I grew up on Nintendo and have a soft spot in my heart for them. I loved the NES and the SNES and loathed the 64. Now we have the cube.
Well, it seems that in the near year it has been out, there have been very few great games for it. It seems to lean VERY heavily on 1st party software from nintendo. Look, we are wating for Super Mario Sunshine, Zelda, Metroid. Those are the ONLY really big games in development for the cube, and they are all made or produced by nintendo.
When are they gonna start a flow of many different types of games? This thing is starting to feel like the 64 did. Always waiting for Nintendos next big release, but never waiting for anyone elses. PS2 has alot of goor games from many different developers. Xbox…well…I dunno. But GCN is sucking IMHO. I have one. I have a PS2 as well. My PC gets more game time than either of those.
What do you think? Is the GCN gonna be the last big nintendo hardware unit? Have they lost the console war?
IMHO I think the Cube sucks ass too. Not the actual hardware itself but the way Nintendo is handling it. You are right about the games. Only a handful of really good games have come out and you usually have a long wait in between them. I will say though that the few good games thathave come out for them are kick ass.
Reports keep coming up every once in a while that they’re planning on changing their focus to get away from the whole “console war” nonsense in the first place. I’d be surprised – the GameBoy has such a ridiculously huge monopoly on handhelds, even with its Most Awful Screen Ever, that I’m sure they don’t mean they want to get out of hardware entirely.
For me, I liked Mario 64, Zelda, and Banjo Kazooie so much that I still think getting an N64 was worth it. And I bought a GC a few months ago, which has been sitting collecting dust while I wait for Mario Sunshine to come out. (I’ve tried a couple of games and so far haven’t been impressed enough with anything to warrant buying it instead of renting). The difference here is that I’m not quite so confident that Mario Sunshine and “Celda” and whatever Rare decides to release whenever they get around to it, will be enough to warrant buying the Cube. And Nintendo can’t keep doing the same thing forever, making people buy consoles that only support 3 or 4 games worth having, even if those 3 or 4 are some of the best games ever made.
IMO, if you want to see a “winner,” it’s definitely the PS2. But not so much for what they did right as what they didn’t do spectacularly wrong. The machine isn’t as huge and expensive to produce as the Xbox, Sony doesn’t have a draconian licensing policy as bad as Nintendo’s, and the PS2 is backwards compatible with a bajillion existing games, which neither the Xbox nor GC have.
But on the other hand, Sony doesn’t have any absolute-must-have games announced for this Christmas season. I suspect that with Mario et. al., Nintendo will “win” this year. Whatever, I’m not going to pretend to understand the videogame business at all. Sega just kept pumping out one brilliant game after the other for the Dreamcast, and then just a few months later announced that the Dreamcast was dead. I don’t know if I want to live in a world that could kill something so beautiful; a world where Jet Set Radio didn’t sell 100 million copies.
In terms of market share and sales? No. Sony has owned the console market since the original Playstation came out. In terms of power? No. The X-Box surpasses the raw power of both PS2 and GC.
What the GC does have going for it is the Nintendo name and the excellent first party games that come with it, and affordability. $149 is a good deal if you don’t care about DVD playback and don’t care about games like Grand Theft Auto or Metal Gear Solid which will never be on GC. A lot of games are on all three systems though (especially EA titles).
I don’t know, as far as Nintendo goes I have pretty much only relied on first and second party software. IMnsHO no other system has ever, ever been able to match it, not even Sega (though Sega does come tolerably close).
I still play the Mario for the 64. That game is just fun. And don’t even get me started on how awesome all the Zeldas are. My poor original NES cartridge has a dead battery, so I have to beat both quests in pretty much one sitting or I lose all my progress!
The Cube is going to do exactly what i expected it to do: offer me supreme first party titles, great second party titles, and one or two third-party titles. I currently own RE1, Super Monkey Ball, Super Smash Bros Melee (!!!), and Rogue Squadron. I keep meaning to pick up eternal darkness but I’ve been programming an Othello game and that has eaten up a TON of my time lately, besides which I’m still on FFX for the PS2.
Nintendo isn’t succeeding per se, though, as their sales don’t quite live up to what they really would like, even if they didn’t want to be the number one console producer. But I think the system is fantastic. I’ve played it more than I have my PS2 or my XBox.
I like my GameCube…or I would, if it weren’t in the shop since last week…
Oddly, there are more GC titles out than we realize…it’s just that the major toy stores have only stocked up on the big ones. Hence, every time I look for new GC games, all I see are Batman, Rogue Squadron, SSB Melee, Simpsons, and some sports.
Although I’m REALLY looking forward to the release of Mario Sunshine and Star Wars: Bounty Hunter this fall. Zelda, I’m a little iffy on, because they’ve so dramatically changed the look of the game. I thought they hit gold with “Ocarina of Time.”
I think the PS2 & the Xbox are better cause they can play dvd flicks & go online. & have HDs, etc.
More useful & only 50 bucks more than the GC. I don’t have a GC yet, maybe someday.
I like my Cube, though I only have two games fot it: Eternal Darkness and 007. ED I’m really enjoying, but Bond seems like EA is just pumping out mediocre games for franchises (it doesn’t hold a trick birthday candle to Goldeneye). The real problem is that it seems like half the games out for it are sports games. I don’t like sports games!
It seems like the Cube would alienate hardcore Nintendo users by making them buy new versions of their favorite games in a new format. At least Sony’s PS2 can play PS1 games (for the most part). Even the lowly Gameboy stayed compatible as it evolved (GameBoy, GameBoy Color, and GameBoy Advanced).
Is there some way to play N64 games on the Cube that I haven’t heard of.?
Buy new versions? Why? Did something happen to the supply of used n64s?
I still play NES, SNES, N64, and GC. I am looking into buying an Atari 2600. My younger brother is building a collection of NES and SNES games. He recently got Megaman X, X2, and X3.
I wish they would come out with some new old-school, side-scrolling games for GC, those are the best.
I know people who are really into videogames and will ditch their current systems in order to “upgrade” to the newest thing. Going so far as to buying what is essentially the same game with updated graphics and sounds. Then again, I have a friend who will drag out his Mattel Intellivision(!) and have a good ol’ time. I used to have one of those myself, but I’m not really into videogames much anymore.
I respect the OP. If what you are looking for is more games, I wouldn’t wait for GC to shell them out.
There are many great games that are Cube exclusive. Sonic, Mario, Zelda, (current favorite) Eternal Darkness, Resident Evils series (to the new councils, plus some RE game that’s ONLY going to be on GC… PS2 DID have one crappy RE game), the new Star Fox Adventure game that looks, AWESOME, GBA conceivability, Metroid, Picman, Mario Kart. And I’m sure a few new characters and games will pop up.
For those who live for those games listed above, like me, GC is best for you. I happen to think GC will get more games from third parties as time goes on. There are already more than you probably know. Of the games that appear on all three systems, PS2 will probably be the least flashy or smooth with less bells and whistles. GC and X-Box are closer in the way a game looks (I think), but for the most part, X-Box is cooler. Yet, there are people who hate the X-Box. It’s all in the type of person you are. I think it’s ridiculous to say one is better one worst.
Thought you guys might find some relevance to this short article. It states that although there are more GCs sold than XBoxes, by next year it is projected to go completely the other way.
