Topic: Gamecube four years on: Dissapointments

[RABicle]

Ok so more like 3 years and 51 weeks but whatever. Come back next week for the upbeat, happy version of this topic, undoubtedly without Ian.

ANYWAY

Since Microsoft seem intent on ending this generation a year early with their Xbox High Res™ I figure it's a good time to look back on the Gamecube up to now. Sure theres Zelda coming next year but we'll all be far too elated in the months following it's release to look at anything objectively. Not even Linkin Park could bring us down! Er what? Oh yeah Gamecube. Although I've had endless niggles, which I might get to later in a reply I've had four (4) big let downs with this console and I'm going to cry about them here. They are: online, third parties, market share and incomplete games.

Online
Ok so, Dreamcast showed us it was possible. PC online gaming was becoming commonplace and Nintendo announced two online adaptors. It was all looking very promising. People on IGN were creating Perfect Dark clans, F Zero racing leagues were discussed, MMORPG Pokemon was dreamed about. And what do we get? A crappy Dreamcast port hampered by exorbiant monthly fees and an almost concerted effort from Nintendo to destroy the chances of people obtaining the nessesary adaptors not to mention them maligning the entire concept of online gaming on monetary grounds. I was expecting a lot more and I've always been envious of Xbox Live.

Third Parties
These guys are fuckheads. Again it looked promising at first but it wasn't long before games began to be announced for PS2, Xbox and PC. While we are partly to blame because we refuse to buy their appaling games that sell so well on rival console, when they did bother putting the effort in we rewarded them in sales and what do we get? Oh yeah Nothing While PS2 and Xbox get to enjoy Burnout 3, or Pro Evolution Soccer or Soul Caliber 3. Ubi Soft, Acclaim and EA (to an extent) deserve the full fist for continuing supporting us and Nintendo.
Oh and while we laugh about it now, at the time losing Rare did hurt.

Market Share
**** we got demolished this time round. The Playstation juggernaught got stronger than we could possibly imagine. And while Microsoft may've lost billions of dollars on Xbox, they got what they wanted; our marketshare. Nintendo simply weren't persistent enough and couldn't drop the tiku tiku tiku!  tag as fast as they would've liked. While even without cult game turned biggest franchise in gaming (GTA) the PS2 would've still won this generation, Halo carried Xbox far further than it should've even been able to. It's hard to pin exactly where Xbox got the upper hand or all the factors involved but somehow we lost this.

Incomplete Games
I can forgive Luigi's Mansion, it needed to be there for launch. But Eternal Darkness, Zelda: Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine, Star Fox Adventures... What was going on? This isn't the Nintendo that polished and cherished it's games! Eternal Darkness dropped all the really amazing aspects that were planned. Wind Waker dropped countless dungeons and resorted to an elaborate treasure hunt to lengthen the game. Mario Sunshine dengrenated into a blue coin marathon. Star Fox just seemed to veer into a wall mid way through the game and never really recovered. The Gamecube library as a whole seems mared by rush jobs, half games and wasted potential.
Mind you, the games I mentioned all stomped weakness wherever it was found.

Ok I think I've wasted enough of your time now. Tell me what you were dissapointed with or any particular game that shamed it's legacy. Or tell me I'm a wanker.

[Mario]

Donkey Kong Racing! I was so pumped for that back in the day, the lie is still stained on my GC box. I wouldn't say i'm disappointed with online on the GC, but moreso online on this generation of consoles period. I guess it just wasn't the time yet.

I was initially disappointed with the way Nintendo advertised the GC, I believe it had MASSIVE potential and those 50 million consoles sold by 2005 estimates could have come true, but they made about a million little mistakes. However, once I realised the 50 million systems dream was over I got over it, they were still making great games so I didn't care. I think it made me a better person!

Disappointments... all the games lived up to my expectations except Pokemon Colloseum. Other than that it's been a wonderful ride, i'm looking forward to your happy thread.

[Bill Aurion]

Quote
Originally posted by: RABicle
Incomplete Games
I can forgive Luigi's Mansion, it needed to be there for launch. But Eternal Darkness, Zelda: Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine, Star Fox Adventures...

I'm disappointed that I'm going to have to jam my foot up your arse...

[RABicle]

Oh yeah Bill those games were complete. Hey I eman no one minded colelcting two seperate sets of red coins on some levels? nor did we mind that only 10 levels existed! Wow i dind't even mind that THIRTY GODDAMN SHINES WERE ONLY OBTAINABLE VIA BLUE COINS, BLUE COINS THAT ONLY APPEARED WHEN TRYING CERTAIN MISSIONS ON STAGES

[Bill Aurion]

That was sort of the point...

[couchmonkey]

Online - I somewhat agree.  I'm disappointed Nintendo didn't really go online, but I also didn't miss it much.

Third Parties - No way.  After the dismal N64, I believe third party support was improved greatly on the Cube.  It definitely still needs improving, but I think Nintendo has come a long way from the third party support it had five years ago.  I remember when there was literally one game being released each month for the N64.  This is way better than that.  I hope Nintendo improves support again next generation, but I'd be satisfied with equal support to the GameCube.

Market Share: You know, I often argue that Nintendo needs to do something about market share, and this is a minor disappointment.  However, looking at my GameCube library, I have to say, who gives a crap?  I had fun with it, and overall I'm satisfied, so I don't care about market share it.  I want to see Nintendo improve this in the future, but it doesn't matter to me that much as something the GameCube failed at.

Incomplete Games: I disagree on Eternal Darkness, but I agree that a lot of first-party titles have been incomplete in some sense, and I hope that changes.  To be fair, this is partially the price of getting games on time; just about the only first party game to be delayed significantly this generation is Twighlight Princess.  I also think Nintendo sees that people don't like this.  Look at games like Pikmin 2, Twighlight Princess, and Mario Kart DS: they're putting more effort in again.

As for my personal disappointments, I do miss Rare, and I still like to think they would have done more on Cube than they did on Xbox.  I generally think Nintendo has been letting go of second and third parties too easily, and it seems like the company let a lot of its exclusive deals like MGS: Twin Snakes go sour.

[RABicle]

Regarding Marketshare, I guess I've got a worse perspective living in Australia. Put it this way, to actually get to a store that sells Gamecube games I have to travel 50kms (40 minutes), to another city. And then the range they have instore is pathetic. It's essentially another $10 in fuel on top of my game purchase. This irritates me. If Nintendo's market share here was say, 20% even, I could walk to the nearest store and have a plethora of games to choose from.

[nemo_83]

Online:  It was disappointing, but it won't be until next gen that it really becomes a major issue as there will be more players online from the beginning where as with the Xbox Live right now you can sit for a while waiting to get a match going with enough strangers under rules you didn't even get to vote on and then they cheat or drop out half way through.

Nintendo does seem to be trying to ensure there are more people online next gen by attempting to offer the service free, but I have my doubts.  Nintendo is going to allow third parties to charge to play their games online which means noone is going to pay to play those third party games which means no third parties are going to do online on Revolution unless Nintendo starts slapping some faces.  I believe if Nintendo can make their Revolution games free online then so should SquarEnix, Blizzard, EA, etc.  My greatest worry is the lack of ranking systems; if there are no ranking systems then how will one tell the percentage of success of an opponent.  I'm not interested in an exact number of wins; I am interested in an individual's overall percentage in specific genres and as a gamer overall on a global scale.  I don't want to find myself against someone I just run over and they quit, and I don't want to play some stranger who is going to tear my head off and deficate upon my open throat because I'm not one to quit.  As a matter of fact the percentage of times a player has quit a match intentionally should be displayed (noone would have a perfect percentage as everyone has to drop a match every once in a while; but you're not going to want to play someone with a 50% drop out rate).

Nintendo's online should opperate through forums, blogs, and clubs like 1up.com.  Nintendo players are pretty used to online communication and communities through forums; it would make best since that Nintendo carry this over as best as possible in their online console plans.  


Third parties:  Nintendo is addressing this issue at last with new controller hardware which will make their system individualistic from the other consoles.  The N64's poor support was due to high costs of development, but the GameCube solved that problem.  A new problem arose though in that there was nothing the GameCube controller could that the 360 controller could not.  The GameCube lacked several buttons the other console's controllers featured and offered no new facial mechanics to make up for this.  Instead they tried to make it look different by hiring Fisher Price to design the asthetics.  

This time Nintendo will have a clear advantage built into the hardware of the system which will encourage third parties to create exclusives.


Market Share:  Nintendo took no risks; if they had been aggressive then the GameCube would have succeeded.  People like Nintendo games, but Nintendo was not willing to sink the money to publish more games or buy exclusives.  What happened to the Capcom 5?  Where was Konami?  Why didn't Nintendo get an exclusive GTA?  Why did the next Gouls and Ghost come out on PS2?  Why did Nintendo not court Oddworld games?  There was plenty of software made on other systems this generation that would have sold well to Nintendo fans and could have helped expand Nintendo's user base, but Nintendo penched their every last penny and that does not speak confidence to consumers.  The Revolution seems to come from a far more confident company; but their software choices could piss all over that quickly.  Nintendo needs to invest in some serious software next generation; they are obviously avoiding intense HD hardware so to attain basically the same graphics as the other consoles without melting the chip.

Incomplete games:  I kind of went for that as a reason market share was abismal.  Super Mario Sunshine was of much higher quality than most any game on any console.  Metroid 2 and Halo 2 didn't have the kind of advanced controls and physics Sunshine had.  Few games this gen even approached water in the way Sunshine did in passing with such elegance and realism.  Sunshine's flaw wasn't exactly bad game design; it was misdirected game design.  Mario 64 was a departure from Mario Bros games, but Sunshine was barely even a Mario game.  What was Sunshine about?  Single player collectathon with a water pack.  Is this Nintendo?  Where are all the things that make a Mario game?  Powerups, themed levels, Luigi, multiplayer?  They've been hijacked and injected into Mario Party, Tennis, Golf, and Kart.  



Accessability:  Metroid and Zelda were the slowest starting games I have played in years.  I don't want tutorials; it should be a hint things have gotten too complicated when you have to spend an hour telling me how to play a game.  

[mantidor]

Im dissapointed I couldnt get all the games I wanted due to lack of money, you spoiled people are just annoying me with your complains.

oh yeah, btw, Im replaying Sunshine and loving every minute of it, including collecting two separate pieces of red coins, the game is awesome.

And regarding market share, the numbers are easily comparable with xbox numbers, why is the xbox a success then and the GC a failure? mind boogling.

 

[odifiend]

Quote
Originally posted by: mantidor
And regarding market share, the numbers are easily comparable with xbox numbers, why is the xbox a success then and the GC a failure? mind boogling.

Without going into the standard long debate (please look at the dozens of threads this comes up), it went from, "do you have a ps2 or a gamecube?" to "do you have a ps2 or an xbox?" in less than 4 years.  For a company that has been in the biz for 20 some years, that is pretty bad to actually sell less than the freshman of consoles.  Then to add insult to injury, xbox has pushed nintendo's home console from the mind of the general poplulace - really bad when you consider Nintendo used to be a household name.

[Avinash_Tyagi]

Quote
Originally posted by: odifiend

Quote
Originally posted by: mantidor
And regarding market share, the numbers are easily comparable with xbox numbers, why is the xbox a success then and the GC a failure? mind boogling.

Without going into the standard long debate (please look at the dozens of threads this comes up), it went from, "do you have a ps2 or a gamecube?" to "do you have a ps2 or an xbox?" in less than 4 years.  For a company that has been in the biz for 20 some years, that is pretty bad to actually sell less than the freshman of consoles.  Then to add insult to injury, xbox has pushed nintendo's home console from the mind of the general poplulace - really bad when you consider Nintendo used to be a household name.

Oh please, MS had billions to throw into the Xbox without concern, there was no doubt they were going to pick up a lot of market share, just because it was was there first console means nothing, in fact only being able to barely nudge out nintendo while losing billions is a failure, especially when Ninty made money every year.

[odifiend]

Quote
Originally posted by: Avinash_Tyagi
Oh please, MS had billions to throw into the Xbox without concern, there was no doubt they were going to pick up a lot of market share, just because it was was there first console means nothing, in fact only being able to barely nudge out nintendo while losing billions is a failure, especially when Ninty made money every year.

If money is such a huge factor, why is it that xbox hasn't really threatened PS2 standing?  I'd agree that Microsoft's advertising blitzes weren't the most cost efficient but they were obviously effective.  And in the US anyway we aren't talking about xbox just barely nudging nintendo out of the way.  Xbox has made a large enough impact that Ninendo is not even considered a market presence.  Mindshare is where xbox has trumped nintendo, and unfortunately that is a stepping stone to market share.

[King of Twitch]

Blockbuster's shelf space is disappointing.

Getting MGS1 and not actively trying to get some other important games was stupid.

Reading reviews about 10 year-old ported games having framerate problems is maddening.

The MSM's BS articles about the Cube possibly being their last system helped to propel the XBox.


"Third Parties
These guys are fuckheads"

Couldn't have said it better.

Capcom 5 -- never forget

--
For the happy thread in advance, I'll submit the words Pikmin, most comfortable controller ever made, greatest wireless controller ever made, and best-designed system ever

[kirby_killer_dedede]

Oh Jesus Christ, the Capcom 5 pissed me off to absolutely no end.

[Dasmos]

My only dissapointment was the lack of available games. The games were out, but I couldn't find them. I still have plenty of games that I could buy but can't find. I guess this relates back to market share, but then again the games are being sold. They could sell more if they managed to stock more.

Game retailers are stupid, my local EB only stocks about three of each first party game (it occasionally stocks more if asked) but it stocks about seven copies of games like Carmen San Diego which stay on the shelf for years.  

[Nosferat2]

Dasmos you cant find a game you want!? In the age of the internet, that is an impossibility. I found discontinued games (beyond good and evil) with little effort online. I even found the long out of print Eternal Darkness soundtrack new and sealed this past summer. Just look around a little.

I loved my GC. It was allround better than the competitors, aside from the game library which was dominated by PS2.

Nintendo had most of the games i wanted to play even with a smaller library. Games like Metroids Resident evils, eternal darkness, geist, metal gear and f-zero made me very happy with my purchase. Thats not counting the mutlipatform games that i love, Prince of Persia, Call of duty, Spartan, and various EA games.

The thing that killed me on the cube are the absence of Castlevania(i dont do handhelds), Metal gear series, Final fantasy, and the lack of great RPG's. There were a couple decent RPG;s but lets face it GC sucked when it came to RPG's. Thank god for my PC, i would have gotten a PS2 if it wasnt for Wizardry 8 to hold me over. So i can still say im PS2 and Xbox free.

Online capability never, does not, nor will it ever concern me. Id rather play with my friends than getting online and play with strangers. Correction! the only thing that i would like from the online thing is to download old games.  

[Hostile Creation]

Capcom 5 is the only thing that really disappointed me, even though I only ever wanted one of them (got two, Killer 7, the one I originally wanted, and RE4).  Still, that was BS through and through.

Also, I would have liked Wind Waker to have the dungeons it was supposed to have, but the Triforce quest didn't bother me, as I already had all but two pieces by the time I'd finished the dungeons.  I'm glad they're giving themselves time for Twilight Princess, though.

[Dasmos]

Quote
Originally posted by: Nosferat2
Dasmos you cant find a game you want!? In the age of the internet, that is an impossibility. I found discontinued games (beyond good and evil) with little effort online. I even found the long out of print Eternal Darkness soundtrack new and sealed this past summer. Just look around a little.

I don't often shop on the Internet and anyway that's not the problem here. I can't find the games in shops, that's where I have always shopped for games and probably always will. I shouldn't need to shop online. I know the games are out there. They are just becoming increasingly difficult and tedious to find.

[Bartman3010]

I'm mostly disappointed in their LAN ideas.

All they did to support the idea was 3 GCN racing games.

Mario Kart (8 Players)
1080 Avalanche (4 Players)
Kirby Air Ride (4 Players)

So...okay, why did they think the potential wasnt there when the broadband adapters didnt sell? Why did they push the 3rd parties to use it? Midway Arcade Treasures 3 would be so much better, too...

So much potential just gone away...

[mac<censored>]

I don't think most of these 3rd parties are really evil or anything, but it's clear they approach the GC at best rather half-heartedly, and devote few resources towards developing for it.

Anyway, the result is that they make crappy or simply too-weird-for-the-mainstream games, and then scream with horror when they don't sell well; I mean, what do they expect???  Even when they make good games, they seem to screw things up, like with Capcom's moronic decision to announce the PS2 port of the previously "exclusive" RE4 -- before the GC version was on sale!  What kind of idiot made that decision?!?  Even if they felt they needed a PS2 version to recoup their costs, simply waiting a while before announcing it would have made the GC version sell far better, and helped Nintendo quite a bit, and would have given capcom a much better return on the money they invested in developing the GC version.

To some degree, this attitude is understandable:  the PS2 is the main system these days, so they can make their money there, and anything else is at best just a sideline or hedge for the future.

What doesn't make much sense is 3rd parties' apparent slavish devotion to the xbox -- especially in Japan, where only about 5 xboxes have been sold.  This behavior I can only attribute to greedy (and clueless) management being dazzled by MS's monopoly position in the computer world, and randomly flinging money about as a result.

[Infernal Monkey]

Acclaim dropping GameCube support was a crushing blow. THE crushing blow. I set my GameCube on fire and threw it at a bus full of children after I heard about that. I went "NOOOOOO", "NOOOOOOO", "NOOOOOOO".

[couchmonkey]

BMX XXX 2 R.I.P.  Neva 4get!

Rabicle: The situation you mention about having to drive way out of your way to buy games is exactly what I fear happening to Nintendo all over the place, and that's why I do worry about marketshare in general.  I'm sorry to hear that, it really sucks.

[Galford]

As touched on previously, Nintendo has always been "odd" about add-ons for their game
systems.  Point, I assume most people here know that the 4MB Expansion Pak
was almost never released.  It took Acclaim(of all people)
to get Nintendo to release it.

While Nintendo didn't make any N64 level mistakes, they made dozens of smaller ones.
What makes me sad is I look at Rev, and I think Nintendo hasn't learned a single lesson
from the Gamecube generation.

[IceCold]

Quote
Originally posted by: Galford
What makes me sad is I look at Rev, and I think Nintendo hasn't learned a single lesson
from the Gamecube generation.

Uhh, examples please?

[Ian Sane]

The thing that disappointed me about the Cube was that early on it was almost like Nintendo didn't even really try.  Like they thought "we're Nintendo so everyone will buy us" and completely ignored the fact that Microsoft was making an aggressive effort to take their position.  They cut a lot of corners and it seemed like they were just doing the bare minimum.  This includes the "incomplete games" that was touched upon.  I remember when we were all complaining about the huge post-launch drought and Nintendo issued a press release bragging about how there were so many games available.  It was just insanely delusional and my first reaction to it was "they don't give a f*ck, do they?"  At the time though Nintendo seemed lazy universally.  In 2002 Metroid Fusion was the only first party non-port GBA game released.  This is also around the time they lost Rare and didn't seem to be too bothered by it.

Then MS had that really popular Sega bundle for the Xbox for Christmas and pulled ahead and Nintendo went from half-assing it to panicking.  That's when they started getting into this mentality that their franchises were everything and we started getting lots and lots of Mario.  They also made really lame third party deals involving third parties making Nintendo games and a remake of MGS and Square "returning" only to give us one game (that I thought sucked) that was "Final Fantasy" in only the loosest sense.  I didn't like the overemphasis on franchises and I think that's something Nintendo still hasn't "fixed."  On the N64 the third party support sucked but at least when we got a first party game it was 90% of the time the most essential must-play game ever.  Neither lazy or panicky Nintendo delivered as frequently sadly.  I think the Cube would have done much better if Nintendo didn't really change their game making strategy from the N64.  Initially they had regained quite a bit of third party support back and that could have padded the "one exceptionally awesome first party game every few months" release schedule.  In theory if the first party games were as consistently amazing as the N64's they probably could have sold more consoles and thus kept more third party support.

The online thing though pissed me off because it was an outright LIE.  People were always bugging them about online plans and they kept telling everyone to wait.  Well it turned out they had no plans at all and were just leading us on for over a year.  I'm sorry but if you make online adapters and heavily imply future online plans and then don't go online at all then you f*cking lied to your customers.  Everyone who bought a Cube within the first year or so assumed the console would go online.  Some weren't as crushed by it staying offline as others but we all expected it to be there.  Nintendo tricked us and that plays a big part in why I'm so cynical of them today.  I don't trust them anymore and it's too bad.

I think Nintendo has learned some lessons from the Cube.  Now they learn slowly and also learn the wrong lessons sometimes but they at least look like they're trying with the Rev.  I don't really like their strategy but at least it's a strategy.  It's more refreshing then the "we're Nintendo so we don't have to try hard" strategy the Cube initially had.  Some of the same mistakes are there but they have learned something.  Just the fact that the Rev looks cool and hi-tech proves that.

Though there were some AMAZING things about the Cube too and I don't regret buying one (well in retrospect I should have waited for price cuts but still).  I'll be sharing those with the good stuff thread that's supposed to come after this one.