Topic: Nintendo Australia in Trouble?

[Aussie Ben PGC]

According to Melbourne's Herald-Sun, not everything is rosy for the Southern Hemisphere branch of Nintendo.

Not all is well in Australia as far as Nintendo is concerned.  In an article in today's Herald-Sun, Nintendo is clearly trailing behind in the next-generation console race.  According to the article, the GameCube has only a six percent market share, with the PlayStation 2 taking the bulk of the sales.  According to the article:

That equates to a PS2 in more than 424,000 living rooms across the country, 209,000 Xboxes and 67,000 GameCubes.

NAL's David Yarnton notes that Nintendo is not performing nearly as well as they'd hoped.  Nintendo was aiming for a 15-20% share in the market.  But due to the GameCube's shaky start -- the Xbox was released two months earlier and Nintendo was forced to reduce their console price even before the system was on the shelves in May last year -- coupled with trailing third all the way and the lack of DVD and CD playability, it was difficult to convince the average user to purchase a GameCube.  EB salespeople have often recommended the PS2 or Xbox when customers were having trouble choosing between the three because "they can play DVDs".

However, Mr. Yarnton believes that games such as Metroid Prime and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (both of which were only released recently in Australia) are capable of shifting consoles on their own.  However, if American sales are anything to go by, this may not be the case.  Publishers have been pulling a few of their multi-console releases for GameCube, because it simply doesn't make a profit for them.

Nintendo, however, still has the Game Boy Advance to rely on and is hoping to push the GameCube to Game Boy Advance connectivity features to increase sales of both systems.

[nu_world]

This is more the fault of the retail chains, and the deals made
I remember, when XBOX came out, Microsoft paid big money for promotion and support from Coles Myer - who own Myer, Target and K-Mart, probably the 3 largest department stores for games buyers. Consequently, ever since, XBOX has had special displays, whilst the GC gets backed off into a corner. Likewise with catalogues - they've always featured PS2 and XBOX games, but GC games have always rarely been advertised.
Plus it doesn't help that Nintendo doesn't do industry nights. Both MS and Sony have nights where staff from these dept stores go and get the hard sell on their respective upcoming products. I've seen staff coming back with absolute biased opinions on consoles, and this directly affects sales. (having the person selling consoles, continually going on that "simpsons:road rage is sooo much better on xbox than GC, because GC is a kiddy console" is proof positive of that)

So yes, this is mainly a problem caused by the ever lovable (not) Coles Myer. However, it's one that Nintendo should be actively trying to reverse, and why they haven't is completely beyond me. Some more advertising wouldn't go astray either.

[drpateman]

man u think that Australia doesnt have much advertising try new zealand we have nothing nothing at all nintendo australia needs to think about soemthing and like do it rather than nthing cause u are only going to lose a race if u dont try  

[PIAC]

i blame the large portion of australia being complete idiots

[deminisma]

Nintendo NZ = ZERO advertising, incredibly poor distribution.

[Uncle Rich AiAi]

Quote
Originally posted by: PIAC
i blame the large portion of australia being complete idiots

I agree.  I thought Australians were smart because we have a better eduactional system than most countries (no offense meant folks), but Xbox sales Down Under show that I am wrong.  Very wrong.

[pulse]

If you lived in Australia, you would know how terrible the advertising is. There is almost a total lack of ads on TV, billboards, almost no advertising anywhere. I have seen like 3 Metroid Prime bundle ads on TV when that was out and only last night saw a Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker bundle ad on in the middle of The Simpsons. Not very much advertising, but at least they chose a popular show to advertise the Wind Waker bundle in.

Most people here have either a PS2 or an XBox already and are not really interested in picking up the GameCube. It unfortunately has the "kiddie" image here, which it will struggle to shake. At EB, the PS2 and Xbox games take up an entire wall , where the GameCube and GBA have a small section for their consoles and games....most people dont walk to that section of the store and therefore don't notice it. Shamefully ringing trure the saying "Out ouf sight, out of mind".

[nonjagged]

Quote
Originally posted by: PGC NewsBot
According to Melbourne's Herald-Sun, not everything is rosy for the Southern Hemisphere branch of Nintendo.

Not all is well in Australia as far as Nintendo is concerned.  In an article in today's Herald-Sun, Nintendo is clearly trailing behind in the next-generation console race.  According to the article, the GameCube has only a six percent market share, with the PlayStation 2 taking the bulk of the sales.  According to the article:

That equates to a PS2 in more than 424,000 living rooms across the country, 209,000 Xboxes and 67,000 GameCubes.

Its amazing how naive (or is it biased)  mainstream newspapers can be to create articles. The secret is to block distribution of competitors platforms by making deals with the biggest maisntream distributors.
People even cry why Blockbuster doesnt support Gamecube yet havent the mentality to figure Sony and Blockbuster have a great partnership deal with (5 free vouchers etc) to sweep gamecube aside then contradict themselves and blame lack of demand that no one wants to hire Gamecube software.
I heard Harvey Norman refused to stock the Xbox during launch in AU because the simular deal M$ tried to make (like the Coles Myer one) was refused by HN (probably because it displayed anti-competitive nature or HN didnt agree with M$ demands?) so HN refused M$ demands on how  to stock it and how to sell it rather than sell any of the competitor's platforms. It appears as M$ (blocking retail promotions of competitors such as Nintendo) doing great deals to prevent the mainstream retailers from supporting competition such as Gamecube, it appears mainstream buyers had a better ratio of purchasing an Xbox therefore the likelihood impression is more demand was for Xbox (I am aware that there was a dmeand for Splinter Cell etc but even before that launch Gamecube was being blocked because Sony & M$ are willing to pay to kill off the competition, Nintendo doesnt operate like that) .

HN dont stock much GCN anymore but stock Xbox fanatically and in fact if you go in any retail store even EB (yuh dumbasses EB where my friend went to pick up a copy of Metroid Prime during launch and the sales rep patronised my friend by pulling out the GCN game disc out of a plastic bag with other GCN discs scattered in it, then slapped Metroid Prime disc into a case with instructions but no other Nintendo information documents you usually get with brand new games) so my friend just walked out on EB to go to another store that tried to then sell him an Xbox when he asked for Metroid Prime (which by the way the sales rep acted like clueless numbnut and had no idea what the title was let alone which system) and then they say there is no demand for Gamecube.

For FVCKS sake the distributors are payed to actually prevent any demand in the first place. The demand wont eclipse the other platforms but for FVCKS sake at least stop blocking the "too small demand" in the first place so others may be aware of the platform.