What could have been done to help GC sales?

[david.dakota]

There were N64-style games droughts - only not as bad.

 

The design was frankly rubbish, but then so was the rest of this generation. The handle was ilconceived, despite Nintendo's insistence that they HAD researched this, and people DO move their consoles. The cube shape didnt help. Bright big buttons were extremely funtional, yes, but also looked very toy-like compared to Xbox.

 

Nintendo had the strongest launch line up of the generation, but somehow, it failed was perceived poorly against the immediate competition of Xbox.

 

Poor communication. Metroid sold well, but didn't seem to shift extra 'Cubes. Same with Resident Evil and more. Nintendo failed to communicate the message. Nintendo also failed to properly present some classic games - Pikmin, Eternal Darkness remain unnoticed to the majority.

 

I don't think and online service would have helped. Nintendo's WiFi connection (which has the benefit of hindsight) still lacks compared to Live.

 

Looking desperate. Over the past year or so, we've seen Mario plonked in everything - and may the market isn't as gullible this.

 

Killer apps came far too late.

 

Despite all these points, and more being raised in this thread, I don't think Nintendo Gamecube was the failure some say it is. It had some classic games, and thats what counts for me.

[Jimbob]

Lets see:

 

Nintendo should have carried on advertising using similar adverts like the ones used at the beginning of the GC life, advertising games like Rouge Leader and Melee sold these by the bucket load.

 

They really ought to have advertised games like Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, Pikmen, Hitman 2 (it was a GC game) and Metal Gear Solid. If advertising was kept up, sales of GC's and games would have been higher, then maybe games companies like Rare, Eidos, Capcom and EA would have made more games for the GC, or possibly stayed exclusive (Rare, Capcom) to Nintendo. If advertising was used more (even have demos of new games at stores more often), we would have seen sales of these games skyrocket.

 

More third party games would have been good, games like Tomb Raider (coming too late now), Far Cry and Hitman Blood money would have helped sell the console more. Less Mario themed games would have been great, they should have stopped at Tennis. More FPS, racing and fighting games would have been awesome. Less games like Woody Woodpecker (who gives a ****) and kiddy film franchise games would have helped sell the console more because no-one buys these games anyway (except mothers who want a cheap, easy game for the kids to play on)

 

Also, the colour choices of the GC being purple and black at launch wern't too good. Possibly it should have been black and silver at launch. Also maybe a choice of either having the Wavebird or standard GC controller bundled with the console along with game bundles like Metoid Prime 2: Echoes, Metal Gear Solid and Timesplitters.

 

The big thing that would have sold the GC well would have been ONLINE gaming. It was launched with PSO (thats when GC sales increased a bit due to the promise of online gaming), then it slipped and dissapeared into a hole. No-one who i now who has a GC has a GC modem. Online gaming made gamers buy an X-Box or a PS2 because the GC was not online.

 

Nintendo need to learn from these mistakes to make the Wii a good console to buy, they seemed to have learned with the DS, that is selling very well. With the launch of the DS lite (advertising well), this is one killer handheld (same can't be said about the GBA sadly)

[OVERLORD]

Let's just hope Wii isn't region locked like GC.

 

One big problem GC had especially in UK was Nintendo Europe itself! For one, NE blaming importers for it's inability to supply demand or even maintain sufficient output was a sore point having likened importers activities to criminals. Even criminalising import retailers by threatening legal action. This didn't help peoples perception of NE and didn't improve matters.

 

NE made situation in UK even worst by effectively starving us of games for excessive periods. Too many barren periods in between game releases. Our gaming appetite lay unnourished. Some would not eat the fruits of NE's labour having been mal-nourished for so long. Even the the likes of Capcom, Rare, Silicon Knights & Factor5 lost faith & couldn't successfully translate critical acclaim to successful sales.

 

GC owners suffered even further indignation of poor 3rd party support even when 3rd parties like Konami could bother to show up for the party, by suffering further alienation through not getting games like Winning Eleven for European regions! The natural home of Football!

 

No European release of games like these can only further erode confidence in a system. There probably were more Winning Eleven games imported into UK than some EA titles not worth mentioning in the same sentence

 

There are probably more Winning Eleven imports in UK than all of Fifa

released for GC combined.

 

And look @ the state of affairs when RE4 was released in Europe. Just another damning consequence of poor logistics. Many retailers having been poorly stocked ran out of copies in 1st couple of weeks! NE failed to quickly resupply the troops! Another failure!

 

While they failed to supply their core business partners. They failed to proactively target the family audiences they now seek who never venture into shops like Game. The likes of Tesco's & Argos have far more capacity and are far more influential. GC outselling PS2 and XBOX @ Argos due to heavy discounts. Who could resist when GC dropped below £80. I think I got 3 games to go with it as well. Bargain!

 

They could've marketed certain games more intelligently using other media like Cinema. A game like RE4 would've gone down a bomb on the big screen with right advertising They could've run trailer of RE4 before Resident Evil: Apocalypse. Something like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNvtHgDpW4I&search=re4. I know it's for PS2 but you get the picture. This could've had a postive impression on GC perception and lay to rest the kiddie remarks.

 

Even today a year old game like RE4 should be discounted used to satisfy new gamers.

 

Reggie needs to kick some serious butt over here before Wii's out