Topic: Gamecube four years on: Dissapointments

[Djunknown]

Quote
Square "returning" only to give us one game (that I thought sucked) that was "Final Fantasy" in only the loosest sense.

Square back on friendly terms with Nintendo didn't necessarily equate to flood of titles this time around, but the fact that they're not firmly entrenched with Sony is good thing. Also remember that then Squaresoft was willing to make amends, the Square-Enix merger changed company thinking. But  they're making GBA/DS games, and more or less catering to the fan's needs: Some great original content (Kingdom Hearts, FFTA) and ports (FF I-VI.). The Mario Basketball is proof positive of this.

I disagree that Crystal Chronicles was a bad title. It was an enjoyable, experimental title with the right conditions. I will agree that's not the best way to demonstrate that they're back on the Nintendo saddle. Hopefully Crystal Chronicles revolution will be more accessible.

The MGS remake issue is sticky. Nintendo desperately wanted a metal gear game, but Konami wasn't willing. They wanted it so badly, they let one of their 'idle' studios SK  work on it(Dyack mentioned they were just toying around with Too Human after Eternal Darkness).  My educated guess is that they thought that a MGS remake would make more returns than some tripped-out futuristic game about a cop replacing limbs. ED bombed retail-wise, how would Too Human be any different? Dyack and co.  probably didn't feel so hot after seeing years of toil and delay not being reciprocated with dividends. Why not work with MGS and get some tips from gaming's mad scientist Hideo Kojima as well as input from Shiggy? Oh well, hindsight is 20/20 as they say...

My own personal dissapointment is the porting of 3rd party 'exclusives.' The Capcom 5 pretty much proves the former statement, so I won't waste too many words on it. It better not/ should happen with the Rev. Other than that, I'm more or less a satisfied Gamecube customer.  The fact that NOA was very responsive when my first 'Cube went out (During the holiday season no less), keeps me interested in Nintendo. That and the unexpected success of DS, and positive rumblings of the Rev so far.

Bring on the postive thread!  

[Galford]

Well here's why I think Nintendo hasn't learned it's lessons from the GC...

1.)Marketing - while it has gotten better, the only time I see a commercial for a GC game
is on G4 at 11:30pm.  When MS or Sony had a big game coming out, I couldn't stop
seeing advertisements for it(Halo 2 and GTA:SA.)  Most Nintendo ads are for either DS or GBA.

2.)2nd Party Support - Nintendo went into the GC era with great  1st and 2nd party support.
During the GC era it fell apart.  Tell me where are the replacements for Rare, Silicon Knights,
Left Field, and Factor 5?  Maybe at E3 2006 I will have to eat foot, but these companies are
making games for everyone but Nintendo.

3.)Overall cheapness - from everything that has been released about Rev's hardware, Nintendo
refuses to spend any of it's$6 billion dollars to lose a little short term to be in a better
place long term.

These are just a couple, but these reasons are good enough for now...

[IceCold]

EDIT: In response to Galford's post - NOT on thread topic.

1) Marketing - I agree, the little there has been horrible a lot of the time. However, look at some of the recent DS ads (no not the Nintendogs one) - they are really improving. With a bit more gameplay, a clearer message and more exposure, the Revolution will be fine. I quite liked the ads in the theatres for the DS launch, as well as the Wi-Fi connection ones.

I've seen quite a few GameCube ads, and the Canada Too Much Fun campaign is actually pretty funny). If there are less of them on the shows you watch, maybe it's because the DS is a budding system and it needs to be promoted, while the Gamecube is on its last legs.

2) Second Party Support - To be honest, the developers you listed there weren't doing much for Nintendo... they made great games, I can't deny, but it seemed like they had stalled, and Nintendo axed them. They are being replaced though; Retro is one of the newer additions, and I'm sure Nintendo is looking for other small developers they can take under their wing.


3) Being Stingy - Yes, Nintendo doesn't like using their money. But to develop the NRC, it took quite a bit of the R&D funds (granted, it was licenced from Gyration). And I think that we still don't have all the pieces to the Revolution puzzle. Iwata, among others, has hinted that there is still more to come, and I'm reminded of the quote where he says that something about the Revolution will have no effect on gameplay. This would surely cost them even more.

And really, sure Nintendo is cutting down costs of their console. But they're doing it to lower the cost (always a good thing), while the console itself will be extremely efficient. It will not have many of the IMO unnecessary features of the X360 and the PS3. The result will be a powerful, efficient console that is cheap. What more can you ask for?


So I don't think Nintendo is making the same mistakes as they did with the Cube. You can see that they're genuinely trying to improve, and they have made quite a few strides in the right direction.  

[animecyberrat]

well first I respond to rpevious posters mentiong of acclaim dropping the GC, thats not thier fault, they went out of bussiness and dont even exist anymore.

Now I want to list all the disspointments I had with the GC and explain why to me these really hurt my perception of the system.

First off I agree that the online strategy sucked. Back when there was still talks of online games, when teh adaptor was still being sold and Phantasy Star Online just came out, I have several freinds who were interested in X-box just because Rainbow 6 was gonan be onit and online. I showed them how Nintendo was going to be onlione soon and they would most likely get Rainbow 6 cuz it was on N64. Then out of the blue they drop online suport and my friends trade thier Cubes for Xboxes. I had high hopes of playing against my freinds online and was squashed cuz nintendo screwed up.


Second I was dissapointed that the system was lauinched without a Mario platformer and was even more dissaponted when Sunshine came out (I know a lot of people liekd it but I personaly hated the game)

I bought my cube and my first 2 games were Star Fox Adventures and MK Deadly Allience. Now at first I was impressed with SF Adventures, it was my favorite game in the serious and to me was far better than Wind Waker ( another dissapointment for me) then I got ot teh end and was let down, I was expecting this awsome boss fight with General Scales and a cool cinematic showing how I saved the planet and instead I got a cheap-half ass way too short boss fight with General Scales and a crappy ending that killed teh rest of the game.

Mk DA was AWESOME though and more than made up for most early disapointments.

Then when I heard Soul Caliber II was coming to Cube and Link was gonna be playable I had hopes that woudl trun things around, it would sell millions of copies and then more great fighitng games would come to the cube.

Then teh game was WAY TO EASY, sold far less than should have, and prascticaly disapoeard within a few months. Seeing that fighitng games werent selling on Cube 3rd party devs decided not to make any for the system. We managded to get a couple DBZ games ported, long after they had had thier run on ps2, and that was pretty much it. As a fighitn game fan this sucked for me.

Then There came teh news that Lucas Arts was dropping support for the system and there went those great Star Wars games I was looking forward to. This hurt cuz I ama  huge SW fan and have severaly felt thier absense this gen.

Then Nintendo promieses a follow up to Mario 64, supposedly multi player and is gearing up support and then it magicaly fades into obscurity and somehow is forgotten by everyone who works for teh company.

Metroid Prime comes out and I regain some confidence in the system.

Then Nintendo decides that Racing games arent meant to be fun nor realistic and misses a golden opportunity to make Crusin USA or some other great racing game and instead we get a hand full of EA games (all good but stil not enough) and Nintendo, when questiond can only repsond with there are currently no plans to make any racing games.

Then They go and promise fantastic Final Fantasy that will not only be on par with FFX but supposedly blow it out of teh watter. Exstatic I race to Game Stop and reserve my copy and even get a GBA and the link cables to play it with. Upon playing I will say I was severly disspointed. I thought it was a decent game in its own right, but i woudl never blaspheme the bame Final fansty by labeling CC that. They game was sucha  disspointemnt not just for me but all my friends who held off just for that game,well seeing every freind of mine finaly jump ship and get a ps2 or xbox i felt left out and alone.

This pissed me off cuz when igo into a game store and ask for a Nintendo game I get wierd looks., anmd clerks who alwasy say wouldnt you be happioer with an xbox? and having to ARGUE why I chose GC without soudning like a blind fanboy, cuz I'm not, but I wanted a Cube, at first cuz all my freinds had them and cuz I thoughtit would be better than N64, which we all had instead of ps1.

Then Mk 6 was cancelled then delayed then it was suposed to have online cz nintendo was just gearing up to implenemt their own online strategy and then once again nothing.

Then midway announces they are dropping Cube support and only because of high demand agree to port, belatedly, 2 more games to teh system.


Overall 3rd party suport increase several times over n64, but most 3rd party games are Either EA Sports or T*HQ Nicktoons games,

So far there have been far mroe disspointements than satisfasctions bt nonethe less I stuck it out because it had enough games to keep my satisfied, sure theones it didnt get thatit was promised to get caused me to get a ps2 and xbox but I am content with my GC nonetheless. Rememebr these are my personal disspointemtns feel free to disagree but please dont try and agrue why i didnt like a game, cuz thats my personal taste verses yours.  

[Dasmos]

**restrains from lashing out at animecyberrat's taste in games**  

[Galford]

To IceCold...

About marketing, I specificly stated the GC b/c all Nintendo pimps during primetime is DS and GBA.  While Nintendo's actual commericals have gotten better(Look at the ads for Battalion Wars and Fire Emblem), the last time I remember seeing a GC game pimped at 6:00pm on any big network was Metroid Prime.

Nintendo can say what it likes about new games and innovation, but does anyone find it ironic that the first two games that we have info for are sequals???(Metroid Prime 3 and SSB:Revolution)

[King of Twitch]

If they announced Nintendo Bug-catching Revolution and Nintendo Vaccuuming Revolution this far in advance, people would steal their ideas.

[jpturner]

Nintendo failed to gain mindshare. Marketing is not just the commercials you see, it is promotions which attract the market a vendor is after. You couldn’t turn on a women’s volleyball tournament without seeing an Xbox banner. Likewise “X-Game” type events. Now, Nintendo says it’s not going for the core gamer/young male market, but these folks sure seem to buy a lot of games. Yes, in a sense it is unfair to compete with a company will to dump millions (Billions?) into building a business at a great loss, but that’s who they’re competing against whether they say so or not.

Nintendo needs to make deals with EB Games/Target/Best Buy to guaranty – for a price no doubt – product space devoted to their products.  Likewise, I don’t care if N’s got to send strippers to Lucas Arts to give out free hummers, Nintendo needs to get Star Wars / large mindshare games on its next console.  Lego Star Wars is a great example – the Gamecube gets it, with no bonus features, 9 months later than PS2 and Xbox.  When the Nintendo console misses out on best selling games on other consoles (GTA/Star Wars), it really marginalizes its products. If they need to pay for these products they should do so. I don’t care if the games suck, they are the games many, many gamers want to play.  It is a chicken egg thing. But I think paying for product development will build more unit sales to defray the cost of the bribe, thus increasing Nintendo’s profits for its own software because of hardware sales.

It looks like Nintendo’s heading for niche status, and it’s a shame.  On the other hand if Xbox 1.5 (360) fails to sell well, Micro$oft could lose patience and decide it can’t make money in this industry, and pull the plug. I’ve been in two different game stores running 360 demo games, and have heard at least 4-5 people say it looks the same as the original Xbox. I question whether this will happen though, because the Xbox platform looks like a way to get a Micro$oft “on demand” box next to your TV.

Hopefully, N will learn some lessons from this generation. Hope they read these boards! LOL.

[animecyberrat]

well I oly ad that disclaimer cuz I got flamed for saying I dont like pokemon or Paper mario, so i always let people know I have different tastes than most people. But I never follow the crowd and always like games most people dont. thats just me though.


All in all I agree that what killed nintendo was thier half ass attitude towards the game cube. It also didnt help any when they reported that tehy had to stop manufactoring the system half way threw its second year and then pick up again witha  huge price drop and a free exclusive just to pick up enough slaes to even stay in the race for third. Thats when 3rd party Devs jumped ship cuz they saw GC as finished and gave up back then.

I also think a big part of what hurt them was the fact they didnt do any thing to build up thier image. They used to have giveaways in magazines, Fox Kids and Nickelodeon used to give away Nintendo systems for prizes, Pepsi and even Shasta used to run promos for Nintendo games, there were countless movies where kids were shown, at least 1 shot, playing a Nintendo game. when I was in school we always woudl ask peopel if they played Nintendo games, I never nor did any one I know, use teh term video games, it was always Nintendo games. That didnt change until Sega but even then it was Do you play Nintendo or Sega, now no matter who you are talking to you get eithe rlaughed at, wierd looks, or argued with, if you say you play Nintendo games. unless your specificaly refering to "the nintendo" which is commonly referencing the NES.

I even rememeber when Super Mario Bros came out and how much of an impact that game had, no game has had an impact like that in a long ass time. Mario 64 came awefully close but still not the same.

So as a Nintendo fan from bakc when Nintendo was all there was I mostly wish they would get thier former glory back just for "old times sake" if you know what I mean. Im gonna be to old to be playing video games soon and unless I have kids or my sister lets me by games for her kids, teh Revolution will most likely be my last system, my primary reason for even wanting oen is the old games, I honestly have no faith in Nintendos current game makers to support a system based on thier weirdo controller, among other things. I will say that as a grown adult, I do not have much desire to play pretend with a remote control for my video games. I currently play my old systems the most anyways and most likely will just focus on Revs DL features and maybe geta  few select new games if the are interesting enough.


Nintendo says they want to reach non gamers or old school gamers and I can say I think tehy will succeed with Rev mostly cuz of the Dl feature. But I still have hopes that they will make a Mario game that can take me back to when I was a kid again like they keep promising.  

[Dasmos]

I was going to comment about your comment about liking SFA better than Wind Waker.....

[animecyberrat]

well Wind Waker was fun fora while, adn yes I did like it at first and its one of the reasons why I got a Cube, but it got boring pretty fast.  Star fox has been my favorite game so far for GC, I seam to be alone in thining its a great game, most people hated it for some odd strange reason.

All in all I am getting  mroe satisfation from my Cube now more than ever, plus I am going to go back and try Sunshine and WW again just in case the are more fun now.  

[trip1eX]

SFA was horrible.  It lost me in the beginning when you walked to get something, but found out you couldn't until you got a second something.   So you'd walk to the second something only to find out you need a 3rd something to get the 2nd something so you could get the first something.  

WW was about 1000x better.  A true classic.  A masterpiece.  Same with Mario Sunshine.