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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.
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