Nintendo is going to need to promote their little machine more than ever, which costs money.

On top of that, after the poor 3rd party support on the N64, if the GC's 3rd paties fizzle out as well (RE4, Tales of Symphonia), it will be VERY difficult to convince 3rd parties to develop for Nintendo's next system. This will result in a smaller library, and this will create less demand for the 'new' console. This situation will just spiral downwards until Nintendo goes under or does something to fix the problem.

I'm hoping (as a GC owner) that the 3rd parties in the next year do well, to keep the system going. But their future is far from uncertain.

Re:It won't be broken this generation...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The X-Box has higher sales in US, while the GC has higher sales overseas."

Untrue. GC has a big lead over XBox in Japan and maybe over parts of East Asia. XBox has a big lead over GC in Europe, larger than the difference in North America. Some British retailers have stopped carrying GC consoles because sales are so bad.

Re:It won't be broken this generation...

[valkraider]

retailers have stopped carrying GC consoles because sales are so bad.

Not selling them sure helps sales....

Why do retailers do this? Just reduce your inventory a bit - but it's not like they are made of cottage cheese - they won't spoil.

What if a kick butt game comes out and sales jump - but they don't sell them anymore... Hmmm. Now 1/2 the retailers carry them, so obviously sales will suffer.

Just like the Sega Saturn...

Re:It won't be broken this generation...

[ymgve]

Unless every last competitor is inferior to the GBA in every way... ...which it seems like they are.

N-Gage? Don't make me laugh. This one has hit the floor even before the start. High price (at LEAST $300), bad button layout and I bet the battery will last just long enough for you to get a peek at miss Croft's pixelated breasts.

Mobile phones? They are a mile away from being portable game consoles. The Java system most of them use is slow like hell. Apart from that, they have all the disadvantages of the N-Gage without any good parts.

Helix? $300. A glorified PDA, really. Also, if this is anything like previous Palms, battery life will drain like tapwater when a somewhat intensive game is run.

PSP? This one is the biggest threat to the Gameboy, but with the specs it have it will either cost a fortune or have a lifetime of a 3-4 hours between each charge, or both.

So as I see it now, there are and will not in the near future be any real competitors to the Gameboy systems. Sony might come out and surprise us all, but that's the only bet so far.

DVD support

[Anonymous Coward]

Last year I was looking to get a gaming systems for when I stay at my parents place. I've took a look at the market:

• XBox: I'm not going to give money to MS didn't do it for more than 10 years thanx to linux
• PS2: some cool games, could be used as a DVD player
• GameCube: really nice game (Zelda, FF), but no DVD playing

As I wanted it to be also of some use for my parents, I've got a PS2. The Samsung GameCube was never released in Europe, and that's why I got this f***ing PS2.

Re:DVD support

[BTWR]

samsung gamecube? can you please explain this?

Re:DVD support

[Schnapple]

I think he means the Panasonic "Q" model which plays DVD's and GameCube discs and has not been released outside of Japan (and therefore only plays Japanese movies and games).

Re:DVD support

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Why is it so important to have a DVD player in your console? The GameCube is $50 cheaper than the PS2. Conveniently, you can buy a real DVD player for $50. One with a real remote that doesn't cost extra. One that plays VCDs and MP3 CDs flawlessly. One that your friends can borrow without borrowing your console.

Re:DVD support

[PainKilleR-CE]

Additionally, DVD currently has 70% of the video market, meaning that most people that want a DVD player already have one. I don't want to watch DVDs on my PS2, hell, at this point I don't even want to play PS1 games on the thing, because from all accounts the PS2 could die on me next week and I'd be completely SOL for all 3 uses. Time to pick up a PSOne and another DVD player to make sure the PS2 will last long enough for the next price drop.

Re:DVD support

[Mike Hawk]

A valid point here is that you can't really stack a DVD and Gamecube since the Gamecube wasn't designed with Americans (outside of fanboys) in mind. Opening from the top is pretty silly in this age of home entertainment centers and the uniquely tall size (especially with the GB player) make it unsuitable for most standard entertainment centers.

This is a fatal design flaw to me. If it won't fit with the design of my house (a pretty standard American design) why would I buy it? PS2 and XBOX own on that point hands down and going away. More proof that Nintendo has nothing but contempt for Americans.

Hey you know where it would fit perfectly? My kid's room. LOL.

Re:DVD support

[Daetrin]

This is a fatal design flaw to me. If it won't fit with the design of my house (a pretty standard American design) why would I buy it?

Ahh, such a well thought out analysis. You choose game consoles to match your interior decor.

Strange, the GameCubes at work fits into the entertainment center in the confrence room just fine. That's the only case i know of where the owner bothered putting them into any kind of entertainment center. Most of my geek friends just have them sitting on the floor next to or in front of the tv, or stacked on top of each other with the GameCube on top.

Oh, but you're an interior decorator so such an arangement wouldn't work for you. Guess the rest of us will have to get by making our decisions based on which console has the best games.

LOL

Maybe this discussion forum is a little too advanced for you. Perhaps you might want to consider the AOL chatrooms instead?

Re:DVD support

[Mike Hawk]

I dont choose them to match my decor, but they have to be functional with it. I guess function and form escape you though? I don't know about you, but in a grown-up's house stuff doesn't just sit on the floor. Maybe when you are a big boy you will pick up your toys.

And, though I am not an interior decorator, was that a thinly veiled homophobic statement? Talk about AOL quality discussion. So Gamecube fanboys are also homophobes, check. GG

And yes, the LOL was a direct insult. I'm glad you picked up on it. Enjoy it.

Re:DVD support

[Daetrin]

I dont choose them to match my decor, but they have to be functional with it. I guess function and form escape you though? I don't know about you, but in a grown-up's house stuff doesn't just sit on the floor. Maybe when you are a big boy you will pick up your toys.

Nope, i'm 28 and about as grown up as i ever plan to get, sorry if you've gotten old and bitter. My girlfriend may make me pick up the place a bit once she moves out here, but if so i'll just have to manage the difficult task of figuring out how to put the GameCube and PS2 on a shelf. Although i'm sure it will be a difficult task given that you haven't been able to manage it, but i'm sure i'll eventually prevail.

And, though I am not an interior decorator, was that a thinly veiled homophobic statement? Talk about AOL quality discussion. So Gamecube fanboys are also homophobes, check. GG

GG? What's that? Sorry i don't keep up with the latest kiddie slang.

I didn't say you were a homosexual, and i'm not sure why you were so quick to jump to that conclusion. Isn't that whole "all homsexuals are interior decorators" thing a myth anyways? If it makes you feel better, i can call you an artiste instead, except that i know a lot of artists and none of them worry about what the GameCube looks like either, and come to think of it, they've all figured out how to fit it into their entertainment centers as well.

No, what i was trying to emphasize was the stupidity of picking out a console based on what the console looks like and how it matches your furniture. If you're really that much more concerned about what the console looks like on your shelf (oh wait, you haven't figured out how to put it on a shelf yet, sorry) rather than what the games look like on the screen, i'm really not sure why your opinion should matter at all anyways.

And yes, the LOL was a direct insult. I'm glad you picked up on it. Enjoy it.

I picked up on the part where you sounded like an idiot. Somehow missed the part where i was laughing at anything other than you. But keep it up, you make a great twelve year old.

Re:DVD support

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, 28 and you're done maturing? Thats quite the outlook. I guess you're right, because your language, logic, and behavior seem frozen at the 11 year old level, so you got me there.

I can only imagine you have never seen a big boy entertainment center. The "shelves" (more like cubby holes) are a set height and width. I know Disney has taught you that if you wish it, it will come true, but the size is set. The Gamecube is too tall for them. If this concept is too tough for you to grasp I suggest you take some fundamental math classes and familiarize yourself with simple concepts such as size and possibly newtonian physics and concepts like matter. Assuming your mail-order bride does arrive, maybe the wench can help you lift your toys off the ground. I'm sure she will be of the stout type and able to help you construct "shelves" for your den.

Way to back-peddle on your homophobic insult, though. Real nice work. Its already posted for everyone to see though. I need not say anymore on that issue.

Real quick on the GG thing, if you don't know what that is, you probably aren't qualified to post on anything in the games section. That means Good Game and has been in use as long as there have been multiplayer games. Used in the context there, it is a backhanded compliment. My knowledge of that term, and your lack thereof, only reinforces my point: That you really have no knowledge of what you speak.

Re:DVD support

[Daetrin]

Wow, 28 and you're done maturing? Thats quite the outlook. I guess you're right, because your language, logic, and behavior seem frozen at the 11 year old level, so you got me there.

I know reading is hard, but i said that i was "about as grown up as i ever plan to get." I didn't say i was done maturing.

I just refuse to submit to an societally determined notion of what's "growing up" and accept definition that as a synonym for mature. I intend to continue developing deeper and better relationships with my friends and family, promoting beneficial change in the political and social systems of the US, expanding my mind by continued education, and among many other things, continue to enjoy the entertainment provided, in one of it's forms, by well done video games. However not among the "many other things" is stressing out about whether or not my consoles are sitting on the floor in front of the tv or are sitting on shelves in an entertainment center.

I can only imagine you have never seen a big boy entertainment center. The "shelves" (more like cubby holes) are a set height and width. I know Disney has taught you that if you wish it, it will come true, but the size is set. The Gamecube is too tall for them. If this concept is too tough for you to grasp I suggest you take some fundamental math classes and familiarize yourself with simple concepts such as size and possibly newtonian physics and concepts like matter.

Sorry to disapoint you, but i've seen them at home when growing up, i can see one right now in the confrence room at work, i've seen them at stores, and i've seen them at some friends' houses.

Guess what? Every halfway decently built entertainment center i've seen has pegs that allow you to place the shelves at any level you want and thereby provide room to store whatever type of consumer electronics on it that you wish. I suggest you familiarize yourself with such simple concepts as comparison shopping and look before you buy.

I've got a small entertainment center that fits just my tv and some DVDs, and using advanced mathematical and physics knowledge that i picked up at college i was able to judge the size of the tv and adjust the shelves so they contained it nicely.

Assuming your mail-order bride does arrive, maybe the wench can help you lift your toys off the ground. I'm sure she will be of the stout type and able to help you construct "shelves" for your den.

Wow, you started out the whole flaming thing by insulting my ability to read, and now have scaled upwards to insulting my girlfriend. I can see why you were scared to log in to write this comment. Congratulations, you've managed to even pass below the threshold of good taste to which i am willing to descend to meet you. No matter how viscious, uncouth and unintelligent you may be, i'm not going to stoop to insulting your friends and family.

If she wants me to move the stuff, i'll go out and buy an entertainment center, however unlike you, i am smart enough to look at what i'm getting before i purchase it, and i'll get one with moveable shelves and use my already demonstrated spatial sense and engineering ability to assemble the device in the correct layout to accomodate the devices i wish to place in it.

Way to back-peddle on your homophobic insult, though. Real nice work. Its already posted for everyone to see though. I need not say anymore on that issue.

Sorry, you can try to put words in my mouth all you want, but i'm not the one who thinks that all interior decorators are homosexuals, I do think that interior decorating is a pretty useless field regardless of whether it's practiced my heterosexuals or homosexuals, especially when applied to matters such as which console to purchase. Making decisions based on such irrelevant criteria is even more imbecilic than choosing which entertainment center to buy without considering what features would be most usefull to the application to which you will be applying it.

Real quick

Re:DVD support

[Daetrin]

Hey, I responded to your anonymous comment below if you care. (This would be a lot easier if you were brave enough to take credit for your own words.)

Re:DVD support

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

"Opening from the top is pretty silly in this age of home entertainment centers"

Actually, I love top-loading. The mechanism is much simpler and harder to break than a front-loader. Plus, there's no delay between when you press the open button and the thing actually opens.

slump not nintendo specific

[FBG Zippy]

i would venture to guess that the slump in nintendo sales, at least expected sales, is not due to nintendo, but rather the industry. how many of the same type gaming systems do i need? the consoles should be basically given away and make the money on the games. just like the cell phone industry...give away the phone and profit on the subscription.

Re:the answer

[Paladine97]

It's not underpowered. Performance is on par with XBox. They just need to lose the kiddy image. The hardware itself is amazing.

Re:the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Pokemon may only get you so far, however it has been good enough to sell more GBA's than PS2's.

GC... Best System Since SNES

[LordYUK]

When I go to the local EB, I look over the racks of all the systems... (I own a GC and a PS2, as well as a "gaming" PC... no Xbox just yet). What do I see? Under PS2... crap, crap, GTA (also on PC), crap, crap, port, port, port, GTA VC (also on PC), crap, crap... under Xbox, crap, crap, Halo (on PC soon), crap, crap, port, port, port, crap, KoTOR (on PC soon), and Live (not a game, but a selling point). On GC, however, its Mario, Link, Metroid, Mario Golf, Animal Crossing (was that the name of it?), in addition to the other crap and the ports. (I havent gone into games that are "coming soon" like the new StarFox and Fzero and Mario Kart and Mario Tennis...)

The GC doesnt have many games, but the PS2 has alot of games that arent good. The Xbox, I have played and enjoyed, and Live is very appealing, but the games just arent there... I'd rather play Halo on my PC with a mouse than with the joystick, and kotor will be better on the PC as well...

Re:GC... Best System Since SNES

[SixArmedJesus]

I have to say that I agree here. A year ago, my wife and I started out with an XBox because of DOA3, Enclave, and Halo. (though we are not much for FPS games (or sports), we wanted something we could play together) Beyond that, XBox specific games haven't piqued our interest. So, two months later, we wound up going for a PS2 for GTA3. We got a couple of other games for it, and it was kind of fun, but not spectacular. Don't get me wrong. The graphics were good (although we like the XBox graphics better), but the games were all the same. So two months ago we invested in a GC. We LOVE Zelda, Mario Sunshine, SMB2, and Metroid Prime. Hardly a day has gone by that one (or both) of us haven't played anything on there. Contrast that with a week for the XBox and PS2. I wish now that we had gone with the GC and only the GC...

Re:GC... Best System Since SNES

[Hedonist123]

This is the problem though, people seem to think of GC as a last resort, even though I hear narrative after narrative like this of it being the best system. Nintendo somehow needs to get in the minds of the people more. How they do that, I don't know, when the mindset of most people and the media is PS2/XBOX. Hed.

Re:GC... Best System Since SNES

[LordYUK]

I would have bought a GC first, however, it WAS the last resort, coming out AFTER the PS2 and DURING the Xbox Halo hype... the launch games for the GC stunk... Rogue Squadron was pathetic (the devs admitted this, and its why RS3 will feature the entire RS2 game WITH multiplayer support), luigi's mansion was "meh", and the other titles I cant even remember... IMHO, the system didnt get "good" until recently, where people can go to the store and see Mario Sunshine, Zelda, Metroid, and other solid games coming before X-mas, not 2 years from now...

Re:GC... Best System Since SNES

[freebfrost]

Here's the thing -- I have all three consoles and a gaming PC. Got the PS2 first, then the Cube, then the Xbox.

While there are certainly poor games for the PS2, it gets the majority of game titles and a good number of first-shot titles -- i.e. Red Faction. I can also play all my old PS1 titles, and the controller for the PS2 is the best there is IMO.

The Cube has some lush games (the Resident Evil releases), but is marketed mainly towards kids. There is little main-line game support for various reasons, and nothing marketed towards adults that I can't find either sooner on PS2 or with better graphics and gameplay on the Xbox.
The Xbox was my latest acquisition, and it certainly does a great job with great games. Sadly, there are still very few of those -- Halo and Star Wars: KOTOR to name the few.

I love PC games myself, but look to the consoles to play games with friends (not all have broadband and even with it you get slowdowns and glitches), to experience fewer bugs (you only have to code it to work on one console, not every PC in existence), and to watch it easily on my big TV without having to run wires and buy a new video card to support TV out.

The Cube seems stuck in its niche role, and I don't see any way for them to break out of it with their current strategy.

Re:GC... Best System Since SNES

[13Echo]

The Gamecube is *not* just market towards kids. It's marketed towards *everyone*. People keep missing the fact that it has Eternal Darkness and the best lineup of current Resident Evil games. It's not as though Nintendo has to develop a slew of first party titles with violence. So, Animal Crossing and Pikmin don't appeal to you "hardcore" gamers. My girlfriend would never play videogames without Animal Crossing.

The fact is that Sony and Microsoft (especially) are ignoring everyone on the market except for the teenage male that wants FPS games, sports titles, and boobies (Dead or Alive). With the exception of Disney licenses, they NEVER do anything to appeal to the rest of the market, especially when it comes to first party titles. Ninteno's resources have gone to making games that can appeal to wide varieties of people. Those of you that don't understand that obviously have no clue as to what types of games that the Gamecube really has to offer. If you can't play Super Monkey Ball, Pikmin, or Animal Crossing (aside from the fact that you may just not like the games for some bizarre reason), you've probably got some serious problem with feeling secure about yourself. DOn't worry. We have Metroid and Eternal Darkness to make you feel macho. Of course, you wouldn't want to play the role of a girl, would you?

Re:GC... Best System Since SNES

[freebfrost]

But the horror survival game is itself a niche market. Do you really think that the GC Resident Evil sales were from net-new players, or mostly old RE players who saw the new graphics and had the cash to buy the new ones to add to the collection?

And what exactly is the rest of the market? Sony and MS make games FOR the market. Developers make games FOR the market. What market? Males, not just teenage, but teenage to middle-aged. Sure teens *want* to play Vice City (and this is not the place to discuss parents who allow them to own "M"-rated games), but it was the older males who drove the sales of that game. Likewise, I would bet that older males have driven the successes of the other high-profile games.

The point is that again and again people say market to some other group -- teenage girls, etc. Yet time and time again the MARKET doesn't support those games. Sure, you have your occasional Tetris or Sims game, but the female market for games is notoriously fickle (insert joke here).

Enter Nintendo, who provide 90% of their titles that are kiddie-level games. Sure, they have a small percentage of other games that appeal, but most are aimed at kids. How can they expand their share using this strategy? Sony gets the most first-look games, and MS has the best graphics -- what does Nintendo offer me? Don't get me wrong, RE for the Cube is awesome, but I know that those graphics would be EVEN better on the Xbox, and the game, while updated, is the same game as the PS version. The only new offering there is Eternal Darkness.

I've seen and played a lot of the GC stuff -- it doesn't appeal to me -- your thirty-something male gamer. Played the original Metroid, and the new one is good, no doubt, but not good enough for me to buy a copy at full price. As far as playing a girl, isn't that what Silent Hill 3 is all about?

Re:GC... Best System Since SNES

[Anonymous Coward]

Better on the XBox? You must be a believer in the "megahertz myth". The Gamecube is every bit as functional as the XBox. It does it with finess, and with a perfect design (like the Dreamcast). The XBox, on the other hand, is just a bunch of off the shelf, leftover shit that some wannabe "engineer" came up with because he couldn't design something himself.

GC DevKits...

[Ian_Bailey]

...Nintendo, which actually gives away dev kits...

According to Nintendo, a GameCube dev kit costs upwards of $10,000. Not to mention, "Financial stability is expected," which means they don't just loan them out to just-starting developers.

Not that Sony isn't expensive either. And I can't imagine Xbox dev kits being too cheap anymore, either.

Re:GC DevKits...

[YomikoReadman]

Times, they are a changin.. I haven't looked into it since launch, and they were giving them away back then.

Re:GC DevKits...

[Obiwan Kenobi]

And I can't imagine Xbox dev kits being too cheap anymore, either.

Yeah, PIII 700's w/ a Geforce 2 are really expensive these days. /joke

Re:the answer

[Matchu]

Okay, set up Gamecube Soul Calibur 2 next to XBox Soul Calibur 2...

Relax.

[Sheetrock]

He's not saying "all GC and Apple owners are raving mad consumers" -- he's saying that there is a "significant base" of loyal customers. Surely you don't regard yourself as empirical evidence that there is not a "significant base" of loyal customers, and no matter how sharply his opinion is dressed a little critical thinking and/or research would prove it's correct.

How long has Nintendo been in the video game business? Most people I know who had a NES back in the 80s have continued to buy Nintendo products, particularly for the Mario/Zelda/Metroid franchises. Compare this to Sega -- they had Sonic, occasionally Phantasy Star, Lunar, etc. but nothing with the fan appeal that would keep people coming back to the system (the disappointment in the range of games available for a couple of their more expensive platforms no doubt didn't help).

Many Apple users continue to use Apple computers despite the expense and limited software offerings because they perceive value in the platform that has only been reinforced by their experiences. Apple users are something like 10% of the PC market yet software companies are still able to produce Apple-only applications and enjoy success. You might not be buying many applications, but you bought a PowerBook where a less than loyal individual would probably realize the vast price difference between that and a $700 laptop from Dell and perhaps waver a bit.

Re:Relax.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Apple users are something like 10% of the PC market"

Try 2.5 precent.

Re:the answer

[Niobium-41]

Yeah.. that's why there isn't a single Pokemon game on the GameBoy Advance yet.. only for the Gameboy Color..

Re:the answer

[alph0ns3]

Like the PS2 doesn't have kiddie games. (it may have more,the psx had mary kate & ashley when the n64 didn't) Yes Nintendo's first party games are usually targeted at kids, but the PS2 doesn't have _any_ first party games (except maybe gt3, if I remember correctly), and the XBOX only has a few. You can have "adult" games on the GC, that's the point.

out of interest...

[Ian_Bailey]

Where were they giving them away? Perhaps they give them out for cheap at first to attract developpers to the console, and then jack up the price when it gets more lucrative.....

Maybe I can score a next generation dev kit in a few years...

Re:out of interest...

[YomikoReadman]

They were giving them away with essentially the same restrictions as they are now.. as I recall they were even more restrictive about it back then, and they were pretty much going to the major developers.

Are you cracked?

[Inoshiro]

"Nintendo on the other hand makes the debug kits and SDK hardware impossible to afford for small companies and the cart and burn fees are much worse than the same fees for Xbox and PS2."

The various fees for producing GCN games were lowered last April. That's why Sega games and other titles from Capcom and Konami are coming out at cheap prices, like 59.99$ CDN or less. Capcom can publish new games at 49.99$ CDN and still earn great profit!

And this is completely ignoring the efforts of Nintendo to work together with 3rd party developers. Miyamoto has made himself available to Capcom, Konami, Sega, and other third-parties, while leaving his titles to mainly be built with his remote supervision. This has led to many great contributions by those companies to the GameCube product library.

Nintendo's changing how they do business, they have been for years. That you're ignorant of it shows you haven't been following it since Hiroshi Yamauchi stepped down.

Re:Are you cracked?

[Fusion2k]

Well I may or may not be cracked but you are right, I have not been following the news too closely Hiroshi Yamauchi stepped down. I was too frustrated to continue down the console video game development path. I am currently working in "cube land" as a software engineer just doing boring stuff :(

Re:the answer

[The Other White Boy]

you
are
incorrect.

What?

[Inoshiro]

Ok, if you are buying a bunch of PS2s and Xboxes because you can turn them into PCs, you are such a tiny fraction of the populace as to not matter. Of the 10 million Xboxes out there, how many are running movies, etc? I'd guess less than 1 in 100. For the PS2 I would guess less than 1 in 1,000, since there are 50 million out there.

I own 2 GameCubes, 2 Dreamcasts, 1 Xbox, 1 PS2, 2 NES, etc. Multiple GameCubes will make sense once more system-link games come out, much like multiple Xboxes makes sense for system-link parties (no one cares about PS2 system link, which is why Sony's dropping the i.Link port on future models).

What GameCube needs are just games that appeal to wide audiences. Games that sell on GameCube are games that wouldn't sell on PS2 or Xbox, and vise versa. A lot of people want GTA on Xbox or Halo on PS2, but not one of the GC owners cares about those two games. The GameCube market is not shooters and violence, remarkably enough. The trouble is that most development companies in North America are geared towards that because of the PS2, which they can shovel that stuff out on no problem.

I expect once more people start porting Japanese games to GCN in North America, it'll get more sellers. IE: Ikaruga is a good sleeper hit on the GCN.

Re:the answer

[Niobium-41]

Oh yeah.. let me go run out and buy them.. oh wait.. I can't.. Because they aren't out yet..

Re:the answer

[Niobium-41]

My bad.. looks like ruby and saphire are out.. didn't notice..

Re:the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

And they look the same. Oh... and Link is the best new character. For as much as everyone wanted it, Spawn is just mediocre.

They're ported titles (from the arcade no less). Very little system tweaking. Sorry.

Re-package the machine

[MBraynard]

Just sort of thinking about what the typical PS2 or Xbox buyer thinks of when they think of Nintendo - this thing called the "game cube" with the little black handle attached and a very unsturdy, immature looking controller.

Maybe repackage it - not calling it the "Game cube" but maybe just the "n-cube"- make it look sleeker, less childish. Make games that appeal to a somewhat older audience. No, not pr0n, but something a little more than that farm game and pokemon.

Then again, it may be hopeless. PS2 has the games, Xbox has the hardware - where is Nintendo's edge?

Re:Re-package the machine

[Gr33nNight]

Hey hey hey, dont be dissing Harvest Moon

Im so looking forward to it

Re:Re-package the machine

[liquidzero4]

I own all three systems. I'll be compltely honest. Within the past year I've bought more Game Cube games than I have for the PS2/Xbox combined. You can't deny that Nintendo has a pretty good line up of titles. What sets Nintendo apart is the quality of their games. The Nintendo games are in their own class. The other systems have cookie cutter games. They're al the same. Game Cube's games a little more artisc, in one word different.

Re:Re-package the machine

[Anonymous Coward]

immature looking controller

Man, if you haven't got a *SERIOUS* problem.. then I don't know.

Re:Re-package the machine

[unclethursday]

Within the past year I've bought more Game Cube games than I have for the PS2/Xbox combined.

Same boat here.

I've had my (waiting for repair) PS2 for over 2 years, and only have 19 games for it.

I've had my GC since it's launch, and already have 17 games for it, with 7 more pre-ordered due out by the end of the year (Soul Claibur 2 and F-Zero GX this month alone, and I just picked up Mario Golf).

I've had my Xbox since last September, and have a whopping 8 games for it. Granted KotOR, which I was skeptical about, took my by storm; but most of my Xbox games get played for like a week or two and then sit there gathering dust. Even my Live games (UC, RtCW, NHL2k3, Capcom vs. SNK 2 EO) don't get much use online.

I only know I'm picking up FFX-2 and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater Underground for the PS2 (if I ever remember to send it in for repairs, damn disk read error on every disk now), and the next game I see myself buying for my Xbox is (duh) Halo 2 (and maybe XIII).

Yet, I've already reserved F-Zero GX, Soul Calibur 2 (gotta have Link), Viewtiful Joe, Mario Kart Double Dash, Kirby's Air Ride, Harvest Moon A Wonderful Life, and Rogue Squadron III.

2004 might have an Xbox game or two I want, and a PS2 game or two, but that's 2004. For right now, though, my GC rules my games bought this year and upcoming games lists.

Thursdae
Gamer

Re:Re-package the machine

[Anonymous Coward]

Thursdae is my hero. If there is ever anyone to post GC news on GAF, it is he.

Re:Re-package the machine

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as repackaging it to make it look less like a toy... it's already been done. Take a look at Panasonic's Gamecube Q. http://www.fullyindependent.com/article.php?articl e=gamecubeq

It's sleek, stainless steel, has cool LCD screen and plays full-sized DVDs. Only problem is the price and availability in the states... they won't market it here.

Re:Re-package the machine

[unclethursday]

I post all sorts of news. I just happen to find some good GC stories. =-)

Thursdae
Newsie

Nintendo is doing the best they can

[truffle]

Nintendo has improved things so much since the N64. The Gamecube is a really great machine, with a set of killer gamecube specific titles (already mentioned in this thread), that cause people to buy gamecubes just so they can play those titles. I know I did.

However, Sony got so much market share with the PS1, back when all the other console manufacturers had their heads far up their asses, that it's pretty hard to come back and gain ground. Still, I'm sure they have, compare the market share of the N64 to the PS1, and I think you'll see the Gamecube is doing a lot better.

The GBA and the level of integration they offer with it is exceptional. The new Playstation hand held is Sony trying to copy them, and I'm sure it's going to kick ass (I have a PS2 and I'll buy one of the Sony handhelds for sure). None the less I'm already convinced that my Gameboy Advance SP is going to remain my favorite hand held console. I don't need a killer CPU, and larger screen, for my portable player. I don't need portable movies and music (esp. since DRM will make sure I have to pay $15-30 for each disk). I need something small, sexy, long battery life, with great games - that's the gameboy advance SP.

The GBA SP is great also because it plays Gameboy Color and Gameboy games as well. Very smart. Gameboy Player lets you play all those on your TV (Great purchase, strong incentive to buy a cube, GBA games are great and are great to play on a TV. Friends have come over to my house and spent 60+ hours playing Golden Sun on my gameboy player). Unfortunately everything from the N64 and back is lost, but I'm sure the next edition of the GameCube will support GameCube games. Nintendo has recognized how great for Sony it has been that the PS2 plays PS1 games (I love that I can play dance dance revolution PS1 games on my PS2, plus super puzzle fighter).

The one area Nintendo does seem to still mess up on, is their high licensing fees, which discourage development by destroying profit for game makers. I don't know why Nintendo doesn't wake up and halve those. It would work great, games would drop $5 and developer profits would increase $5. Customers and developers both happier, more units sold, maybe less money for Nintendo in the short term but a better chance for market share growth.

The gamecube is the fun family console. If I was buying one console system for my 12-or-under kids I would buy a gamecube probably. They're also a great secondary console for houses that already have a PS2 or XBox and want to get in on Nintendo games. With Cubes being cheap and coming bundled often with killer games like Metroid Prime, Gamecube is in a great position to be that second console. I'm pretty sure that's where the future of the gamecube really lies, being the second console for grownups, and the first console for kids. They won't beat Sony any time soon, but hopefully they'll obtain a growing market share.

Re:Nintendo is doing the best they can

[jplvr1]

Good points. Sony did do a wonderful job in allowing the old PS1 games to be compatible with the PS2. It was a bit easier though for them to do so since they abadoned cartridges from the start. I also agree that if I was buying something for the kids, it would be a Cube. Nintendo has always, IMO, been more family oriented in their game selections when compared to the other 2.

Re:Nintendo is doing the best they can

[Daetrin]

Assert(girl && geek && bi && cute && humble)

I think you've got an extra term in there. Any girl who manages to meet the first four of those criteria has every right not to meet the fifth :)

Re:Nintendo is doing the best they can

[Artifex]

The gamecube is the fun family console. If I was buying one console system for my 12-or-under kids I would buy a gamecube probably.

You might want to consider the DVD playing capabilities of the XBox and the PS2, if you're shopping for your kids. Just think of how useful it would be to let them watch their age-appropriate movies at the same time you're watching the news, or playing games on your primary tv set, etc.

Re:Nintendo is doing the best they can

[PainKilleR-CE]

If he doesn't already have a 2nd DVD player, he can always pick one up for $60 and still enjoy the Gamecube's lineup of 1st party and exclusive games. Oh, and he won't have to worry about the kids wearing out the PS2 watching some Disney movie 20 million times in a row.

Re:the answer

[Gr33nNight]

And whats kiddie to you? The graphics? The gameplay? The title? Is Mario, Zelda, Metroid kiddie games? Do kids want to play them? Yes. Are they fun as hell? Yes.

Instead of worrying about whether or not a game you are playing is kiddie, maybe you should grow up and try playing it for fun

Some more comments...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a few comments (IMHO):

1) Nintendo has gotten themselves into a pricing dilemma. Right now you get a game with the GC with purchase. A $49.99 bonus with the purchase of a GC ($149.99). That makes the price $100 for a GC. That would make the GC the same price as a GBA SP! As the GBA SP is selling like hotcakes, they won't drop the GC unless they drop the GBA SP price.

2) Nintendo has always made a profit. So, they're not making as much money since they were the dominant player on the market. They ARE making much more then MSFT. No one can argue that Nintendo knows the rate of return on their investment, unlike MSFT.

3) Nintendo markets for kids and will continue marketing for kids. The games that crossover to the teen/adults are a bonus. Right now the trend is for FPS, violence, horror, and fighting games. Few developers will want to develop Resident Evil for the GC crowd. None of these will sell well on GC nor will they. Compare this with MSFTs or Sony's set of cute character games (Crash? Jax&Dexter? Xbox???), and you will see the dichotomy. Now look at all the me too FPS, Resident Evil Clones, out there for PS2 and Xbox. When the trend moves away from this, Nintendo will do better. They are better off keeping the kiddie image then losing it.

5) Real satisfaction in gameplay is key to any real gameplayer. Any real gamer will know that Nintendo has great games. Any real player will own a GC and another system.

Re:Some more comments...

[Daetrin]

1) Nintendo has gotten themselves into a pricing dilemma. Right now you get a game with the GC with purchase. A $49.99 bonus with the purchase of a GC ($149.99). That makes the price $100 for a GC. That would make the GC the same price as a GBA SP! As the GBA SP is selling like hotcakes, they won't drop the GC unless they drop the GBA SP price.

They should just ditch the free game and make the price $100 for the system alone. That $100 price tag will attract more people than the free game i think. People aren't very rational. They can continue to offer the bundled version as well for $150 too i suppose. Maybe even offer a $25 mail in rebate for it *eg*

Re:Some more comments...

[unclethursday]

Few developers will want to develop Resident Evil for the GC crowd.

Correct, since only one developer/publisher has the rights to do Resident Evil, Capcom. They own the Resident Evil games.

Oh, wait, RE4 is coming out for the GC. And Resident Evil (Remake) and Resident Evil 0 both sold over 1 million copies each, worldwide, on the GC.

Well, guess that messed up that argument.

I'll give you that the majority of publishers seem to see the GC as a 'kiddie console', yet, when you look at it, the genuinely 'kiddie games' put out by these publishers don't sell well on the GC. Konami saw that with their (idiotic) thinking that their Disney Sports games would sell on the GC.

And, while RE and RE0 sold well, Eternal Darkness didn't. Which is unfortunate, as it's a great game.

Thursdae
Can't think of anything to say here

Re:Some more comments...

[PainKilleR-CE]

And, while RE and RE0 sold well, Eternal Darkness didn't. Which is unfortunate, as it's a great game

I just picked up Eternal Darkness last week for $14, new.

I'm waiting to see if they're going to release the full RE pack (all of the titles in one set) like they did in Japan before I pick up any RE titles on the GC. I figure if I can pick up that, Soul Calibur 2, and a couple of other titles, I might be able to put my DreamCast away.

All aboard, the sinking ship is leaving

[August_zero]

I'm not sure they really need to do anything.

Is the gamecube slumping? Yes, but it isn't Nintendos cash cow right now anyway, the gameboy is. Most of the people crying for nintendo to improve the gamecube position are analysts outside the company. Sure more profit is always good but nintendo is hardly in any sort of danger right now. No big projects forth coming? Nintendo can be notoriously tight lipped at times, look at the Gameboy advanced SP, no info on it even leaked much earlier than a month before launch. They could be hiding a couple aces, and its not like MS or Sony have killer aps slated for this year either.

The big picture could change though. Sony's Portable is going to give a serious challenge for the mature gamers (18+) but its cost is going to be too high to capture the younger gamers at first. Nintendo is leaning very heavy on that portable leg and if it gets kicked out from under them they are going to be headed down the road Sega just recently hopped along if they don't get their claws into something else. Its hard to say though if this could happen over night. Sony venturing into the portable market is very similar to the launch of the game cube: a superior (in most respects) console against the entrenched behemoth.

Also keep this in mind: Sony's profits were very low last quarter, while their console is doing well, the company as a whole did not perform as well as Sony would have liked. Neither Nintendo or MS is so far behind that they couldn't rise up and close the gap quickly. If the market fragments with the next generation, Sony is the one with the most to lose, to go from 80% to 33% is a huge loss while virtualy any outcome would be better for Nintendo and MS since they together control only about 20-30%

I stop rambling now...

Re:All aboard, the sinking ship is leaving

[PainKilleR-CE]

No big projects forth coming? Nintendo can be notoriously tight lipped at times, look at the Gameboy advanced SP, no info on it even leaked much earlier than a month before launch. They could be hiding a couple aces, and its not like MS or Sony have killer aps slated for this year either.

I don't think the SP is a good measure of how Nintendo might hold information back on a new product. If news of the SP came out too early, it would've impacted sales of the previous GBA, which would not have been good for the company. On the other hand, a title coming down the pipeline that could sell consoles generally is known about well ahead of time (ie FF:CC). Plans for a new portable would probably be kept tight-lipped to keep sales of the SP up, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were working on it, but almost anything that will sell more GameCubes is something we're likely to hear about.

I'd like to see Nintendo get more 3rd party titles, but at the moment it doesn't really matter to me too much, because in the last couple of months the GameCube is the system I've played the most and bought the most games for, even though I have all 3 consoles. I'll be buying Soul Calibur 2 and KOTOR for the XBox, and maybe FFX-2 for the PS2, but the GC lineup coming up looks to have more games than those two systems combined that I am looking forward to. Not to mention that my girlfriend pretty much only plays GameBoy games, so she's constantly on the GBA-SP (I dont think she's quite comfortable with the GB Player yet, nor does she usually care about playing them on the TV, which is fine with me since I can use the Player or the Cube while she's playing Pokemon).

New Nintendo Slogan!

[BTWR]

Gamecube does... what Grand_Theft_Au_DON'T!


(you're supercool if you get that reference)

Re:New Nintendo Slogan!

[Tom7]

Haha. I used to have a homemade poster on my wall when I was like 9 that said, "Genesis sux... but Nintendon't"

Re:New Nintendo Slogan!

[AlexMax2742]

Jerk! You gave it away. Now how are people supposed to tell if they are supercool?

The spec game.

[Demon-Xanth]

Nintendo didn't play the spec game that Sony and MS did. Sony said "97M polygons!" MS said "100M polygons!" and Nintendo said "6-12M polygons." Sony and MS were talking max theoretical, Nintendo was talking real. An i875P chipset has a max theoretical memory bandwidth of 12.8GB/sec. Has anyone seen any bandwidth measurements of even half that?

As someone once said to me about the xBox:
"The Dreamcast was a 75MHz toy, the xBox is a 700MHz machine, people will treat it better!"

Nintendo knows better, I know better, a P90 used to be hot stuff and now it's being used to level a table. Nintendo is the ONLY one of the three that isn't having frequent problems with thier drive units. PS2 drives go out quite often, XBox drives go out so often I tend to question if they're DESIGNED to go bad.

now GC = GBA pricewise .... tough choice

[SPeW]

I'd go with the GBA SP personally, more titles and portability

Re:now GC = GBA pricewise .... tough choice

[Tom7]

You get a free Gameboy Player with the Gamecube now, which lets you play all the GBA/GBC/GB titles on your TV.

Wait....

[M3wThr33]

Nintendo's profits up. Still selling lot's of the Cube, Sony's profits down 98%, MS cuts staff in Japan, but they just have to point out Nintendo's loss? What IS IT with people to overlook everyone else and just laugh at Nintendo, making wads of cash I would love to make, unlike MS losing every day and Sony in a huge moneypit.

BLABLABLA

[Anonymous Coward]

The GC is by far not as childish as the arguing of non-GC owners why the GC is childish.

Nintendo has to be careful

[Andy Dodd]

While they will never lose some game franchises that they themselves own (Zelda, Mario), Nintendo's unhealthy fear of piracy has caused them problems in the past.

Fear of piracy was one reason that Nintendo stayed with cartridges for the N64. (Load lag was another more valid reason) Because of that decision, Square switched over to Sony for future releases. Final Fantasy VII can at least be partially credited to the Playstation's success - Let's face it, lots of people bought Playstations for that one game alone. Lots of people would have bought N64s instead if the 64 had been more conducive to Square's desires.

Fear of piracy is also hurting the Gamecube - One of the primary reasons stated for the oddball mini-DVD format used by the GC is piracy.

Problem - In this day and age, people are consolidating their devices. Why buy a game console AND a DVD player when the game console can do a good job of playing DVD movies? The Cube is the only one of the modern consoles that can't play DVD movies (unless you buy the import Panasonic combo unit), and that's hurting it too.

Re:Nintendo has to be careful

[13Echo]

Why buy a DVD player and a Game console? I dont' want my game console to play DVDs. I have a DVD player for that, and it does it better than an XBox or PS2, while still playing things like VCDs and MPEG files.

It's not a problem for people that just want a game machine. Besides... Who can't go out and buy a $70 DVD player if they can afford a $200 game machine (plus games)? Why is it hurting it? Most Gamecube owners really could care less. The majority of them already had a PS2 or DVD player in the first place, before buying their Gamecube.

People always playing up Nintendo's negatives

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter if profit is down or up. It doesn't matter if their cash reserves continue to grow (8,000,000,000 US dollars). It doesn't matter if they haven't lost money since forever. Nintendo is going to go bankrupt within a year.

Contrast this with the reporting done about some of the other players. Take KOTOR for example. It sold 250,000 copies in the first 4 days. Many said that those sales were proof that the Xbox market was thriving and that the future success of the Xbox was ensured. It was hyped as the "fastest selling Xbox game ever". Never mind that in the next 10 days it only sold 20,000 copies. Never mind that there hadn't been an AAA game released for the Xbox in 8 months (Splinter Cell).

Everyone loves to hate Nintendo

[Daetrin]

As someone else has pointed out, everything about the XBox is golden to the media, whereas the GameCube is always on the edge of disaster with them.

I don't know why that is, maybe they want to see the "big guy" fail and the underdog come out on top, although no one who's been paying attention at all would think Nintendo has been the "big guy" since the SNES days, and they'd have to be insane to think of Microsoft as the underdog even if they've only just now entered the console biz.

Regardless of how this fucked up perception came about, no amount of pointing out the strengths of the GameCube, real or imagined, and no amount of pointing out the inequality of the treatment will change anything.

A lot of the population is influenced by the media. If this goes on for long enough, people will buy into the idea that the GameCube is toast and sales will go down, and then the media will have something real to hang their predjudices on.

The only way Nintendo can beat this bad rap is to turn things around and do so well that no one can deny that they're beating the XBox. Until they can do that they will always be a failure in the media's eyes.

They need a price cut before christmas, i don't care if they've been reluctant to do that in the past, they need to get over that. Being priced the same as the competition only works if you're percieved as well or better than them. The GameCube price should be $100. As someone else pointed out the $150 with a free game works out to the same value, but Nintendo needs to rub people's faces in it. They can also have the $150 with game version include a $25 mail in rebate. As people on slashdot have complained before, those things are a ripoff, but they do help sales, and at not much cost to the bottom line.

Nintendo needs to beg, borrow, or buy more 3rd party developers. They need to improve their reputation and relations with outside coompanies and get more games on the system.

They need to get more mature games on the system and kick the kiddy image. I know, sex and violence does not make a good game, but it does affect sales. Miyamoto doesn't have to make the games himself, Ninetndo can get 3rd parties to make them, but the games need to get made.

They damn well better be working on the GameCube2 or whatever it's called! It needs to be backwards compatible, and it can't have the usually Nintendo slippage. If they can beat the PS3 and XBox2 to market by a few weeks (this is critical, if they release it too far ahead, Sony and Microsoft will go the "wait a bit longer for better technology" spiel) and have a ton of GameCube games that work on it, they could pull off some major sales and get a head start in the next round.

Re:Everyone loves to hate Nintendo

[valkraider]

They need to get more mature games on the system and kick the kiddy image

What do you want for a mature game? With our group we age 30 - 40 and our favorite games are on the GC. Games like Super Monkey Ball 2 are as mature as you get. Or Pikmin, maybe too mature.

Are you looking for "shock value" maturity? How about Soul Caliber, Lord of the Rings, Eternal Darkness - or just look at games with a "mature" rating - Blood Omen 2, Blood Rayne, Celebrity Death Match, Dead to Rights, Die Hard: Vendetta, Ghost Recon, Hitman 2, Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter. - The list goes on.

How about sports games? With Hockey, X Games, Baseball, Soccer, Golf, Tennis, Volleyball, Football, Basketball, and more - all with multiple titles.

Do you need quality? Zelda, Metroid, Ikaruga...

Nostalgia? Sonic classics, Namco classics...

Fighting, racing - lots of adult genre titles... Puzzle, multi-player party games... Plenty for "mature" audiences, and I didn't even scratch the surface.

People have ALWAYS said Nintendo didn't have mature games, ever since they edited the first Mortal Kombat for the SNES. So they made a mistake - they have plenty of "mature" titles now... More than I even have time to play.

And now with the GameBoyPlayer - sweet!

Re:Everyone loves to hate Nintendo

[Daetrin]

I own a GameCube, why the hell are you trying to convince me? Do you even realize what the problem is?

To quote myself...

Regardless of how this fucked up perception came about, no amount of pointing out the strengths of the GameCube, real or imagined, and no amount of pointing out the inequality of the treatment will change anything.

Do you really think that the truth matters? I know the GameCube has kickass games, but what really matters is the perception of the average consumer, who sees a lack of games, and specificaly a lack of mature games.

People have ALWAYS said Nintendo didn't have mature games, ever since they edited the first Mortal Kombat for the SNES. So they made a mistake - they have plenty of "mature" titles now

So they need to make even more mature games and market them better. The marketing on the mature titles they already have hasn't been that hot to date.

We're not talking about how to make the GameCube better. The news article wasn't about that and the discussion was never about that. We're talking about how to make it sell.

Re:Everyone loves to hate Nintendo

[valkraider]

No, I know you are pro GC. I was making the point for the *other* readers. ;) We're on the same side... To make the GC sell they need to do *more* marketing, plain and simple. Make it seem "cool" to have a GC... Right?

Re:Everyone loves to hate Nintendo

[mr.capaneus]

The last thing Nintendo needs to do is make more "mature" games. They don't need to turn the GC into another X-box. The funny thing is that the "mature" games that you are talking about appeal more to younger players. Older guys like myself, I am 26, like the nintendo franchises (zelda, metroid etc.) rpg's and puzzle games. I am not much of an X-treme D00D, so I really hate games like Halo and GTA.

That's a shame :-/

[Inoshiro]

I quit my job in cube land because in was distracting me from what I enjoyed in life. I'd rather work for what I enjoy, than have what I enjoy be marginalized by 9-5.

You could always try and become a game developer. You just need artists/story writers with you :)

Say what?

[Daetrin]

Update: 08/05 20:43 GMT by S: According to this Reuters report, Nintendo sold just 80,000 GameCubes to retailers worldwide, not 800,000.

Can that number really be right? According to this chart at MagicBox the GameCube sold 4,500 unites the week of May 19th - May 25th. This Dengeki Chart says the GameCube sold 13,000 units in Japan for the week of July 21st through July 27th. So we know that sales have increased since the 4,500 a week amount, so let's say that 4,500 is the average for April - June, which is still probably low.

4,500 units a week over 12 weeks gives 54,000 units. They sold 54,000 units in Japan and only 26,000 in the entire rest of the _world_?

I think Reuters screwed up, and of course no one will read the correction they post later. Just one more bit of evidence for the percieved bias against the GameCube. What do you want to bet that if they'd made the same mistake for XBox someone would have stopped to question such an absurdly low number before the article was printed/put up?

Re:Say what?

[unclethursday]

I think Reuters screwed up, and of course no one will read the correction they post later. Just one more bit of evidence for the percieved bias against the GameCube.

Kind of like how Bloomberg reported that the GC had only sold 5.6 million since launch, when it was 5.6 million for the fiscal year, eh?

Oddly enough, I don't remember Bloomberg posting a retraction/correction.

If I were Nintendo, and Bloomberg didn't post a retraction/correction, I would have sued for libel; claiming the mis-representation of data was hurting sales (sales of the GC did go down after that announcement from Bloomberg), stocks went down (which they did), and third party partners were more wary about publishing on the console.

What do you want to bet that if they'd made the same mistake for XBox someone would have stopped to question such an absurdly low number before the article was printed/put up?

To be sure, there would have been a double check. It's just the US/European media likes to downplay the GC at all times. Especially since MS keeps saying they've sold more Xboxes than Nintendo's sold GameCubes worldwide (which is false, but Nintendo's lead is nothing to be proud of...a few hundred thousand at most right now).

Thursdae
INAL but I think there's grounds if there was no correction/retraction.

Re:Say what?

[simoniker]

Actually, I talked to a reporter at CNN Money before posting this correction, because I tried mailing him to correct _his_ story, which said 80,000, and we looked at all the online sources and came to the conclusion that 80,000 seems to be correct.

To explain, that's how many GameCubes Nintendo sold to retailers in that period - not how many GameCubes were sold. So if Nintendo had already sold 1,000,000 GameCubes to retailers in the previous quarter, but the retailers only sold 500,000 of the previous quarter, and then this quarter, the retailers sold 580,000, then.. Nintendo would have only sold 80,000 consoles to retailers this quarter. Slightly odd, but conceivably correct.

Re:Say what?

[Daetrin]

Okay, thanks for the clarification. If that's the case then i guess they're not wrong, just slightly misleading by not specifying that's what they mean by sales in the article. Which is better than just being outright wrong... maybe?

Re:Say what?

[PainKilleR-CE]

but the point is that even if it's slightly misleading, Nintendo would've gotten credit for higher sales in a previous quarter if stores were holding a lot of stock that they weren't selling, and only needed 80,000 more units. Somewhere along the line it all evens out, until the cubes stop selling, at which point Nintendo ends up having to pick up the overstock or slash the prices and refund retailers (who might slash the prices on their own to dump overstock otherwise).

Re:the answer

[eclipsemgp]

Keep modding me down, fanboy. Again this is the same tired argument. Those three games are touted as the franchise. Many people buy the console just to play those games. But, in terms of sales figures not my opinion, those three games are not enough to get people to go out and buy the console. My GC just sits there waiting for something to play, while my PS2 get a work out. Mario was so cutsey it was sick. It was not nearly as good as the previous Marios. Metroid and Zelda both went in new (not bad) directions.

The console is marketed towards kids. Kids buy the console. There is nothing wrong with that, but don't say that the primary target of the Gamecube is not children.

Have you guys tried playing with that controller

[r_arr]

2 of my friends both have all 3 systems. I have the xbox and ps2. If a game comes out on the cube and another system more often than not they'll buy it for the other system. Take Soul Calibur for example, Both plan on buying it for the xbox. Even though both are huge fans of Zelda playing on the gamecube controller is a hassle. The botton config is weird. It's one giant button with 3 orbiting smaller buttons all set up in the most awkard places. Not to mention that the d-pad is tiny and the cord is extra short. We have to play in front of the tv. Not with the ps2 and xbox controller. They both just feel better. Sometimes it just comes down to small things that affect out choices as a consumer.

Re:the answer

[Gr33nNight]

Yeah that Mario game sure made me (and my friends) sick. So sick that I played it for around 50 hours, and it made my friends so pathetically sick that they purchased the console after playing it at my house.

The only time my PS2 is used is when a decent RPG comes out, otherwise its all GameCube for me. There is around a dozen games that Im waiting for for my GC, and around 2 or 3 for my PS2.

About your statement regarding Nintendos primary target to be children, well they pretty much say time and time again that they create games for all ages to enjoy, where as they have others (Silicon Knights, Capcom, etc) create the games that are specifically for adults. Personally I tend to pick up the Nintendo created games more often than not, which is what most GC owners seem to do.

Re:Have you guys tried playing with that controlle

[valkraider]

I disagree. I like the GC controller much better than te XBox controller. THe PS2 controller is fine though... I do muss my N64 controller config though...

It's not about kiddy games

[TechnoPope]

And because good karma was really keeping me down...

It's not about what games are made. All the systems make games for all types and ages of gamers. Saying that only hints at the real issue.

Image

Sprite saying that image is nothing was merely a sly remark about their own campaign. In all honesty, it is all about image. Image is what makes Apple, a company with 3% market share, seem like a powerhouse in terms of units sold. It's what keeps Linux off the desktops of the masses because it seems like a geek only thing. And image is what is really hurting the sales of the GC.

Does apple really sell all that many units? In the greater view of all computer sales, no. Is linux all that hard to install, not really. Is the GC a kiddie system? Only as much as PS2 or Xbox. The difference is the image portrayed by the console.

If you look at how the various consoles market themselves, you notice that Sony and Microsoft spend a lot of money to make their systems look mature and cool. The serious gamers (like those reading this) will look past that, but the casual gamers on the other hand won't. They'll buy into the hype, and believe what they are told. "PS2 and Xbox are cool, they are what real gamers play. GC is for kids." Then there are the up and coming hard core gamers (read kids). The same group that Nintendo is supposed to be targeting (complete bs in my opinion) sees this and thinks, "i don't want that, I want to be older and cool," so they don't buy GC's either.

Did nintendo do this deliberatly? No. But they also aren't helping matters. The gamecube looks like a kids system. It's big, it's multi-colored, it has a handle. This design could possibly be hard for some casual gamers to accept. Especially in a time when consoles are being made to look like they fit next to a dvd, vcr, tivo and other home electronics equipment.

The most interesting thing is, Nintendo knows how to fix these problems. Look at the GBA. In it's original form, it did alright, it wasn't a flop, but it wasn't anything spectacular. The problem, it didn't appeal to the casual market. It was big, it was multi-colored, it ate batteries. It was just not something casual eople were looking for.

Now look at the GBA SP. They redesigned it to fit the trends of portible devices. Made it smaller, sleaker, sexier. Gave it rechargable batteries like every other portable device. Suddenly, you can't keep them on shelves. Every toy store in America had them on back-order at some point (i had to travel all over town to find one and they had been out for months). It was just a matter of image. It's the same product, essentially. Same games, same basic hardware; just redesigned to be cooler to the mainstream market.

Of course, I could be wrong...

Re:It's not about kiddy games

[Mike Hawk]

You are so far off its not even funny. The casual gamer doesn't get told anything about games. The casual gamer knows Grand Theft Auto, Madden, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. The casual gamer doesn't get told anything about any console because they don't read the mags or research the stuff online. That is what defines casual.

The only hype a casual gamer gets is from TV and what they see in the store. On TV is GTA, and thats about it during prime time television, so they know that and they know what platforms they need to play it. When they go to the store sometimes and SEE the Gamecube, they see that it comes in silly colors, has displays with cartoony animals, and is priced less than the other consoles so to them it is obviously inferior. No PS2 or XBOX hype created this second situation, Nintendo did.

Nintendo is talking out of both sides of its mouth here. You say the GC is not just for kids, but all your commercials and displays feature Mario and friends acting silly? The only current Nintendo commercial I see running right now is Mario Golf, and KOTOR makes that look pretty stupid, not to mention the Vice City ads which are STILL running almost 11 months after release. This is what the casual gamer knows.

Can we end the perception arguement now? There is no perception problem. Nintendo IS for kids. Look at their actions, not their words. They DID do it deliberatly. That's what they want, and that's fine, but lets acknowledge that Nintendo's target niche and the "casual" gamer no longer overlap *in the US*, and all will be clear.

Re:It's not about kiddy games

[Anonymous Coward]

I love it.

By redefining the term "casual gamer," you come to a completely contraditory conclusion than the parent poster. Well, duh.

For the group of which you speak, you are correct. But, the parent poster is also correct about the group of gamers that lies somewhere between your idea of casual gamers and the more sophisticated type. Whereas you speak of people who probably don't even think of themselves as "gamers," the parent correctly identifies and describes the group of uininformed, easily-influenced gamers who like to go along with gaming and marketing trends. You know, like half the people walking around the E3 floor every year.

"Can we end the perception arguement now?"

Has it started yet? I'd think we'd have to agree on what to argue about, first.

Re:It's not about kiddy games

[Mike Hawk]

You consider people who go to E3 casual? That is not casual. It costs several hundred dollars to get in AND you have to prove you have some tangental link to the industry. Try again AC, its your view of casual that is messed up.

Can someone mod him ignorant please?

I WAS speaking of the casual gamer. Here is the definitions since you don't seem to grasp it AC. There is casual gamer, gamer, and hardcore gamer. If you are reading games.slashdot.com, go to E3, import games, etc. you = hardcore gamers. If you subscribe to EGM, have more than one platform (include PC as a gaming platform here if it is used for games), but don't know the online handle of any game developers, etc. you = gamer. If you don't do any of that, have only a PS2, can't think of the name of a game developer, but have Madden and Vice City, you = casual gamer.

Do you get it yet AC? If you respond again I will be happy to list some more specific examples of what kind of person is each if you can't figure it out yet.

Re:It's not about kiddy games

[Daetrin]

You are so far off its not even funny. The casual gamer doesn't get told anything about games. The casual gamer knows Grand Theft Auto, Madden, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. The casual gamer doesn't get told anything about any console because they don't read the mags or research the stuff online. That is what defines casual.

The only hype a casual gamer gets is from TV and what they see in the store. On TV is GTA, and thats about it during prime time television, so they know that and they know what platforms they need to play it. When they go to the store sometimes and SEE the Gamecube, they see that it comes in silly colors, has displays with cartoony animals, and is priced less than the other consoles so to them it is obviously inferior. No PS2 or XBOX hype created this second situation, Nintendo did.

First you say that the casual gamer doesn't get told anything about the consoles or games, and then you detail how the casual gamer is told stuff about consoles and games. Great move there.

The parent poster said image was the important thing. What else do commercials and box art try to impart other than the intended image? The casual gamer isn't reading mags or checking reviews, they're just watching tv and looking at the boxes, you're completly agreeing with what he said.

Nintendo is talking out of both sides of its mouth here. You say the GC is not just for kids, but all your commercials and displays feature Mario and friends acting silly? The only current Nintendo commercial I see running right now is Mario Golf, and KOTOR makes that look pretty stupid, not to mention the Vice City ads which are STILL running almost 11 months after release. This is what the casual gamer knows.

Hmmm, you then detail how Nintendo is hurting itself by projecting the wrong image to the casual gamer. Care to agree with the parent a little bit more?

Can we end the perception arguement now? There is no perception problem. Nintendo IS for kids. Look at their actions, not their words. They DID do it deliberatly. That's what they want, and that's fine, but lets acknowledge that Nintendo's target niche and the "casual" gamer no longer overlap *in the US*, and all will be clear.

That's why they're deloping/releasing games like Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil, and BMX XXX? Those are targeted at kids? How about Mortal Kombat, Bloodrayne, Dead to Rights, Huner, and Blood Omen 2? Seems like someone has a skewed perception of the system because of the image with which it is being portrayed. The only commercials you see are for Mario Gold, so you perceive that the GameCube is only for kids.

Re:It's not about kiddy games

[Mike Hawk]

I know reading is hard, but in the first paragraph I define a casual gamer, and in the second I list the limited exposure to video game advertising a casual gamer has. Try to keep deliberately separated concepts separate.

Ah, but I do agree with the original poster in some of his notes, but not what he concludes from them.

MS does what is does and SCEA does what it does in terms of image building and hype. They do NOT affect the GC's. They are not running "...what NintenDON'T" style commercials (thought it would be both funny and true). Nothing is accountable for the substance of the console but Nintendo.

It is NOT an image and its NOT based on hype. It IS what Nintendo IS. Not image or hype, just substance. Kiddie substance.

You say I say Nintendo is hurting itself by this? Care to point that out? I just list what they do. Nothing wrong with it, they just can't say they aren't doing it.

I don't think they "deloped" ED, RE, or any of those games. They published ED, but thats the only one. The others they merely allowed them to be released. Thank you for bringing up MK though, go back and check it against the arcade and Genesis versions. Come back, then remember that was your arguement, not mine. LOL

There is nothing wrong with being the console for kids. The Gamecube is, but its not image, its the substance of the thing. Try to comprehend. Unless its'a you, Mario. Not for kids,lol.

Re:It's not about kiddy games

[Daetrin]

Yeah, i read what you said, and you said:

You are so far off its not even funny. The casual gamer doesn't get told anything about games. The casual gamer knows Grand Theft Auto, Madden, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. The casual gamer doesn't get told anything about any console because they don't read the mags or research the stuff online. That is what defines casual.

I fail to see how they're not told anything about games or consoles. They may not look up accurate information on websites, but they'll talk to their friends, watch tv, and look at box art and other ads. They only look at the image and perception, without taking the time to dig up the reality. That's what they're told, and that's what they're making their decisions based off of. They don't exist in some magical space where they receive no information whatsoever.

I don't think they "deloped" ED, RE, or any of those games. They published ED, but thats the only one. The others they merely allowed them to be released. Thank you for bringing up MK though, go back and check it against the arcade and Genesis versions. Come back, then remember that was your arguement, not mine. LOL

Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance, maybe you've heard of it? Oh, i guess not since you seem to think the GameCube has no mature games. Go look it up. You can try comparing the arcade version against the Genesis version, but good luck finding a Genesis version of it in existance.

Sure, Nintendo screwed themselves over back then, but we are talking about the present. Even your casual gamers are deciding between a PS2, GameCube, and XBox, not a SNES or a Genesis.

And come on, how many of the mature games on the PS2 and XBox were actually developed directly by Sony and Microsoft? Not 2nd party and 3rd party games, not afiliate studios, but directly by Sony or Microsoft? Sony and Microsoft don't have to make the games themselves in order to be considered to be mature, so neither should Nintendo.

There is nothing wrong with being the console for kids. The Gamecube is, but its not image, its the substance of the thing.

They've got mature games, i can pick them up and touch them, is that not substantial enough for you? All you ahve to go on is what people think of it as, which is purely image and perception. Nintendo seems intent to encourage that image at times, which is unfortunate, but they have also demonstarted a commitment to releasing mature games, even if they don't advertise them as much. Which is the substance, and which is the perception? If you can't tell the difference you really need some help.

Re:It's not about kiddy games

[Anonymous Coward]

"Do you get it yet AC? If you respond again I will be happy to list some more specific examples of what kind of person is each if you can't figure it out yet."

Yes, do that.

- "AC"

Re:the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

I have. The GC looks marginally better, actually, and the control, at least on the demos released here in the US, is slightly more responsive on the GC.

And Link positively pwn3s Spawn.

--
M

Re:Have you guys tried playing with that controlle

[hibiki_r]

Cord too short? buy a Wavebird, Nintendo's wireless controller.

For me, it's precisely how good the controller is that makes me rather play multiplatform games in the cube rather than in the other two consoles, even though the terrible jaggies on most multiplatform PS2 games is a major factor too.

Re:Have you guys tried playing with that controlle

[r_arr]

Wave bird would be nice if it wasn't an extra expense seeing as how they already have 4 controllers, now if they an extension cable I would def get that. But once again I just don't like the cube controller as much as the xbox pr ps2 controller.

Re:Have you guys tried playing with that controlle

[BigDork1001]

You mean like this extension cable. The sell them at many online sites.

Re:Have you guys tried playing with that controlle

[Doctor_Jest]

I actually was thinking the same thing (in reference to Soul Calibur). I have all three consoles, but generally feel let down by the XBox title selection. (but that's just me.) XBox Live doesn't excite me at all.

What really changed it for me was when I recently played the SC2 demo on the GC. It works amazingly well and looks positively stunning. (SC 2 is going to be an awesome game, btw.) Maybe it was because I was used to the DC controller, but the GC controller felt really good playing SC. It worked so well in fact that I pre-ordered the GC version of SC 2 and bought a wavebird. :)

I am most pleased with my purchase of a Gamecube, despite the smaller title selection and perceived weakness in the console arena. I have been quite unimpressed with the XBox title selection, with most first party titles not being very interesting to me at all. My PS2 has the requisite group of titles, but I see it beginning to show its age compared to the other two consoles. (I play Activision Anthology far too much on it anyway....heh)

I have a PS2 and a GC

[Wyatt Earp]

I prefer the GC's controller so I buy most of my titles for it if they are out for both platforms.

In fact the only games I still fire up the PS2 for are Winning Eleven Six, SOCOM and GTA VC.

I'm sorry that GC sales are flat, but I feel it's superior to the PS/2 so I'll keep buying the games.

Extension cord GC

[Wyatt Earp]

There's a Mad Catz extension cord for 7 bucks and I got a couple Nintendo extension cords for like 6-8 bucks and I have like 10-12 feet of cord now.

http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/product/213663.asp

Re:the answer

[Mike Mentalist]

Read what he said before blurting out with the standard Nintendo line.

Nintendo market to the younger kids, and have even STATED this themselves. They keep on saying that they are NOT after the same market as Sony and Microsoft - is it REALLY that hard for you to see why the GC 'is for kids'?

And for your information, yes I do own a GC. I hardly ever play on it though - Mario Sunshine annoyed me like Mario 64 did, and Zelda felt far too dated to me. Games have moved on since the last Zelda game. Super Monkey Ball was good, though.

Re:Have you guys tried playing with that controlle

[13Echo]

The Wavebird is a must for any Gamecube gamer. In fact, I'm going to buy a second one. It's really great on batteries as well.

Re:Have you guys tried playing with that controlle

[13Echo]

I like the Gamecube controller a lot as well. The Wavebird is actually a bit larger than the standard controller - heavier as well. So it fits well in my big hands. The PS2 controller isn't bad at all. It's very well designed, but I'm not much of a fan of the new all-analog design. Certainly, the XBox's S controller in much better than the original, but I still don't care for the new controller. However, I'm one of the few people that actually liked the Dreamcast controller. Some people claim that the XBox controllers are similar to SEGA's controller, but they just do not feel the same.

As for which is best for Soul Calibur? None of them. Soul Calibur should be played with an arcade stick.

Re:the answer

[13Echo]

They look practically identical. We have all three versions. The only thing that the XBox has over the Gamecube version is better HDTV support, which smooths the graphics out a bit. Realistically, how many people have televisions which actually make this mean anything? I'd rather have Link than Spawn, seeing as I don't have a $2000 TV.

Re:the answer

[Mike Hawk]

You are just wrong. Ever wonder why the Gamecube version of a multi-platform game usually comes out last? That's how long it takes for the developer to squeeze the game down to the Gamecube. You might lose polys, colors, AI, movies, something, but you always lose with Gamecube.

Re:the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

"Read what he said before blurting out with the standard Nintendo line."

But the standard Nintendo line is reflected in the products they market, and really is contradictory to the false claim that the system is targeted only to children.

"Nintendo market to the younger kids, and have even STATED this themselves."

Source, please. (Such a supporting statement shouldn't be hard for you to find, right? Please try.)

"They keep on saying that they are NOT after the same market as Sony and Microsoft"

Yes, they are after a market that is far wider and more inclusive than the markets Sony and Microsoft are targeting. Whether that broad range has been effective so far is debatable.

" - is it REALLY that hard for you to see why the GC 'is for kids'?"

No, because it's correct. It's just not accurate to describe the system as being ONLY for kids, as is implied time and time again by generally uninformed folks.

GC Sales

[UrQUan3]

there's no official report for 2003, but Nintendo's report from March 2002 shows GC units sold at 380,000 and GBA with 1,709,000 for the year. That's over a year ago, I wonder where this year's report is?

http://www.nintendo.com/corp/report/financialsta te ments_5-30-02.pdf

I'll try to find similar numbers for PS2 and Xbox.

Re:the answer

[PainKilleR-CE]

The only way you would lose any of that with a GameCube port of a game that's been released on the PS2 is if the developer crammed the PS2's non-video RAM full of data and code. The 4MB of video RAM in the PS2 is certainly not going to require either of the other systems to cut back on the textures (and the throughput on the PS2 isn't high enough to make a difference in graphics quality either).

The XBox can do higher quality graphics if you have a higher resolution display (ie HDTV), but at the basic television resolution you're not likely to see much difference on a well ported game (until you get to the PS2 version, which will look worse than either unless it was a quick port from the PS2 to the other 2 consoles).

Re:the answer

[Mike Hawk]

Lets see scanning post for the word video...nope, I didn't use it. Its good you concede the overall point though, however subtly you do it. There is more to hardware limitations than texture quality and anti-aliasing, as we all know.

And you only mentioned the RAM aspect. I was looking at the overall. You lose ROM with the Gamecube disc. Good-bye assets. And how is the backup data storage doing?

Its a fact, some third parties are dropping support for the Gamecube (see Sega Sports as one example) because it is harder to work with and returns less in $. They couldn't ship any of the 2k3 series without crashes due mostly to hardware limitations, then announced its not worth it. No 2k4 for you.

If it was the most powerful you wouldn't hear these complaints.

Nintendo and Apple

[randomlogik]

This is a good point. I own a iBook and all the nintendo consoles. I have pc's and macs at home, but i always feel more akin to buying macs. And come to think of it - all my friends who are mac users - are also nintendo fans. How many others out there are nintendo/mac fans?

Re:Nintendo and Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the two companies market products which repressent similar qualities: superior build quality and materials than the competition, commitment to their core markets, and high spending in the field of R&D (market innovation). So if a consumer finds value in Apple's products, it's very likely that they would see parallels in Nintendo's products.

Compare to Sony's attitude with the Playstation platforms, which mirrors Microsoft's practices when it comes to Windows: glom whatever you can fit into the product together and sell it en masse regardless of final build quality.

(BTW, in the games industry, MS has only been parroting Sony - very poorly - which is one way to ensure that you STAY behind the market leader. As a parallel to xbox in the OS wars, see: linux GUIs.)

Re:the answer

[Mike Hawk]

Not to flame here, but I think thats the point. Nintendo games are no longer fun for some people because they are intentionally simple. I want a challenge. I beat Zelda without dying even once. WTF? Thoughout the game I kept thinking that I was over it, but I paid for it so I felt obligated to beat it. My GC has since be relegated to GBA player duty.

Re:the answer

[Gr33nNight]

Well, I dont know. Mario Sunshine got a huge amount of flak cause people said it was way to hard. Then Nintendo makes Zelda easier, and they still get shit for it. Cant please everyone I suppose.

Re:the answer

[unclethursday]

You lose ROM with the Gamecube

Only if the ROM you are talking about is FMV, mainly.

There've been a few 2-disk GC games, but, overall, the vast majority of games out there can easily fit on 1.5 GB. Unless there's a lot of FMV to eat up space, 1.5 GB is normally quite enough for console games.

Its a fact, some third parties are dropping support for the Gamecube (see Sega Sports as one example) because it is harder to work with and returns less in $.

Sega Sports titles were dropped because they weren't selling very well, not due to the hardware. And, if you look at the other consoles, the only one that Sega Sports has any margin of market share is on the Xbox. This is, in part, because many an Xbox fanboi has something against EA (probably EA telling MS to fuck off with Live).

Sega Sports games, while good (and NHL 2K3 being worlds better than EA's NHL 2003), simply don't have the name recognition. An example is the fact that Madden outsold NFL 2K3 by a huge margin (well over 5:1, maybe even over 10:1), on the PS2 alone. The Xbox had a better market share for Sega's NFL title, but EA still blew Sega out of the water on sales there.

Since the GC versions of the Sega Sports titles sold even less than the PS2 and Xbox versions, it makes sense to drop them, really.

I'm surprised you didn't bring up Acclaim's dropping of the Cube. Of course, anyone who knows anything about gaming knows that Acclaim makes shitty games, and they'd do the entire world a favor if they'd just stop making games all together.

Thursdae
Blarg

Re:the answer

[PainKilleR-CE]

And you only mentioned the RAM aspect. I was looking at the overall. You lose ROM with the Gamecube disc. Good-bye assets. And how is the backup data storage doing?

I only mentioned the RAM aspect because ROM isn't even remotely an issue when it comes to developing a game. At best, there would be complaints about the higher cost of developing a 2-disc title, when in reality there's already a higher cost involved in developing the content to fill more than 1.8 GB of space. How many of the titles on XBox and PS2 actually use the full space of the DVD? GT3 wasn't even a launch title in Japan, yet it was the first PS2 game to even use DVD at all (the previous titles as well as many of the US launch titles used CDs). As time progressed, most have moved to using DVD, but it has hardly been a necessity to go over the size of a GameCube disc for the vast majority of titles, even with large amounts of pre-rendered video and full CD-quality soundtracks.

Its a fact, some third parties are dropping support for the Gamecube (see Sega Sports as one example) because it is harder to work with and returns less in $. They couldn't ship any of the 2k3 series without crashes due mostly to hardware limitations, then announced its not worth it. No 2k4 for you.

If it was the most powerful you wouldn't hear these complaints.

Can you cite any press releases stating the GameCube being less powerful is the reason they (or anyone else) have dropped the GameCube? The reason I've usually seen stated is that the titles don't sell as well on the GameCube. In fact, when Sega announced they were dropping the Sega Sports line from the GameCube, they pledged to continue support with their entertainment titles (Sonic, Super Monkey Ball, etc) which do quite well on the cube.
http://www.gamepro.com/nintendo/gamecube/ga mes/new s/28463.shtml
(EA pledges 20 games for the Cube over the next year)
http://www.gamepro.com/gamepro/financial/ga mes/new s/28287.shtml
(THQ axes 20 externally developed titles, 1/3rd of which were cube games)
http://www.gamepro.com/nintendo/gamecube/g ames/new s/28146.shtml
(Sega drops Sega Sports from Cube, pledges 'entertainment' titles)
http://www.gamerfeed.com/index.php?story= 3636
(Acclaim drops Cube, but maintains all currently in-development Cube titles)

Re:the answer

[freebfrost]

Marketing?

Yeah, I loved the tv spot for the new Resident Evil series on the Cube. Not to mention all the ads in the gaming magazines.

Oh, wait... I never saw those.

Where was the huge marketing push by Nintendo to get people to buy these games?

My gamer friends didn't even know that the RE was rereleased, and had never even heard of Eternal Darkness.

So, if Nintendo is marketing these more mature games, I would like to know how many *hundreds* of dollars they've spent in this marketing blitz...

It was 800,000, not 80,000

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.the-magicbox.com/game080603.htm