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Key Publishers Scaling Back GameCube Titles, Zelda Sequel Hints
Thanks to Gamesindustry.biz for its article discussing the list of specific games and publishers going without GameCube support, mentioning: "Joining the swelling ranks of publishers without any Cube titles in their portfolios (which already includes the likes of Acclaim and Eidos) is Lucasarts, which currently has no titles for the platform on its internal schedules." It goes on to note: "While support from Japanese publishers remains strong... Western third-party support for the Cube is facing a serious decline this year." Elsewhere, 1UP reports that a Game Developer's Conference lecture by Nintendo's Eiji Aonuma had oblique news on a GameCube Zelda sequel, since he "showed in his presentation a slide reading 'Wind Waker 2: 2XXX,' so we can expect to play the game within the next 996 years." Aonuma also "strongly hinted at the prospect of a new Legend of Zelda or Zelda-related game for the DS."
But it's worth saying again.
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People always talk about how Playstation and XBox have more games than the GCN. They sure do, but have you seen those games? They are all the random, crappy, hollywood licensed, violence without gameplay, total crap games. On the GameCube you have to compete with Nintendo to sell software and so very few developers can hold a candle.
When a Nintendo game comes out for the GCN it sells zillions. When other games come out for the cube the players compare them to the Nintendo games they have and say "screw that! it isn't worth my money or time." So what you get on the cube is quality before quantity. If you stop making games for the cube your only two possible reasonings can be these
1) You're stupid
2) You can't compete with Nintendo in quality.
3rd parties can succeed on the cube *cough*soul calibur 2*cough*. Cube owners are just too smart to buy stupid generic movie based game number 3.
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If only the Duke Nukem Forever team gave us such a specific release date, eh?
I have thought about this for a while. Wasn't the gamecube one of the best selling systems over the past holiday season? Is so you would think publishers would be drooling over game releases for the 'cube.
Or does Nintendo hold some kind of draconian hold over development houses that want to make gamecube games? Restrictive licenses, exorbitant fees, overly complicated SDK's, etc. There are many ways Nintendo could be making it difficult, but you wonder for what purpose?
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When's the next platform due - 2005? That's a year or so away. If developers were abandoning a future system before it hit the market, Nintendo would be in trouble. Right now they can just coast to the next system on sequels to their best games (Metroid 2, Wind Waker 2, Mario Tennis).
i bet nintendo make most of their money off of their gameboy line anyway. less and less games have been coming out for their consoles for ages...nothings really changed anyway. they may still be making a nice profit off of the japanease market, with games that havent been converted to english or watnot.
That was sarcasm.
You mean I cant play crappy, repetative, inane, consumerist based Starwars games with poor writing on the gamecube?!
OH NO!!
Oh well, I still dont own a gamecube yet. Gotta get one and play through metroid.
I already posted my thoughts on lucasarts.
no
I read elsewhere that the presentation said the date was 200X.
...another company comes into the industry, prepared to lose billions to buy out some market share? Nah, that can't ever have any effect...
"Also joining the swelling ranks of publishers without any Cube titles in their portfolios (...)"
This is the biggest load of FUD I have ever seen. How can the list of publishers with no title for a specific system possibly grow with respect to publishers that have been around for ages? That's like saying "55-year old Area Man recently joined the ranks of people that have never eaten fruit in their entire lives."
The only way for the list of non-GC publishers to grow, is if new publishers come out with non-GC games.
</rant>
I have a GC. I love it. I also have a PS2, which I love, but I spend more time with the GC. I know a lot of folks with two systems.
I don't think the GC was originally meant to be a secondary system, but it is cheap enough that it works well as one. And as a second system, the titles that matter are the unique ones. And Nintendo has a lot of great titles that are unique to the platform.
As an aside, some people say that they are not innovative since the same characters are used, but I don't see why they care. Even if Super Monkey Ball 2 still has a monkey in a ball, it is still a blast to play, and the same with Mario Cart, Super Smash Brothers, and other titles. The game play is fun, and for a game that is the important part.
Hyperbole is the worst thing ever.
I say play hardball.
No GBA titles wihthout some plans to do Gamecube content.
There is one key difference between the GameCube and the Dreamcast, Nintendo managed to make a profit.
Now this has been in more doubt lately when they reported a loss for the quarter before the price cut, but overall Nintendo has managed to make a profit out of all their operations.
Sega, on the other hand was losing money for years leading up to the Dreamcast's demise. The problem wasn't just the Dreamcast, the problem was Sega. They had lost a lot on previous consoles as well.
If Nintendo can continue to make a profit as the number two console, they will probably continue that indefinitely. Sure, they'd like to be number one, but as long as they make profits they'll take it. No one's saying their number one, but they're not bleeding cash, either.
If, however, Nintendo continues to lose developers, there is the possibility of a problem further down the road. But I think most developers will see the next Nintendo as a freash start, and if it has the specs that they need, they'll be just as quick to sign back up again.
The GameCube is now Nintendo's cash cow. They're trying to milk it for all it's worth at this point by releasing sequels and nothing terribly innovative (which would be tied to expensive R+D). They'll get some cash out of their game sales untill the next console comes out, but they're not out to rule the world.
But the other games are innovative, because they have different names than the Nintendo games! Ugh.
Some people really seem to think that it's a bad idea to take a risk on innovation (even though they don't mean innovation, just new trademarks) when you can just improve on something everybody already loves. Doing the tried-and-true thing is generally better business, and generally produces better product.
Of course, the characters in the games are largely meaningless, except for their contribution to the atmosphere. The fact is that Nintendo's games--even the games using old characters--are the most innovative, high-quality games out there. They're always trying something new. Even the water jet in Mario Sunshine was pretty out there, considering the absolutely massive effect it had on gameplay.
Bah, I personally don't care if lots of developers start ignoring my Cube. I probably wouldn't have bought their games anyway. The only two third-party GameCube games I own at the moment are Rogue Leader (developed by Factor 5) and Viewtiful Joe. The Nintendo games are just better, and I doubt anybody, corporation or consumer, is really going to suffer from this at all.
Sega, on the other hand was losing money for years leading up to the Dreamcast's demise. The problem wasn't just the Dreamcast, the problem was Sega. They had lost a lot on previous consoles as well.
Best way to put it: the Dreamcast didn't kill itself, it was a victim of its predecessors. I don't think any system they could have designed could have possibly saved them.
Remember the Saturn? Me neither. I don't think I actually ever saw one.
But I think most developers will see the next Nintendo as a freash start, and if it has the specs that they need, they'll be just as quick to sign back up again.
Hey, just look at...well, the GameCube.
Elsewhere, 1UP reports that a Game Developer's Conference lecture by Nintendo's Eiji Aonuma had oblique news on a GameCube Zelda sequel, since he "showed in his presentation a slide reading 'Wind Waker 2: 2XXX,' so we can expect to play the game within the next 996 years."
I don't think "2XXX" is referring to a generic release date, but is actually part of the title. I think it means that there's going to be adult content in the game, like Zelda and Link porn. The '2' just means that it's going to be twice as hardcore as the nudity in "BMX XXX".
"Remember the Saturn? Me neither. I don't think I actually ever saw one."
Your loss if you never beheld its mastery of sprite-based graphics. Damn you, Sony! Damn you and your shitty first-generation 3D console.
Well, that did work on Square, but it took a long time.
If publishers are dropped GCN games, it's because they are preparing their titles for the next gen Nintendo system. Nintendo has made it known that they want to be first 'out of the gates' with their system, so it would seem logical that they have dev kits ready for it and have distributed them to developers. Hence, the companies are moving their game ideas to the new system.
;-)
I hope I'm right
*Shrug*
Who needs innovation with a near-flawless track record in a series spanning almost two decades?
Sega, on the other hand was losing money for years leading up to the Dreamcast's demise. The problem wasn't just the Dreamcast, the problem was Sega. They had lost a lot on previous consoles as well.
Well, the main problem was that Sega's first party games just weren't selling worth a damn, and they were releasing game upon game upon game. The only third party developers the Dreamcast had of any note in the US were Capcom (who was the main third party), SNK (which released a lot of their Neo-Geo fighting games on the Dreamcast), Treasure (which does localizations of Japanese titles, which end up being for a hardcore niche audience) and UbiSoft, which seemed to port their games to anything with a power button at the time. Other than a few harcore gamers that like the heavy Japanese influence, and/or who didn't want to wait for the PS2 to come out, Sega's flood of titles just didn't click with people in the US.
And Sega's still got that problem. See also: almost all of it's releases since it gave up on the Dreamcast. The Sonic games do respectably well on the GameCube. Super Monkey Ball 1 & 2 have gotten acclaim, but I'm not sure on actual sales numbers for them. Their PS2 releases have been flops (Shinobi was WAY too hard for Americans generally looking for a rehash of their classic game, not a hardcore psycho beatemup, Gungrave had insane graphics but a lot of Americans seem to have deep seated issues with cell shading, and the game just wasn't that deep, can't offhand recall any other Sega releases for PS2) On Xbox they've done only a little better. JSRF was crap compared to the original. Panzer Dragoon? Yeah, I played Rebel Assault a long time ago, I don't need to fly on a rail anymore. Good gods, they were recently reduced to being a hired gun for Nintendo, shopping out their Monkey Ball developers to do F-Zero GX, as apparently they're the only developres in their stable that can make a game that will appeal to more than just the Japanese market.
(which already includes the likes of Acclaim and Eidos)
No, it does not include Acclaim. It was reported that they were dropping support for the GameCube, but the *same day* they clarified that this was wrong, they were merely no longer going to release every game on every platform. A check of their website shows upcoming GameCube games, including one that's not coming out for the PS2.
Good gods, they were recently reduced to being a hired gun for Nintendo, shopping out their Monkey Ball developers to do F-Zero GX, as apparently they're the only developres in their stable that can make a game that will appeal to more than just the Japanese market.
Ironically enough, both Super Monkey Ball and Super Monkey Ball 2 sold better than F-Zero (outside Europe).
Super Monkey Ball US - 415,954 Japan - 31,232
SMB 2 US - 281,682 Japan - 17,032
F-Zero US - 179,838 Japan - 79,507
Source: http://www5e.biglobe.ne.jp/~hokora/gcranka.html
In my case, I have one of each, and Super Monkey Ball is actually what convinced me to buy the system.
Think about it: The GameCube is the one platform that is mostly geared towards children. It seems no one wants to make games for it anymore which would lead me to believe that children are playing adult games. Or that adults are the majority of video gamers. I wonder what the demographics are for something like this?
Personally, I really like the system. Serious Sam: The Next Encounter will be released for it soon and I will be all over that!
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Ok. I don't really care. I have a lot of good titles for my Cube already, some more good titles are coming out, and most of the ones I'm looking forward to were going to be exclusive to one platform or another from day 1. The cube doesn't suffer from N64 or Sega syndrome so I'm pretty happy with it overall.
And, Lucasarts? Bah, screw them, they cancelled Sam and Max. They could release the best game ever produced and I still wouldn't buy it at this point.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
Another Zelda title? What ever happened to Nintendo innovation?
Games don't sell nearly as well if they aren't established franchises.
It doesn't mean Nintendo isn't innovating tho - look at Majora's Mask. It used the same engine as Ocarina of Time, but the game had an entirely different feel to it than Ocarina. The time limit greatly changed how the game played.
The premise behind Mario Sunshine was "Platform jumping in 3D is very frustrating - how can we solve that?" That's where the water pack came from.
Video games have been around for decades now. It's much harder to make a huge revolutionary innovation in gaming now. You can't expect a jump like the one from Super Mario World to Super Mario 64 to happen very often.
Nintendo makes extremely innovative games. They just put the same characters in all of them. I love the Nintendo franchises, so I think this approach is fantastic.
It's ridiculous to declare that the new Zelda game won't be innovative based only on the title.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
And F-Zero GX was an awesome game.
Are you upset because they made a kick ass game or something?
Also, to anyone who says F-Zero GX is hard. Play the game for more than five minutes. Real games take a little time to learn before you can just play all the way through and beat the damn game. If you seriously complained about how hard this game is, you FUCKING SUCK AT VIDEO GAMES.
Codemasters have never supported the GC, so how can they pull out?
LucasArts have not dropped the GC, this is pure speculation.
Neither have Ubisoft.
EA are only going to release one football game on the GC this year (FIFA 2005) instead of two. Holy shit, man the lifeboats.
GI.biz and Eurogamer are already well known as sites with a vendetta against the Gamecube.
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"Key" publishers, as in the story title, or "Western" publishers as in the story body?
Frankly, I can't say I'm interested in any of the new systems myself; I'd much rather just have all three companies stick with their current system (well...okay fine the PS2 could use an upgrade still having poor load times and missing a few rendering features). Really; what are they going to do, render the arm-hair better? I don't look that closely in the heat of the action.
The only 'new' information in this article is that EA isn't planning on publishing a European football game on the 'Cube.
... to work on the N5.
... Maybe he meant Midway.
... Wake me up when the next Metroid and Zelda games get cancelled, or at least fail to sell a million copies.
Umm, so? The 'Cube isn't selling terribly in Europe, which is a large part of the non-Madden-type football-game-buying market. I can hardly say I blame them.
Lucasarts has no games scheduled for this year? Well, it's fairly well known that Factor 5 is working on a Pilot Wings sequel for the next Nintendo system, so in that sense they've dropped support for the 'Cube
Codemasters isn't releasing any 'Cube games? You mean they made it out of the '80s alive? Why should I care again?
After those few factoids, the author of the article apparently had to flesh it out with the usual "so and so has also dropped support, as has such and such," but then they don't even get those facts straight. Acclaim is still working on Gamecube titles
Pointless article, author didn't even do rudimentary fact-checking
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
For example, Both Sony and Microsoft treat EA very well in regard to quality assurance reviews of new releases (major bugs, decency policies, etc...), their policies and reviews are quite consistent and they pretty much kiss our asses knowing EA is a gorilla publisher... with Nintendo - it's a pain. Their policies randomly change left and right at different times and are quite vague. It seems like we have to fight to get our games released for their system concerning issues not even mentioned in their policies.
Personally thinking about this issue and others, I think Nintendo's biggest enemy is itself.
I wish we could all just throw away the kneejerk arguments pro and con a particular camp.
Windwaker is not evidence of whoring out characters straight to video, nor is it a waste of money. WW (for me) took about 40 hours to finish. Roughly $1.10 per hour.
Mario Kart, WW, and Mario, are not cheap re-treads. They offer significantly different dynamics from their previous versions. Kart on the GC introduces all kinds of handling characteristics to the carts, expands the characters, each character has weight classes, 2 players to a cart, there is plenty of innovation you won't see on any game for any system, let alone Mario Kart64. Likewise, the massive ocean alone in Zelda is a significant break from the series, and from other action/adventure games available on other platforms.
You want to talk about companies whoring off franchises? Look at EA. Look at Lucasarts. Compare the ammount of difference between Madden 2k3 and 2k4, to Zelda TooT, and Zelda WW. It's hard to even find a point of comparison, so great is the difference.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
Yeah, but even if Nintendo is pumping out franchise titles (rather than completely original titles) you have to admit that they are really really good.
Besides, its not like Xbox or PS2 are coming out of left field with new killer games. The lineups are still cluttered with remakes (Ninja Gaiden, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Splinter Cell, etc.) Nintendo's third party titles, while smaller than the other two companies, is formidable.
The smart thing to do is not always the right thing to do. If you do the right thing, you are damn smart. -Me
Goddamn. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I can't fucking stand such pretentious behavior as quoting yourself in your sig. What kind of arrogance does it require to attempt to prominately display some retard little quip. And this shit ain't even a quip! It's not funny! It's stupid!
Apreche, may you find yourself in the 8th circle of hell boiling in a pool of feces with all the rest of the arrogant bullshit artists.
Are you upset because they made a kick ass game or something?
No, I never said anything of the sort. I said that they apparently have only a single development studio that can produce games with mass appeal in the US, without hanging on for dear life to Sonic and company. I personally like most of the games Sega makes, but that has nothing to do with them obviously hitting the skids as far as generally making money is concerned. They can't survive on just me.
Also, to anyone who says F-Zero GX is hard.
Who said anything one way or the other?
If you seriously complained about how hard this game is, you FUCKING SUCK AT VIDEO GAMES.
You posting this serves pretty clear notice to me that whomever you are, troll or no, you fucking suck at life, man.
Actually, the slide read "Wind Waker 2: 200X", see? More like the next 6 years (but don't fret over a 990-year error.) However, IGN.com's previous interview with a Nintendo insider pretty much confirmed that another Zelda game would be on Gamecube (although that could be the multi-player Four Swords coming out, but it sounded more like a reference to a Wind Waker sequel.) Personally, I'd say by 2006, so the Gamecube can go out with a bang. As far as developers jumping ship on the Gamecube, I personally don't mind if another one like LucasArts has nothing on the agenda, since movie-licensed games that sell only on their Hollywood counterparts' names are rarely worth playing. The Gamecube's (as with most Nintendo systems) best games are the first- and second-party ones (i.e. Zelda: Wind Waker, Metroid Prime). Those alone are worth owning a $99 system, regardless of the target age group (and trust me, even Wind Waker has some humor kids wouldn't understand.)
WHO NEEDS SHIFT WHEN YOU HAVE CAPSLOCK/ DAMN1
Hmm.. I was SURE the first time I read the Gamespot story that it said 200X. Gamespot may have edited it to say 2XXX, or, more likely, I misread and posted a correction based on that, effectively making a fool of myself. Oh well.
WHO NEEDS SHIFT WHEN YOU HAVE CAPSLOCK/ DAMN1
Dreamcast was an exceptionally well engineered machine with a large collection of excellent games that were exclusive until the company announced that it would become "platform agnostic".
As you mentioned, the major thing that killed the Dreamcast was the reactions to the older SEGA hardware. Dreamcast had a lot going for it though; great hardware, an impressive launch backed by support of many companies. Launch sales were exceptional. Cue Sony hype machine. Playstation 2 would be "15 times more powerful than any other console". Yeah, right. People are such tools.
Eventually, the games stopped coming and support got slim. Dreamcast still lives on though. There is still the occasional Japanese game release. It's still got a great community of independant software development. I've got 60 games, personally, and I've been very happy with most of them. It's the machine that won't die. "The legend will never die".
I think that SEGA concentrated way too hard on moving arcade ports to the Dreamcast instead of focusing on more original content until late in its life. We got gems like JSR, Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia, but a lot of those came way too late. Most people didn't want to buy Dynamite Cop and House of the Dead. I must admit though... Sega Bass Fishing is a pretty fun game. Some of the original titles, like Rez and Samba de Amigo, just didn't click with most people. Other things, like PSO, revolutionized online console gaming.
;)
By the way... I love FZero GX on the Gamecube. It just *screams* "SEGA arcade game", complete with cheesy '80s butt-rock music.
If it weren't for Super Monkey Ball 2, Super Mario Sunshine, Viewtiful Joe, the Wavebird,and the GBA Player, I'd be able to get rid of my Cube forever and ever. But I can't because of those 5 things. Dammit! My XBox gets played about 30x more than my Cube, yet it still has its place on the media center, and will for at least the next few years.
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