Topic: No wonder M titles aren't selling

[Husker02GT]

For my birthday my buddy reserved me Red Faction 2, and finally release date comes, and he goes to Software ETC. (where he preordered) to pick it up, they told him they didnt get any cube versions in, but had the xbox version, he said no thanks give me back my $10... So we went to GameStop together to get it, and they say they don't get those types of titles anymore because of lack of interest... the numbers say they dont sell well on gamecube. Well i'm thinking how the hell are they gonna sell if you dont even carry them??? I mean finally really good games that were system sellers for other consoles are coming out and stores arent even going to carry the gamecube version... So anyways instead of RF2 I got Def Jam Vendetta, and reserved Splinter Cell, he said he could guarantee me a copy if i preordered it but couldnt guarantee any extras would come in to shelf. So I picked up Splinter Cell the other day and sure enough they only had enough games to meet preorder demand. It just makes me sick to see HUGE games such as these not get shelf space, whil disney and nickelodeon games fill the racks...Does Anyone understand this?  

[MickeyD]

I agree with you totally its just plain ridiculous nintendo needs to come in do something. I find it hard to believe crap like Monsters Inc dodge ball sells better then resident evil and deserves more selve space. And it hurts nintendo's image more cause when I tell friends that a certain mature game is on cube they are like really? I didn't know I never see it in stores. No wonder everyone thinks they make kids games. Even blockbuster is getting worse about carrying mature cube games for rental only they will carry is like resident evil but more obsecure stuff they won't. Black n' brusied has been out for months at my local blockbuster and they only have it for ps2 and xbox the cube selection is really going down even Rayman 3 isn't available at my blockbuster just on ps2 and xbox and it came to cube first . And they only had one copy of dead to rights for cube while they had a bunch for ps2 and xbox. Nintendo needs to start paying these jackasses off to carry there stuff. This is why third-parties want to leave cause of poor sales cause retailers are being jerks to us cube owners

[The Omen]

I have the same problem here in Jersey.  Its a catch 22 situation.  Well, actually, it's BS-the numbers are more representitive of CRAP M rated games not selling well.  Some rental chains don't even carry GC at all, and Blockbuster , GC takes up half the space of the XBOX.  It's just so annoying to hear what these supposed merchants have to say.  It sounds like a recording,'GC is for kids' over and over.

[Husker02GT]

it really sucks, i'd like to blame it on xbox's lack of quality titles, i think the whole turn started with trhe gamecube release of Hunter: The Reckoning. NOT A GOOD GAME, but I picked it up after my friend told me how sweet it was for xbox, its not, and of course i waited until it was 9.99 at EB.

[Darc Requiem]

Yeah I've had these problems myself. When I got Mortal Kombat DA for GC, my local Gamestop didn't have it in eventhough it was a supposed to be a simultaneous release. So I went EB were they though they didn't have it but the manager went to the back and found that they had a whole bunch of copies. Nintendo really needs to look into this. This crap is ridiculous. I've had the same trouble with Splinter Cell, so I ordered it on-line. Still haven't gotten my copy BTW. Also anyone see the Splinter Cell commericial. They don't even mention GC.....you just see the logo at the end.


Darc Requiem

[WesDawg]

I don't really want to add to the complaining... but I will anyways. I went to the mall yesterday and saw a poster for the Matrix game which had the XBox and PS2 boxes really big on it, and no mention of the GC incarnation. Stupid. Anyways, the nice thing about living in middle-o'-nowhere Iowa is that there are always plenty of copies of everything somewhere, and GC has a much larger section at my video store than XBox. Strange.

[Grey Ninja]

I have the problem as well.  Most of the time I could care less about some silly Xbox port with a bunch of eye candy and no real substance, but occasionally a keeper comes along...  (Skies of Arcadia), and stores just don't have it.  It infuriates me to no end that retailers don't stock GameCube games.

The stores in my area all tell me that they aren't responsible for ordering games, they just get them when they do, so I am not overly mad at them.  I have no idea who makes these decisions... but it's them that I am mad at.  I am right positive it's the publisher's fault though, as a lot of games make it here with no problem at all.

[StRaNgE]

I had to drive to  about 4 or 5 stores to finally find monster jam when I got that, all the stores had the other versions though. It ended up being a pretty bad game but  still  they had it for the others.
Was a royal pain. Not to mention the 2 blockbusters and one Hollywood video carry  almost no games not even half of the cube selection and I live in a very populated town in S. cal.

[thecubedcanuck]

If you want to blame anyone for this, blame Nintendo.

They are the ones that created this mess for themselves. They are the ones who tried to buck the trend with the N64 cartridges. Yes, it may have been the one only real mistake they made, but it was a huge one, and IMO, one they may never recover from.

[egman]

It was a huge mistake, but I couldn't blame them for going with carts. I mean, before the PS cd-rom based machines were not catching on if you do not include the PC. I'm assuming work on the N64 began about the time development was half or almost finished on the Saturn and PS. Nintendo couldn't guess that someone was finally going put out Optical Disc based system that didn't suck. And I wouldn't have wanted them to throw together a new CD based system in a few months, like the way Sega threw together the new Saturn in a few months time only to find that it still was poor at 3D.

I'm having the same problems that everyone is having here. I spent a whole week looking to rent Rayman 3. Hollywood had friggin' 3 copies; Blockbuster was, with the exception of Wind Waker, behind in their stocking by like a couple of months it seemed. And don't get me started with buying games. If have to run around town this week to get Ikaruga like I have done with some other titles,  then that will be pretty much over for me shopping for games at B&Ms. It's bad enough I already have to do this with DVDs.

There is little for us to do but send in formal complaints, but I agree Nintendo does bare the most responsibilty and by far their actions will have the most effect on both 3rd parties and retailers. Recent changes in their game plan, however, makes it look as though they are finally playing the 3rd party game that Sony has mastered. I think a few huge 3rd party titles hite the Cube could change the way some retailers and renters are looking at the system. Nintendo are really the only ones with power to break the cycle Cube owners are in now.

[Darc Requiem]

Quote
Originally posted by: thecubedcanuck
If you want to blame anyone for this, blame Nintendo.

They are the ones that created this mess for themselves. They are the ones who tried to buck the trend with the N64 cartridges. Yes, it may have been the one only real mistake they made, but it was a huge one, and IMO, one they may never recover from.

What the hell does that have to do with companies not shipping copies of a Gamecube game. There are no cartridges for GC and eventhough game prices were too high I never had any problems finding an N64 game, and it sure as hell is affecting my ability to find GBA games. Nintendo's cartridge decision has nothing to do with a companies inability to ship enough copies of a title to meet demand. It did have an effect on Nintendo's hardware sales last generation but then again it also was a reason for their mammmoth profits and reduced losses to piracy. Its also the reason why we have disks this time, and the reason that despite the GC only being out a year and half we already have Mario, Zelda, Metroid, with F-Zero and Starfox just around the corner. Anyway this is completely off topic.....we were talking about how we can't find copies of games we want.....with Nintendo now using disks this is inexcusable. Unlike cartridges, disks and be mass produced quickly so even if you initial miscalcuate the demand you can churn out a ton of disks to meet it. Cartridges required a tremendous lead time and they cost a lot more. I don't wanna hear, Mature titles don't sell on GC. If you don't advertise them, i.e. Splinter Cell, and you ship limited or no copies to stores what the hell do you expect? Its like Squaresoft in the 16-bit era. "Rpg's dont sell in the US" Which was complete crap. They never adverstised, the first game Squaresoft had with a REAL ad campaign was FF7 which coincedently sold very well. Was FF7 better than any of the previous FF games?....not hardly but people actually new the game existed so they kept it in mind when they went to store. The same thing applies to mature GC games or any game for that matter. If you don't advertise its not gonna sell. Its a self fulfilling prophecy. If you don't produce any mature title for GC and if you don't advertise the ones you do...they aren't gonna sell. Which you'll then use as an excuse not to make any titles. Its all about perception. Look at the PS1, it was called Playstation had a colorful logo and the most childlike design of the 3 consoles last generation. That didn't stop it from selling well did it?

Darc Requiem

[MickeyD]

Has anyone seen the new splinter cell comericial where they mostly talk about the new ps2 verison. They have a review from a playstation magazine and show the ps2 box and talk about the added levels. Then off in the corner you see a small gamecube logo. Thanks for that guys if you hadn't of put that little gamecube logo in the corner we would have never known it was coming to cube.

(by the way that was sarcasm )

[nonjagged]

That is a load of bollocks. Ask Sega if you dont believe me.
Nintendo would have been a 3rd party around the same time as Sega did if it wasnt for Nintendo's genius to stick with predominately anti-piracy format.
Why dont gamers just face the facts and you cant compete for shelf space against multi-media or electronics conglomorates who use budget funds from any of its departments including non-gaming departments and also who make deals with eg. Blockbuster with free vouchers etc and in the deal get Blockbuster to block support for competitors such as Nintendo.
Nintendo cant play block the competition tactics anymore because the competition use funds from non-gaming departments to fund their aggression and instead Nintendo will focus on software and some favourable deals with 3rd parties.
Wait until E3 comes around to see some surprise software that Nintendo & co has been working on and in the meantime if your local mainstream retail stores dont stock GCN software, look around for dedicated gaming stores which specialise only in gaming that do.

[BlkPaladin]

Accually, to address a few point in the last post. Sega didn't make the Saturn to push polygons they made it to push the best 2D graphics it could, they didn't put in a 3D accerater chip and thus Saturns lack of 3D power. (I suppose they considered 3D games just a trend)

And as for CD systems not selling before the PSX, the PSX didn't sell all that well in the first year or so that it was out, it had a very distinct problem with finding good titles. Until Nintendo lost all of its third party support because of their second party vision. (It wasnt really sticking with the carts that did it, though it was a contributing factor, but their treatment of the third parties on a whole. After that Sony had no trouble getting good games.)

The Retail situation is a mixture of Nintendo not offering retailers any real incentive to stock their titles, and Sony and Microsoft offering their own Retailers incentives. Why waste storage space on games that may not sell and have usless titles on your hands and no money, when you can stock games that may not sell and have some sort of blow back that makes it worth while if it doesn't sell.

Another reason is market pull, Gamecube games, even the third party games which its the third party publisher's responsiblity to advertise them, don't recieve as much exposure as their conterparts on another system.

[Darc Requiem]

Quote
Originally posted by: MickeyD
Has anyone seen the new splinter cell comericial where they mostly talk about the new ps2 verison. They have a review from a playstation magazine and show the ps2 box and talk about the added levels. Then off in the corner you see a small gamecube logo. Thanks for that guys if you hadn't of put that little gamecube logo in the corner we would have never known it was coming to cube.

(by the way that was sarcasm )

Now I could have sworn I've mentioned that a few times in this thread already. Does anyone read my post at all or am I just wasting my time Oh and nonjagged I completely agree with you on both counts. People ream Nintendo for their decision to stick with carts but its part of the reason they made so much money. They didn't have to worry about every Tom, Dick, and Harry burning games that they rent in their CD-Rs and giving copies to their friends.

Darc Requiem

[thecubedcanuck]

Dark

My post was completely ON topic.

Quote
Its also the reason why we have disks this time,

The type of disk the gamecube used is another example of Nintendo yet again bucking the trend. Regardless of what some say, I am sure this is again a factor in lack of 3rd party support.

Quote
I don't wanna hear, Mature titles don't sell on GC. If you don't advertise them, i.e. Splinter Cell, and you ship limited or no copies to stores what the hell do you expect?

You dont wanna hear it? Why? Because its true, mature titles dont sell well on the cube, the numbers speak for themselves on this subject.
As for them not shipping a lot of copies, I dont blame them. I would guess that the Cube pre-orders for SC were well below that of the PS2. I would go as far as to say the Cube port was a "lets hope we break even on this project" because the developer is already sure it wont sell. This might seem like a bad way for a developer to look at things, but be honest, can you really blame them.
Look at RE for an example, it is a great game and didnt sell worth beans. Why, because to many cube owners wont touch anything that isnt made by Nintendo becase they assume it will be inferior.

Nintendo drove away fans with the N64, which drove away developers. Now witht he cube they again use a different format of disk, which again will cost a few supporters, which in turn will again mean less support.

So it is on topic after all.

[egman]

BlkPaladin--That was my point about the Saturn. It was never designed with 3D in mind, but legend has it that the CEO of Sega flipped when the Sony revealed the abilites of the PS and forced his engineers to put 3D capabilites in, while at the same time try to beat the PS to the retailers. A HUGE mistake, if not the the deathblow that allowed Sony to destroy the Dreamcast merely on hype as Sega became forgotten that generation.

Yeah, I also forgot to mention the incentive thing as well. I agree Nintendo made it hard for 3rd parties with their royalities, so that definitately influenced the situation when the new kid on the block started to give the developers better deals. But still, CD systems up till that time were not selling because they were bad. CDs gave developers a huge amount of storage space that got squandered on bad FMVs and stuff that really did not change the games from their cart counterparts. It wasn't until the PS that developers had finally figured out how to use the storage space for better games. It also help that processoring abilites caught up with the storage capablities, so now developers had real reasons to go with CDs. Nintendo second guessed the situation and loss big time.

[AlphaDragoon2002]

Quote
Originally posted by: thecubedcanuck
Dark

My post was completely ON topic.

Quote
Its also the reason why we have disks this time,

The type of disk the gamecube used is another example of Nintendo yet again bucking the trend. Regardless of what some say, I am sure this is again a factor in lack of 3rd party support.

Quote
I don't wanna hear, Mature titles don't sell on GC. If you don't advertise them, i.e. Splinter Cell, and you ship limited or no copies to stores what the hell do you expect?

You dont wanna hear it? Why? Because its true, mature titles dont sell well on the cube, the numbers speak for themselves on this subject.
As for them not shipping a lot of copies, I dont blame them. I would guess that the Cube pre-orders for SC were well below that of the PS2. I would go as far as to say the Cube port was a "lets hope we break even on this project" because the developer is already sure it wont sell. This might seem like a bad way for a developer to look at things, but be honest, can you really blame them.
Look at RE for an example, it is a great game and didnt sell worth beans. Why, because to many cube owners wont touch anything that isnt made by Nintendo becase they assume it will be inferior.

Nintendo drove away fans with the N64, which drove away developers. Now witht he cube they again use a different format of disk, which again will cost a few supporters, which in turn will again mean less support.

So it is on topic after all.

God, why is it that whenever I see you talking about the GC you always have something bad to say?  Do you secretly dislike it or something?  Does one of your family members own one so you just happen to have in your house?!  Because from what I've seen (and these are from the last THREE posts coming from you) you have no love or respect for it.  We get it, PS2 is cool.  I have a PS2.  But continually bagging on Nintendo is simply bad form, man.


Anyway, back on topic.  Here in Phoenix we really don't have that problem, I'm able to find all the GC games I need, and Blockbuster has a good selection.  Of course they're sometimes a bit late in updating it (I've been waiting for Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter on PS2 to be on the shelves for about a MONTH now...) but as long as they do, and they don't slight Nintendo, it's good with me.

[Ian Sane]

"I would guess that the Cube pre-orders for SC were well below that of the PS2. I would go as far as to say the Cube port was a "lets hope we break even on this project" because the developer is already sure it wont sell."

Well that's a self-fulfilling prophecy on the third party's part if they think like that.  If they assume that the Cube version will sell the least and then don't promote the game as well as the other versions then obviously the Cube version isn't going to sell as well.

I can't stand it when third parties do that.  If a Gamecube game is released months after the PS2 and Xbox versions and recieves no advertising and is full of bugs then OF COURSE it's going to sell the worst of the three versions.  The third party basically sabotaged the game from the beginning.  This of course gives the Gamecube an image of always having the worst versions of each game (despite being technically superior to the PS2), which then results in lower system sales, which then results in a lower userbase, which then results in good third party games not selling as well.

Basically a whole whack of third parties decided before the Gamecube was released that it would be the least successful of the three consoles and their decisions as a result of this pre-concieved bias has ensured that the Gamecube is the least successful of the three consoles.  While the N64 was hurt by a lack of third party games the Gamecube ironically is being hurt by having more of them.

[loserfish13]

I had to go to more than 3 stores to find Splinter Cell yesterday....

[egman]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
While the N64 was hurt by a lack of third party games the Gamecube ironically is being hurt by having more of them.

I never thought of it in that way. I may sound like a heretic, but shoot, if we are going get crap these developers should just save their money. However, I do think there are some things that Nintendo themselves can do in this matter to help. Actually, I think Nintendo is the only one who can really break this crappy cycle we have to go through because I don't see too many 3rd parties willing to do so. Some incentives or guarentees could go a long towards that. Lately though, it  looks like Nintendo has been rolling up their sleeves so maybe we won't have to deal with this any longer.

[Strell]

Quote
Originally posted by: thecubedcanuck

I would go as far as to say the Cube port was a "lets hope we break even on this project" because the developer is already sure it wont sell. This might seem like a bad way for a developer to look at things, but be honest, can you really blame them.
Look at RE for an example, it is a great game and didnt sell worth beans. Why, because to many cube owners wont touch anything that isnt made by Nintendo becase they assume it will be inferior.

Nintendo drove away fans with the N64, which drove away developers. Now witht he cube they again use a different format of disk, which again will cost a few supporters, which in turn will again mean less support.

So it is on topic after all.

You're wrong because:

1. RE is, unfortunately, really showing its age.  Same control the ENTIRE TIME, not even attempting to make use of analog sticks and better schemes.  That's just uncalled for.  The game is gorgeous, but it's a sad state of affairs that there has been no innovation in the series at all.  Silent Hill, at least, adds a brooding aura to the genre.  RE just rehashes what it already has.  More Capcom's fault than anyone else's.  9 times out of 10, if a game is good, it will sell.  Hopefully RE4 will have some innovation and better control schemes.  I personally don't mind it, but people act like it's reason enough to dislike a game.

2. If developers are sure a game won't sell, and they put out 10K copies, and then they whine because "OH BOOHOO WE ONLY SOLD 10K COPIES," how is that Nintendo's fault?  It's not.  Good circular logic, though.  Why not advertise the game to Gamecube?  SC comes out and all I see are commercials for PS2.  I don't see any GC commercials.  Wth.  Nintendo doesn't handle other companies' games, people.

3. 30 million N64's does not equal driving away fans.  Did some go to Sony?  Of course.  But you act like Nintendo labeled their console as "Hitler approved!" on it or something.

4. Reason for new disk = no piracy.  Let's compare how many millions Sony and Microsoft lose per year versus Nintendo in terms of pirating.  WAIT, I BELEIVE...YES, I AM SURE IT IS MILLIONS TO ZERO.

[Perfect Cell]

This happned to me also, people on the stores telling me, no Splinter Cell is never coming out for the GCN but i do have PS2 versions.... This is the sort of Grass Rooots campaigning that Nintendo needs to work with to improve their sales and image... Maybe make a Nintendo street team? or something like that.

[Strell]

Quote
Originally posted by: Perfect Cell
This happned to me also, people on the stores telling me, no Splinter Cell is never coming out for the GCN but i do have PS2 versions.... This is the sort of Grass Rooots campaigning that Nintendo needs to work with to improve their sales and image... Maybe make a Nintendo street team? or something like that.

Heh, already been done.  I was on it last year.

[Darc Requiem]

Quote
Originally posted by: thecubedcanuck
Dark

My post was completely ON topic.

Quote
Its also the reason why we have disks this time,

The type of disk the gamecube used is another example of Nintendo yet again bucking the trend. Regardless of what some say, I am sure this is again a factor in lack of 3rd party support.

Quote
I don't wanna hear, Mature titles don't sell on GC. If you don't advertise them, i.e. Splinter Cell, and you ship limited or no copies to stores what the hell do you expect?

You dont wanna hear it? Why? Because its true, mature titles dont sell well on the cube, the numbers speak for themselves on this subject.
As for them not shipping a lot of copies, I dont blame them. I would guess that the Cube pre-orders for SC were well below that of the PS2. I would go as far as to say the Cube port was a "lets hope we break even on this project" because the developer is already sure it wont sell. This might seem like a bad way for a developer to look at things, but be honest, can you really blame them.
Look at RE for an example, it is a great game and didnt sell worth beans. Why, because to many cube owners wont touch anything that isnt made by Nintendo becase they assume it will be inferior.

Nintendo drove away fans with the N64, which drove away developers. Now witht he cube they again use a different format of disk, which again will cost a few supporters, which in turn will again mean less support.

So it is on topic after all.

Well first of all its Darc, and second of all thanks for proving my point. "Lets hope we break even on this project" Did you miss the part about the self fulfilling prophecy? I guess so. I said it before and I said it again. I dont' wanna hear it. I'll tell you why AGAIN. Lets take Skies of Arcadia for example. Sega stated that they will make a sequel to the game depending on how well it sells. How many dozens of times have you heard a forum member complain that they couldn't find a copy of the game, how many times have you seen an ad for Skies of Arcadia on TV? You haven't because there isn't any. Now if the game bombs, they will complain that game didn't sell well. Of course a game isn't gonna sell well when isn't adverstised and is undershipped. Did you even bother reading my post or did you just pick out what you'd thought would be of use to you. You didn't even address my point with Final Fantasy. Square never attempted to market a FF game in the states until FF7 and that was more of Sony's doing than their own. They shipped a lot of copies had a huge ad campaign and what do you know FF7 is the first FF game to sell over a million copies in the states. Not because it was the best, not because gamers in the US changed, but because they actually tried marketing the game and made people aware that it existed. Now lets take Dragon Warrior 7, it didn't sell as well as FF7 did here, it also lacked the massive advertising push. DW7 IMO is a better game than FF7 but sales don't reflect that. Shenmue and Shenmue 2 are another example. Shenmue 1 for DC has greatly outsold Shenmue 2 for X-box. Shenmue 1 also had the better ad campaign. Did you see a massive holdiay push for Shenmue 2 on X-box? I sure didn't. I saw one for Splinter Cell though....hmmm and it sold damn well coincedence? I think not. Splinter Cell is the latest of example of poor marketing on GC. If the game doesn't sell well it would be blamed on the GC's kiddie userbase, not the lack of adverstising. Saying that "Splinter Cell has been redefined for Playstation 2" and slapping a small GC logo at the end isn't an ad campaign. RE hasn't met sales expectations? Your right it hasn't, and since Capcom actually marketed the game they have a right to bitch, but l can guarantee you that Capcom averages better sales numbers per title on GC than any other third party. Would you rather be Sega scratching your head over the 45,000 copies of Skies of Arcadia sold, or Capcom bitching about the 300,000 RE0's you sold? RE1 and RE0 are two of the best selling GC third party games and they are also two of the best marketed. I think I know why Capcom sells more titles.... get this they actually use TV ads and actually ship copies of the games to stores!! I mean who knew thats how you actually move units. I thought releasing a shoddy port after all other consoles get it, with no ad campaign, and no copies shipped to stores was the way to go. You have to spend money to make money. If you aren't even gonna advertise a game and just quietly slip in onto shelves nobody is gonna know the game exists. Most gamers aren't on the net, aren't in forums, like we are. If I wasn't a hardcore games I would have never known Splinter Cell was on GC. I wouldn't have bought Skies of Arcadia because I wouldn't have had any idea it was out. I have Knockout Kings 2003 for GC, only got it because I saw a review of it on Nintendophiles....EA never adverstised it so it probably bombed. Are you getting my point? Are you understanding the general concept of what I'm saying here or do I have record a MP3 of me explaining my point slowly and send you a copy of the file. Wait I'll just make it simple for you. Consumers won't buy what they are unaware of BTW Sorry for the length of the post everybody. I'll try to make it more concise next time.

Darc Requiem