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Eidos To Stop GameCube Development
Thanks to The Times Online for their article indicating that Eidos has announced that they will no longer develop GameCube titles. The article, based on comments made as the company announced their financial results, explains that "...there were no plans for Eidos, Europe's second largest games developer, to release any games for the struggling GameCube, which has sold about 1.8 million units in Europe compared with sales of 15 million for Sony's PS2." Eidos CEO Mike McGarvey commented: "The GameCube is a declining business... If other companies follow us [Nintendo] will have a hard battle to fight." This follows similar anti-GameCube comments by Acclaim a couple of months back.
All these game developers not writing games for my GameCube is starting to make me worry that I won't have the more high quality games for my console.. Er.. Wait.. What did Eidos publish that I gave a damn about? I mean, after System Shock 2..
I bought my GameCube, because I like Nintendo's games, not so I could get more of the same from companies like Eidos.
Weapons of Mass Analysis
And how many XBox's are there in Europe?
I wouldn't be surprised if it's more than there are GameCubes, but it damn sure isn't 15 million. As anyone who reads games.slashdot regularly, Nintendo does continue to beat out XBox worldwide. Admitadly, not by much, and the majority of that is due to the Japanese market. But the market does exist for GameCube. I _just_ bought one, the first and only of ANY of the Next Gen systems I plan to buy. And I'm here in the U.S. of A. F-Zero GX, Zelda, Mario, and Samus, to name a few, continue to be a bigger draw for me. In addition, as someone who starts college in less than two weeks, I'm looking forward to having the system with the best party games out there.
The fact of the matter is, Nintendo sales WILL decline if companys continue to state the 'obvious': that "GameCube is a declining business." Bullshit. It's declining because you're helping it to do so. Nintendo isn't doing all they can to sell the system either (and from other posts and storys on Slashdot, Europe gets the short end of the stick again and again), but if a company leaves a system then that company will sell no games on that system...
Why does Nintendo continue to get the bad rap? I do fear that the GameCube will go the route of the N64, but I can only plan so far ahead. That doesn't stop me from enjoying the fun-as-hell games that are out there now, and coming out soon. Mario Sunshine, Super Monkey Ball, F-Zero GX, Rogue Leader, Pikmin, Eternal Darkness... And soon, stuff like Rogue Squadren 3 and a new Mario Kart.
The GC may end up 'losing' the console wars, but that doesn't mean owners won't have a damn good time playing what comes out for it for the next couple years. Or even longer. I still play my old-school Nintendo Entertainment System. And y'know what? I still find it damn entertaining.
-Trillian
go search amazon for soul calibur 2:
gamecube - Amazon.com Sales Rank: 10
xbox - Amazon.com Sales Rank: 49
ps2 - Amazon.com Sales Rank: 55
similar reports have been echoed by major retailers such as electronics boutique
check out their front page and you'll see the #1-selling game is the gamecube soul calibur 2, followed by the xbox soul calibur 2, followed by...f-zero gx for the gamecube.
content counts, people. nintendo makes great first-party games, and people buy them. namco made a great third-party game with a compelling bonus feature, and people have bought it.
most companies wrote-off the GC from the start, hell, the only reason i have one is for the 1st party games anyways, my serious gaming is done on my PS2, X-Box or PC, i use the GC for my casual gaming.
most people that have a GC are either 12 or have another medium to play games with, Nintendo just hasn't learned how to compete in the adult gamer society we've evolved into nowadays and the Gamecubes decline is proof of this.
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let it be known, for anything other than servers, a *nix OS sucks
This is a standard gambit. People do it to Apple all the time. Your company is doing poorly, so you write off a section of your company and use it to make you seem important. This announcement has two purposes. The first is that it lets them retreat out of the GameCube market and make it seem like Nintendo's fault, not theirs-- the media reports it as "*Nintendo is dying" not "Eidos has failed to make any compelling gamecube titles". (The truth would be somewhere in between, along the lines of "The games Eidos has been releasing for Gamecube are not enough to justify the expense of training and porting to the Gamecube." But that isn't going to get reported in any case, because it isn't very sensationalistic.) The second purpose is it makes Eidos seem important. Your gut reaction on hearing this article is something like "Wow, if companies as significant as Eidos are abandoning the GC, Nintendo must be in trouble." This thought comes automatically enough you don't stop to think, wait a minute, Eidos isn't particularly one of the significant companies right now.
Saying the Gamecube is dying is rediculous. It isn't number one and isn't going to be there probably ever. But it's doing very, *very* far from poorly. There have been a number of times over the GC's life cycle that it has been fair to say "OK, nintendo is in trouble", but this is definitely not one of them. This is the one of the GOOD spots. Nintendo is making *profits* on the GC, which is certainly more than Microsoft can say. The Gamecube outsold the PS2 last week. And the Gamecube is entering one of its best bits of game library in a LONG time. After a long, long summer of drought among GC games, with nothing of note being released but MegaMan, we just got F-Zero and (yes, cross-platform) Soul Calibur 2 released last week. Coming next month is Kirby's Air Ride, TMNT, XIII, that wierd sega Billy Hatcher thing, and Viewtiful Joe. At least two of these October games look to be legitimate blockbusters. The month after that Super Mario Kart is coming out, and that's one of Nintendo's most successful titles. That's an IMPRESSIVE crop of games, and when that crop of games grows totally old, it will be about March, which is when Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and Pikmin 2 are released. I'm not going to say anything as to how this stacks up to how PS2/xbox are doing at the moment because I'm not qualified to comment on that, but one thing is certain: This is *NOT* a moment of "decline" of any sort for the Gamecube and Eidos' statement its a closing-down market is just silly.
And even if this weren't the case and the GC weren't succeeding on its own merits, the GBA looks to be making enough money and kicking enough ass that Nintendo could prop up a failing GC unit for about as long as Microsoft would bother to prop up a failing xbox unit..
Either way, Eidos leaving makes VERY little difference. I'm sure they make great stuff for other platforms, and I really liked the first two (first two) tomb raider games. But Eidos on the Gamecube? Hell, I can't even name you *ONE* game they made for the GC. Was that "timesplitters" thing theirs? Whatever it is they've been releasing for the GC, it hasn't been exceptional enough or marketed well enough to stay in my memory.. If my single data point is indicative of GC owners in general, that might have to do with why they aren't making any money on the GC.
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I think you're pretty much right. The crap that would sell on the PS2 and the X-Box, just doesn't get the same traction on the GameCube
It's a different market, to be honest. As well, it's a market where the bar is set really really high to begin with. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well, it's obviously a bad thing for the Edios' and the Acclaims of the world..although Timesplitters 2 and Burnout were great respectivly.
Capcom made some exclusive Resident Evil games. Great. They looked silly next to Eternal Darkness.
The shooters looked silly next to Metriod Prime. The platformers looked silly next to Mario Sunshine. (See where this is going?)
What Nintendo is doing, is they are building a small empire built around a relativly high number of game studios to make top notch games for them, ensuring very high quality. Working with companies such as Sega as well, giving them full support.
Unfortunatly, in such an atmosphere of quality, there is no room for the schlock-flingers of the 3rd party world.
Oh well.
Now why is everyone so obessed with those 2 losers battling it out? Sure you may enjoy your gamecube or X-box but you are like the person who still says C64 all the way.
I still don't understand one thing. Why are so few games cross-platform. Isn't it so that the greatest cost in making a game is the creation of the world/art not the coding of the engine itself? If this is so porting the engine should be trivial compared to the total development cost. For the real world see how many cars are not made into rightside drive versions for countries like england. Or different voltages. Or different measurement systems.
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