Harrison On Nintendo's Shortcomings, Hopes

Thanks to EGM for their interview with Nintendo vice-president George Harrison, discussing the current state of the GameCube, as well as plans for the future. Harrison is surprisingly honest, commenting: "I think we've had individual successes with things like Zelda: The Wind Waker and Smash Bros. and others. If there's a shortcoming for us on GameCube, it's not delivering enough consistent breadth and variety of software. That really is the key." He also explains the exact reasoning behind the GameCube's recent price drop: "We see people buying it for $99 as a second system; potentially someone who has owned a PlayStation 2 for three years already and know that they have another two or so years to wait [for the next console hardware generation]."

Comments

So what you're saying...

[Dancin_Santa]

George Harrison: If there's a shortcoming for us on GameCube, it's not delivering enough consistent breadth and variety of software. That really is the key.

It's going to take time. A whole lot of precious time. It's going to take patience and time. To do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it right.

Re:He's got a point

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, just as a reeeeeal off topic note, the other day I was playing Wind Waker and was guiding Link up a slope. I had the quick thought to stand Link parallel to the slope and see if one of his feet would go through the ground or stay in the air. I was rather impressed to see that his knees were bent properly, the way you would expect them to be, and there was no "through the ground" action.

Like I said, waaaay off topic, and not even really what you're talking about, but I thought it was slightly neat when I saw it.

Good plan

[The_dev0]

We see people buying it for $99 as a second system

I reckon this is an excellent move, as all the nintendo fanatics bought one in the first few weeks, but this allows them to get a chance in the homes of those with a PS2 and/or XBox, and let the games do the talking.

I think Nintendo is taking the right steps to disprove the misguided notion that the GCN is a kiddie's system, and for 99 bucks, a lot more people would take an interest. I could definitely justify buying a PS/2 for 100 bucks with a couple of titles, and the same goes for the XBox. I reckon Nintendo are counting on people buying a 100 buck GCN, one or two of their really huge titles, and giving any financial loss on the discount back to the big N in game sales.