could Gamecube end up 2nd place for last-gen ?

[Fox5]

Even if it did it would be a hollow victory, seeing as it would have taken so much longer.
It's irrelevant now.

If you count the various versions of the Genesis that were sold years after its last games was produced (at low cost in Toys R Us), it may have outsold SNES in the end. (or was it the other way around? I think the last genesis game was produced after the last snes game though)

BTW, when GameCube came out, I think Nintendo promised to support it until 2007 or 2008. Since Wii is backwards compatible, they may manage that.

Are there any untapped markets where GC could be sold?

China. Perhaps South America for a million or two units. Though I see it more likely that Wii will see a release, they could remake the Cube and release it as an iQue SOC and continue their existing digital download distribution system, but I don't know if China has the Internet structure for that. Not to mention flash memory that could handle that much data (right now anyhow), plus it would put it in direct competition with the iQue DS which is getting new games.

 

[zed]

Midway execs commented sharply on the swift dropping of support by Microsoft and game publishers for the original Xbox console.
...
"We are pleasantly surprised about how well GameCube sales have held in, particularly for specific genres that Nintendo have done well with - kids in particular."

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=10350

also related, after last week selling a grand total of zero xbox's in japan, i notice ms have decided to announce they will sell no more xbox's in japan to save themselves further embarassment.
nice to see ms are employing their windows practices in the console market as well, i wonder what year windowsXP will be unsupported?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

nice to see ms are employing their windows practices in the console market as well, i wonder what year windowsXP will be unsupported?

That's a silly thing to say. All companies drop support for older products. Do you really expect to able to phone up Sony and have them help you with your TC-60A tape recorder from the 1960s? Or what about going onto ABit's website to find manuals and drivers for that 386 mobo you've got? The only oddity here is the speed at which XB is dropped, but when you're losing that much money on it all companies would do the same (well, pretty much all would have dropped the product in the first couple of years).

 

[zed]

That's a silly thing to say. All companies drop support for older products

true, but there differences in time
eg recent directx from MS are not supported anymore with win2000

Having lasted over 11 years, the PlayStation has enjoyed one of the longest production runs in the videogame industry. On March 23, 2006, Sony announced the end of production.

contrast this with the xbox1 which is less than 5 years if i brought one in the last year i'ld feel about as happy as if i brought a dreamcast a few years ago

 

[Magnum PI]

true, but there differences in time
eg recent directx from MS are not supported anymore with win2000

MS does nothing particularly wrong regarding lifecycle

look at what the competition does, things are not better on the apple or linux front, to say the least.

when MS released the KB891711 patch which made a lot of win98 computers unusable i suspected them of willing to encourage win98 users to switch.. but i have a very twisted mind..

 

[ElStupido]

"could Gamecube end up 2nd place for last-gen ?"
this way it could.

 

[Fox5]

"could Gamecube end up 2nd place for last-gen ?"
this way it could.

Doubt that will happen. DS Lite just came out, and DS itself isn't even that old. Not to mention that the gamecube's controller is too complex for a handheld.

 

[zed]

well its to big to be a handheld ( u couldnt slip it into your pocket) , though it is portable. if nintendo coul produce these at profit, i'ld say go for it, wii is backwards compatable right?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

How big is it? Of the pics I've seen, presumably mockups, it's justlarge enough fo rthe 3" disc, so perhaps 4" wide, 4" long, and maybe an inch high. Not pocket-sized unless you have those military style trousers with the millions of pockets, but certainly portable.

I'm more skeptical at Nintendo producing a disc-based portable. That seems to contradict some of their points on what a portable should provide.

 

[StefanS]

How big is it? Of the pics I've seen, presumably mockups, it's justlarge enough fo rthe 3" disc, so perhaps 4" wide, 4" long, and maybe an inch high. Not pocket-sized unless you have those military style trousers with the millions of pockets, but certainly portable.

I'm more skeptical at Nintendo producing a disc-based portable. That seems to contradict some of their points on what a portable should provide.

The rumour has been floating around for ages and that doesn't make it anymore plausible. The GCN controller can't be implemented effectively in a handheld. We won't see a dual analogue stick + digital pad "gameboy" anywhere in the near future. Moreover, it makes little sense for Nintendo to release a portable that play GCN games. They would cannabilize their own software sales prior to release. Remember that selling games is where the money is made. Certainly such had to be priced effectively against the psp, so realizing a huge profit margin on the hardware is out of the question. Such undertaking is just not very financially viable.
If there's any truth to the rumour at all. It will be a system similar in power to the gamecube that plays its own media and is eays to port to from the GCN.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The rumour has been floating around for ages and that doesn't make it anymore plausible. The GCN controller can't be implemented effectively in a handheld. We won't see a dual analogue stick + digital pad "gameboy" anywhere in the near future.

The mockup looked plausible t me from a controller POV, though I guess these controls would be tiny and quite hard to use if implemented this way.

From this design the size would be a little nearer 5"x4"x1"

 

[Fox5]

The mockup looked plausible t me from a controller POV, though I guess these controls would be tiny and quite hard to use if implemented this way.

From this design the size would be a little nearer 5"x4"x1"

That thing is seriously lacking in ergonomics. I wouldn't want to hold it, and poeple already complain about the DS being too heavy anyway.

Plus, Nintendo would have already announced this thing if it was coming out. Sure, minor revisions (DS Lite, GBA SP, Gameboy Pocket) may be unveiled only shortly before their release, but major releases have always had quite a bit of lead time on the advertising before release.

 

[inefficient]

Is that a full DVD size optical disc? Or one of the GC size ones?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

GC disk, given both it's a portable GC and the size of the middle transparent part compared to the outside data-containing edge. Though note AFAIK this is a mockup, not even official.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

however, Gamecube costs $99 (or in some cases discounted further) while Wii will cost $199~$249.

the "entry fee" to play Twilight Princess is much lower on Gamecube if you don't own either console.

it might spark Gamecube sales a bit. maybe enough to catch up and surpass Xbox1, maybe not, we'll see.

Zelda sales on the gamecube:

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (4.32 million)

One of the bigger titles on the cube, but in terms of popularity Zelda has been going downhill (compared to prior systems).. not big enough to force an additional 4 million gamecube sales to get ahead of the xbox.

And besides, who cares?

 

[Tagrineth]

How big is it? Of the pics I've seen, presumably mockups, it's justlarge enough fo rthe 3" disc, so perhaps 4" wide, 4" long, and maybe an inch high. Not pocket-sized unless you have those military style trousers with the millions of pockets, but certainly portable.

Cargo pants FTW

I'm more skeptical at Nintendo producing a disc-based portable. That seems to contradict some of their points on what a portable should provide.

Well, yeah. Nintendo is committed to giving us handhelds with battery life that doesn't suck - and optical media takes a hell of a lot more power than anything else in the handheld save perhaps the backlit LCD (not really sure on which has more power draw).

 

[Ty]

/shudders at that thought of how heavy that portable would be or how short battery life would be.

Neat looking though.

 

[Fox5]

/shudders at that thought of how heavy that portable would be or how short battery life would be.

Neat looking though.

Probably PSPish.

 

[Ty]

Probably PSPish.

Might be PSPish in terms of battery life but it would be several times heavier judging by the size of the mockup.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I guess that depends if it's mostly empty box made that size for ergonmic reasons. The actual hardware needed, chips and optical drive etc., shouldn't weigh any more than PSP, and I guess the designer of that mockup based it around incorporating a 'full' GC controller. It could fit a honking big battery though for extra lifespan!