The Death Toll of the GameCube in Europe?

[Nz17]

I've heard stories of how poor Nintendo's support of this region is, how slowly GameCubes move off the shevles, and how several retailers are dropping the system from their stock. But what is the real truth of the situation over on the other side of the Atlantic?

[Flack]

I think they started talking about this here:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=49705

[Berty]

I'm not too sure about the situation in Europe, but here in Australia things are looking grim.

I worked in an independant video game retailer. We used to sell cubes for $150 with mario cart ($120USD) and nobody would touch them.

There were two types of people though that would buy cube stuff,.

1> The Nintendo fanboys who would pre-order games month in advance, often before the supplier had officially announced them. Great customers, but there are far too few of them here.

2> Conservative mothers and Fathers looking for a safe gaming alternative. However, these sorts of people were rare.

Nintendo Australia does not advertise any where near the amount that other Nintendo offices do. Furthermore, they run onle very small promotions that focus mainly on their Pokemon franchises.

Metroid Prime 2 went un-npoticed here despite its brilliance.

A strange thing is that laws in Australia up until recently were very friendly to mod-chippers. People who had never bought a console before would come into the store and only buy the consoles that were able to be modded.

As far as sales go, we used to sell XBX, PS2, PS1, GBA, GCN and PC titles, the GCN was the worst seller (on a unit basis), below even the PS1 stuff. In that time, we recieved no official POS (posters etc) from nintendo Australia.

i love the cube but it has had a very bad run of luck here. I think that NOA should get there act together and stop wasting resources in areas where they don't need the advertising.

[Mayhem]

UK and Australia isn't doing very good, but that's about it in PAL territories. In many other European countries the Cube is beating the Xbox. Swings and roundabouts really.

[Harry75]

Hi there! About GameCube in EasternEurope and Baltic states. Here Nintendos last creation is suffering compleat fiasco. Because of lack of pirat games. Yes i know how it sounds, but no pirat games- no console. The original games here cost from 50 to 70$. Thats way to much for our incomes. But for example the games for PS2 and XBox you can buy easy for mere 5-7$ Oh!!! Of course the pirat ones. :angry:

[Ernster]

Yep no fun being a Gamecube/Nintendo owner here in Australia :( Gamecube never really had much going for it at launch and I guess its carried on. Eg,

PS2 had new 128 bit graphics/DVD player
XBOX had hard drive/online gaming/best graphics

But GC had the "advantage" of being a gaming device :/

[Cauterize]

Shame really... Gamecube is such a great system!
Luckly mines Modded for imports so i can make 100% use of it ;)

[SMB]

I don't care what people think about the Cube, I love it. I got it for Christmas and I have no regrets. The Games are fun and I love the controller and people must be stupid to think otherwise...just stupid.

[GobopopRevisited]

Or... the gaming industry is at a very annoying cut-throat point (SCE... EA... plenty to blame) and Nintendo won't play that way therefor the "stupid" non-cube owners will never become cube owners because Nintendo does nothing to change their minds.

[sirgeoph]

Hi there! About GameCube in EasternEurope and Baltic states. Here Nintendos last creation is suffering compleat fiasco. Because of lack of pirat games. Yes i know how it sounds, but no pirat games- no console. The original games here cost from 50 to 70$. Thats way to much for our incomes. But for example the games for PS2 and XBox you can buy easy for mere 5-7$ Oh!!! Of course the pirat ones. :angry:

but the less piracy, the cheaper games can be... well, thats the theory, anyway

[crazyjackcsa]

Hi there! About GameCube in EasternEurope and Baltic states. Here Nintendos last creation is suffering compleat fiasco. Because of lack of pirat games. Yes i know how it sounds, but no pirat games- no console. The original games here cost from 50 to 70$. Thats way to much for our incomes. But for example the games for PS2 and XBox you can buy easy for mere 5-7$ Oh!!! Of course the pirat ones. :angry:

Wow! piracy helps the gaming world? That's a new one. Last I checked companies lost money on the console and made money on games. I hate how people come up with ways to make themselves feel better about stealing. In fact one reason I went with the cube as opposed to the other systems is that I hate pirates and until recently there was no way to copy and play pirate cube games.

P.S. I think its "Death Knell" unless you were to use the phrase, The Death toll in Pal regions keeps rising for the native GAmecubes residing there," Not that it really matters. :D

[calthaer]

Don't you mean the death knell? You make it sound as if the Gamecube is killing people over there.

[imanerd0011]

I must admit, paying for than $50 for a brand new game seems a bit high. I don't think that any games (with the exception of LE games) cost more than $50 in the U.S. , and most games start at $40 and under. Although I had no idea that piracy was such a big deal in the U.K. That may be the reason why Nintendo is charging so damn much for their games over there.

[robotriot]

Err, the Gamecube is the least pirated systems of the current gen, so Nintendo HAD the theoretical ability to lower the prices on their games. But of course they didn't - so it seems as if it doesn't really matter if games are being pirated, games will always be expensive.

[Nz17]

No, I meant to say toll, though knell would also be appropriate.

From [ http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn?stage=1&word=toll ]:

toll -- (the sound of a bell being struck; "saved by the bell"; "she heard the distant toll of church bells")

[Tatsu]

I don't know any salesstats from Switzerland but what I can say is that they sell the Cube very cheap. The package with console, one controller and mario carts goes for Fr. 149.00 (1$ = 1.25 Fr.). It's the cheapest system around (PS2 costs about Fr. 199.00 and X-Box Fr. 229.00 or even more). This is such a good price even I start to think about buying one...

[Vroomfunkel]

It is a shame .. but you have to look on the bright side of these things. When a system starts dying, then you can get great deals on them as shops clear out! In the UK Argos has a the Gamecube and Donkey Konga box set for £59.99 .. which is not at all bad. I might even get one .. despite clearing out my collection, I am a sucker for music games ... and DK kicks ass! Plus I gotta have something to switch to when the Samba action gets too tiring :D

When the DC sank, there were enormous swathes of games for £3, £4, £5 ... whilst I still mourned its demise, there's not much point in getting too misty eyed about it when it enables you to get a collection for the price of a few games on any other system ..

Vroomfunkel