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Acclaim dropping support for Gamecube (1 Viewer)

Jeff Kleist

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Xbox is succeeding as it is because they studied and took time to understand gamers needs and wants, even adapting the controller to suit those needs. I don't see Nintendo understanding today's console gamers.
Only in America. In Japan they're bombing for exactly that reason. They took an "all gamers are created equal" stance and got their butts handed to them
 

Josh_SR

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Mar 21, 2003
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Sup peeps......

did you know that the xbox was really the next sega system to come out after dreamcast? microsoft bout out the new sega system and put there name on it...thats y sega didnt have a system after dreamcast.... dc was just a decoy (i guess you could call it that) and what is now called the xbox was what you could call there secret weapon. it was going to be backward compatible with dc games and even today there are a hand full of dc games that play on xbox.
:)
 

Peter Manojlovich

Second Unit
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Don't know about this,...

Xbox is succeeding as it is because they studied and took time to understand gamers needs and wants, even adapting the controller to suit those needs. I don't see Nintendo understanding today's console gamers.

MS changed the controller, to their credit, after numerous complaints about the original xbox club, which while eminently suitable for home defense left a lot to be desired as a controller.

I hope you're not suggesting that MS actually studied the market and concluded that as gamers we actually wanted Azurik, Nighcaster, Blood Wake, Kakuto Chojin, Tao Feng, KFC, because I didn't want any of those games, certainly not a blue-colored hero.

As far as nintendo goes, well, if you go to the trsts for the gc, Finding Nemo outsold Splinter Cell. Nintendo's demographics still skew young and statements from Shig Miyamoto have indicated that future nintendo product will be made easier with respect to gameplay content in order to accomodate a wider array of gamers. A lot of that came on the heels of criticism of the high difficulty level of Super Mario Sunshine.
 

Jeffrey Forner

Screenwriter
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Jun 19, 1999
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I think there is a more important question here that no one is asking. Why are GameCube owners not buying third-party games? Say what you will about how Nintendo treats third parties, you must admit that, in comparison to the support the N64 received, the GCN has received a healthy dose of third-party titles thus far in its life cycle. It may not equal the Playstation 2's numbers, but it certainly isn't as bad as it was during the last generation. The problem is that no one buys GCN versions of these titles.

Would any of you care to offer up some possible reasons why?
 

Romier S

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Would any of you care to offer up some possible reasons why?
Certainly.

First and foremost, There are two perfectly viable systems that have *MORE* third party support . We'll however come back to that one.

From a developer standpoint, supporting the GC and even the Xbox (depending on the title) can be a gamble. With Sony controlling the third party market and PS2 titles having the best sales opportunity,its would be a difficult proposition for a third party to take a chance on an exclusive third party property on the GC. Capcom really amazes me in that regard because they are willing to somewhat throw caution to the wind and give the Gamecube some real support. Not that I'm arguing mind you, I'll take the glory that is Viewtiful Joe any day of the week and twice on Sunday;).

On the other side of the pond you have the Xbox, which is also enjoying a very high degree of third party support. Though titles on the Xbox are usually a good number behind thier PS2 counterparts (when concerning multi-platform releases) they still sell fairly decently.

Also exclusive third party titles like Splinter Cell and other multi-platform titles like Enter the Matrix have enjoyed some very real sales success on the big box. Something else that should not be underestimated is the fairly decent sales figures for Xbox third party sports titles. The Gamecube is simply not regarded as a system where you play Sports games. This limits its "mainstream" appeal right off the bat.

Also take into account that several third party Xbox Live titles have enjoyed great sales success because of thier internet connectivity including Ghost Recon, Unreal Championship, Return to Casrtle Wolfenstein..etc..etc.. The Gamecubes GBA connectivity does not push sales IMHO, unless those sales are for the GBA which at this point is Nintendo's true focus. (You can hardly blame them).

So what about the viability of the other consoles I mentioned above? My belief is that in this day in age the "single console owner" is becoming more and more scarce. Sure they are out there but they are in the minority. Ask most people what console they own and you will find that most will say they have acquired at the very least 2 of the current systems. When you have someone that owns a GC *and* a PS2/Xbox what exactly is the incentive in buying GC third party titles?

The PS2 is bustling with third party games, be it mainstream titles, online games or obscure little titles that appeal to the niche hardcore gamer. The Xbox is pushing online content like there is no tommorrow and they have a steady stream of multi-platform games that for the most part (ie Not always) look better and sound better. Its not difficult to see why the Gamecube is everyones "Nintendo machine". Even the most stringent multi-console owner will admit that the reason they bought a Gamecube was to play Nintendo's first party title.

*Romier raises his hand*

How does the Big N fix this? Thats a good question and one that I honestly can't think of an answer for....
 

Dave Falasco

Screenwriter
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Oct 2, 2000
Messages
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That's a great point, Romier. For multi-console owners, I imagine it would be natural to buy cross-platform games for either the Xbox or the PS2 because of the features you mentioned (e.g. online support) and to "save" the Gamecube for playing Nintendo games. I just wonder how many people that category would include? Many people on this forum are multi-console owners, and several of you even work in the videogame industry in some fashion, so it stands to reason that you and probably your circle of friends own multiple consoles as well. But I'm not sure that single console owners are in the minority of gamers. Going strictly off of my personal experience, I can list perhaps 20 people that I know who own a current-gen videogame console, and only one of them is a multi-console owner. I'm not saying you're wrong, Romier, because honestly I haven't seen any kind of statistical data and I'm going purely off of what I have seen.

It might also be that I'm just in the wrong demographic, as an over-30 male homeowner with a kid. Most of my friends are also in this demo and as a general rule, we don't have time to play all the games we want on one system, much less two or three. It's entirely possible that if you polled the early-20's single gamers (who tend to have a bit more time, as well as disposable income!), the trend would indeed be to own multiple consoles.

Actually, the thought just occured to me that maybe Gamecube owners, more than owners of the other two systems, tend to own more than one system? Two of the broad categories of GC owners would have to be families with children (Note, I'm NOT saying it's a kiddie system, but it is the most kid-friendly), and so-called "hardcore" gamers who would never miss the chance to play first-party Nintendo titles. Both of those categories strike me as groups likely to own multiple consoles.

Boy, I'd love to see some industry data on this.
 

Mike__D

Supporting Actor
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Dec 27, 2000
Messages
617
Funny, I recall there being little to no 3rd party support for the N64. Look how long that platform lasted. GC has more 3rd party support than N64 did. I;m pretty happy with my little black box (even though it's getting dusty right now). I like the smaller discs, I like the controllers, and I like the size and looks of the console itself. They didn't screw up there. Oh, and the 1st party titles are excellent.

it was going to be backward compatible with dc games and even today there are a hand full of dc games that play on xbox.
Well this is certainly news to me. Care to share with us what DC games work on the Xbox? :rolleyes:

Mike D.
 

Michael St. Clair

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Back before the XBox was released, Microsoft looked into buying Sega (this is not unique for either party). Speculation and rumor spread rapidly that the XBox might incorporate a Dreamcast chipset for backwards compatibility or an emulator of the DC hardware.

None of this came to pass, and the XBox was in development long before this took place.

The XBox is not the Dreamcast II.

The emphasis on internet gaming and Sega franchises like Jet Set Radio and Shenmue do make the XBox a bit of a spiritual cousin to the Dreamcast, but there is no direct lineage.
 

Romier S

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A few more comments:

Even though Sony may get fans with the network adapter, who says they are making money from it, which is all that matter in the end
Very short sighted. Does Sony or MS make money off of thier respective online plans? Maybe, maybe not. However they are building an install base of online gamers that will follow thier systems into the future when broadband/online console gaming will continue to explode.

Its interesting to see how really "tentative" Sony seemed at first towards it online gaming structure. They released the adapter, put out some good games and sat back to see if what they were doing was viable. With the success of thier online adapter and the relative success of Xbox Live they are now jumping in with both feet, bundling the adapter with the system, releasing the Hard Drive and securing EA's online sports content. Some major steps there and its too bad that Nintendo can't see that, at the very least, gaining a small piece of the respective pie so to speak would be beneficial to the company in the future.

Some may disagree but I think online console gaming has proven to be more than a novelty. Much moreso than the current GBA/GC connectivity which, lets face it is nothing more than a tool to sell more GBA's and not the other way around. (Again, who can blame 'em)
 

Michael St. Clair

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1)Nintendo is ignoring the aging console gamer. The average age of the console gamer is rising substantially. Look, I know that, like a great Disney film, games like Mario and Zelda transcend age boundaries and appeal to a broader demographic. But most people wouldn’t buy a DVD player that only plays Disney movies. Gamers increasingly want games that target older demographics as well. And I’m not talking about juvenile ‘adult’ humor like BMX XXX. I’d say less than 5% of the Gamecube games target the specific adult demographic.


2)Nintendo has addressed online gaming poorly. Online console gamers should easily approach a million users this year, and Nintendo is doing a worse job than anybody addressing that market. I guarantee you I would buy F-Zero, Mario Golf, and Mario Kart if I could play them online (plus I’d buy a broadband adaptor). As it stands, I may not buy them at all. I am not alone. This issue largely overlaps with the aging console gamer one; many of us old married dudes don’t have the ability to physically get together with friends as much for gaming as we used to…but we can get online. Many games are more fun playing against other real people, and the internet makes it possible 24/7 for everyone.


3)The lack of DVD movie playback has likely hurt them somewhat. Nintendo themselves has acknowledged this. A lot of players like the double-duty aspect, even if home theater folks like us consider it superfluous.


4)Nintendo pisses off third-party developers. This has gone on for years. They have had a history of not sharing libraries and other dev tools with ‘unpreferred’ third-party developers. They have charged high royalties for manufacturing. And cartridges are expensive. Much of the third-party situation today stems from the N64 years.



Also, the price point for the PSP seems well out of range to compete with the GBA (If recent reports are to be believed).
Yep, that's what I was getting at when I said 'expensive'. It will be positioned in a different market.

I'm certainly not predicting the demise of Nintendo. The only predictions I'm making are that the Gameboy platform will dominate its market and be around for a long time, and that Nintendo has its work cut out for it in the non-portable market. They will spin-doctor this situation as is the norm in the industry.
 

Romier S

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It road the coattails of the hardware launch. There was no strong franchise (Mario, Zelda, Metroid) launch title, but the early adopters want a couple of games. If Luigi were released today, I think it would sell much worse. Ditto for Star Wars.
I disagree to an extent. I believe Luigi would still sell fairly well (At the very least in the 200-300k region on the Luigi name alone), though I do agree that its numbers would not have been as impressive. Pikmin for instance is a title that I believed would not sell well as it was "different" much in the way that Luigi was unique by Nintendo standards, but it in fact sold near 500k.

That is besides the point however, as it does not much change the fact that Luigi was *not* a failure sales wise, regardless of when it was released. Which was the point of my post. If anything it was an intelligent choice by Nintendo in releasing the game at launch as it did end up benefitting from the decision.(Of course it could be they just didn't have anything else ready;))
 

Damien

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Very short sighted. Does Sony or MS make money off of thier respective online plans? Maybe, maybe not. However they are building an install base of online gamers that will follow thier systems into the future when broadband/online console gaming will continue to explode.
Its interesting to see how really "tentative" Sony seemed at first towards it online gaming structure. They released the adapter, put out some good games and sat back to see if what they were doing was viable. With the success of thier online adapter and the relative success of Xbox Live they are now jumping in with both feet, bundling the adapter with the system, releasing the Hard Drive and securing EA's online sports content. Some major steps there and its too bad that Nintendo can't see that, at the very least, gaining a small piece of the respective pie so to speak would be beneficial to the company in the future.
Some may disagree but I think online console gaming has proven to be more than a novelty. Much moreso than the current GBA/GC connectivity which, lets face it is nothing more than a tool to sell more GBA's and not the other way around. (Again, who can blame 'em)
Maybe Nintendo should (of) tried and find some kind of plan. To me, if nintendo starts devoting energy and dev. time to adding online components, the overall quality of there games could drop. I don't think it is a coincidence the best online games like Socom,RTCW,and Mechassault have average 1-p value. So I think it would be better if they just concentrated on making solid offline games. On the other hand games like smash brothers, mario kart, etc etc.. are very fitting canidates to be put online. So if Nintendo formed some sort of alliance with lets just say Sega to work on the online components, and Nintendo would focus on the offline game, everyone could be happy. There is no doubt about it, I am just as pissed off as anyone when Nintendo excites us by releasing an online asapter and then giving it the cold shoulder, but something about online makes them believe it's going to blow up in there face. They are taking a gamble but being so conservative, they want to keep there pocketbooks as stable as possible, but a year from now if the top npd sales are online titles scraped on gc/or online sports games not selling on gc, Nintendo will be stuck. Plus if online gaming really gets big and nintendo includes it on launch date with gamecube 2, it probably would be the worst since nintendo wouldn't have any idea how to operate it.
 

Michael St. Clair

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I believe Luigi would still sell fairly well (At the very least in the 200-300k region on the Luigi name alone),
Depending on the budget, a drop in sales from 850k to 300k-500k can be disastrous. Look at Atari...if the Matrix sold 5 million, they could make millions of dollars....sell 3.5 million, they could lose their shirt.
 

Ray Warner

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I imagine it would be natural to buy cross-platform games for either the Xbox or the PS2 because of the features you mentioned (e.g. online support) and to "save" the Gamecube for playing Nintendo games.
Exactly.

Look, I'm willing to bet that Jeff, myself, and a good number of other people on here already own "the big 3." I've had them all since launch. When you're an adult gamer, $300 on a console isn't chump change, but it's not exactly going to kill you, and God knows I've spent more money on things far more worthless. The point being, however, that there's no real bias towards the GameCube. I love my GC, and I have no plans to get rid of it any time soon. It doesn't matter to me in the slightest who comes out "on top" because I'm covered whichever way it goes.

It also means that I have the luxury of choosing which console I buy for, and that's where the GC gets into trouble.

The way it breaks down for me now is this, and I have a feeling I'm not alone:

If it's coming out on multiple platforms, I'm getting the Xbox version. It's the most powerful hardware, and I have Live access.

If it's PS2 exclusive, or is better on PS2 than Xbox (which happens sometimes) I go the PS2 route.

If it's a Nintendo game, or a Nintendo exclusive, it's GameCube.

If it came out for Dreamcast first, I'm getting that version (see Ikaruga, Capcom vs. SNK 2, Skies of Arcadia, et al.)

As far as hardware preference, my PS2 is on the bottom of the heap. If I can avoid getting it for the PS2, I will. The PS2 keeps kicking, though, because it also doubles as a PS1, so those games get plenty of spin.

The Xbox is the highest preference for me simply because it has the most features, so why not get it for Xbox? I paid for the thing, may as well use it to play better versions of the games I want.

This is where the GameCube stumbles. I don't think I've ever seen a title I want that came out for PS2, GameCube, but NOT Xbox. It's typically one console or three, never two, so anything that's not exclusive defaults to the Xbox as far as my buying habits are concerned. This translates into lots of fun titles on the Cube, but they're far and few in between. It literally becomes a "Nintendo Game" Cube.

This doesn't work from a buisness standpoint, because there's too much competition. If Nintendo stays afloat with the GC, hey, that's their call I could not care less. It doesn't mean it's a sound buisness strategy, however.
 

Chad Ellinger

Second Unit
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Jun 18, 2000
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Why are GameCube owners not buying third-party games?
I have both a PS2 and a Gamecube, and I buy more third-party games for the PS2.

1. Because PS2 has better third-party exclusives than Gamecube. Metal Gear, Contra, GTA vs. Resident Evil remakes? No contest.

2. The only cross-platform games that really interest me are sports titles, and PS2 has a better controller for sports games IMO.

My two cents.
 

Romier S

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Depending on the budget, a drop in sales from 850k to 300k-500k can be disastrous. Look at Atari...if the Matrix sold 5 million, they could make millions of dollars....sell 3.5 million, they could lose their shirt.
I definitely agree with you there Michael. Budget is a definite factor. In the case of Luigi's Mansion though I don't see that as being as "dire" a situation as Enter the Matrix which was a very costly production. Especially in the financial position Atari is in.
 

BertFalasco

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839
Wow, I must be the only person who enjoys playing their cube...
I second!

I have always been a loyal fan of Ninteno and have never owned a Sony gaming system. I am apart of the Nintendo world and I enjoy all their products. As for third party games, Mark is right, many are just too damn short and not worth pumping $50 into the system.

1st party games are great. Shigeru is in it to make people want to play it, not make a buck. Forget Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo will prevail..I hope.
 

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