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seamus_aran

Nintendo Gamecube; My take upon the console

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The Nintendo Gamecube. It is October 2000 and the penultimate Spaceworld that we have seen is taking place. Shown to the public are the purple Cube and the white (with florescent buttons) Game Boy Advance. Nearly six years later we are about to say goodbye to what many consider to be the worst Nintendo console ever produced. But was it really that bad? Or are we just being dismissive of the Cube’s achievements because of the achievements of the competition.

 

Lets face it. Sony has revolutionised the industry in a way that hadn’t been seen since Nintendo entered in the 80’s. They bought in the CD-media for use with their consoles, they pushed the DVD format into a hundred million houses and most importantly to them they made gaming cool.

 

Microsoft did what no other company could do; they crafted out a fan base in the fiercest industry in the world. The Xbox was never meant to overshadow the Playstation 2, it was meant to give them an established foothold in the market for them to build on with its successors.

 

Now cast your mind back five years and you will remember the problems that hounded the Nintendo 64. Lack of third party support, stupidly expensive cartridges, a lack of certain genres on the system and a lack of any multimedia formats. Many people only had enough money for one console and against the ability to play the new format CD’s Nintendo was never going to win.

 

In those short five years since its launch Nintendo have solved many problems and encountered few others. At the beginning of the Cube’s life it looked like Nintendo were heading in the same direction as the Nintendo 64 – failure and I, along with many Nintendo fans forgot about their Gamecube and Game Boy for many months.

 

Then something happened. An event that younger gamers wouldn’t usually attribute to a major shift in the direction of a company. Satoru Iwata took charge at Nintendo, attempting to save the flailing Game Boy and the eyesore that was the Game Cube.

 

Within months of being installed he fixed the Game Boy’s image. He made it cool for adults and children alike to have. In early 2003 the SP was released to much healthier figures than the Advance had ever received. Mario Kart Double Dash was released and a platinum Gamecube hit the market – a Gamecube that arguably became the face of Nintendo’s marketing campaign. Iwata changed too major flaws that appeared to be pushing Nintendo in the direction of catastrophe.

 

The Gamecube at this time was slowing down already; third parties were dropping it faster than many of us could have imagined. The exact same thing that had happened to the N64 was beginning but it seemed to be happening a hell of a lot sooner than in the 64’s days.

 

While we cannot be sure we can speculate as to what Iwata did to ensure that the Gamecube got regular exclusive and most importantly top quality third party games on it. In the two years that followed we got games that – though not all stayed exclusive – certainly helped the console flourish. Tales of Symphonia, Metal Gear Solid¸ Resident Evil 4, F Zero GX, the slew of Capcom exclusives (including Viewtiful Joe), Soul Calibur (it sold so dam well I thought I’d include it) and Final Fantasy. A drought of RPG’s suddenly wasn’t a problem (with Fire Emblem and Paper Mario to add to the list already established there) and the Gamecube’s across the land weren’t covered in dust anymore; they were being played to death.

 

Although we were destined to not be short of games during the Gamecube’s life many felt this would be the case with Rare being sold off. A company who had produced many of Nintendo’s more adult content had suddenly disappeared. However in my opinion Nintendo were right; they weren’t as economically viable as before and what good is a name if the games aren’t up to par. Even Yamauchi would agree with that premise. One thing that does seem to have been solved is the “adult support†from Nintendo. Yes, you are all probably aware that I was about to make the link between Rareware and Retro Studio’s. Probably one of the last good things Yamauchi did, this flailing company were sorted out and went on to release what many consider two of the greatest games on the Nintendo Gamecube. What we may have lost (for $377 million) we gained in an extremely talented studio that will undoubtedly create many more classics in the future.

 

Though it appears that the Gamecube has solved all of Nintendo’s problems in truth it has not. They still have extremely poor advertising. They still have a kiddy image. And they still can’t attract Squaresoft to make a proper Final Fantasy for them. But hey. Their image is changing, as is their advertising approach. The Gamecube may have sold extremely poorly (only 4 million in Japan compared with 12 million on America) but that was arguably down to the approach Yamauchi took. We have Iwata to thank for the salvation of the Gamecube and the salvation of Nintendo.

 

Good times are just around the corner… stay patient…

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Hey, great post! I hope we see a lot more of you on the boards.

 

I said in a previous thread that Iwata has been changing things for the better.

Personally, i think things have improved since the N64 days. There's been better 3rd party support and there's been a bigger variety of games, imo.

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Good read, i've been thinking that too, Iwata has turned Nintendo around i mean just look at the press conferences we've had since he took the captains seat. He's a major figure in them, i don't think Yamauchi ever traveled to E3 never mind get on stage (i could be wrong but i'm certain i never seen him), plus i know he himself didn't actually play games himself, he just ran the company, so he prolly didn't know much about games either, Iwata though is a whole other character who knows what needs to be done for this industry and with Reggie now heading NoA the Wii era should be an interesting one.

 

...now if they could just find someone to take the helm at NoE and sort them out we'd be another giant step to Nintendo taking its crown back.

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Very good article, really enjoyed it. Takes quite a fresh approach at it - away from the games released.

I wasn't really following Nintendo's developement as a company until E³ 2004 but still I got the impression that Iwata changed many things for the better and I'm really surprised in how many games he's credited as executive producer.

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Very good article, really enjoyed it. Takes quite a fresh approach at it - away from the games released.

I wasn't really following Nintendo's developement as a company until E³ 2004 but still I got the impression that Iwata changed many things for the better and I'm really surprised in how many games he's credited as executive producer.

 

I believe he's credited on all Nintendo 1st party games as an Executive Producer by default for just being the President of the company.

 

Yamauchi was credited on all 1st party games when he was in charge and i doubt he had a hand in any

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Fact: Hiroshi Yamauchi was an evil man that never played a game in his life.

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"we are about to say goodbye to what many consider to be the worst Nintendo console ever produced". Many? I certainly didn't think it was the worst console they ever made. Of course, I am not everybody but still, many?

 

"Sony made gaming cool". No they made it seem cool. There is not, have never been, and will never be, anything cool about playing videogames. It is supposed to be fun. But it is still impressive that Sony made it seem cool to play games (on their consoles, of course).

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"we are about to say goodbye to what many consider to be the worst Nintendo console ever produced". Many? I certainly didn't think it was the worst console they ever made. Of course, I am not everybody but still, many?

 

I quite love my Cube as well but many compare it to the trend-setting N64 and the sublime SNES. While certainly not the worst around the Cube had a very hard reputation to live up to following these two critically acclaimed consoles. Many stopped buying Nintendo games after the SNES or N64 and didn't believe they were missing out witht he Gamecube

"Sony made gaming cool". No they made it seem cool.

Well now your just nitpicking. To the general consensus it was now all right to own a Playstation and you weren’t labelled a geek for owning a console.

 

The Virtual Boy? I'm pretty sure many have erased that fiasco from our minds.

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A nice opening post there seamus.

 

One thing thats stuck in my mind from it is what you said about Iwata becoming top man and the subsequent release of the GBA SP. I never thought that there was a connection between the two until now... the way you make it sound that Iwata took over and instantly began turning the tide and I think that the GBA is as good an example as any. I got my GBA when it came out, it was kinda biggish, a strange GameGear type shape and the screen could be difficult to see... being blinded by the gaming goodness I could get from it I overlooked these small problems. Then like you say came along the Iwata and the SP, I never drew that particular parallel before... but its a rather interesting one. Weve seen that Nintendo are adapting themselves with the super sleek Wii and the DS (both versions, I have no problems with the design of the original!) but to think that it began with the little SP is a bit of a weird thought for some reason. I like it though.

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Fact: Hiroshi Yamauchi was an evil man that never played a game in his life.

 

You are in fact correct, whether you realise it or not, Yamauchi never did play a video game in his life, and he was proud of it.

 

I would agree with nearly everything seamus_aran stated, except for the part about the Game Boy.

 

The Game Boy was never dwindling. In fact, one of the top new gadgets at the time (1999/2000) in Time was the next generation Game Boy, I think, although I can't find a link.

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I always found it a bit hypocritical when Yamauchi claimed to know what gamers wanted, even though he himself was not a gamer.

 

Personally, i'm glad we've got Iwata. I would even go as far to say that he has re-established Nintendo as a strong competitor in the gaming market. Nintendo were starting to dwindle (at least in the home console market) with Yamauchi.

Iwata is taking this company to new and exciting levels. Definitely what Nintendo needs.

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I always found it a bit hypocritical when Yamauchi claimed to know what gamers wanted, even though he himself was not a gamer.

 

Personally, i'm glad we've got Iwata. I would even go as far to say that he has re-established Nintendo as a strong competitor in the gaming market. Nintendo were starting to dwindle (at least in the home console market) with Yamauchi.

Iwata is taking this company to new and exciting levels. Definitely what Nintendo needs.

 

Absolutely, Yamauchi was a dictator, and he was using 30 year old tactics in an industry of modern aesthetics.

 

His pathetic claims that Mario would never be on a compact disc of any kind were so immature and poor.

 

Simple fact; solid state can't compete with optical media in terms of capacity and cost.

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Aye. The N64 carts were a massive drawback to developers. Did it also inflate the costs of games? I seem to remember N64 games being really expensive. We're talking £44.99 here. Have i got that right?

 

To be honest, Yamauchi was thinking about a market that doesn't change. A market where carts are ideal. The problem is that the market did change, and he didn't adapt. If i'm honest, he is responsible for the image of Nintendo being a "dinosaur" in the industry. While Sony was adapting and taking advantages of these changes, Nintendo remained stationary. I would say that it has only been in the last few years where they are beginning to get back to what they once were. The DS is, to me anyway, the re-birth of Nintendo.

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Aye the DS is a wonderful little machine... I think with looking at it we could even go as far as to say that Nintendo arent changing and adapting with the market, theyre changing and adapting the market. If you see what I mean.

 

As for the price of cartridges, £30 was an absolute bargain in the mid to late N64 days when at the beginning they were £50 - £60 and I even saw Turok 64 a few days after its launch at £70! An absolute joke yet somehow I still managed to build a great collection of N64 games... to take it back one more step, Im pretty sure that even Donkey Kong Country cost a similar price, but thats really stretching my memory... wasnt it £60?

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Japan have Iwata.

America have Reggie.

Who do Europe have? 'Master' Tim? Does anyone actually know who the President of NoE is?

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Who do Europe have? 'Master' Tim? Does anyone actually know who the President of NoE is?

 

That's actually, believe it or not, a more difficult question to answer than "what is the meaning of life?"

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Iwata seems a lot less arrogant than Yamauchi to me and he's brought some fresh ideas to the table, as the DS demonstrates. They still need to work on the "kiddy" image, the advertising, and get a few more third parties on board so there are less software droughts like Gamecube suffered.

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They dont have a kiddie image though...

 

Only you as the customer percieves that, and why? We play games for fun and entertainment.

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Well, i think they do have a 'kiddy image', but a lot of gamers or just people in the know understand that Nintendo makes games for everyone, and not just kids.

 

A lot of the general public and media interpret Nintendo as a kiddy console maker, and this was started by Sega in the megadrive era. It has stuck with them since then.

 

It's like labelling a game like Killer 7 "shallow violence". However, if you play the game, you know that there is a lot of meaning to the story and a lot of depth, etc. It's quite the same with Nintendo. While a lot of their games are bright and colourful, this is meant to symbolise fun and entertainment- not childish or kiddy.

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Hey, a post on here that doesn't suck :)

 

 

 

....heeeey. :p

 

I'm glad that they're pushing new ideas with the DS. If i'm honest, i didn't really enjoy the Gameboy advance that much. There weren't many games which attracted me to it. It sort of killed my love for handheld gaming.

The DS has pretty much got me back into gaming. I was starting to get bored of it. But now, we have new and interesting games and different ways to play. Games and non-games. It's all for the better, imo.

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Loved it :) Any chance we might see this on RE front page?

 

Mokong and I are working on that.

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I don't agree with some things. For starters, they don't have poor advertising. This has become a myth among gaming community, at the moment Nintendo has the best advertising af all 3 consoles. I love my GC and imo it's the best of this gen, they solved many mistakes and made some more, but Iwata is the best man I can think of to be in charge of Nintendo. Good post.

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