Knightime_X
Member
Games like Final Fantasy 7, and Metal Gear Solid would have likely been a nintendo 64 exclusive.
Sega Saturn was balls to develop for.
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Best recoveries in Gaming: ( Nintendo is amazing at recovering their fumbles Gamecube to Wii , WiiU to Switch )
- Thread starter onQ123
- Start date
Sega Saturn was balls to develop for.
So you skipped over the part where I said before PC recovered from the piracy?
BlackTron
Member
Having CD is too huge a change to assume anything. Saturn had plenty of other reasons not to publish on it. Media format, storage space, cost and by extension licensing terms were the biggest reason to leave Nintendo, the industry leader to that point.
N64 with CDs may never have lost Final Fantasy. In other words you are talking about a completely different timeline.
SF Kosmo
Banned
The "throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks" approach doesn't make me feel like they have much of an ability.tonread.the tea leaves of the industry. Sure, sometimes they strike gold, as with Wii or Switch, but just as often they succeed despite themselves, as with the DS and N64, which has some seriously questionable hardware decisions.
Oof85
Banned
I'm not gonna disagree with you.
The problem is the software they make just isn't as compelling as Nintendo's, point blank.
Nintendo sold the most on all of their platforms, going all the way back to NES.
So I get why they act the way they do.
I'm just pointing out that the greater industry WANTS Sony in the drivers seat and bends over backwards to keep them there, so it makes the comeback narrative for them weaker vs Nintendo's where we know they don't get the same support like that.
Oof85
Banned
If Nintendo went with the Snes-cd they'd probably not be around as a company anymore.
Sony had them in a horribly exploitative agreement that would've basically yielded all the profits to Sony via fine print licensing.
Anyone who champions that either hates Nintendo or is totally ignorant to why that relationship was killed so brutally.
The real tea is that for all the fumbles Nintendo's made(and they've got a few) they've always been way more profitable than Sony and never at risk of folding, despite what the market narratives have said.
jufonuk
not tag worthy
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kazuyamishima
Member
Possibly is the fact that they have a great relationship since the PS1 days AND they make a lot of revenue on PS consoles.
JimmyRustler
Member
For me personally probably Capcom. Pre-PS3 era my favourite game company, PS3 era trash, post PS3 my favourite company.
Hated them for cashing that CoD money. Thank god that's over.
Hated them for cashing that CoD money. Thank god that's over.
crackajack
Member
I don't know if "recovered "is fitting. They just set a course and go through with their plan. For better or worse. They are more stubborn than anything, not even go into emergency mode for anything and start spending some of the horded money to get third party games or something.
PS3 though, that shit was disastrous if their game devs and system wizards would have not found ways to actually use that weird machine. Getting not only good games running on it, but also improving online or adding trophies which was seemingly not really planned very well or at all and barely was there at the beginning. Getting hacked was also no fun, but as a result they offered two free games and consequently bet on Plus and I guess part of the success PS4 and PS5 have today is because they secured many customers long term with tying them to the games on their accounts.
What did Nintendo actually turn around within a gen? A second shot at the almost same thing is or should naturally be better. Ducktape Gamecube with waggle, second screen to handheld hybrid. Sure those were no ultimate safe bets, but it was safe in the cheap hardware. As long as they did Gamecube numbers they would probably have made some profit. A second Cell console, this time with an actually powerful GPU, would probably have been interesting too, since CPU wise the Cell was a match for the jaguars, but in the hw race they learned from Nintendo and also do a bit more safer stuff.
PS3 though, that shit was disastrous if their game devs and system wizards would have not found ways to actually use that weird machine. Getting not only good games running on it, but also improving online or adding trophies which was seemingly not really planned very well or at all and barely was there at the beginning. Getting hacked was also no fun, but as a result they offered two free games and consequently bet on Plus and I guess part of the success PS4 and PS5 have today is because they secured many customers long term with tying them to the games on their accounts.
What did Nintendo actually turn around within a gen? A second shot at the almost same thing is or should naturally be better. Ducktape Gamecube with waggle, second screen to handheld hybrid. Sure those were no ultimate safe bets, but it was safe in the cheap hardware. As long as they did Gamecube numbers they would probably have made some profit. A second Cell console, this time with an actually powerful GPU, would probably have been interesting too, since CPU wise the Cell was a match for the jaguars, but in the hw race they learned from Nintendo and also do a bit more safer stuff.
Black_Stride
do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
You think the PS3 was a worse launch than the Xbox One.
The Xbox One announcement literally had no games with a constant stream of TV this and TV that........and was announced with an exorbitant price while being weaker than the PS4.....it also didnt allow you to share games, play used games or disconnect from the Internet.....the thing also came with a camera no one wanted.
They are atleast on par, though I still think the Xbox One was worse cuz gamers came out of that announcement bemused as to why they would want a DVR for their TV that just so happens to kinda play games with a shitty camera.
Atleast the PS3 was primarily for playing games, it had a ridiculous price but they could atleast say it just so happened to also be the cheapest BluRay player on the market.
What redeeming factors did the Xbox One have at launch?
Daneel Elijah
Member
Just imaginne mario 64 or zelda with a CD. I rest my case
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YeulEmeralda
Linux User
Sony. The PS3 killed them for a few years. Microsoft was on top of the world.
TheGodfather07
Member
Nintendo can either have a major flop or major success with their consoles. Its literally 50/50 chance with them. They always do opposite of what you expect. We all expect switch 2 right? Nintendo will give it a new name, even though they sold over 100m switches.
Sony probably had the best and most impressive turnaround with the PS3 because it was in the same generation. Only they could release such an expensive system and still sell almost 90m consoles. They also starting building up their 1st party during the PS3 gen and are reaping the rewards of their work today.
Sony probably had the best and most impressive turnaround with the PS3 because it was in the same generation. Only they could release such an expensive system and still sell almost 90m consoles. They also starting building up their 1st party during the PS3 gen and are reaping the rewards of their work today.
TintoConCasera
I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
It is if you look at it from a financial point of view.
From a gamer point of view... we still had a lot of cool games on the Wii, so I don't complain. It's after that when things starting going for worse, with the WiiU and the Switch.
Ainem Enamas
Member
This gaming industry is so entertaining on its own it's so much hype.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Sony getting fucked over by Nintendo. They then decide to enter the ring and wipe the floor with Nintendo, and beat Sega so badly that they quit the hardware business.
Sony recovering from PS3’s early bombing and Xbox 360 eating their lunch in the early parts.
Nintendo going from Wii U to Switch was nuts.
Sony recovering from PS3’s early bombing and Xbox 360 eating their lunch in the early parts.
Nintendo going from Wii U to Switch was nuts.
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
The transition from Wii U to Switch is nothing short of remarkable. I was glad they were making lots of money and were so successful in the Wii era, but to me it came at the expense of them seemingly not making many/if any games that I cared at all about. GameCube was a much better system for what people called at the time “core games”. Wii abandoned a lot of that, and even worse, tacked on substandard motion controls to the core games they did put out. Blech!
The trick for them coming off the Switch will be if their next system can replicate Switch’s success without much loss in business, since they no longer have a separate handheld or home console line to fall back on/ pick up the slack if one isn’t doing well. Maybe with Nintendo Accounts and their subscription carry-over a lot of that can be mitigated now
. Because even if the launch library is thin, there’s all *this* NSO/ Expansion Pack carry-over content to keep you entertained while we wait for the heavy hitters to slowly trickle out.
The trick for them coming off the Switch will be if their next system can replicate Switch’s success without much loss in business, since they no longer have a separate handheld or home console line to fall back on/ pick up the slack if one isn’t doing well. Maybe with Nintendo Accounts and their subscription carry-over a lot of that can be mitigated now
. Because even if the launch library is thin, there’s all *this* NSO/ Expansion Pack carry-over content to keep you entertained while we wait for the heavy hitters to slowly trickle out.
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AJUMP23
Parody of actual AJUMP23
Virtual Boy was a ball drop. And the only reason they were facing PS1 and PS2 is because they dropped the ball in business and went with Philips for CD tech and not sony.
knocksky
Banned
How the fuck did you get that tag? Lol
Shut0wen
Banned
Capcom, stopped being greedy af, stopped following trends that ruined most of there games, stopped investing in rubbish western studios and it only taken re6 to fail for them to change.
Sega invested mostly in good western developers, there inhouse is still shit but with the newest sonic there making decent progress
Sega invested mostly in good western developers, there inhouse is still shit but with the newest sonic there making decent progress
No the N64 and GameCube Nintendo dropped the ball because of stupid decisions that alienated developers. While it is true that the PS1 and PS2 are juggernauts, the N64 likely would have had a much bigger library if Nintendo had not been so stubborn about having it be cartridge-based. Similarly, the Gamecube likely would have had more third party support if it had more than 1.3 GB of capacity for its disks.
Xbox 360 didn't "recover" though, thats not what that means. If anything it was the opposite; Xbox 360 started off very strong (after an impressive start with the original Xbox) but then started to falter after ~2010-ish aside from Kinect.
As a lot of other people in this thread have stated, the PlayStation 3 is the gaming king of redemption. It was selling so pathetically bad at one point that in 2007 the GAMEBOY ADVANCE was outselling it, several years after the DS had already succeeded it! But Sony turned it around from a major loss to breaking even by 2013, which is a mighty impressive feat in the gaming world.
SF Kosmo
Banned
Ehhhh...
- They went from 95% market share in the NES era to less than 50% in the prime SNES era (eventually catching up only because Sega left the 16-bit market). We all love the SNES, but that's one of the sharpest market declines in a single gen outside of Atari. They launched two years behind Sega in the west, with a (sorry, not sorry) underwhelming, unambitious flagship Mario game that was less good than the last-gen Mario 3 and had none of the next-gen flash of Sonic, and a poor understanding of the western market in general.
- Then N64 was hamstrung by being cartridge based, which was a weird decision. Also launched very late that gen.
- GameCube felt like more normal hardware, but again a full year later than PS2, with weird media that couldn't hold as much, and it sold way worse than its predecessor. That's three straight generations of major decline.
- Then Wii struck gold with something new and weird and different. Huge success, but the first time in four generations Nintendo was actually on the upswing, and it had a short tail.
- Then they fuck it all up again with Wii U, don't think I need to explain that.
- Then they consolidated their console and handheld efforts with Switch, which was a brilliant move.
Which means they we're on the downswing for 4 out of 7 generations in which they released consoles.
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
It's easy for PS3 to redeem sales when the price is cut by hundreds of dollars to be price parity with 360 around 2008/2009.
The games had nothing to do with it. If PS3 had the same +$100-200 higher price than 360 all gen, 360 would had outsold it easily.
Price cuts
See also: Launch price Price cuts in video game system often result in better sales, but may be an indication of slowing demand or an aging system. It may also mean more efficient manufacturing processes. Most price cuts vary from $20 to $50, though $100 reductions have occurred. When the...
... well when "PS3 HAS NO GAEMS" was a meme for like 3 years, yea i think software did have something to do with it. But of course yes, price cuts are big as well.It's easy for PS3 to redeem sales when the price is cut by hundreds of dollars to be price parity with 360 around 2008/2009.
The games had nothing to do with it. If PS3 had the same +$100-200 higher price than 360 all gen, 360 would had outsold it easily.
Price cuts
See also: Launch price Price cuts in video game system often result in better sales, but may be an indication of slowing demand or an aging system. It may also mean more efficient manufacturing processes. Most price cuts vary from $20 to $50, though $100 reductions have occurred. When the...vgsales.fandom.com
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Dont forget Virtual Boy.
Over Nintendo's entire history, people dont realize that their handheld systems made them more profit than their consoles (I'll exclude Switch as it does both, but before that system Nintendo always had a console and handheld selling at the same time).
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
I think the lack of GameCube third-party support was multi-pronged.
-Yes, the disc capacity was short-sighted and did not help
-Lack of online network functionality
-The primary color of the system was purple, until they realized shortly after launch that people wanted black or gray
-The controller was too colorful and the lack of a full second analog stick was short-sighted, as well as the lack of a second ZR button.
-memory card storage capacity was tiny until late in the system's life
All combined to limit the system's potential.
EverydayBeast
ChatGPT 0.001
GameCube was outstanding but it gets a lower grade than the ps2 why would they not include a dvd player, at times those mini disks were cute yes but let’s get serious GameCube gives you Mario and Zelda it was able to give us twilight princess.
SF Kosmo
Banned
Yeah and their handheld systems suffered from weird decisions too. Like no one denies their success, but the gimmicks in the DS and 3DS made the systems way more expensive and no more appealing. And waiting 10 years to release GBC, only to release GBA less than two years later?
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Lots of issues with N64 and GC. Wasnt just PS's fault for swooping in. It's not like Saturn/DC did anything, and MS just got their first system out and only sold around 25M units during the early 2000s.
So there's plenty of gamers out there who could had bought Nintendo systems, but most all hoarded over to PS.
The media drive is one thing. CDs and DVDs were a big thing for game storage and playing music and movies. But it goes beyond that as a one-two ponged approach.
Since N64 and GC had such odd gimped storage, the systems had to take on a whole cartoony/family fun image and that has continued even to now. NES and SNES had that image vs. Sega, but Nintendo systems still got their share of more adult orientated action games from all the big third party companies. But that's why Genesis/MD did so well. It aimed at an older audience.
The lack of storage meant all the companies wanting to make giant games or have tons of cut scenes (a big thing for the time), CD quality soundtracks and endless sports play by play commentating couldnt be done on N64. The system had anti-aliasing but dumbed down games. So they got shit ports or zero port. GC's storage was big enough to do more content, but gamers said screw it. They'll just jump to DVD based systems with PS2 and Xbox.
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Very true. And beyond all of the specifics for the various reasons why GCN in particular failed to sell as well as even N64, particularly in Japan and Europe, I think partially down to the fact that it didn't do anything to differentiate itself from PS or Xbox. It's point of differentiation was just... it had exclusive Nintendo games. But otherwise, all the little things about it that just flat out weren't as good as what was being offered by PS or Xbox by that point. The lack of network support and the horribly limited storage space on the memory cards I think was what really killed it's chances at widespread third-party support, pretty early on. All of it is hindsight, of course, but Nintendo's approach to home consoles starting with N64 and continuing onto now, it's very much not trying to make a platform that is attractive as possible for third-parties. Even with the Switch, most AAA-level games require huge amounts of work to down-port and visually downgrade in order to run. Storage is still an issue, both media-wise and onboard memory-wise. And network functionality in comparison to the competition is still really lacking, even on Switch. They've come a long way, but in regards to feature-sets that are basically ubiquitous on other platforms, Nintendo is 10 years behind. They still don't even have standard voice chat. Still using Friend Codes. Achievements are done within a game, and only on a game-by-game basis, not at the system level. And I don't think they ever got around to offering 64GB carts for large games, I remember it was promised at launch, but it was delayed to 2019, and then I never heard about it again.
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
One thing too that was a point to consider is that Nintendo systems are always dirt cheap. N64 and GC were both $200 (Dreamcast too). After some discounts as years go by these systems probably dropped to $150 or less.
But it still didn't make a dent when PS and PS2 started at $300. Xbox was $300 too I think..
So it shows a $100 difference in console pricing isnt that important if it doesn't have what people want.
HofT
Banned
They dropped the ball with N64 and Gamecube by not having sufficient disc storage which hampered games.
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Insufficient media storage, for sure. But also the price of cartridges was controlled by Nintendo. And they made money just off purchase of quantities of empty cartridges, because third-parties would need to order them directly from Nintendo.
And then starting in the Gamecube generation, Insufficient save data/memory storage for many games, and lack of network functionality made it near-impossible to have the same experience in a game like Madden on GCN as you would on PS2 or Xbox. Other issues too added up to make the GCN versions of many games by default the inferior version, such as lack of a second full analog stick, not having two ZR/ZL buttons, etc.
It was sort of like, death by a thousand cuts.
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Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Right, absolutely. GameCube was marked down to $149 less than a year after launch, I think in Spring 2022 (Sales were not good). And by Fall 2003, GameCube was $99 MSRP in the US. I double-dipped myself, because I loved the Platinum color, and my launch model Black console had that common issue with older GameCubes of the disc open button getting really mushy and not working real well. At that point, Game Boy Player was out (which was amazing!), and they’d removed the component output port from the console to save costs on manufacturing (since the cords were expensive and no one was really using it anyway). But if you had a 480p display, Progressive Scan was awesome! Made the games look really sharp and crisp, for the time.
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Captain Toad
Banned
Did you read the title of the thread? It listed examples such as Nintendo going from Game Cube to Wii and Wii U to Switch.
Do you even understand what "recovery" means? The 360 didn't "recover" from anything, the original Xbox was a good start for an entry console from a new competitor, even outselling the GameCube. The GameCube sold like shit and had a limited library then the Wii came in and sold amazingly, that's a recovery. Same with Wii U --> Switch.
killatopak
Member
Huh? I think in their failures they play it too safe. Won’t transition to CD. Won’t transition to DVD.
I never understood this personally.The transition from Wii U to Switch is nothing short of remarkable. I was glad they were making lots of money and were so successful in the Wii era, but to me it came at the expense of them seemingly not making many/if any games that I cared at all about. GameCube was a much better system for what people called at the time “core games”. Wii abandoned a lot of that, and even worse, tacked on substandard motion controls to the core games they did put out. Blech!
The trick for them coming off the Switch will be if their next system can replicate Switch’s success without much loss in business, since they no longer have a separate handheld or home console line to fall back on/ pick up the slack if one isn’t doing well. Maybe with Nintendo Accounts and their subscription carry-over a lot of that can be mitigated now
I think for the most part pretty much every one of Nintendo's Wii successors were better than the GameCube with some exceptions (Wind Waker > Twilight Princess, Melee > Brawl in terms of gameplay depth), and additionally there was MUCH MORE than GameCube too. The GC had a very limited library for the most part compared to the Wii.
Captain Toad
Banned
24 million is a good start? From a company with almost limitless funds backing it? No.
PS1 sold over 100 million. THAT was a good start.
The NES revitalized an industry on the verge of death. That was a good start.
The original Xbox sold very low. 24 million vs 155 million was not being competitive. 360 changed the entire outlook on the Xbox brand basically over night. Xbox wasn't even in the minor league for PS2's league. 360 was outselling PS3 head to head for most of that generation.
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Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Yeah, my thoughts are that the Wii versions of Nintendo's core stable of franchises were mostly inferior. Certainly there are some exceptions.
Melee vs Brawl is up to personal taste, but I think most people agree that Melee is the superior gameplay experience, if you're talking about technical mechanics. Certainly, Brawl had the single-player campaign, but overall the gameplay was slower and just, different. Melee was quick and snappy, hence the longevity of the multiplayer presence and enduring love for that game.
Twilight Princess was on both, but the Wii version launched 3 weeks earlier, because Nintendo wanted to entice hardcore Nintendo fans to buy the new hardware for Zelda, rather than holding off and just buying it on GCN. But, the Wii version has motion waggle, for no other reason than they didn't want to give players the option of playing it on Wii with the GCN controller, even though that functionality was built into the hardware out-of-the-box. As you've mentioned, I think hindsight has also shown that Wind Waker is the superior Zelda from that era.
Mario Galaxy is a classic game, no question, but... that tacked-on waggle. No free camera control. I think with a standard controller, the game could've easily been far better to play, from a technical standpoint. More buttons/ sticks= more ability to control/ manipulate the game. They kind of got there with the Switch port, but they didn't do enough work to rework the controls for a standard controller.
Metroid Prime 3 would have been a GameCube game, but was delayed in order to get moved over to Wii, and again... that tacked-on motion control, at the expense of standard/ dual stick control. And they even added puzzle elements and QTE-type elements that forced specific hand motions, pulling latches, etc. For no other reason than, "Well we have to implement this new controller".
Super Paper Mario was originally one of the last GameCube games, but was pulled from the calendar at the last minute, and moved over to Wii. Again...no more normal controller, now you have to spin the Wii Remote sideways, no more joystick to move the characters, and far fewer buttons. And the game itself, originally meant as a spin-off, rather than the third main entry, sold better owing to the fact that it was an early Wii title with the word Mario in it, and ended up being the downfall of the series, as a result of all of that. But that's a whole other thread discussion. Don't even get me started
.So, yes, the Wii library even just of first-party games ended up being larger, but that's more due to the fact that many of it's early titles were originally planned as GCN games. And add onto that, Nintendo's philosophy during that time changed from making games catering to "core gamers", to prioritizing more casual-friendly games. Which would have been fine, but the change in direction was taken too far, and the casual-first approach of Nintendo from 2004-2012ish spilled over into even their most hardcore, top-tier franchises, including Mario, Zelda and Metroid.
So, whereas for me the GameCube was an absolute pleasure to play, with games specially-made catering to what I wanted. Perfect example: Paper Mario TTYD was the perfect sequel to the N64 original, and clearly designed as a game to please people who mastered the first game and wanted something bigger, better, and more refined and complex. You could make a similar comparison to Mario Sunshine as well, although admittedly that game may have been overly difficult in parts. But overall, it was just a joy to play games on that console. Like the quintessential core Nintendo console, and the peak of what they were doing in their games. Contrast that to the Wii, which for players like me was like, quite the juxtaposition to being more like... "Well, in order to play this game, I guess I have to deal with this Remote tethered to this nunchuck". Thankfully with the Wii U and finally with the Switch, they've realized that many great numbers of players want their latest and greatest games, just not with gimmicky/ tacked-on controls.
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