Atari Drops GameCube Support For Two Titles

dade writes "Atari has dumped on Nintendo, making it the third company to do so in recent weeks. However, because the GameCube is a vehicle for first-party games, Nintendo's bottom line isn't affected. This article at switchbox asks if such a situation can last." Some good points are raised. While Nintendo is ostensibly content to hide in its niche market, it would seem to make sense that it would want to corner more of the gaming market if possible, especially given their history.

Comments

Re:Sounds familiar.

[scot4875]

Gee, thanks for your insight, Mr. Video Game Market Analyst Expert.

I hear this tired straw man argument so often that I wonder if people actually believe it's true. Can you offer one piece of evidence other than the anecdotal "Dreamcast had many 1st party games, Gamecube has many 1st party games, therefore they're the same thing!" Can you give *any* supported arguments that back up your implication that the Gamecube is going the way of the Dreamcast?

Here -- I'll offer some other bullet points to consider: Sega of America was horribly mismanaged during the Dreamcast's demise. The Dreamcast had to compete with the Sony marketing juggernaut/hype machine far more than the Gamecube did/does. Sega has far fewer huge franchises than Nintendo does. I'd even go so far as to say that a larger part of Sega's fanbase was the more casual "I play X because it's cooler" segment of the market, whose loyalty stayed with Sega as long as they stayed in fashion.

Maybe there was more to the Dreamcast's failure than just lack of 3rd party support.

--Jeremy

Re:Paraphrased

[ForemastJack]

I read this and I think, "God, grant me mod points."

But since that ain't happening today, I'll just respond. I have a GameCube. I had a PS2. (Now heading off to eBay.) Here's the difference between the systems, and why this doesn't matter:

Buy a PS2 game, you've got what, a 50-50 chance of buying dreck -- assuming you haven't done your homework and checked reviews, etc. Buy a GameCube game, take it home, pop it in, and it's good.

If a game is big enough, it'll get to the GameCube...GTA being a principle exception. Do I care? Hell no. My time, these days, is so precious that I don't have the time to wade through crap to find a good game. Who am I? Nintendo's core marketing demographic in America.

See? A lengthy response to a pithy, concise summary. Slow day at work.

Re:Sounds familiar.

[unclethursday]

I recall another game console where it had great strength in its first party titles, even if the third party was a bit wobbly; a number of key characters and franchises with rabid fanbases which were proven sellers in the past; and a console which was cheap compared to the competition and sold to its niche.

I think it was called 'Dreamcast'. At least check they were being sold out of stock at fifty bucks a pop to folks who wanted to use them as cheap Linux routers.

Except that Sega was (and still is) in finacial trouble when they released the Dreamcast. Nintendo is not.

Sega was reeling from past faliures like the Sega CD and 32X add ons for the Genesis/Mega Drive, and from the poor showing of the Sega Saturn when they released the Dreamcast.

Nintendo, even though they lost a lot of marketshare to Sony during the PSOne/N64 times, was still very profitable with the N64.

Sega was losing money (and is only just now starting to make money again). Nintendo was, and still is not losing money, but is making money.

I love my Dreamcast, and wouldn't get rid of it for anything, but the fact remains that Nintendo and Sega were, and are in two different worlds when it comes to hardware buisness.

The Dreamcast was a wonderful system that was killed by Sony's PS2 hype (even though in many ways the DC was superior to the PS2), and Sega's own blunders in the past. The only thing hurting the GameCube, really, is the supposed stigma that they are the 'kiddy console', mostly said by hormonal teenage boys (read: kids themselves).

So, no, it doesn't sound fammiliar at all, really.

Thursdae