Li Mu Bai said:
I dunno, SSBM perhaps? Check the sales data.
It's the GC's best-seller and sells pretty consistently, yes, but I'm not sure it would drive bundle sales to people who didn't already want a GC, which is the target audience Nintendo seems to be having the most trouble with.
That's been one of the GC's core problems since the beginning: it's never really had a true killer-app. SSBM is a good game and a popular title, but it's no killer app. I'm not denying a SSBM bundle pack would sell better than the standalone GC currently is, but I don't know if it would make enough of a difference for Nintendo to lose the sales of the standalone SSBM SKU...especially since it's still selling quite briskly without the benefit of being PC.
I've said it before: Nintendo's not going to do any more price cuts or a GBA/GC bundle anytime soon -- definitely not anytime in 2004. They have the Metroid Prime bundle planned, and perhaps they'll cook up another collector's disc (ala Zelda) or preorder special (Paper Mario for Paper Mario 2, or Metroid Classics with Metroid Prime 2). That won't catapult the GC into second place this holiday, but it will keep the GC selling and software revenue flowing, and that's Nintendo's primary concern.
Think about it: is it really worth the lost revenue that would occur with a GBA/GCN bundle or SSBM bundle to tie or possibly pull a tiny bit ahead of Microsoft during the holidays (which would not even be guaranteed to happen)? The bottom line here is profit, not marketshare.