http://news.gaminghorizon.com/media/1056387689.html]


It seems the much maligned Nintendo console is losing third party support. Although the Gamecube's strong point was always the development of quality in-house games, it seems that more and more devolpers are pulling out of the console. With Gamecube sales flagging, particularly in the United States (arguably the largest market) and the Xbox making gains on the back of it's sublime "Live" architecture in the United States. Nintendo's strongest market is Japan, which is also the smallest market, with Xbox making little inroads, and Europe appearing to be a tie between the two.
Xbox was also recently voted console of the year in a trade show event which could see even less support given to Gamecube. Of course Sony are miles ahead in their console market domination. Installed console owner numbers follow:

PS2 18,485,673

Xbox 5,682,847

GCN 4,429,930

Xbox is also slowly pulling ahead, expecting to reach the 10 million mark by christmas with Nintendo expecting by Q2 of 2004.

With more and more games being devolped solely for Xbox/ PS2 and British retailers either liquidating Gamecube stock, or not stocking gamecube at all, the future looks bleak for the Gamecube, especially as Microsoft can well afford to lose considerable amounts on both hardware and software, if it means winning the console war in the end.

[RL123]

Acclaim are crap. I think they've made 3 good games in the last 4 years. Eidos have just dropped the GC...what have they even released for it recently? A straight port of the crap Hitman 2? Yeah that'll sell a few systems!

Good riddance to both of them imo. If only they bothered to make some good games and not rehash rubbish from other consoles...

[NeilMcRae]

Eidos announced the same thing, its a cunning marketing trick for the companies to blame their own failings on Nintendo. This week more Gamecubes were sold in Japan than PS-2s! So its not all bad. Nintendo could steam ahead of the xbox if they fixed the stupid PAL release schedule.

Neil.

[Ono]

We also have the prospective UK price drops in a few weeks time:

XBox - £99.99
PS2 - £129.99

From a PAL point of view it's looking bleak despite Ninty having the strongest XMas line up.

Originally posted by JarJar
http://news.gaminghorizon.com/media/1056387689.html]


It seems the much maligned Nintendo console is losing third party support. Although the Gamecube's strong point was always the development of quality in-house games, it seems that more and more devolpers are pulling out of the console. With Gamecube sales flagging, particularly in the United States (arguably the largest market) and the Xbox making gains on the back of it's sublime "Live" architecture in the United States. Nintendo's strongest market is Japan, which is also the smallest market, with Xbox making little inroads, and Europe appearing to be a tie between the two.
Xbox was also recently voted console of the year in a trade show event which could see even less support given to Gamecube. Of course Sony are miles ahead in their console market domination. Installed console owner numbers follow:

PS2 18,485,673

Xbox 5,682,847

GCN 4,429,930

Xbox is also slowly pulling ahead, expecting to reach the 10 million mark by christmas with Nintendo expecting by Q2 of 2004.

With more and more games being devolped solely for Xbox/ PS2 and British retailers either liquidating Gamecube stock, or not stocking gamecube at all, the future looks bleak for the Gamecube, especially as Microsoft can well afford to lose considerable amounts on both hardware and software, if it means winning the console war in the end.

Dont know where u got those numbers from but there rubbish probably from MS as Gamecube is still 2nd Worldwide as it stands right now, also you say Japan is the smallest market lol whoever said that is on something

The gamecube outsold PS2 in japan for only the 2nd time just recently, it Europe sales are very even and X Box has a slight lead in U.S but not big enough to cancel the huge lead Nintendo has in Japan.

The problem with most these stories is they just dont know the facts all we hear is doom and gloom for Nintendo which is funny as they are making the most profit from there games division.

Things are on the up for the cube not getting worse and with a great lineup this XMAS it will get even better

If the XBOX was made by anyone other than MS everyone would be saying its failing big time, i mean its dropped from £299 at launch to £149 now and anouther drop planned, plus all the free games now does that tell you something? it sure does me PEOPLE DONT think the XBOX is worthy enough to pay what it even costs to make, Nintendo gamecube was launched at £149 and stayed at that price for a long time only recently dropping in price, and it still outsells XBOX worldwide, so why is this doom and gloom you tell me

Sega have also recently announced they will stop making sports games for the gamecube. This is due to the falling profits of Sega, and them wishing to produce sports games for the more popular consoles, PS2 and XBOX. They will however continue to produce games for kids such as sonic and super monkey ball. This could come as a blow to some sega sports fans that own a Gamecube. As while not overwhelmingly popular, Sega sports continue to produce top quality games such as NHL2k3.

Further bad news includes the rumours that EA might well purchase Nintendo in their next round of company buying.

http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/20...0205018488.htm

Also Rare has announced that it is canning Donkey Kong Racing and Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers.

Codemasters have also followed suit and seem to be canning Gamecube production altogether

http://www.gamespaper.com/news/Gamecubecanned.shtml

With Atari also canning some gamecube games such as Futurama this can only come as bad news with the Q3 release schedule for Gamecube looking very lax indeed.

The christmas sales should be a telling time for both Xbox and Gamecube, and with quality titles being released for both consoles such as Mario Kart, F-Zero,Rogue Squadron 3, and the Xbox release of Star Wars: KOTOR and the GTA series

Originally posted by JarJar
Sega have also recently announced they will stop making sports games for the gamecube. This is due to the falling profits of Sega, and them wishing to produce sports games for the more popular consoles, PS2 and XBOX. They will however continue to produce games for kids such as sonic and super monkey ball. This could come as a blow to some sega sports fans that own a Gamecube. As while not overwhelmingly popular, Sega sports continue to produce top quality games such as NHL2k3.

Further bad news includes the rumours that EA might well purchase Nintendo in their next round of company buying.

http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/20...0205018488.htm

Also Rare has announced that it is canning Donkey Kong Racing and Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers.

Codemasters have also followed suit and seem to be canning Gamecube production altogether

http://www.gamespaper.com/news/Gamecubecanned.shtml

With Atari also canning some gamecube games such as Futurama this can only come as bad news with the Q3 release schedule for Gamecube looking very lax indeed.

The christmas sales should be a telling time for both Xbox and Gamecube, and with quality titles being released for both consoles such as Mario Kart, F-Zero,Rogue Squadron 3, and the Xbox release of Star Wars: KOTOR and the GTA series

LOL i suspected a PS2 or XBOX Fanboy from your first post LOL but now i know, what a joke you are m8, EA buying Nintendo what are you on? Nintendo and EA have just made a deal for loads of EA games to come to Gamecube and GBA,

Just face it Nintendo has advertised very little, they have made profits on every hardware sale and they STILL are beating out the massively failing XBOX in sales

your so funny

P.S rare cancelling games on Gamecube *** rare never had any plans for a gamecube game they are owned by MS how about reading some factual info for a change,

As for Sega sports who do you think of when you think of Sports games? EA or Sega? eeeeeeeeeeeeerr let me think,

crap third party games do NOT sell a console what sells a console is superb 1st and 2nd party games and with all the deals Nintendo are doing with the likes of Square, EA, Capcom, Konami they are getting ****loads not even taking into account 1st party games

try telling me Eidos Sega and Aclaim are up with them in terms of games companies

Its a proven fact gamecube owners dont buy crap thats why the pathetic games the likes of Eidos have been putting on gamecube dont sell

I think you need to LEARN to difference between RUMOURS and FACTUAL NEWS, it was RUMOURED!!! that Nintendo and Microsoft was going to JOIN FORCES thats a RUMOUR not NEWS do we understand now?

[NeilMcRae]

EA purchase Nintendo? I don't know what you are smoking but can I have some ! :D

[groundy]

Originally posted by JarJar
They will however continue to produce games for kids such as sonic and super monkey ball.

Oh how wrong you could be .

[JamesOD]

Betamac I do hope you are not calling Sega a crap developer they have produced some of the finest gaming moments ever and have a fully developed portfolio that rivals anything Nintendo can produce and unlike the big N are not reliant on rehashes of games that should have been put out to pasture years ago.

Sega have produced two of the gamecubes finest games ( f-zero and smb) and I will say that Billy hatcher will join that list as the cubes best platform game this year.

sega sports is widely regarded as the best simulation sports product on the market.

This will sadly be Nintendos last european christmas last year all they had were adverts for "the legends" of which only 2 of the four titles advertised have arrived this year with FF crystal chronicles being pushed back till feb. 04 along with mario golf and the cancelation of animal crossing for europe ( yet it still gets a oz release) Nintendo will not get better until they ditch deadweight left over from the T.H.E days that still run there european division.

Nintendo lost europe when they failed to deliver the big games last year I agree that a lot of crap gets released but sadly a lot of it ends up on cube ( Disney and other kiddie games ) go into any store and the cube shelves are stocked with Junk the fact that there are more games to be released on GBA than GC in Q4 speaks volumes to anyone in the industry.

[Sinzer]

Nintendo lost Europe since the days of the N64.

As for this enlightening news, SEGA ditched its sports titles at the start of the year, as did Nintendo sell RARE to MS earlier this year, maybe end of last.

Strange thing is that every time I go to DVDBoxoffice to buy my games, the Gamecube games consist of most of the top ten. Although, that may be due to import buying.

I don't think that EA could afford Nintendo, besides what would it do with it? Nintendo make quality games, EA make (for the most part) crap.

I think I need to go find my troll spray, seems to be a lot of trolling around

M$ may win the console war in the end, but I seriously doubt it, they cannot afford to lose endless amounts of money, especially when their home territory (Server software) is starting to face serious competition from Linux.

Live is interesting I played it for a while round a mates house, but is still lagging behind PC online playing IMO. Simply not flexible enough for my liking.

Originally posted by JamesOD
Betamac I do hope you are not calling Sega a crap developer they have produced some of the finest gaming moments ever and have a fully developed portfolio that rivals anything Nintendo can produce and unlike the big N are not reliant on rehashes of games that should have been put out to pasture years ago.

Sega have produced two of the gamecubes finest games ( f-zero and smb) and I will say that Billy hatcher will join that list as the cubes best platform game this year.

sega sports is widely regarded as the best simulation sports product on the market.

This will sadly be Nintendos last european christmas last year all they had were adverts for "the legends" of which only 2 of the four titles advertised have arrived this year with FF crystal chronicles being pushed back till feb. 04 along with mario golf and the cancelation of animal crossing for europe ( yet it still gets a oz release) Nintendo will not get better until they ditch deadweight left over from the T.H.E days that still run there european division.

Nintendo lost europe when they failed to deliver the big games last year I agree that a lot of crap gets released but sadly a lot of it ends up on cube ( Disney and other kiddie games ) go into any store and the cube shelves are stocked with Junk the fact that there are more games to be released on GBA than GC in Q4 speaks volumes to anyone in the industry.

No i am not calling Sega a crap developer but would like to know why you think they dont release rehashes? Sonic, anyone? Shenmue 1, 2 and 3, All there sports titles are just rehashes every year,

while you criticise Nintendo for rehashes what are you saying#? that they should not make any more Mario games? or Zelda or Mario Kart or etc etc? as i for one would be very annoyed not to get to play these great games on future Nintendo consoles, but they are still trying new things like Pikmin, Animal Crossing, Geist, and also handing out popular games licenses to developers like Sega and Namco etc it shows Nintendo are really trying to give consumers new takes one there most popular games and i think thats great on nintendos part

P.S Sega did a superb job on F Zero it was fantasic, i would rather Sega release a small amount of Excellant titles than lots of rubbish, Sega sports is no loss whatsoever, most people who think sports think EA and they are backing gamecube alot just lately.

If you don't agree with a thread i post, betamac, i suggest you simply ignore it rather than resort to petty name calling and abusive language. I am purely trying to be objective, using links i find, however much truth may lay in them is up to the individual. Personally i find the idea of an EA console rather interesting, however far-fetched it may be. However it is a fact that third-party developers are losing interest in the Gamecube. However marginal the sales of Xbox and Xbox games are over the Gamecube, that is still more sales. MS making profit or no profit, more people would want to develop for Microsoft, as they sell more than Nintendo's Gamecube, and therefore a larger market. It has been proven with Nintendo's thin release scale that first-party or in-house titles are simply not enough, no matter how many "fans" claim how "AAA" these titles are.

As for the comments about Sega still targetting Nintendo's kid market. That was hardly a derogotive statement, as Nintendo's strongest market has always been with the 8-12 year olds with Mario, Sonic, SMB, Pokemon ad nauseum. As i own all three "Next-Gen" consoles i like to feel i am objective as possible, rather than the fanboy Betamac likes to believe i am. Reading his posts, however makes me believe other things. Sega, in my opinion, along with Namco are the best third party developers and they have released, in my opinion their best games on Xbox. In Panzer Dragoon and Shenmue they have possible the best shooter and undoubtebly the best RPG (Sorry metroid fans). Both of which are Xbox exclusive (for now?).

As a Nintendo fan it pains me to see re-hash after re-hash on the Gamecube, and i believe firmly that the only way Nintendo are to survive is to either become a third party developer themselves or to create original titles that so inspired them and others in the 80's. Back to roots i think for Nintendo. Time for them to re-think if they wish to survive.

[JamesOD]

Do not get me wrong I like my GC (US) but if I only had a uk console I would be so upset by Nintendo's attitude to the consumer.

The main problem with Nintendo has been the same for many years they have become dependent on Shigsy to bail them out of trouble and keep their console alive (which he has done with some fine software he is a genius without a doubt) But 6-7 quality games a year are not enough anymore the industry has changed people want choice now AAA means very little to the psx generation where graphics and licensing is king (E.A) gameplay has taken a back seat to marketing ( ENTER THE MATRIX ANYONE) and nintendo cannot grasp this idea the xmas 2002 legends campaign did more harm than good.

It all comes down to the arrogance of Nintendo's release schedule which see's games pushed back 6 months so that feb. is not a empty month while allowing the yanks and the rest of the world to get the games 8 months an advance of there european counterparts even sony are starting to view europe as a massive market now (GT4 IN DECEMBER BEFORE ANYONE ELSE) while Nintendo allow shelly friend to bullishly claim that everything is fine and dandy and nintendo are number 1.

Nintendo have done Zelda, Mario, Metroid etc. and they are all classic games that I have played to death and enjoyed every minute of but the sad fact is that I am an old school gamer I have all three nextgen systems and virtually all other consoles since the nes and I am one of the few people who have no preferance for any console I will buy a console if it has 1 game I must play ( I have 2 of each nextgen console because some games do not get released in Europe).

Originally posted by JarJar
If you don't agree with a thread i post, betamac, i suggest you simply ignore it rather than resort to petty name calling and abusive language. I am purely trying to be objective, using links i find, however much truth may lay in them is up to the individual. Personally i find the idea of an EA console rather interesting, however far-fetched it may be. However it is a fact that third-party developers are losing interest in the Gamecube. However marginal the sales of Xbox and Xbox games are over the Gamecube, that is still more sales. MS making profit or no profit, more people would want to develop for Microsoft, as they sell more than Nintendo's Gamecube, and therefore a larger market. It has been proven with Nintendo's thin release scale that first-party or in-house titles are simply not enough, no matter how many "fans" claim how "AAA" these titles are.

As for the comments about Sega still targetting Nintendo's kid market. That was hardly a derogotive statement, as Nintendo's strongest market has always been with the 8-12 year olds with Mario, Sonic, SMB, Pokemon ad nauseum. As i own all three "Next-Gen" consoles i like to feel i am objective as possible, rather than the fanboy Betamac likes to believe i am. Reading his posts, however makes me believe other things. Sega, in my opinion, along with Namco are the best third party developers and they have released, in my opinion their best games on Xbox. In Panzer Dragoon and Shenmue they have possible the best shooter and undoubtebly the best RPG (Sorry metroid fans). Both of which are Xbox exclusive (for now?).

As a Nintendo fan it pains me to see re-hash after re-hash on the Gamecube, and i believe firmly that the only way Nintendo are to survive is to either become a third party developer themselves or to create original titles that so inspired them and others in the 80's. Back to roots i think for Nintendo. Time for them to re-think if they wish to survive.

Namecalling? BTW Nintendo have sold more consoles worldwide than XBOX so that point is totally irrelevant that you made, i called you a fanboy because that rediculous post which contained months old rumours was only your 2nd post on this board thats what we call troling just coming here with Fictual information to annoy people.

You obviously have no clue about the videogames industry as games like Mario and Zelda are not kids games they are for everyone, i dare supect more adults play these games that kids, have you actually played Mario? i am a very good gamer and still have not completed the game i hate to see how kids get on.

As for Shenmue on XBOX have you seen the sales figures? they are pathetic that was the biggest flop on the XBOX and it only got relesed on XBOX because MS paid Sega a crap load of money not because Sega wanted to.

Theres so many points you make which are absolute nonsense you say Nintendo need to do this and that to SURVIVE? have you any idea how much money Nintendo make? there console is selling OK worlwide (at least more than XBOX) on these consoles they make profit on every sale, there handhelds sell incredible worlwide on these they make profit every sale then you have the games, Nintendo are not struggling financially atall you dont know what your saying.

Microsoft are trying desperately to buy themself into this games market and are losing to Nintendos laid back attitude of minumal advertising ok maybe Nintendo need to get more agressive but its an achivement that they have combatted the MS millions on games alone

I totally understand what the guy above is saying, but you cannot deny Nintendo have been better this generation making exclusive deals with the likes of Square, Sega, Namco, Capcom, Konami etc they are learning exclusive games do sell a console, just look a Final Fantasy Chronicles and Armada in japan, pushing gamecube sales ahead of PS2 (and ahead of the 800 a month XBOX)

I think by the next gen consoles Nintendo will have alot of backing from these companies and it would be the perfect way to start to have Exclusive games from these companies for the N5 Launch

Just to prove your information is totally old and wrong

Nintendo Gamecube has sold Passed the 10 Million Mark

XBOX Has Sold Just over 9 Million

and PS2 according to you has sold 18 Million well its sold 40 Million now

These are from figures posted by Sony a month or 2 ago and since then its been neck and neck.

So the PS2 has sold 12 Million more since the numbers you posted? that just shows how old your numbers are

[Wasabi]

Reuters news yesterday

PS2 latest shipping has topped 60million units (Japan 14.17m, North America 26.4m and the rest 19.4m) , so there are well over 40million units sold.

link http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030909/tech_...deogame_1.html


Game sales in Japan between 4th and 10th August 03

http://www.topconsoles.com/comments.php?news_id=1734

Here is another charts confirming the above numbers and you can see the console sales up to beginning of August and GC has outsold XBOX quite heavily not to mention how PS2 is selling! And you can see the source is media create, which is the official sales numbers researcher in Japan and I have added another link to them below for the latest software sales.

Game sales in Japan between 25th and 31st Augutst 03

http://www.m-create.com/eng/e_ranking.html

And here is the the same chart but with cumulative sales so far.
http://www.m-create.com/jpn/s_ranking.html
ps. its in japanese but u can get it in english here
http://gamingnow.net/html/modules.ph...rticle&sid=710


All in all Nintendo is not doing too bad with GBA holding up the sales and GC is doing ok, but XBOX has nothing to compete with.
And despite its age PS2, although the consoles sales is falling, they are clear leaders and the software is selling well.

OBS, did you guys notice that Nintendo has that week over 70% of the games market in Japan.

Yes, Japan is not the biggest market, but nevertheless extremely important to do well in its home market. Its like automobiles, the domestic market is always the key market for the brands, see the big 3 in North America, that's where all the profits are coming from. The same policy goes for all the European brands.

Wasabi

when i said 40 Million i was just going search on google just to prove what a ****stirier the guy who started this thread was, he just found the only numbers which made XBOX outsell GC

i mean he was saying the PS2 had sold 18Million and as you rightly put its really 60 Million just proves my point.

Nintendo has nothing to worry about right now they are selling OK but more importantly making nice profits, they are slowly changing there statagies and have a great XMAS lineup

[Squiffy]

Originally posted by betamac
Nintendo has nothing to worry about right now they are selling OK but more importantly making nice profits, they are slowly changing there statagies and have a great XMAS lineup

Nothing to worry about? Really?

PSP is on the way, with extremely impressive sounding specs and the vast marketing expertise that Sony will bring to bear. The GBA is the main thing keeping Nintendo afloat - and this cash cow will be attacked as never before.

And Gamecube production being halted is incredibly bad news - no matter how you paint it. They must be way behind their expected sales to take this sort of action. And just the perception that GC is doomed is bad news for sales, with Nintendos actions just confirming this for those that have doubts.

LOL gamegear was more powerful than gameboy wheres that? also Nintendo own the handheld market and will be releasing a competitor to the PSP which by the way is a long way off.

As for GB keeping them afloat are you serious? i will say again Nintendo are making profits on gamecube, and have outsold XBOX now MS are losing alot of money on XBOX and losing on sales who do you think is better off in this console war (and dont bring in all MS Millions into it we are talking this generation console war)

As for gamecube halting production of course this means they has missed targets and have sold less than expected does not mean they have sold crap, The gamecube sales are increasing on a weekly basis even outselling PS2 in Japan now wheres this bad news for sales you was trying to point out?

you should see MS expected targets before there XBOX launch they were much higher than Nintendos, thats how the Whole Nvidia argument started MS missed there targets by so much Nvidia was screwed

Nintendo are a very profitable company and will continue to be so however much people think otherwise

[Sinzer]

The problem with the PSP is that with it's specs it will likely be reasonably expensive.

90% of Gameboy owners are under the age of 13 (I expect!!) and their parents want to buy them a cheap system to keep em quiet.

If the PSP is available for under a hundred quid and the games are cheap then I would be interested. Still not sure the full 3D games on a small screen is all that viable, the Gameboy excels due to usually large vibrant 2D sprites that are clear.

Originally posted by Sinzer
The problem with the PSP is that with it's specs it will likely be reasonably expensive.

90% of Gameboy owners are under the age of 13 (I expect!!) and their parents want to buy them a cheap system to keep em quiet.

If the PSP is available for under a hundred quid and the games are cheap then I would be interested. Still not sure the full 3D games on a small screen is all that viable, the Gameboy excels due to usually large vibrant 2D sprites that are clear.

A Perfect example of this is the Nokia Ngage, going to be priced to high for it to compete with the Gameboy it might win over a few older gamers with it been Nokia and Sony (For the PSP) but will have no chance of taking over the handheld market from Nintendo,

No idea about age groups for gameboy but alot of my mates own a GBA and recently GBASP who are 20+

Lets just have a quick recap of who have tried and failed in the handheld market

Sega Gamegear
Wonderswan
Wondeswan Color
Neo Geo Pocket
Neo Geo Pocket Color
Gamepark-32

All i can remember off the top of my head

[NeilMcRae]

Anyone who thinks that Nintendo have put out nothing but rehashes on the Gamecube is on another planet. Frankly
I can't imagine gaming without Nintendo, but I can imagine gaming without Sony or Microsoft, but you pays your money you takes your choices. Nintendo have treated Europe with contempt but outside of Europe Nintendo is very strong. Nintendo is one of the largest companies in the business. They have about $5Billion in the bank.

Just some factual evidence from EA.COM and NINTENDO.COM

Fiscal 2003:
EA's net income was $2.5B
Nintendo's net income was double this at almost $5B

Time to move on me thinks.

Regards,
Neil.