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."

Comments

Wow

[Gattman01]

What went right with the game cube....

Actually they aren't that bad. Mario Party can make for a fun dmaily game night.

Re:Wow

[twistedsymphony]

They did A LOT of things right actually, just from a hardware standpoint
- Excellent Price point
- 1st party wireless controllers (as usual ahead of it's time)
- choice of colors
- durable as hell, can easily take more of a beating then the other consoles of that generation
- Widely available 480p video modes in games... 2nd only to the Xbox, and way more coverage then the PS2 had
- easily the most comfortable controllers of last generation
- from what I hear a fantastic development environment, almost Xbox 1 level graphics from apparently "inferior" hardware

Despite the fact that most of the good games are 1st party, it still remains the best "party" system on any console. with the exception of say Halo, or DOA on the Xbox 1 you wont find as many quality 4 player party games on any other console...

I think I read this article already....

[ASimPerson]

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.

Re:I think I read this article already....

[twistedsymphony]

my thoughts exactly... anyone who thinks the GameCubes launch lineup was bad forgot that the N64 launched with only Maro64 and Pilotwings64 available. Both good games but it was quite possibly the least diverse launch ever... well with the exception of maybe the Sega Saturn which launch with only Virtua Fighter... or the Jaguar CD which IIRC launch with absolutely nothing... yeah there's some diversity for you.

Re:I think I read this article already....

[barawn]

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.

Note what he's saying, though: it's not just 3rd party support (honestly, I couldn't care less about where the game comes from) this time. Here he's saying "yeah, the launch titles weren't diverse enough - period."

That's a big deal. And actually, I personally think that the problem with the N64 was 3rd party support, and the problem with the GameCube was first-party support at launch. The Nintendo launch titles for the GameCube were.. well.. less than stellar. Note here that I'm going to glom first and second party together, as I'm never sure which ones are first or second.

Here's Nintendo's at launch titles for the GameCube:

• Luigi's Mansion
  
• Wave Race
  
• Rogue Squadron
  

Even afterwards, it, uh, wasn't that much better. Soon-after-launch titles:

• SSB:M
  
• Pikmin
  

Uh. Yeah. That's... not that stellar. Not even that many, either. It's not that they were bad games. It's just that they were... well, few. And not Mario. Or Zelda. Instead, Wind Waker showed up a year later. Mario, nearly a year later as well. Both felt like too little, too late.

There's still plenty of time for Nintendo to screw up, mind you, but delaying Twilight Princess to the Wii launch (which virtually everyone thought that was what they were doing when they announced the delay) is actually quite smart. If they can get a good fraction of the titles at E3 out the door by launch, they're going to have a much, much more successful launch than the GameCube.

Re:I think I read this article already....

[barawn]

anyone who thinks the GameCubes launch lineup was bad forgot that the N64 launched with only Maro64 and Pilotwings64 available.

Mario 64 was a better title than all of Nintendo's GameCube offerings combined. Nintendo's GameCube offerings were the grand total of Luigi's Mansion and Wave Race: Blue Storm.

The GameCube's launch was worse than the N64's, in my opinion, and that's hard to do when you're competing with only two games.

Re:I think I read this article already....

[Anonymous Coward]

What a lot of people miss is that Nintendo has been learning from their mistakes since the N64. Basically, the N64's problems were:

1) No/Bad third party support
2) Difficult development enviroment
3) Expensive, small capacity, storage format
4) Huge waits between game releases

The Gamecube's problems were"

1) No exclusive third party support
2) moderate capacity storage format
3) moderate waits between game releases

The Wii seems to be (once again) a small step towards fixing these problems; the system appears to be getting a lot of exclusive support from third parties (I think there are only a couple of multi-platform games), DVD is a perfectly reasonable storage format, and the lower cost development environment (as well as the virtual console) should limit the wait times between game releases.

Re:I think I read this article already....

[AKAImBatman]

Here's Nintendo's at launch titles for the GameCube:

        * Luigi's Mansion
        * Wave Race
        * Rogue Squadron

Just to add my own personal feelings on the launch of the GameCube, I (and I'm sure many others) REALLY wanted a Mario game. Instead we got stuck with Luigi's Mansion. I remember trying it in the store, hoping that it was really the Mario game I was looking for. No dice. I played it for about 15 minutes, and just didn't find it fun.

And who's idea was it to drag out another Wave Race? Wave Race 64 was fun for its time, but everyone knew that it was filler until Nintendo got the games ramped up. Launching with Wave Race as one of the three (!) titles when there was no Mario, was like screaming out to the world, "We have no software!" As for Rouge Sqaudron, it was definitely a Rouge. I mean, who thought that a specialized launch title like that would appeal to the greater Nintendo audience?

While I'm not one to harp on the small number of launch titles (the SNES didn't exactly have a huge selection either), the quality of those titles will make or break the system on the first day. When the N64 was released, everyone wanted Mario. We didn't care about Pilot Wings 64 or even the upcoming Wave Race. We had Mario 64, and it kept our attention for more than long enough for Nintendo to crank up their game-producing engine.

To put it bluntly, I lost all interest in the GameCube the day I played Luigi's Mansion. While Nintendo did eventually produce several hit titles for the GameCube, it was never enough to change my mind about wanting it. Titles like Wario World even managed to continue my impression that the GameCube games were dull. While I did briefly consider getting a unit for my kids, I found that pulling the old NES out of the closet was a lot more fun for them than the GameCube demos they tried in the store.

So in effect, the GameCube (IMHO) just didn't reach its target market. But with the Wii, every part of my being is alreay screaming, "I want one!" Especially if I can play the games with my kids.

I'm thinking that this is going to be a fun generation. :-)

Re:I think I read this article already....

[h0mer]

Yeah, Super Monkey Ball and Rogue Squadron were terrible games... :P

Re:I think I read this article already....

[BenjyD]

I seem to be the only person on Slashdot who really liked Luigi's Mansion. The vacuum mechanics, the ghosts, the way Luigi hums along with the music, it was really enjoyable. A bit short, maybe, but great fun. I think it's also one of my girlfriend's favourite games of all time, behind Mario 64 and Mario Kart, of course.

Re:I think I read this article already....

[srvivn21]

As for Rouge Sqaudron, it was definitely a Rouge.

Rouge Squadron? Is that the one where you apply make-up in a group?

Re:I think I read this article already....

[barawn]

I seem to be the only person on Slashdot who really liked Luigi's Mansion.

I loved Luigi's Mansion.

But it was way, way too short for a launch title that was supposed to be a placeholder for a Mario game. Keep in mind Mario, Zelda didn't come out until basically a year later. There wasn't a good platformer for the console until... well, until Sunshine, and by then, people were bitter.

A console launch needs to keep you from putting the console away and forgetting about it for months. The GameCube launch didn't do that. If you're like me, and didn't buy a Cube until almost a year later, hey, it was great, and I still play the GameCube more than my PS2. But that was me, and most people had already formed their opinion of the GameCube by then.

The Wii launch is primed to do that. They're going to be missing Mario again, most likely, but this time they substituted a much, much better filler than Luigi's Mansion: Zelda and Metroid. They can't let Mario slip past the end of the year, though. Wii, with Mario, Zelda, and Metroid at Christmas, is a killer launch. I think they can even survive without SSBB for a year, too.

Correction

[BinaryOpty]

I think you mean Reggie Fils-Aime President and COO of NOA.

GTA:SA

[hotspotbloc]

I know Nintendo stays away from games like GTA:SA and they are one of the greatest game makers ever (Mario is still the king) but it's games like GTA:SA that sell like gasoline at a SUV convention. IMO they'll problems if the hot games are PS3/XBOX only (kinda like the GC).

I really hope they make it.

Re:GTA:SA

[badasscat]

I know Nintendo stays away from games like GTA:SA and they are one of the greatest game makers ever (Mario is still the king) but it's games like GTA:SA that sell like gasoline at a SUV convention.

Nintendo would give their left nut for a port of GTA:SA, and don't let anyone tell you different.

Nintendo themselves have no interest in making games like that, but nobody should ever suggest that they would turn down the opportunity to have a game that sold 10 million copies on their system.

Nintendo's problem is attracting that level of support. They really just don't have complete control over their third-party situation - they can wine and dine developers till the cows come home, but at the end of the day they can't force anybody to do anything. So they end up with Spongebob Squarepants instead of GTA to fill out their E3 presentation.

They can claim they've learned whatever they want from the GameCube, but the fact remains that they can only control their own game development for the system; they 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).

Re:Oh yes, how they've learned...

[hunterx11]

You're that guy who thinks that vi is "six," aren't you?

Mario games

[j235]

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'

Re:Mario games

[raezr]

Mario Galaxy isn't a launch title, but it'll be released within the first six months. Nintendo seems to be intentionally holding it back (along with other games like SSB). Rather than squeeze all it's good games into the launch date, Nintendo's going to spread them out over a series of months so they can keep the "amazing new console" feeling for the Wii lasting longer.

PlayStation 360, PlayCube, Mario on Xbox...

[tepples]

"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?

What are developers saying...

[__aaclcg7560]

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.

Launch vs. launch window

[tepples]

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.

Re:Oh yes, how they've learned...

[|/|/|||]

I find this new learning fascinating. What does "emacs" mean in your world? ; )

Nintendo control freak

[L-Train8]

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.

PAL version of GameCube was composite only

[MadAndy]

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!

Re:PAL version of GameCube was composite only

[Fred Or Alive]

No it isn't, you could get RGB SCART as well[1], and there's also an RF adaptor if you have a really old or crap TV. For some reason Nintendo really liked messing around, so NTSC Gamecubes don't support RGB, and PAL ones don't support S-Video.

Anyway, who has a PAL TV that doesn't support RGB SCART but does have S-Video? I my experince RGB SCART is far more common than S-Video, and it's better quality anyhow.

[1] I bought mine for about £3 in a HMV clearance shortly before most HMVs stopped selling the 'cube.

2nd party

[freeweed]

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.

Re:2nd party

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

2nd parties are those stuidos owned by nintendo, like rare(back in the day) or retro studios now.

Re:2nd party

[aichpvee]

That's half right. Second parties are also those published by Nintendo (which I think is usually what makes them second party, not the ownership), such as Silicon Knights with Eternal Darkness.

Re:2nd party

[barawn]

You're misunderstanding the relationship of 'you, me, him' in the use of those terms. First, second, third party don't refer to the relationship between the purchaser, the game developer, and the console manufacturer. They refer to the relationship between the game developer, the console manufacturer and the publisher.

As in, a first party game is first party because the console manufacturer develops and publishes the game themselves. ("I publish my game on my console.")

A second party game is "You publish my game on your console."

A third party game is "They publish my game on your console."

Over time, those got twisted into "first party = console manufacturer", "second party = exclusive to one console manufacturer, but separate company", and "third party = non-exclusive to either" but the origin of the terms were correct.

First party titles...

[Hamster Lover]

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.

Re:it's good to learn from your mistakes..

[ontheheap]

"What sane teenager or adult is going to publicly announce that they have to go home to play with their Wii?"

I think most people would say "I'm going home to play Nintendo."

Re:it's good to learn from your mistakes..

[prockcore]

What sane teenager or adult is going to publicly announce that they have to go home to play with their Wii?


Why do the name detracters keep wording it so strangely?

If someone came up to me and said "I'm going to go home to play with my playstation" I'd look at them funny... because "play with my ___" will always sound dirty.

Most people would just say "I'm going to go home to play video games"... actually, most people just say "I'm going home.. see you tomorrow".

Re:Oh yes, how they've learned...

[WilliamSChips]

The Romans didn't have editor macros. And they never had the letter combinations CS or GS and always used X instead. (CS actually could be the Roman numeral for one hundred and a half, although neither E nor A are used as Roman numerals so that won't work) And also, 'ed' is the stem for Latin verb for to eat.

Not at launch, but close...

[biff_larken]

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.

Bullshit

[hsoft]

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?

Re:Bullshit

[cgenman]

Not to be too abrupt, but grandparent is right. In gamer circles and game development circles when you refer to 1st party, 2nd party, and 3rd party, you're talking about the console manufacturer's internal studios, the console manufacturer's owned studios, and studios which are independent. This has been standard nomclemature since Activision started.

If you're referring to the consumer, you generally say the consumer or (if you're not in marketing) the player. But really, the relationship is quite complicated.

For example, as a 3rd party developer, we actually sell our work to a 3rd party publisher. Who is a 2nd party to a different 3rd party publisher, who will probably handle the actual distribution this time. Who needs 1st party approval to sell it into the distribution chain. Who sells to the individual stores. Who sells it to consumers. In this case, under your definition if we're the 1st party, the consumer is actually the 6th party down the line.

So yes, in common usage 1st party developer is the console manufacturer, 2nd parties are the studios they own, and 3rd parties are independents. Wikipedia is correct.

*ahem* Excuse me, Nintendo don't make mistakes

[bunbuntheminilop]

They made $4.5 billion profit last year.

Re:*ahem* Excuse me, Nintendo don't make mistakes

[Dorceon]

No, they made a $873 million profit on $4.5 billion in revenues. Still, not too shabby.

Re:*ahem* Excuse me, Nintendo don't make mistakes

[thatguywhoiam]

You, on the other hand, have mistakes down pat. $4.5 billion profit huh?

"Each new Nintendo Wii will come with a grab-bag of rubies! Order today!"

Which mistakes, exactly?

[brunes69]

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....

Re:it's good to learn from your mistakes..

[phritz]

What sane teenager or adult is going to publicly announce that they have to go home to play with their Wii?

What are you talking about? The value in obvious double entendrees alone is worth the price of buying the console. "Hey, guys, this is boring. Fuck y'all, I'm gonna go home and play with my wii until I fall asleep." What teenager or video-game playing adult doesn't appreciate a good penis joke now and then?

Honestly, we're absolutely going to be inundated with the Wii name over the next x months until release, it's not like people won't know what you're talking about. I'm sure at one point it sounded really bizarre to say "I'm going to home and write a paper on my apple" or whatever, but you get used to it - proper nouns take over namespace surprisingly quickly.

Nintendo and "that sort of game"

[Rob T Firefly]

Nintendo has a reputation from the SNES days when they took the blood out of the first "Mortal Kombat," but after the outcry that caused they let up on that for MKII. Although they keep their first-party titles mostly clean, they have no problem letting the third-parties make whatever insane games they want anymore.

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.

Re:It makes a good 2nd console

[John Courtland]

Holy crap, it's bizarro-me. I just did the *exact* same thing. If you haven't picked up a wavebird wireless controller yet, do so. Probably one of the best pieces of hardware I've ever used.