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Nintendo Learns from Mistakes with GameCube
kukyfrope writes "Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America's Executive VP of Sales and Marketing, talks about what went wrong with GameCube and how Nintendo will not make the same mistakes when launching Wii. Reggie admits that the initial software lineup for the GameCube was simply not 'diverse and strong enough from a first and third-party perspective,' and by Nintendo's showing at E3 2006, the Wii will launch with a wide variety of games for may types of gamers."
What went right with the game cube....
Actually they aren't that bad. Mario Party can make for a fun dmaily game night.
FIST!!!!
a port of Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis (http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/709/709654p1.html ), the system is perfect for it. The gameplay and control is already fantastic on the 360, imagine how it would play with a Wiimote.
Give me that Rockstar and Nintendo, and I'll be in heaven.
Except it was called "Nintendo learns from mistakes with N64".
Seriously though...I've seen a few articles like this for the Wii, but I can almost remember them saying nearly the same things about how the learned from mistkes with the N64 and promised for 3rd party support for the 'Cube.
Hopefully, it work this time.
In 3010, the potatoes triumphed
...because the name "Wii" is so much better than the name "GameCube".
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Well, I'm an October type of gamer myself. Will they have anything for me?
This is another shout out to Taco. Could you please rename the "editors"? They don't edit. They should be called approvers or maintainers or jackoffs or something.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I think you mean Reggie Fils-Aime President and COO of NOA.
They roll at D20. If they get a 19 or 20, the article successfully attacks. Then it rolls for damage. If it successfully kills a level 1 orc in 1 shot, then it may proceed to the front page. No editing required at all.
WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!
cause it's so much fun to say.
WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!
i can't wait for my 2d sidescrollers back.
WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!
ok i'm pooped. that controller sure was a workout.
I really hope they make it.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
I think the major problem with the gamecube launch lineup was the lack of a Mario game. NES launched w/ Super Mario Bros, SNES had Super Mario World, N64 had Mario 64, and gamecube had... luigi's mansion... It appears the Wii will suffer the same problem, as I hear SM Galaxy won't be out at lanuch. Oh well, personally I'll be happy with a Zelda and Metroid game at least. Hell I still need to beat Wind Waker and MP 1 and 2... also Super Mario Sunshine, though that game doesn't feel right to me... maybe it's the 'jetpack'/'flamethrower'
"GameCube" says what it is -- it's a cube that plays games. Pretty straightforward. Good name.
And also incredibly generic and tough to defend as a trademark, especially when your closest competitor uses "box" (meaning an approximate cuboid) in the name of its product. People outside the business find it hard to keep the PS2 generation consoles' names straight.
"Wii" -- what the fuck is that?
And what is a "PS2"? Isn't that pronounced like piss too?
I'm more interested in what developers have to say about Nintendo's third-party support than what Nintendo has to say. Nintendo's documentation (or lack thereof) was a nightmare to deal with when I was a lead tester at Atari (Backyard Football and Backyard Baseball). Where Microsoft and Sony provided extensive checklists on what they expected for a release candidate build, you had to roll your own checklist for Nintendo.
Nintendo's GameCube offerings were the grand total of Luigi's Mansion and Wave Race: Blue Storm.
Day one isn't as telling as the launch window, which covers the entire period from launch in November to roughly December 18 (a week before Christmas). What came out on December 3, 2001, was a smash hit that sold a lot of GameCube consoles.
The trouble is, Nintendo is a control freak company. They don't like to be dependent on 3rd party. They like to be in charge and they like to make money off of everything. When they were the only game in town, they could get away with it. If developers wanted to make a game, they had to do what Nintendo said. I remember some controversy in 1989, the president of Namco made some public comments about how Nintendo's control was hurting the industry. Nintendo responded by threatening to stop allowing Namco to make games for Nintendo consoles, and the Namco president shut up. When the PlayStation took off, it offered developers a choice, and Sony offered much better licensee terms. Nintendo hasn't been able to control developers since the mid-90's, but they still want to.
For the GameCube, Nintendo invested a lot in 2nd party support. They put a ton of money into Retro, Rare, and Silicon Knights. Despite having first crack at development hardware, only one company, Silicon Knights with Eternal Darkness, had a launch title ready. Retro was working on 6 launch titles. Of those 6, only 1 ever saw the light of day - Metroid Prime, and that didn't come out until a year after launch. Rare was supposed to deliver Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero for launch. Two years after GameCube came out, those games were nowhere in sight and Nintendo sold their half of Rare to Microsoft. Nintendo poured tons of money into those companies, and it didn't pay off at all. They had companies they controlled, but those companies couldn't deliver.
Now that Yamauchi has finally retired, maybe Nintendo can really change its relationship with developers. Maybe they can get 3rd parties on board in the competitive climate of today's console wars. But maybe a leopard can't change its spots.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
[Nintendo] have very little say over third-party development (apart from veto power in licensing... which they'd never be stupid enough to use on a top-selling franchise).
Compare to Sony Computer Entertainment America, which rejected SNK's offer to put Metal Slug on the PS2 system because the game was a newly developed traditionally animated 2D game. Microsoft gladly accepted it for Xbox. Given the success of WarioWare, Nintendo has the chance to attract Metal Slug and other 2D franchises during this generation.
...this time they are making completely new ones.
i
Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
That's the whole article right there.
Not even an s-video cable available for it. Hired one out and it looked awful, so refused to buy one. Hopefully they've fixed that on the Wii!
Infact I'd argue with you that it is probably one of the best names ever for a console. It's simple, it's cute and it's something no one else even comes close to having.
I'd argue that the name Wii was chosen precisely because it invites derision. Revolution, while a cool name, it is also a violent and cool name and Nintendo want Wii to appeal to people who don't consider themselves "cool" gamers.
They're deliberately trying to make their console more accessible to non-gamers while appealing to the immaturity of gamers who at the end of the day will care more about the games and playability anyway. And names like X-box, Playstation and Revolution (and DS and PSP) are intimidating.
IMO, Nintendo are going after a slightly older market than the PS3 market. Oh, and chicks, they want my girlfriend hooked on Wii, too!
I'm going to glom first and second party together, as I'm never sure which ones are first or second.
:)
The first party is Nintendo.
The third party is any outside developer.
The second party is YOU. What Gamecube games did you release?
Kidding aside, Pikmin was one of the best games released this decade. Kind of like Katamari in its uniqueness, except no waiting for the usual long Sony load times. This factor alone has kept me a Nintendo fan - the PS1 was absolutely horrid for the amount of time you had to wait, and even in the best PS2 games (Grand Theft Auto, I'm looking at you) I'm often spending half of my playing times waiting for some stupid cutscene or the next level to load.
Quality over quantity in my book, any day. I'd be happy if Wii only ends up having 10 games I like, because as with the N64 and Gamecube, they'll be GOOD.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I didn't buy a Gamecube until Winkwaker was released and that was a year and a half after the Gamecube was launched (Gamecube was launched November, 2001 and Windwaker was released March, 2003). Rogue Squadron, one of the three launch titles, was a beautiful looking game, but the controls sucked and there just wasn't enough gameplay to justify buying a Gamecube for that one game. I have to concur that the launch line-up was shit; there just wasn't a "must have" title until Windwaker.
The Xbox launched with Halo and Project Gotham Racing as first party titles and a football title, Shrek, Cel Damage, some racing games and several other third party games. It was not a bad selection with fairly broad appeal.
The Wii looks to have a great selection of games with Tennis, a Mario game, Red Steel, and a raft of other titles that I can't remember. I will be disappointed though if the Virtual Console games aren't available right away as I was going to buy a used N64 before I learned that the Wii would feature downloadable N64 games.
maybe for their next gen console they will have learned not to call your console something stupid and childish. the name to me implies they're still going after the 10-year-old market.
What sane teenager or adult is going to publicly announce that they have to go home to play with their Wii?
Seriously, no amount of 3rd party support and game diversity is going to encourage me to buy their console. Call me narrow-minded if you will, but ok, I am...
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
I still think Wii is a stupid name. You can't change the fact that "wee" can mean pee.
Neither can Sony change the fact that urine is called piss too (PS2). The problem with the names in this generation is that they all rhyme.
The "Nintendo Go" name that was rumored a while ago sounds better than Revolution and Wii to me.
"Nintendo Go" sounds like it would be the name of a handheld.
These are just different times with different rules, what worked in the past does not work today. The "space race" in providing ever more realism only costs more money but hardly generates additional revenues. Maybe Nintendo should not learn from the mistakes they made in the past but the mistakes its competitors make nowadays, maybe they are just lucky that the market moves in their favour. Still I think certain companies can still snatch part of the console market with a small pc based console (like the xbox but cheaper) which just runs ported PC games.
...what matters is what you like, not what you are like...
Ok, one thing I've noticed and I'm curious about in the console wars. How much have the consoles changed with each new version? Besides processing power and graphics, that's standard, I mean the gameplay and controls and other features.
The PS1, 2 and 3 are all using the same basic controller. The additions of a broadband adapter and hard drive are the only changes it seems.
On the Nintendo end, they have changed the controller every single time, trying to come up with a better interface it seems. The Wii continues this with the new controller, but also lets you keep the Gamecube controlelrs as well.
XBOX/360. I'm not sure if there are any changes between the two at all, I haven't paid much attention to it. THe main thing XBOX has is the talk feature for when you are in games. (although PS2 may have this as well) Also, the massive XBOX LIVE support.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Repeat after me: "It's not about graphics, it's about games!"
That's the official Nintendo mantra.
aka "Standard Definition (over a composite cable) should be enough for everybody"
I'm actually hopeful for Nintendo this time around. Another small part of the problem with the GC was that there were still some of us sore over the N64. I bought the N64 about a week after it came out, I had rented one and Mario 64 at the time and loved it. After Mario 64 wore out, there wasn't a whole lot left that interested me. I ended up with 3 or 4 games for the system, and felt like I had been taken for a ride. When the GC came out I looked at the games and had a "meh" reaction, and went with the PS2 instead.
With the Wii, it at least looks like there might be some good games out for it at launch. And with the PS3 requiring sale of a kidney on the black market, I'm seriously considering that the Wii will be a good choice. If the virtual console stuff works right, I'll be really happy.
The "Wii" name is still stupid.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
I concur. I was fully expecting it to be a title that sort of stepped away from the traditional Mario Bros playstyle, so I wasn't shocked. Before the GC was released, I was reading cube.ign.com almost hourly. I tried it at launch, but my actual purchase was Super Monkey Ball. Anyway, I also liked LM a lot. I wish it had more of a reason to replay it (two-player mode? unlockables? How about just more game?), but I enjoyed the ride nonetheless.
The slate is always clean when you're the one holding the eraser -Newton Tenderfoot
I heard that Mario Galaxy would be doing what Super Smash Bros Melee did on the cube, where it's not exactly a launch title, but it will be released shortly afterward. At least that's the impression I've been given. I know SSB:Brawl probably won't be out until a year or so after the launch, but I would safely bet that we'll be hearing Mario "Wii"-ing around space within 4-6 months of that time.
The slate is always clean when you're the one holding the eraser -Newton Tenderfoot
This is bullshit. Even Wikipedia is wrong. Definition from dictionary.reference.com:
third party
n.
1. A political party organized as opposition to the existing parties in a two-party system.
2. One other than the principals involved in a transaction: I pay rent to a third party, not directly to the landlord.
What interests us here is the #2. The "principals involved in a transaction" in this case are Nintendo and the Player. Nintendo is the 1st party and the Player is the 2nd party.
Are you the one trying to be funny?
perception is reality
They made $4.5 billion profit last year.
The Gamecube's worldwide sales are almost exactly on par with the Xbox's at ~15 million units apiece. And the big N makes a profit off *every console sold*, while MS, at the beginning of 2005, was *still losing money* on every Xbox sold.
So, tell me again what the mistakes are? Nintendo makes a boadload of profit year after year. Microsoft's entertainment division is hundreds of millions in the red. And we all know the boondoggle Sony is making of the PS3.
I don't think anyone has to worry about Nintendo over the next few years....
I just bought a GameCube on Monday after only (from this generation) owning a PS2 since early 2003. Really, even now, good 3rd party games are hard to come by. However, that's what I have a PS2 for. Now I can also play the excellent Zelda, SSMB, and other Nintendo 1st party titles. The few good 3rd party games, like Twin Snakes, RE4, and Tales of Symphonia are also nice games to have. For everything else, I still have my PS2 to play more RPGs, MGS, and fighters.
IMHO was not using a game storage format you can easily copy with common PC hardware. While I had nintendo consoles, and paid for all my titles, all my friends bought Sony consoles, put on an eye patch and cried "arrrggghh mateyy!"
Wii has another strange storage format, so I rekon they havent learnt from thier biggest mistake with the Gamecube / N64.
Why, it's a box thats "10 times greater than the competition!" of course!
The #1 mistake that Nintendo made with the GameCube was locking the system so hard that nobody was ever able to successfully run homebrew or backups on it. The competing systems allowed it, and that seemed to be the only reason the Xbox got any sales at all (not counting people who bought it just for Halo.)
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Don't lets forget the awful but profane "South Park" games and the awesome but filthy "Conker's Bad Fur Day" for N64, and the gory "Resident Evil" titles for the 'cube complete with my favorite blood-covered-chainsaw -shaped controller.
I feel dirty invoking anything Acclaim-realted, but this would be incomplete without a mention of the much-overhyped "BMX XXX," which had topless female bike riders and FMVs of strippers uncensored for Gamecube and Xbox, while Sony censored the nipples out of their version.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
They have been making toy and games before video games entered the picture. They make their money making products that entertain people as well as licensing their characters for merchandise. If it turns out that video games are no longer a good source of income, they will make othe toys and games to sell. The console appears to be only one product in their overall strategy.
He is no longer NOA's Executive VP of Sales and Marketing: On the 25th he was promoted to President and COO.
http://press.nintendo.com/articles.jsp?id=9653
Congratulations, Reggie!
I loved Jedi Starfighter for the Xbox as it resembled the open mission concept from Tie Fighter. The gameplay for Rogue Squadron on the other hand felt like you were playing on rails. You couldn't go anywhere and explore without the computer turning you back automatically and the radar system sucked.
I guess what I really want is the amazing graphics of Rogue Squadron and the gameplay of Jedi Starfighter.
the biggest mistake they made in Europe with the GC was releasing a year after it debuted in Japan and Months after it launched in the US. European gamers felt cheated and neglected so didn't buy the GC. roll forward to 2006 and the much hyped and rather good looking but poorly named Wii will launch in time for Christmas (in Japan and perhaps the US) but will be 1st of 2nd quarter in Europe.
It has just occoured to me that despite the fact that I am greatly anticipating the release of the Wii, and I have no doubt that some of those games with that new controller will make for some great fun, but I find myself reasoning this way;
I dont play *lots* of games, I play infrequently and when I do, it is when my girlfriend is out of the house, usually late into the night, usually lying on my front on the floor in front of the tv. Its how i relax.
Waving and pointing are quite hard to do from down there. I did develop a technique for playing time-crisis while lying on the floor, proped up on a pilow.
I do it to chill out when I am tired and I want some fun.
I dont think that I will want to jump around the place or even *sit up* in those cases.
Perhaps I will be able to enjoy those lovley downloaded clasics when I feel like not moving at all.
Same with me.
When I play games it's usually late at night when I have nothing at all to do besides lay on the couch under a blanket. Since I have wireless controllers I put them under the blanket as well and its just my head popping out so I can see the TV. Summer time its the same scene sans blanket, but the point is that I am moving as little as possible and just like to lay there.
With the Wii, the games will most likely be awesome but I can't see myself playing them really late at night when I am about to go to sleep.
These three companies make good examples of how corporate cultures can persist despite different circumstances.
Nintendo has its M.O., yeah? They sell the consoles at a profit and keep prices modest for the market by using less cutting-edge technology. Their franchises really do show a love for game design, for getting the little things right, in a way the other companies just don't approach. (The exception may be the bought-out Bungie-MS relationship.) They love to try out unorthodox controllers, but back them inconsistently. (Anyone for a game of Donkey Kong Bongos? There are maybe three games that'll use those.)
Sony, for a human generation or three now, has been trying to shoehorn standards war victories into various products across all its product lines. "Proprietary memory format" -- quick, what company did you think of? This time around it's Blu-Ray, and they seem to have killed themselves on the PS3 price by forcing it in there. Across most of their product lines, again, they do show a decent eye for conservatively nice design. The little triangle button on the PS controller isn't going to be turning into a Wii gesture any time soon -- and when they try something like that they show iffy results.
MS's gaming division is all about loss leader maneuvering to capture market share. Do they love the games? Frankly I don't see it, and all the poseur's "xtreem XBox" attitude they put on falls flat for me. MS also doesn't "get" the Japanese market, very apparently. They tried to make their release lineup for the 360 more Japanese-friendly, and failed.
It's weird how consistent they all are. You'd think Nintendo would try to play loss leader with the console this time around as a way of regaining market share, but their price is already much lower than the competition... and well, tradition is a powerful thing. So they just keep plugging away at incremental improvements in their way of doing business. For these three, there's no sense radically changing what works... or even what doesn't work so well.
Next time around MS will be talking about the Japanese market again, assuming they're not tired after the $4 billion they've lost yet. Nintendo will release Mario-sensaround. Sony will try to bundle a proprietary.hologram engine in everything. I can't wait for that E3.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Correct me if I'm wrong (and I have no doubts about that on /. :) but I could have sworn I heard during the Ninty press conference at E3 that they would have 26 or 27 games playable on the show floor... however I have not seen nor any site that actually played or listed more than 8 or so... what were the other 19?
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
I tried hard to be a Gamecube fanboy, but failed...
Gamecube good:
pokemon games and integration with gameboy games.
wavebird wireless controller
hardware that was as capable as other game consoles of that time.
comparatively cheap.
Gamecube bad:
Could not play DVDs for no good reason.
More restrictive hardware and licensing compared with alternative consoles.
Poor coverage of titles in Europe (e.g. impossible to use midway arcade suite to play gauntlet because it was not released in europe and the region locking prevents import from regions that it is available).
Fewer titles available in UK stores than PS2 and xbox
Poor display quality on some TV screens.
According to a contact who works at a gaming company, the lack of titles stem from the restrictive licensing and/or lack of commercial incentive compared with other consoles.
I believe it is wrong to produce a product that is crippled in ways that prevent it from being used effectively. For me, the inability to play DVDs and region encoding of games meant I bought a PS2 to fill in gaps that my gamecube could not cover. Reaching round behind the TV to swap cables gets old very quickly, so after a while you just end up with one plugged in and you buy your games accordingly (also ps2 games are slightly cheaper).
The artificial restrictions placed on the gamecube led to me changing my console allegance to PS2.
Unfortunately, whilst I feel Nintendo are ethically unsound, placing short term financial gain over customer satisfaction and long term financial gain, I am even less sure about Sony (rootkit CD's, everquest - where they deviously charge things to your credit card) or Microsoft (convicted Monopolist and closed source company).
Come back atari, all is forgiven.
-- Don't believe everything you read, hear or think
What about gothic-horror title Sadness. According to some forums you'll be using the Wiimote to slit people's throats.
SLIT PEOPLE'S THROATS! What's this about family-oriented strategy?
:(){
Fwiw, a first party game is one developed internally at the console manufacturer, a 2nd party game is developed by an independant but published by the manufacturer.
For instance, Halo is first party. Bungie is MS owned.
Lumines on Live is published by MS, but is 2nd party.
"the Wii will launch with a wide variety of games for may types of gamers"
I'm more of an August type of gamer.
They do mention the poor third-party support, but as mentioned by many the real problem was an overall lack of impressive games on the opening lineup. A lot of the time, that opening lineup can be what really pushes the sales of your console (many buy the console because they REALLY WANT to play game X). That being said, I know that Twilight Princess should be on the opening lineup for Wii (also out for GC, but supposedly a lot better for Wii). Can anyone else name some that look to be sales-makers?
"You throw me the idol, I throw you the Wiip!"
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
on par with the Xbox - right there
Nintendo not doing so well against the first console released by a widely-hated company reknowned for software that crashes, with a console that's just a reboxed, underpowered PC, whos first-party games output is generally pretty bland and mediocre. Flight Simulator vs Mario 64...
Microsoft had a lot of disadvantages in this round, and you have to give them props for getting marketshare even at the cost of bleeding money (their one advantage).
Nintendo is financially secure, but with their history and talent they should be dominating the industry.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
If you don't mind my asking, what's that from? It sounds horrifyingly familiar, and it was for quite some time now, but I've been unable to put my finger on it.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
A Wii by any other name sells just as cheap.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
Yes, I think this is a god idea, launching it with alot of games. This will make more people buy it as it has there style of game. I never bought a Gamecube as the games were crap, it had bad graphics and it looked like piece of poo. I think that Nintendo will have to pick up there act with the Wii.
Talk later, Holmesey For free Domain names, PSP's & I-Pod's click