In Your own Opinion Was The Cube A Failure?

[JammyJu]

True dat, but 7 is one too many.

[Flaight]

I think that the Cube was a failure...

 

3) Nintendo milked its ageing franchises dry and bombarded us with sports games with Mario in such as Mario Football/Baseball/Tennis/Golf and etc.. 3rd parties would also just shove Mario into a game when porting games to the cube, like DDR Mario. We only got 1 real Mario game and dozens of rip offs. They turned Mario into a whore and milked us for everything we had.

4) Bongos....nuff said...There was a tonne of hype about an amazing Gamecube peripheral and we got some cheap plastic bongo drums... There are lots of fans of Donkey Konga, but im not one of them.

5) Animal Crossing: Nintendo being total idiots.

6) Mario Party 4,5,6,7....... Worse than EA.

 

I must totally, utterly and profoundly disagree with those points because:

 

3) "Milking" is such a negative perception and I find a bit of your personal distaste resulting in your misjudgement. Franchise, traditionally, do get used a lot to represent the company's products and you can interpret that as "milking", if you so wish. For instance, Lightsabre and Jedi Knights are "milked" by George Lucas, if you WANT to look at it that way. Does that make them necessarily bad? No.

 

The real question here is how that "milking" manifests in the product. Many manifested with great creativity, making room for exploration of what games can do even after 20 years of "milking" gaming ideas. Nintendo, Miyamoto in particular, is good at expanding on gameplaying ideas. So what if they use Mario & co as the skin to represent such endevour?

 

4) Bongos. It had positives, but lets just say it was a complete failure as that would satisfy your judgement. I'm afraid that sort of peripheral is a necessary sacrifice when you are trying to do something different. Virtual Gameboy is another example.

 

Again, the real question here is not so much about how Nintendo failed with a product, but how such failures manifest. Nintendo often tries things others don't, and thereby make a break thru in gaming. Other companies often copy Nintendo, safe in the knowledge that the idea works. But what if it doesn't work? Nintendo takes the blame. In reality, the bravery Nintendo shows in exploring different ideas is bound to result in some good AND bad outcomes.

 

Criticising the bad results is the same as denying the chance for creativity to flourish. Afterall, how can anyone make any progress if nobody tried anything different and risk failure? And what could we possibly achieve if we were afraid of failures?

 

5) I don't get your point at all. Can you expand on it a bit more?

 

6) Mario Party series was fun party game for a lot of people if you could provide that sort of environment. And most companies tend to have a few titles that goes on to create a pillar. I agree it went on a bit, but does that justify labelling it as the reason why Cube failed? That's rediculous. Talk about exaggeration.

 

================

 

All in all, the points raised (understandably) represent your personal frustration, but that is different from a more fundamental reasons why Cube "failed" (if you want to look at it that way). Everyone has niggling complaints about a console or a game, some unbearable. But don't let that take your eyes off a more fundamental error in market strategy. For more depth, please refer to my earlier post.

[seamus_aran]

To Nintendo the Gamecube was a complete and utter flop. They should be selling as many (if not more) Cube's in Japan as they do in America. Sales figures for America are somewhere in the 12million mark while about 4mil for other places. In that respect the Cube was a massive flop and if they had that market share in Japan as well as America they would have surpassed the Xbox.

 

Although for the consumer who got the console it hasn't been a flop. Many great new franchises, solved the lack of RPG's that dogged the N64 not to mention far better 3rd party relations which resulted in more games for us. The later Cube life was far better than the early Cube life (pre Iwata and post Iwata) but then again that can be said for the last few years.

 

An example would be how the SP came out a few months after Iwata took the Presidency, the Platinum Cube became (arguably) the main Cube they attempted to push ont he market... in my personal opinion we have Iwata to thaink for saving Nintendo and the revival the Cube got from 2003 onwards.

[Fierce_LiNk]

In my opinion, Iwata is the main reason why Nintendo are starting to gain popularity, once again. That man has been nothing short of a godsend since he arrived at Nintendo.

[Flaight]

In my opinion, Iwata is the main reason why Nintendo are starting to gain popularity, once again. That man has been nothing short of a godsend since he arrived at Nintendo.

You hit the proverbial nail on the head, as a reason why Nintendo is picking itself up. Good ideas need good guidance and execution by the top man, and I think Iwata has been the key. The others may be doing the hardwork, but in the end Iwata has to conduct them well and gel them together.

[ocelot]

I personally think that the reason everything went from great to crap with GC was because of Wii and DS.

Developing TWO new consoles takes up a lot of time, so the Cube was neglected. Shame.

 

Also, I work in a computer game shop, and the Cube has a huge second hand business. It seems that every second hand Cube game and console are snapped up almost immediatley.

 

Also the Cube sold 20 million consoles worldwide, that's 2 million less than xbox. And Resident Evil 4 sold 1.8 million copies on GC compared to 1.7 on ps2, so the console isn't as much as a failure as it seems, it's just in the second hand market and when a new game worth getting comes along, it's snapped up.

 

I predict that Super Paper Mario and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess will sell over 1 million copies each on Cube.

[Hellfire]

If GC was the exact same console with the same games, but in first place, people would say it rocked. First let's get this out of the way: people were expecting sequels to the 64 classics to be exactly the same, but at the same time revolutionary all over again. A gargatuan task if I might say.

I have +- 30 GC games and I love them all and there are still some to come. Not to mention TP (Wii/GC game, but still available to GC owners). The 3rd party support was better than N64s and there were lots of amazing games. Not to mention that it's the only console that shifted to CDs and managed to avoid loading times (at least for Nintendo games). It's without a shred of doubt my favourite console this gen and even though Yamauchi did some errors, Iwata is on the right track.

[*Dalco*]

i don't think it was tbh for the simple reason there are many games i still need to buy and play: Skies of Arcadia, MGS: Twin Snakes, Fire Emblem, Resi 4, Eternal Darkness, Killer 7 just to name a few.

[KKOB]

i dont think gamecube was a failure as it seems to have more great games that i will never sell than any other console (SNES excluded). i have 31 GC games ATM and im looking for abou 10 others i dont have yet like chibi robo and Odama (if i can fnd it cheap) and MGS:TS and Skies of Arcadia Legends (found it in GS the other day for 25 GBP was so gutted that i didnt have any spare mulah ) and a few others.

 

i think and feel GC was just a stop gap, a chance for nintendo to try things out and to build thrid party support. hopefully this ground work will pay of for Wii.

[Nick]

The GameCube was anything but a failure. Why must a console all of a sudden sell over 50 million units to be successful? If any console was a failure this generation, it was the Dreamcast.

 

The GameCube did so many things for Nintendo. While I will admit it appeared as a generation step I think, all they needed was a source of income in preparation for this upcoming generation. However, they managed extremely well, and delivered.

 

The GameCube provided a gate for Retro to truly be recognised. More Japanese companies supported the console than they did the Nintendo 64 and it only sold 10 million less than the Nintendo 64. Capcom released a plethora of titles. They never released so many titles of such high standard on the Nintendo 64.

 

After the abomination Nintendo made of themselves with third party relations on the Nintendo 64, and their attempt to make elitist pigs of themselves by having a ‘dream team’, they have repaired much of what was lost. Nintendo has, it appears, been finally forgiven for backstabbing Sony (a Japanese company) and running off into the sunset with Philips (a non Japanese company), something unforgivable in Japanese business.

 

Nintendo has built strong relationships with Japanese third parties (Konami, Namco, Capcom, Camelot, Bandai), something it distanced itself from in the Nintendo 64 realm. As a result, we got a taste of Tales of Symphonia, an excellent RPG, along with Baten Kaitos, Viewtiful Joe, Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 0, the complete series ported. We also got Link in Soulcalibur, and despite whether you call it whoring or whatever, it really gave that nostalgic Nintendo feel. Donkey Konga, too, was a great thing for Nintendo and Namco to produce. Despite what people have said, the Bongos were not the secret peripheral…

 

One of the strongest relationships, and in my opinion, a very important one, that Nintendo has developed, is that with Sega. Not only are Nintendo’s consoles the home of Sonic, we got a brilliant edition of F-Zero. This from what was Nintendo’s arch rival, is something spectacular.

 

Then there is Square-Enix. Whether you like their games or not, I don’t think people appreciate enough the importance and value of this rebirth of this relationship. Nintendo and Square-Enix, or Squaresoft, as it was in those days, were literally at arms with each other. The war of words was frightening. Square was disgusted that Nintendo was being so stubborn and when with a solid media rather than an optical one. Yamauchi couldn’t believe Square’s arrogance (how hypocritical) and publicly declared Nintendo didn’t need Final Fantasy to survive (maybe so, but it certainly wouldn’t have hurt).

 

Now, after they kissed up and made buddies for the development of Crystal Chronicles (funded by Nintendo, developed by Square (The Game Designer’s Studio is just a company on paper…)), the game has done remarkably well for it’s hardware requirement. Now, Square-Enix can’t stop with the Nintendo love. Remakes for the GBA are all over the place, and finally, finally, the Western market is getting III, the proper III. What’s more is that it is in 3D, completely remade. As well as the various unknown DS projects, the won’t just be two Square-Enix titles very early on in the Wii’s timeline, one, and possibly two, will be launch titles. That is a monumental event.

 

Nintendo also got the opportunity to get rid of some dead weight. They knew long before us that Rare had lost their charm. Grabbed by the Ghoulies was nothing spectacular, Perfect Dark Zero was shredded to pieces, while Kameo lacked the finishing polish. I must admit, I found Donkey Kong 64 tedious and ridiculously weighed down with pathetic side quests.

 

Although Silicon Knights was an excellent second party, if developers aren’t going to like who they’re working for, then why bother? The games will be crap. They did the right think, and Retro has been a good substitute.

 

All this, and they still managed to produce a profit taking console, and release games like Super Mario Sunshine, The Wind Waker, Super Smash Bros., Four Swords, Pikmin, Paper Mario, Super Paper Mario and Twilight Princess (it’s still a GCN title too). That’s two AAA titles from Nintendo, themselves, for each year they have had the console released, all the while having R&D develop not only a new home console, but Mario Galaxy (been in development since before GCN released), a variety of unspecified projects, a new handheld and the next Game Boy.

 

The GameCube was not a failure. It still manages to be on shop shelves here, in Australia, Nintendo’s worst market in the world. People just don’t appreciate Nintendo for what they do, have been doing, and continue to do into the future.

 

They’re not perfect, they’ve made a great many amount of mistakes, but they are doing pretty well, and the GameCube was one of those things.

[Blue_Ninja0]

In my opinion, Iwata is the main reason why Nintendo are starting to gain popularity, once again. That man has been nothing short of a godsend since he arrived at Nintendo.

 

I have to agree, Iwata has been doing a great job.

 

As for GC, i think it was a failure sales and reputation wise (since it's still teh kiddie). But for the gamer absolutely not, we have great top-quality games in it like MP1 and 2, WW, RE4, SSBM, F-Zero, TS. To name just a few, these are reason alone to buy a GC.

[Fierce_LiNk]

The GameCube was anything but a failure. Why must a console all of a sudden sell over 50 million units to be successful? If any console was a failure this generation, it was the Dreamcast.

 

The GameCube did so many things for Nintendo. While I will admit it appeared as a generation step I think, all they needed was a source of income in preparation for this upcoming generation. However, they managed extremely well, and delivered.

 

The GameCube provided a gate for Retro to truly be recognised. More Japanese companies supported the console than they did the Nintendo 64 and it only sold 10 million less than the Nintendo 64. Capcom released a plethora of titles. They never released so many titles of such high standard on the Nintendo 64.

 

After the abomination Nintendo made of themselves with third party relations on the Nintendo 64, and their attempt to make elitist pigs of themselves by having a ‘dream team’, they have repaired much of what was lost. Nintendo has, it appears, been finally forgiven for backstabbing Sony (a Japanese company) and running off into the sunset with Philips (a non Japanese company), something unforgivable in Japanese business.

 

Nintendo has built strong relationships with Japanese third parties (Konami, Namco, Capcom, Camelot, Bandai), something it distanced itself from in the Nintendo 64 realm. As a result, we got a taste of Tales of Symphonia, an excellent RPG, along with Baten Kaitos, Viewtiful Joe, Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 0, the complete series ported. We also got Link in Soulcalibur, and despite whether you call it whoring or whatever, it really gave that nostalgic Nintendo feel. Donkey Konga, too, was a great thing for Nintendo and Namco to produce. Despite what people have said, the Bongos were not the secret peripheral…

 

One of the strongest relationships, and in my opinion, a very important one, that Nintendo has developed, is that with Sega. Not only are Nintendo’s consoles the home of Sonic, we got a brilliant edition of F-Zero. This from what was Nintendo’s arch rival, is something spectacular.

 

Then there is Square-Enix. Whether you like their games or not, I don’t think people appreciate enough the importance and value of this rebirth of this relationship. Nintendo and Square-Enix, or Squaresoft, as it was in those days, were literally at arms with each other. The war of words was frightening. Square was disgusted that Nintendo was being so stubborn and when with a solid media rather than an optical one. Yamauchi couldn’t believe Square’s arrogance (how hypocritical) and publicly declared Nintendo didn’t need Final Fantasy to survive (maybe so, but it certainly wouldn’t have hurt).

 

Now, after they kissed up and made buddies for the development of Crystal Chronicles (funded by Nintendo, developed by Square (The Game Designer’s Studio is just a company on paper…)), the game has done remarkably well for it’s hardware requirement. Now, Square-Enix can’t stop with the Nintendo love. Remakes for the GBA are all over the place, and finally, finally, the Western market is getting III, the proper III. What’s more is that it is in 3D, completely remade. As well as the various unknown DS projects, the won’t just be two Square-Enix titles very early on in the Wii’s timeline, one, and possibly two, will be launch titles. That is a monumental event.

 

Nintendo also got the opportunity to get rid of some dead weight. They knew long before us that Rare had lost their charm. Grabbed by the Ghoulies was nothing spectacular, Perfect Dark Zero was shredded to pieces, while Kameo lacked the finishing polish. I must admit, I found Donkey Kong 64 tedious and ridiculously weighed down with pathetic side quests.

 

Although Silicon Knights was an excellent second party, if developers aren’t going to like who they’re working for, then why bother? The games will be crap. They did the right think, and Retro has been a good substitute.

 

All this, and they still managed to produce a profit taking console, and release games like Super Mario Sunshine, The Wind Waker, Super Smash Bros., Four Swords, Pikmin, Paper Mario, Super Paper Mario and Twilight Princess (it’s still a GCN title too). That’s two AAA titles from Nintendo, themselves, for each year they have had the console released, all the while having R&D develop not only a new home console, but Mario Galaxy (been in development since before GCN released), a variety of unspecified projects, a new handheld and the next Game Boy.

 

The GameCube was not a failure. It still manages to be on shop shelves here, in Australia, Nintendo’s worst market in the world. People just don’t appreciate Nintendo for what they do, have been doing, and continue to do into the future.

 

They’re not perfect, they’ve made a great many amount of mistakes, but they are doing pretty well, and the GameCube was one of those things.

 

 

That has got to be one of the best posts i've seen on this forum for a long, long time.

[darksnowman]

That has got to be one of the best posts i've seen on this forum for a long, long time.

 

And I cant believe you quoted it all just to say that! But yes, a great post that I enjoyed reading there now.

 

I dont know what to say in this thread that hasnt already been said from the start. GameCube: failure or success? Clearly its a bit of both depending on what way we want to look at it. If you compare the amount its sold to t'other two consoles then its been a failure... if you look at how much its sold and still been turning a profit then its been a success. If you compare the amount of games on it to the other consoles, its been a failure... if you'd rather look at it in terms of quality over quantity then its been a raging success.

 

For me its been (typically) a success. I own some of the greatest games available at the minute and probably some of the greatest most fun games of all time. The only thing that its really lacked has been the freshness brought by the N64 and it being the first leap to 3-D... but GameCube games look fantastic without doubt, its just when you get down to it the gameplays been similar. For example, in my opinion, not even Timesplitters was able to capture me like GoldenEye and Duke Nukem 64. Why? Because I didnt like the dual analogue and prefere still the set up on the N64 of using the control stick to look and the C buttons to move... so that would be my main gripe.

However, to counter that and to look at it in another way is that its offered quite some different style of games purely because Ive branched out into some different genres (for example: Splinter Cell, Fire Emblem and the few but still high quality RPGs that didnt appear on the N64).

 

All in all then, I'd say its a success, all you have to do is wise up and look past this kiddy exterior and get yourself into the games and its plain for all to see.

 

One last word, I too still have games I want to buy for GameCube and I think thats testament to how its still managing to hold its audience.

[dannbrownn]

If you are looking at sales alone it was a spectacular failure, but if you believe in quality games and nintendo magic then it was a great success with lots of quality titles that fetched joy to millions!

[Fierce_LiNk]

And I cant believe you quoted it all just to say that! But yes, a great post that I enjoyed reading there now.

 

 

Haha, yeah! I have absolutely no idea why i quoted it all. Still, awesome.

 

I'm trying to think when exactly the cube sales started to decline. I think the Xbox price drop helped a lot in the matter.

[immy]

If you are looking at sales alone it was a spectacular failure, but if you believe in quality games and nintendo magic then it was a great success with lots of quality titles that fetched joy to millions!

 

 

Yeah exactly I mean I have 35+ games for my gc and I enjoy the consle very much, personally thats enough for me.

[Pizza]

It's not a failure- all of us are posting because we owned it, and we all liked it. It worked for the consumer, it made a profit- therefore its a success.

 

It was not, however, anything like as successful as the ps2 or (depending on how you look at it) the xbox.

 

Sure, there could have been a few imprevements to the cube. Too many mario sports games isn't wonderful, but plonking him into random games like ssx or ddr is just annoying. Putting the z button under the trigger would have made life so much nicer. They were right to ignore online though. This is all minor stuff though.

 

What does bug me is that the cube could probably have been much more successful if it had invested in better aesthetics, redesigns (think slim PS2) and above all marketing. It's sickening to think that something as worthless to gamers as advertising has given the PS2 such a majority.

[Stocka]

Just thought, it's been over 4 years since the Cube launched and its still got big games coming. Not really a failure when you look at it like that...

[JammyJu]

I guess its not a failure seeing as MS and Sony lost a gajillion on there consoles while Nintendo actually made a profit.

[Jimbob]

The GC was both a failure and a success.

 

The failure bits were

 

• Allowing games developers to slip away without any fight to keep them
  
• Not advertsing properly for the GC
  
• Showing the cel shaded Zelda before console launch
  
• Acting all kiddy towards "adult" games, not allowing them to be developed
  
• Making too many Mario sport themed games (Kart, Tennis and Golf were enough)
  

 

And now for the success bits

 

• Games like Wind Waker, Metroid Prime and Smash Brothers: Melee sold by the bucket load
  
• Advertising did happen a couple of times on TV (pity it was on a kids channel)
  
• Metal Gear Solid was made for the GC, sold well
  

 

Next Gen, here is hopin that Ninty don't make the same errors as before. They are learning with the DS, advertisin it well.

[Helmsly]

I think also not making a full proper pokemon game for the cube was just plain crazy. There really was no good reason not to have a full 3D pokemon rpg and the GBA connect thing would of been perfect for it.

 

But no...better to release a mario party game every year isnt it?

[Blue_Ninja0]

That's where the income is, unfortunately.

[Atomic Boo]

Theres no way the Cube has been a failure. The amount of content and effort and gameplay of paper mario TTYD and the brilliance of the prime series. Its reason enough to own a Cube

[Luigi]

Not at all. Sales don't matter...the only thing that matters is whether I like(d) it or not. Even if I was the only person on earth that purchased a Cube, I wouldn't think it was a failure because I thouroughly enjoyed the system. Without the cube, I'd have never played games like RE4, TWW, Fire Emblem: PoR, Metroid Prime, Tales of Symphonia, Skies of Arcadia, and plenty of other amazing games.

[K-project]

I suppose "failure" is one way of looking at the GC's (mis)fortune's. But for me a better way perhaps of looking at it is the Gamecube was never quite what it should've been.

 

For me the biggest problem by far was Nintendo's inability to get the Japanese gamer on board. Sony with it's PS2 secured all the best licenses, such as PES and FF etc, leaving the GC catalogue looking thin in comparison. Once the Japanese decided they were buying Sony, it meant Nintendo were going to struggle on the software front, with only really their firstparty titles left to make the sell.

 

Pity really, and I do hope though, that the Wii doesn't suffer the same fate. I'd love to see a Wii PES or Katamari. Maybe if the Japanese public take to it, it'll happen.