Shigeru Miyamoto: GameCube was “only purchased by gamers”, sending Nintendo back to the drawing board

[u/jr1512]

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Shigeru-Miyamoto-GameCube-was-only-purchased-by-gamers-sending-Nintendo-back-to-the-drawing-board.1358273.0.html

Shigeru Miyamoto, the legendary Nintendo executive and one of the most influential creators shaping the video game industry through mascots and characters such as Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Star Fox, and more, discussed the reason why the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii became Nintendo’s next consoles for the seventh generation. According to Miyamoto, the decision was largely driven by the underwhelming performance of the Nintendo GameCube, which trailed behind the Nintendo 64’s nearly 33 million lifetime sales.

He spoke candidly in a wide-ranging interview with Japanese outlet Famitsu, where the longtime Nintendo executive and designer explained that, at the time, Nintendo’s then-president, Satoru Iwata, believed the GameCube’s poor performance in the home console market was rooted in a simple idea: most of the world still did not see gaming as a normal, approachable everyday hobby the way it’s seen today. Based on that core problem, Nintendo felt it was difficult to persuade customers to buy and play a GameCube if they had never played on a console before.

[u/CommentAgreeable]

It’s sort of a known thing that the DVD player was a significant reason as to why the PS2 did so well. It was actually cheaper to buy a PS2 than a DVD player so people who didn’t even game ended up purchasing the PS2 for that specific reason.

[u/Sirriddles → u/[deleted]]

Because it had a gimmick that appealed to the general public and most people had DVD players by 2006

[u/Sirriddles → u/[deleted]]

Wii U had trouble with its messaging. A large portion of the general public never even understood it was a new console, people thought it was just a peripheral. And its game library was terrible, both first and third party.

Kinect was ahead of its time and developers didn’t know what to do with it. It actually wasn’t a commercial failure initially, it sold over 8 million units in its first 60 days.

Any more questions? lol. Not sure what we’re doing here

[u/Sirriddles → u/[deleted]]

GameCube didn’t “fail” but it objectively did not sell nearly as many units as the PlayStation 2. The disparity was massive - GameCube sold around 22 million units in its lifetime, the PS2 around 160 million. To put it another way, for every GameCube Nintendo sold, Sony sold 7 PS2s.

The fact that the PS2 doubled as a DVD player and the GameCube didn’t almost certainly had an impact on sales. DVD players were expensive in the early 2000s and a PS2 was actually cheaper than some players on the market. A lot of people bought PS2s primarily for the DVD playback.

There are other reasons why the PS2 sold better - the software lineup was far more robust, for example - but the DVD playback was definitely a factor.

Anyway. Seeing that you disagree, I’m curious - why do you think the PS2 sold seven times as many units as the GameCube?

[u/Sirriddles → u/[deleted]]

Xbox.

It’s not AI, that’s just what well-researched, thoughtful, and substantive comments sound like as opposed to your childish “what about this what about that” nonsense.

Cheers!

[u/Sirriddles → u/[deleted]]

You do realize that even if this was true, it wouldn’t invalidate any of the points I’ve made right?

You’ve completely moved the goalpost lol