A big Nintendo-defender argument in threads on GAF has basically amounted to "What happened to the Gamecube proves that Nintendo can't win over sales and third parties by making competitive hardware." But have we really analyzed why the Gamecube lost Nintendo more market share to Sony as well as Microsoft? People tend to bring up a lot of reasons that I actually think are very minor.
Was the controller really that much of a problem? I don't think so. Compared to the PS2 pad it was missing one shoulder button, and the layout was a little awkward, but I don't think that' was enough to actually discourage a developer from making a game on it. If they thought they could make money with a Gamecube version, it wasn't that big an obstacle at all.
I also don't think the disc size was THAT limiting. I can understand that the N64's cartridges having a tenth the storage of a CD-ROM made a lot of games technically impossible on it, but the difference between a Gamecube disc and an average PS2 CD was maybe a factor of three. Depending on how many PS2 and Xbox games used up all that space, I don't think it was enough to discourage developers to shun the Gamecube en masse. Again, if they felt they could work with Nintendo and make money on a Gamecube version of a game, they could probably find a way around the storage limitations (some did, with two-disc Gamecube versions).
Online also wasn't nearly as big a factor as journalists back then made it out to be. Maybe 10 percent of Xbox owners and six percent of PS2 owners played games online. To over 90 percent of console gamers online just didn't matter.
What we're basically asking is: why couldn't Nintendo convince developers to support the Gamecube and convince people to buy it? I think the main reason is because the Gamecube had no innate advantages over its competition. It didn't offer publishers anything the other two consoles didn't.
By the PS2 era Sony was an unstoppable beast that had a stranglehold on Japanese publishers. Unless either Sony made a huge mistake (which they didn't) or one of the other two companies introduced something absolutely earth-shattering (which they didn't), neither Nintendo nor Microsoft really had a chance of knocking PlayStation off its throne. Like its predecessor, the PS2 was the place to go for all console games, especially Japanese games.
On the flipside, Microsoft had a bit of a stranglehold on a lot of western third party developers who were able to easily come onto the Xbox from the PC space. The Xbox became the console to own for western-style games like KOTOR, Morrowind, Rainbow Six (which got shitty ports on the other two consoles), Halo, etc. Plus, despite having about the same install base as the Gamecube, a lot of other western publishers kept supporting it after they dropped Gamecube support.
So you have Nintendo stuck in the middle with nothing really unique to offer anyone other than Nintendo's games. They tried to rebuild relationships with the likes of Capcom, Namco, Konami, and other companies but it was probably too little, too late to break Sony's stranglehold. I think Nintendo's real defeat however was letting Microsoft get in on their game.
Some survey from back during that time discovered that most people in the Xbox camp actually owned an N64 before buying an Xbox. Instead of taking a bite out of Sony's market, Microsoft ended up biting into Nintendo's install base instead. To me it looks like part of that was the popularity of console shooters. The N64 was actually a pretty good system for shooters, and Xbox games like Halo or Tom Clancy likely seemed to continue the trend that GoldenEye started. You could even say it took the N64's trend of popular multiplayer games and continued that, partly with Xbox Live.
Still, could Nintendo have really predicted the entrance of Microsoft and the PC developers into the console space? Could they really have countered that? Even if Nintendo of America had kept its native game divisions, not sold Rare, and came out with Perfect Dark 2 in a timely manner, would that have been enough against Halo?
When you think about it, what could Nintendo have done to differentiate the Gamecube and make the platform look more appealing to developers? Just doing exactly what they did wouldn't really provide any extra incentive.
tl;dr: I think the real problem with the Gamecube was that it merely tried to follow the PS2 without doing offering anything really special on its own. Would could Nintendo have offered to consumes and developers?
Was the controller really that much of a problem? I don't think so. Compared to the PS2 pad it was missing one shoulder button, and the layout was a little awkward, but I don't think that' was enough to actually discourage a developer from making a game on it. If they thought they could make money with a Gamecube version, it wasn't that big an obstacle at all.
I also don't think the disc size was THAT limiting. I can understand that the N64's cartridges having a tenth the storage of a CD-ROM made a lot of games technically impossible on it, but the difference between a Gamecube disc and an average PS2 CD was maybe a factor of three. Depending on how many PS2 and Xbox games used up all that space, I don't think it was enough to discourage developers to shun the Gamecube en masse. Again, if they felt they could work with Nintendo and make money on a Gamecube version of a game, they could probably find a way around the storage limitations (some did, with two-disc Gamecube versions).
Online also wasn't nearly as big a factor as journalists back then made it out to be. Maybe 10 percent of Xbox owners and six percent of PS2 owners played games online. To over 90 percent of console gamers online just didn't matter.
What we're basically asking is: why couldn't Nintendo convince developers to support the Gamecube and convince people to buy it? I think the main reason is because the Gamecube had no innate advantages over its competition. It didn't offer publishers anything the other two consoles didn't.
By the PS2 era Sony was an unstoppable beast that had a stranglehold on Japanese publishers. Unless either Sony made a huge mistake (which they didn't) or one of the other two companies introduced something absolutely earth-shattering (which they didn't), neither Nintendo nor Microsoft really had a chance of knocking PlayStation off its throne. Like its predecessor, the PS2 was the place to go for all console games, especially Japanese games.
On the flipside, Microsoft had a bit of a stranglehold on a lot of western third party developers who were able to easily come onto the Xbox from the PC space. The Xbox became the console to own for western-style games like KOTOR, Morrowind, Rainbow Six (which got shitty ports on the other two consoles), Halo, etc. Plus, despite having about the same install base as the Gamecube, a lot of other western publishers kept supporting it after they dropped Gamecube support.
So you have Nintendo stuck in the middle with nothing really unique to offer anyone other than Nintendo's games. They tried to rebuild relationships with the likes of Capcom, Namco, Konami, and other companies but it was probably too little, too late to break Sony's stranglehold. I think Nintendo's real defeat however was letting Microsoft get in on their game.
Some survey from back during that time discovered that most people in the Xbox camp actually owned an N64 before buying an Xbox. Instead of taking a bite out of Sony's market, Microsoft ended up biting into Nintendo's install base instead. To me it looks like part of that was the popularity of console shooters. The N64 was actually a pretty good system for shooters, and Xbox games like Halo or Tom Clancy likely seemed to continue the trend that GoldenEye started. You could even say it took the N64's trend of popular multiplayer games and continued that, partly with Xbox Live.
Still, could Nintendo have really predicted the entrance of Microsoft and the PC developers into the console space? Could they really have countered that? Even if Nintendo of America had kept its native game divisions, not sold Rare, and came out with Perfect Dark 2 in a timely manner, would that have been enough against Halo?
When you think about it, what could Nintendo have done to differentiate the Gamecube and make the platform look more appealing to developers? Just doing exactly what they did wouldn't really provide any extra incentive.
tl;dr: I think the real problem with the Gamecube was that it merely tried to follow the PS2 without doing offering anything really special on its own. Would could Nintendo have offered to consumes and developers?