Only worth £50 now. :S

[Mirinee]

Making the best console/games doesn't mean much unless you have the popular vote in the form of people prepared to stump up the cash for your products.

Oh, that is so very harsh. :'( . But it's true! Even the price cuts won't save it. Is GC dying? ... *Runs off frantically trying to introduce as many friends as possible to GC*.

[Serpent7]

GC has been dying from day 1. Face it.

[Lee-yoshi]

The only company nowadays still releasing multi-format games on the Gamecube are EA because they have the money to release big titles on the smaller consoles and still come out with a profit because there's no alternative games available to Gamecube only owners. Very few small companies release new titles on Gamecube. Itll always either be PS2 or Xbox. Only big companies will release their titles on Gamecube because its the only chance it has of selling. Im talking about companies such as EA, UbiSoft, Capcom, THQ & SEGA - and look at where those previous 'Gamecube Exclusive' titles have landed.

The fact is Nintendo need to pull their Marketing finger out with mass TV advertising. They're only reaching out to kids when games and key releases such as Metroid Prime 2, 1080 Avalanche, F-Zero GX, and possibly Tales of Symphonia - Games of which there is no other kind on other systems - will appeal easily too. Like UK Jester has previously said, its the adults that have the money, not the kids!

I fear though that with Nintendo's Next-Gen console, things may get worse, as they're going for the 'new ways to play' innovation stage instead of new technology improvements. It paid of with the Nintendo DS because it came across to gamers in the right way, but it really needs to be sold before release, otherwise its going to be another doomsday console! It needs to be online compatible for starters, as it really is becoming the new 'thing'! Hopefully Nintendo are looking into the technology another company has put into the game whereby making the Gamecube into a Server, allowing you to host games and other players games on your console, making online completely free... something im sure everybody would take a liking too!

[Double Edge]

Hmm...that's pretty nutty. GCN's are still all the rage, but my bro. got a PS2 for Christmas.

[UK Jester]

Hmm...that's pretty nutty. GCN's are still all the rage, but my bro. got a PS2 for Christmas.

Both my stepson and daughter used their birthday/Xmas money in 2003 to buy a PS2 each. In 2004 my stepson brought a 2nd hand Gamecube with his birthday money despite constantly stating that the PS2 is the console of consoles. Despite having a PS2 in her bedroom, my stepdaughter spent most of 2004 on her Mums Gamecube. For her birthday, my stepdaughter got her own platinum Gamecube so that Redhead and I could get to play on a Gamecube!

Lee-yoshi has made an excellent comment about the Revolution. This new Nintendo console needs to get the hyperbole and mass market interest that the DS received. I don't mean just pages of news only - I mean the mass demand that the DS is experiencing. I do see one problem for the Revolution though, what may work on a handheld console may well not translate to a home console. An example, based on some leaked press realeases about no D-pad or A and B buttons:

The Revolution controller is based around the movement of the controller pad. If you want to move left you tilt the pad left. (This is not a fact but an example created by myself)

As a novelty for a game this could generate lots of interest alla the Donkey Konga Bongos. It could even support a whole range of games like the Eye Toy or the Dance Mats. Make this the staple control of a system and you have the next Atari Jaguar. Could you imagine playing Resident Evil 5 using this kind of control system?

Lee-yoshi is right about the on-line capability of using Revolutions as servers. This is innovative in my opinion for the console market, imagine what fun Resident Evil: Outbreak could have been for Europe if Capcom had come up with that idea for the PS2.

All is not over for Nintendo as a company - but they must start to innovate on their home consoles, instead of trailing the market on the Gamecube front. Microphone and dance mat games in late 2004/2005 is hardly innovative. Sony and, to a lesser degree, Microsoft have been there, done that and brought the T-shirt. Nintendo hit on connectivity; it seemed great until the logistics of getting 1 Gamecube, 4 Gameboy Advance owners and 4 GC to GBA leads reared its head for the big games (all two of them, oh and Pac Man vs). Winder Waker was bang on the money for connectivity but very few other companies, including Nintendo themselves, actually put that much effort into the concept to add value and playability to a game.

Regards

UK Jester

[DARKMATTER]

Just to stick my nose in, need i remind you that nintendo didnt want to go to disc's period, but at one point they did have plans for a disc attachment to the Super NES if I can find the guide that had the picture I'll show it, reason why they didnt do the attachment for the Super NES was that discs were slow back then, but they had to do this to the gamecube, the gamecube is basically a cover to the next gen console there making. Disc's are slower than cartridges. Tell you this though if microsoft quits buying game developing companies gamecube would have had a major first person shooter hit. Perfect dark, it was gonna be big until microsoft got there greedy paws on rareware and bought them. Now rareware has given perfect dark cell shaded graphics for the soon to be xbox version of perfect dark and it looks like shit. I've seen previews for the one on gamecube, and the graphics were awesome, no cellshading, huge levels, better AI, more weapons and more co-op missions. This is the reason why microsoft bought rareware, so that the perfect dark game for gamecube would never come out, and be a major hit as it was on the N64. Disc's are getting ancient and should be left to computers. And the slowness of xbox and ps2 for loading games is rediculous, I played nightfire for the ps2 and holy hell it took foreva to load. The one on gamecube only takes like 5 secs, ps2 takes like 10 to 20 secs. Like 10 to 20secs im aging here, I dun wanna wait that bloody long for a game to load. Take super smash bro melee, that takes like no time to load period, you select your chars, your at ur stage selection screen, and maybe 1sec of loading the battle. NFSU for the ps2, takes foreva like 30secs to load a friggin a level, I've aged like 5 years :beard: once it done loading . Nintendo will goto cartridges again advantages and disadvantages of cartridge though.

Advantages: Faster like milliseconds to load a level, cleaner game play, like no lag at all, and with a cartridge you can get more data stored than a disc.

Disadvantages: Ages, but takes foreva to die. I still got NES games that still work lol and there like 18 years old lol.

Advantages of a disc uh um.... dun kno.
Disadvantages of a disc, get scratched to hell and wont work anymore, easy to loose, the highest compression i've seen on a disc is 4gb's, A cartridge um 6gb's.

And a cartridge is like a harddrive basically lol.

Nintendo likes to stay family based games, Microsoft blow em up games, that mainly for 16 and over. Playstation very little family games and lots of blow em up games. Nintendo will not go out of business as they have been in this longer than Playstation and Microsoft. Nintendo will always come out with better games, Nintendo alos likes to make sure there systems last longer, compared to the xbox which keeps freezing, and the ps2 which just lags and lags then gets slower lag and then freeze's and dies. Nintendo also likes to make sure there games have no bugs. I can't go on, I said enough to conclude what i had to say.

[Lee-yoshi]

Incredible points.

The Gamecube started off badly when Microsoft bought Rareware. Rare so badly wanted to stay with Nintendo, they gave them days to opt in with a bid but nothing End result? Many of Rare leave to form other companies, Rare cans lots of projects, Rare even recently added to their website Nintendo 64 mp3's because they were highly demanded from old school fans... and who can blame them! The only real game Rare has released since the year or so its been with Microsoft is Grabbed by the Ghoulies... No further comment needed. If Rare had of stayed third party, the Gamecube would be raging with success i reckon. Id seen footage of the Perfect Dark, Donkey Kong Racing, and various other GC titles in production, and they all would have boosted the GC hugely... in Europe.

Titles like this may not have done so well in Japan because they have different tastes in games, in America and definately Europe, it would have been success story all the way! Nintendo of Europe bugged NoJ but got nowhere because of it *sniff* just what at what they could of achieved.

PS2 for GTA, Xbox for Halo, and NGC for Pefect Dark, Mario, and Zelda would have been the story, mario and zelda just dont work like they used to though anymore, especially kiddy zelda anyways

Oh No ive gone off into a rant about Rare. Well they deserved it, if i had a time travelling machine, id go back in time and slap everyone at NoE for not investing in Rare when they had the chance. Rant End.

[UK Jester]

Just to bring an update to the 50 quid comments. I looked at argos.co.uk and yes, you can get a basic Gamecube console for 50 pounds, but the Pokemon and Mario Kart bundles are still selling at a more normal price.

Laugh of the week - go to woolworths.co.uk and look up Gamecube. I wonder how often they update their website prices? Anyone want to pay their prices for a Gamecube Bundle with a FIFA game?

Regards

UK Jester