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GameCube Production to Halt
avayre writes "Nintendo is to press the pause button on production of its GameCube consoles while it clears inventory of unsold machines. the company's president said on Thursday. But Satoru Iwata promised the struggling games company was developing a radical new product to be announced next year -- however he gave few details save to say it would be a departure from mainstream gaming consoles 'that will have a big impact on the world.'" My prediction is that it's just downtime until Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles ships. That'll help move those units that are gathering dust.
Mr Iwata, who gave no figures on how much inventory was left to clear, acknowledged that the group had stumbled with the Game Cube console
and conceded that it had made a strategic mistake by not ensuring that it had a consistent flow of attractive software for the Game Cube.
But he cast doubt on the ability of Nintendo's competitors to continue attracting users with games that are becoming more and more
graphically sophisticated and difficult to play.
"Games that are sophisticated require a lot of time and energy," he said. As games became more complicated, players were given up
playing and this was leading to the gradual shrinkage of the market, he warned.
"We are thinking of launching a completely different kind of game. But we are not confident that we can develop a product that anyone can
enjoy, or that will provide people with a new kind of excitement," he said.
Mr Iwata declined to provide any more details about what kind of new product Nintendo is working on, saying only that the company
would make a further announcement with details next week.
He did, however, suggest that the new console would try it's best to return the games industry to its roots of providing fresh excitement
through games that can be enjoyed by anyone, including those who do not normally play video games, like women.
Investors are concerned that Nintendo has not risen to the challenge provided by competitors, such as Sony and Microsoft, by
targeting the casual user, which is where most of the growth in games demand has been coming from.
Earlier this year, Nintendo's share price plunged on news that Sony would begin selling Linux desktops, challenging RedHat in a
market that it has dominated. It was hit again when Sony announced a new multi-function machine that would combine a DVD recorder
with a church.
Nintendo's share price, which closed at Y9,690 on Thursday, is 19 per cent below this year's high of Y11,890.
Nintendo's mission is to develop simple games that anyone can enjoy, and by doing so bring back those people who have given up
playing games into the market. If Nintendo succeeds in doing that, it might even achieve sales of Y1,000bn, Mr Iwata said.
That compares with sales last year of Y504bn.
The GC is a MUCH better design than the X-Box. Smaller, cooler, quieter, more integrated and no less powerful.
And I think you'll find that the GC outsells the X-Box in EVERY market except the USA and UK (and only just in the UK).
Let's face it, the GC has better games too.
That was classic intercourse!
Accurate worldwide sales figures are a little difficult to come by, but all the numbers I've seen suggest that there's very little difference between GC and XBox in terms of units sold. XBox is dead in the water in Japan, GC is in a fairly similar state in the US, and not much better off in Europe.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
Seems to be a lot of multi-player games to me.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
Maybe MS should buy the company?
They tried. MSFT didn't have the slightest chance to do so.
I did see the numbers saying Gamecube was maybe 5-10% ahead of Xbox worldwide but I can't seem to find them. I found this though
l
..the overall sales figures (which, interestingly, put Cube and Xbox almost neck and neck on a global level, with around 9.5 million units each - so why are so many US-based analysts desperate to write off the Cube?)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/31836.htm
Which means I can't say the Gamecube is outselling Xbox but neither is the reverse true. Surprised?
Build your own website - full service homepage system your m
NINTENDO IS NOT STRUGGLING. They were Nikkei's company of the year last year. The reason their stock has lost ground was because they are so heavily invested in the dollar, which took a beating by the yen. They have not operated at a loss in over two decades. They have, at last number I got, 3 billion in the bank, and last year they made more money than SCE. They are, as last I heard, neck and neck with Xbox in the US, but numbers are hard to come by because a lot of retail release figures exclude places such as Walmart, Nintendo's top distributor. Yes, in Europe they are struggling, but they are doing fine and dandy everywhere else.
For a place that complains about so much FUD, you would think people would know the difference between Sega (operating at a loss for a decade with millions in red) and Nintendo. It's astounding.
Yeah, childish games like for example the Resident Evil series, Splinter cell, Baldurs Gate, Blood Omen 2, Blood Rayne, Call of Duty, Dead to rights, Enter the Matrix, Eternal Darkness, Hitman2, Killer 7, Medal of Honor Frontline, Metal Gear Solid, Ghost Recon, Sum of all Fears and XIII.
And i wouldnt let my kids play BMX XXX or Beach Spikers. =)
They can pry my gamecube from my cold, dead hands!
You cant fight in here, its a war room!
You've got to be kidding. The GameBoy Advance is the hottest selling machine in the world. The SP is outselling even the PS2 right now.
Look at GAF.
There is NOT a more money in the home console market. Production costs for GameBoy Advance titles are incredibly low, and sales ratios are very high. On average, you make more money on an average selling GameBoy game than a high-selling console game. Why else would any Joe-Schmo be able to develop his own GameBoy games? I must know at least 3 independent GameBoy development companies.
Even if the Gamecube sells a third as many units as the PS2 has, the GameBoy Advance will still sell more units than the PS2 has. Until the PSP arrives, we don't know how things will turn out. However, anyone that doesn't think that Nintendo's working on a portable that will be as equally powerful as the the Sony device, is definately a fool.
Some of you guys are such douches. Where do you come up with this stuff?
Just barely is an understatement.
Looking at figures, the reality in Japan is this:
Hardware Sales 7/07/03 - 7/13/03
PS2: 41,500
Game Boy Advance SP: 30,800
GameCube: 13,000
Game Boy Advance: 10,200
Xbox: 1,000
PSOne: 990
Swan Crystal: 310
Xbox hardly even outsells psone..
'Cause those who have no life and stare at it all day will lose their eyesight, much the same way one would staring at a lightbulb all day.
(\(\
(=_=) Bani!
(")")
Did any of the moderators who modded this informative or interesting actually read what they were moderating? This is an altered troll version of the text. Sony isn't challenging Redhat, it's launching a handheld device to challenge Nintendo; and it's not combining a DVD recorder with a church but rather with a PlayStation. There are other differences, and someone reading this troll is not likely to get the same idea of what's happening as someone who reads the actual article.
Exclusive for Xbox? What are you talking about? They have a site just for their Gamecube games. If they were really exclusive, I'd be able to get Super Monkey Ball and Sonic for my Xbox. Not that I'm complaining too much, we've gotten a lot of great Sega releases for the platform - JSRF, Crazy Taxi 3, Panzer Dragoon Orta, etc.
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Not quite right-- the Saturn had a huge base of games in Japan, but Bernie Kosar managed to screw Sega's standing with the 3rd party developers in the USA right around late 1997 or early 1998, if I recall correctly. The number of games that made the jump per year after that point dropped dramatically.
If you've got a modded or pro action replay-equipped Saturn, you can find a LOT of decent games out there. I believe NCSX may still sell some Saturn stuff; it's been awhile since I last visited, though.
This new product is going to be announced in early 2004. The N5 is going to ship in 2005 or early 2006 (according to Nintendo at the same press conferance where they mentioned the new technology for 2004.)
This alone suggests strongly that they are not talking about the N5, simply because they wouldn't want to focus attention on a console that isn't coming out for over a year.
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Shinji Mikami, the director and producer of the Resident Evil series, has publicly criticized Sony's cheap production quality of PS2's. He claims he has had to buy four PS2 simply because they break so easily, and said that PS2 sales figures are almost undoubtedly inflated due to people buying replacement machines.
He also is very public about his love of Nintendo. Why do you think he's producing PN.03, Viewtiful Joe, Killer 7, and Resident Evil 4 for the GC? (there was a fifth game, Dead Phoenix, but I suspect it has been cancelled.)
(well, the Resident Evil games are contractually exclusive to the Gamecube, not counting light gun and online games)
At one point, there was even talk of Capcom going exclusive on Gamecube, though talks broke down in January.
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Not quite what you wanted, but probably as close as you'll get.