my little cousins have animal crossing, and that game looks hella boring. They let me play it for a little while, and I still have no clue what I am doing. If I actually got a chance to play it, I know I would enjoy it. I think
i dunt think nintendo will stop making systems n join microsoft becuz its a japan vs america thing, i grew up playing nintendo n i wish it never die
WRONG! There is WAY too much money to be made with minimal R&D costs. Nintendo has been good at making sound business decisions. That won't stop should they decide to stop making hardware one day. They wouldn't go Xbox exclusive...but they would cross-platform to increase their profit. Not going to happen. Even if Nintendo made the best effort possible, they will not be successful in that endeavor. The game developers want to develop for the most powerful systems technologically because it allows them to create better games and push the proverbial envelope. As long as Nintendo makes a technologically inferior product, they will not do well in luring developers away from Sony and Microsoft.
Just wanted to say that this statement is simply not true. Technically, Nintendo's systems have always been on par with the competition. Many places have the Cube ranked well ahead of PS2 in the department. The only real mistake they made with regard to hardware was with the N64 when they refused to go to a CD format for their games. Like someone else said, Nintendo's main problem has been with securing quality 3rd party developers. The hardware is fine.
Also, I've read in various places that out of the big 3 systems, the PS2 is the most difficult to develop games for due to poor system architecture and other factors (DaDakota may know more about this...).
All the product comparisons I have read in magazines have stated that the GameCube is inferior in terms of processing power, etc.
People develop for the PS2 because it has the largest userbase, about 24 million more than GC or Xbox, therefore they can maximize sales. The only way Microsoft has been able to get good third party support is by offering them money or buying them outright. If you look at the best the GameCube has to offer it is as good as if not better than anything their competitors have out.
I've never played AC, but yeah, it seems like the kind of game where it may take some time to get a good feel for it. Ref: In terms of them being profitable, yes they have made sound business decisions. One of the main driving philosophies behind GameCube's R&D was to release it with a nice, low price (namely $199). In order to accomplish this, the system was designed in such a way such that the cost to manufacture a unit was nice and low. Also, the GC's parts were proprietary (as opposed to Xbox, where many of it's parts are off the shelf) making it easier for Nintendo to control and lower the system's manufacturing costs over time. Thus, Nintendo lost very little money per unit sold at launch, and now isn't losing any. And then there's the Cube software where they are making loads of money, despite it being outsold by PS2 and to a lesser extent Xbox software. But in terms of their competition and other things, their decisions haven't been quite as sound lately. They've been making good business decisions back in the NES and SNES days. Back then they were the market leader. Then came the N64 and their decision to stay with the cartridge format, which was not a smart move. Nintendo's argument for sticking to the cartridge format was basically this: "almost no load times and cartridges are much more durable than CDs" Well that's true, but not good enough to offset the advantages that CDs have. CDs have WAY more storage capacity and they're a lot cheaper to mass-produce. Load times can be minimized with efficient programming by developers (e.g. pack game data tightly on the disc to reduce seek time by the laser). I'll also add that Nintendo's licensing fees were quite a bit higher than Sony's. All of this led to N64 games generally being priced higher than PlayStation games, especially at the beginning of the 32/64-bit generation. Other mistakes by Nintendo back then included them basically not caring about third parties, figuring that the N64 would sell and be #1 just on first and second-party software alone. Whereas Sony catered to third parties much more aggressively. Thus, many third parties flocked to the PSX, resulting in a much bigger library including key games such as Final Fantasy VII, Tekken 3 and Metal Gear Solid, whereas it was not that unusual to see only 1 to 3 new N64 games released per month. This caught the attention of the mainstream audience, including people who have never owned a game console before (I'm referring to both kids and adults). And a fair number of people gave up on the N64 in favor of PSX just because it had many more games. Thus, the PSX pretty much dominated the N64, although the N64 still did well thanks to huge successes like Mario 64, GoldenEye and Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Lack of 3rd party support on the N64 was probably Nintendo's biggest error last gen. I think the big N was arrogant and underestimated Sony. Nintendo did some things right back then which Sony didn't; the most notable being having 4 controller ports on the console. That combined with games like GoldenEye made the N64 the "party" machine of choice. Now on to the current generation and the GC. Nintendo corrected some of their problems, but not all, and made some new mistakes. For one thing, their GameCube advertising, especially their TV commercials, have not been all that good. Either they show too much motion-captured material and not enough gameplay, or they portray the wrong image or get the wrong message across. I think the best example of a poor GC game commercial is Mario Sunshine's. They have improved their 3rd party relations somewhat, getting the Resident Evil franchise exclusive and getting Square back on board. But Nintendo should court 3rd party devs just as much as Sony/Microsoft. They have significantly relaxed their censorship policies, which is good. Nowadays Sony is more censor-happy than Nintendo. Nintendo has done a better job of getting some mature games on the GC in the hope of capturing older gamers...but this is offset by some of their flagship GC games, as well as the console and controller itself, looking "childish" to some people. Thus the perception by the mainstream audience that "Nintendo is for kids" still persists. Not to mention that the PS2 and Xbox still have a greater selection of games geared towards the older gamer, as well as additional capabilities such as DVD playback. As much as Nintendo wants people to feel otherwise, it is no longer "all about the games" in today's video game industry. On the positive side, Nintendo recently announced a "get a game free when you purchase the console" deal. The free game can be one of the following: Metroid Prime, Star Fox Adventures, Resident Evil (I think), Mario Party 4. Also, Zelda: The Wind Waker preorders seem to be very strong, no doubt partially due to the bonus Ocarina of Time disc. Despite its "toon-shaded" look, I think that game will be a tremendous success here in the States. Hopefully Nintendo is finally realizing that they have an uphill climb and must be more proactive. Let's also not forget about the Game Boy Advance. Nintendo is dominant when it comes to portables; much of their money comes from GBA HW and SW sales. I don't see that changing anytime soon, even though a Sony handheld is in the works. Hypothetically speaking, if Nintendo was to leave the console hardware business (which of course ain't going to happen anytime soon), I would think that they would either go Sony-exclusive or like you said go cross-platform (a la Sega). If Nintendo were to go cross-platform, then they would have to be smart about which games to make multiplatform, and which games to make exclusive (and which console to put them on). Sega has done poorly in this regard so far. Going cross-platform also splits up your current fanbase (not all of them can afford multiple consoles). So, to summarize, I agree Nintendo is smart when it comes to profit, and that's what they care about the most. The reason why Nintendo is more cautious than Sony or MS about entering the online gaming fray is due to whether it will be profitable or not. On the other hand, the company isn't quite as sharp when it comes to their competition, the mainstream's perception of them, and what the public wants. All of that matters too. The industry has changed quite a bit over the past 3-5 years, and Nintendo has some catching up to do. Not necessarily, for the reasons fadeaway and DrLudicrous mentioned. The Xbox is the most powerful console this gen, while the PS2 is the least and GC in-between. So why are the majority of developers putting the majority of their games on the PS2 and not the Xbox? The answer is that the PS2's installed userbase is MUCH bigger than Xbox and GameCube combined. Each month, the PS2 outsells the Xbox and the GC combined in the States and many other countries (i.e. Japan, most European countries). Bigger userbase == better chance of larger sales, leading to more money in the developer and publisher's pocket. Much the PS2 userbase was established based on Sony's mindshare during the era of the first PlayStation (PSX). Naturally, PSX owners in the market for a new, current generation console are more likely to buy the PS2 than other consoles. The name "PlayStation" has become pretty much a household name these days. And the PSX userbase wasn't built because it was the most powerful console (in fact, the N64 was more powerful), but because it had a much larger selection and variety of games. Other factors such as demographics/audience may be taken into consideration when deciding which game to put on what system (of course, this usually excludes multiplatform games). Game development is more expensive than ever these days. The shift to 3D along with more detailed graphics and visual effects are a couple of reasons for that. It is not unusual for the development of a game to cost well over a million dollars. Thus it is more difficult to turn a profit on a game. This is why many devs, particularly smaller devs, will put the bulk of their games on the PS2, forgoing the fact that the PS2 is a difficult-to-develop-for machine and the least powerful console. The PS2 gives them the best chance for their games to be successful. Although the counter-argument could be made that the PS2 having the biggest game library could actually make it harder for a particular game to receive sufficient exposure. Of course, there are exceptions, depending on the developer. For instance, some developers, particularly PC devs, prefer developing for the Xbox because its internal architecture is similar to a PC. Some other companies, such as Electronic Arts, support all three consoles fairly equally. There probably ARE devs out there who prefer the most powerful console, but they are in the minority. How powerful a console is relative to other consoles can be used for advertising purposes to help promote and ultimately sell the console, which is what Microsoft did with some success leading up to the Xbox launch. But for the most part, the popularity and userbase of a console is far more important than how powerful it is. Finally, the GameCube is not the most technologically inferior machine (the same holds true for previous Nintendo consoles, like fadeaway said). The 6-12 million polygons/sec that was on the GC's spec sheet was conservative, and more importantly referred to a realistic, in-game number (that is, with visual effects, A.I., physics, etc. all going on at the same time) whereas the much higher million polys/sec numbers Sony and MS reported were raw numbers (that is, with no additional stuff going on). Including various effects/stuff lowers the poly count since that stuff requires CPU and in some cases GPU (graphics processor) clock cycles...and every single game has some sort of effects going on. Anyway, I'm not aware of a game on PS2 that looks just as good (technically speaking) as Star Fox Adventures, Rogue Leader or Metroid Prime. Artistically speaking, that's another story, and largely boils down to personal opinion. In general though, there isn't all that much difference in the graphical quality of the games on the consoles. Each console has their standouts and their duds. How talented a development team's programmers and artists are can make a big difference.
I have both PS2 and Xbox, i dont plan on getting a Gamecube, because the games are just to kiddy for me, and i heard there online thing for Gamecube sucks, I mean the mario games i have grown out of, animal crossing doesnt sound to exciting to me, resident evil i could possibly get into, metroid i could possibly like but most likely wouldnt get. The games i have are: PS2: Madden 2003 GTA3 State of Emergency NBA Live 2003 NBA Street Xbox: MechAssault (just got it last night) Halo Splinter Cell Bundle games(whatever they are, they suck!)
That's your best post ever! I owned every Nintendo up until N64, then I stopped liking them. They need to come out with a new Mario game that is like the original, I would buy a Gamecube just for that. I still have a SuperNES and I play it all the time (Sim City, Super Mario World, Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball, Aerobiz.) I am looking for NBA Live 95, that was the best. I think the number of games for XBOX is going to skyrocket this year. PS2 owns the market because they came out first. If all three launch a new console at the same time, the sales will be much closer, with Sony still leading just because everyone will want to have the ability to play their old PS1/2 games. I really haven't been playing my games to much lately, waiting for Halo2.
I have a cd for my computer that has almost every SNES game on it, it has a Emulator to play all the games on it got it from a friend its sweet, it has all NBA Lives on it from the SNES, its freaking sweet! Somw of the games on there i had no idea that came out for SNES.
The U.S. is the market the world pays attention to. The PS2 and XBox are absolutely burying Nintendo in U.S. sales because our market here is primarily geared towards 17-30 year old males. Needless to say for most people in that category kids games don't fall into the entertainment category. Especially with xbox and ps2 putting out such titles as Splinter Cell and Grand Theft Auto:Vice City. Nintendo can't compete in the us market.
Which market do you all think is the more important:The younger kids or the older gamers? Sure, there are probably more kids who still actively play video games, but the older gamers are the ones who actually have their own money to spend on these systems/games.
The initial topic was based on a rumor that Nintendo wouldn't design their next console but rather a consortium of companies like NEC and Panasonic. Nintendo would then design exclusive content on the console. Nintendo has no intention of leaving the console industry. Nintendo has a 5 billion dollar warchest from the days of the N64 and Pokemon. Console makers generate revenue by royalties and Nintendo's higher royalties have been a sticking point since the NES. The prevailing business model for consoles is like the razor. Sell the razor cheap but make money off the blades. The elegant design of the Gamecube makes it cheap and efficient without sacrificing too much. It is graphically better than the PS2 on average. Nintendo has a stigma of being kiddy. Third parties would greatly help this, but GC owners haven't been big spenders on third party wares. It's become a chicken or the egg problem. Nintendo lost the Christmas season by virtue of Microsoft's aggressive loss producing stance of bundling 2 games with their Xbox. Nintendo still generated a profit from their software and hardware sales, something MS can't boast. Nintendo is still one of the most profitable companies in Japan. Their practices are conservative for a reason.... Microsoft is expected to lose between 3-4 billion during the run of the Xbox (their numbers). Their aggressive marketing and sales prices is only to produce brand recognition for the sector when their "set top box" comes out as the Xbox 2. Great post. It's pretty long, but you illuminated many points nicely.
Metroid is one of the greatest games ever created. That being said, XBOX is the 'pop culture' machine. As long as it keeps getting mentioned in rap songs and they keep pumping out cool commercials, they'll have the general public right where they want them. Props to Microsoft for the business strategy; it's working. ...of course, it is also very necessary. It goes without saying that Halo is a great game. And XBOX Live is top in the online console category. (Although us PC folk aren't all that floored since we've been in that playground for some time.) But beyond that...well, really, what puts XBOX so far above the rest? The processing power of the machine is technically better, but games like Metroid - and several PS2 games - show that the gap in processing and graphics isn't as large as it might seem. Honestly, if you are talking about games (which is the point, right?) then the PS2 library alone makes it a much better pick than the Box. If it wasn't for the marketing $$$, the XBOX would be in a bad way. A strong console is nice, but if the games aren't there it doesn't matter. A powerful system, with few games, has cost other would be console-makers before. Luckily for Microsoft, they've managed to wrangle in the casual game player to keep them on top of the game.
Nintendo will die eventually. They have failed to reach out to the BIG video game market which is males from age 15-30. They have the small market, of 5-10 year olds.
