What was wrong with the Gamecube?

[kedawa]

Fun fact; you can swap out the c-stick for another grey analog stick and it works great for FPS games.
I had all three consoles of that generation, and neither my PS2 nor my XBOX could play dual layer movies reliably. My $60 DVD player had no problems, however.

[Leo_A]

The problem with the triggers is that they basically have three settings; off, halfway, and fully depressed.

It's not a full smooth range of motion due to how they designed them, which hurts using them in racing games significantly compared to the triggers on a Xbox or Xbox 360 controller. There's no such problem with an Xbox controller.

And racing game use is a significant reason why they exist along with use in first person shooters, so it wasn't a problem to just dismiss.

[Rickstilwell1]

For me, the GameCube was my second system of choice that generation.

The Playstation 2 had more games coming out for it and had the DVD player and PS1 compatibility. Most of the third party titles made it to the PS2. It was the best one for me.

The GameCube had many good exlusives that interested me so it was in 2nd place for me. Those games are what I used it for, then later the Game Boy Player. The fact that more of the Sonic games became available for it exclusively while PS2 and Xbox only got some of them also made it seem like a better system to continue Sega's game series on until Shenmue II came out and was an Xbox exclusive. Gamecube did get the first edition of Sonic Mega Collection though.

It was Xbox that I got last (used instead of new) because it had very few exclusives that interested me and at first the only reason I bought it was because of Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee. Oddworld had been a Playstation favorite of mine and when the series jumped ship to Microsoft's system I was annoyed with it not continuing on the same brand system. Backward compatibility on PS2 made it easier to continue a whole series using one system instead of hooking two up. In this case it didn't work that way. The other thing was that the Xbox wasn't any better for DVDs than GameCube in my opinion because you had to buy the remote and sensor to even play DVDs. I'm glad the Xbox 360 isn't like that with regular DVDs (but they still were for a while with HDDVDs needing an add-on)

[j_factor]

It's interesting how many people are mentioning the lack of online multiplayer. It always seemed to me that online multiplayer was never that popular on consoles until Xbox 360. The fact that you had to buy a $50 accessory (even on Xbox, despite having an ethernet port on the console already) didn't help. The only console with online capabilities standard was Dreamcast, which to me strongly implies that the poor internet support for the Gamecube was not much of a factor in its relative lack of success.

[WanganRunner]

I still think that RE4 on Gamecube was the best-looking game of that generation.

I <3 <3 <3 GCN. The birthplace of the Pikmin franchise, I think Mario Sunshine is vastly underrated, I think Wind Waker is the best 3D Zelda game every made, I <3 GB Player, etc.

It scratched all my itches. Skies of Arcadia, Grandia, etc.

[pseudonym]

Pikmin yeah, but Mario Sunshine and Windwaker tend to be fairly contentious games among some hardcore fans that I've seen. It seems like the GameCube never had that one new/trendy game like Halo despite having a very good library of games, or maybe not marketing it properly as a family/casual friendly console. The Wii doesn't seem to have this problem.

[Swamperon]

Pikmin yeah, but Mario Sunshine and Windwaker tend to be fairly contentious games among some hardcore fans that I've seen. It seems like the GameCube never had that one new/trendy game like Halo despite having a very good library of games, or maybe not marketing it properly as a family/casual friendly console. The Wii doesn't seem to have this problem.

I think Super Smash Bros Melee could qualify for the role (7+ Million sold apparently) but which means about a third of GC owners bought it. Possibly more when you factor in pre-owned sales. But it never quite took off the with general gaming public.

[Opti]

GC is still one of my favorite consoles. I loved the controller. It fit me perfect and I always liked the way the shoulder buttons worked. I played everything including racing games and FPS and they seem to work fine for me. I dont see why you would swap the C stick out for a normal jostick, when I play timesplitters I can switch the use of the joystick and C stick and I still can control the character smoothly and quickly. It pretty much is just a yelow joystick.

I used to have big parties every friday and I had an XBOX, GC and PS2 hooked up to the same tv, and everytime we would play gc. Occasionally a round or two of Halo then GC. Everyone liked it, the girls and the guys, and we would play everything I had for GC. Wario ware, mario golf, sunshine, SSBM, Worms, Wink Waker, Metroid, Timesplitters 2, four sword, RE, soul calibur etc etc etc.

Everyone loved the GC, the gamers and the non gamers. Most of my friends had xboxs and only had sports games and halo and said they had more fun playing with ervyone on the GC.

Im not big on online gaming, once a week I buy a 30 pack and invite everyone over to play games, rarely do we play anything new, alot of SNES, N64, NEs, Genesis and GC. Everyones favorite is playing on the cube, I think it by far the best multiplayer console.

I still play sunshine and I love it but some of those platform levels are hard as shit (could be my bum thumb though) I like it though because me and one friend blew through both galaxies in just a few sittings. I think wind waker was the best 3d zelda game . The combat is fun and the game is beautiful. I would have rather them do cell shading beautifully, than a realistic 3d game that wouldn't age well (like OoT). The only part of WW that bothered me was the sailing would get old when you wanted to explore and find everything, but I felt it was on the same level as all the running around/fetching of OoT.

I only bought a PS2 for a few RPGs and I still play it but rarely, although it doe have some good games (loved FFX), and I only bought a XBox for fable. (missed Kotor and Jade Empire I still need to get those)

I wish GC would have had more good third party stuff but thats about it, kinda weak on RPGs, If only square enix would have gone multi console on their main franchises earlier.

PS If anyone has a wind waker for sell PM me.

[GameNinja]

I don't think there was anything "wrong" with the gamecube, I just think there were a combination of factors, not to mention the PS2's relative strength. I read somewhere that part of the reason why PS2 sold well from the beginning was indeed due to its DVD player (and whoever says that you should just buy a DVD player instead of a PS2-at PS2's release DVD players were just as expensive as the PS2). Interestingly, the release of the PS2 was very close to the DVD release of The Matrix which was one of the first "must have" DVDs and it helped sell the system initially just as much as any game did.

[Nature Boy]

Hope you have a Gamecube component cable. All GBA games on the Gameboy Player are 480p when using it.

Do the games look that much better if they're in 480p vs whatever my composite cable produces? What is their resolution anyway?

On topic, the Gamecube did do well, in that Nintendo made money on it. It didn't outsell it's competition (if that's what 'not doing well means') because they had no way to market it much past young kids and the Nintendo fans.

The reason Wii took off is because they figured out how to increase their potential market by focusing on their strength (kids and families and Nintendo fans).

I'm not sure what to think about the DVD argument personally. My first leanings were that it wouldn't matter much, but perhaps marketing towards the family looking to get their first player and at the same time showing them they can also buy games for Sally and Steve to play on, that might've gone somewhere.

[otaku]

it was far from perfect but still not a bad system by any means, worth it for the nintendo games alone. It was affordable looked cool was quiet and loaded fast. Loved the wavebird. Had some innovative features (ecards and gba hookup) idk not all bad in my eyes it just needed more games from other developers

[Dobie]

I bought a Gamecube at launch. I stubbornly held out hope for THE game that made it worth buying... but when it never came, I gave up and bought an Xbox. The biggest problem in my eyes was the lack of any decent online games beyond PSO. I played the ever living crap out of PSO, at least until the exploits that corrupted your save came along and some loser wiped out my characters, but I digress. Xbox had online support. PS2 had... some... online support. Gamecube released the broadband adapter and PSO, and then promised more in the future. Still waiting. Even the Wii has horrible online compared to Sony and MS's last-gen offerings. Being a primarily online gamer these days, I have zero interest in Nintendo anything anymore. Nintendo missed the online boat with the Gamecube, and has since been trying to catch up by swimming while everyone else is using a motor.

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

It had few well-remembered "killer apps", the PS2 crushed it in game variety (the Sony juggernaut had been going on since '97/'98) and I suppose it never "found its place" in the gamer market.

[Leo_A]

I bought mine when the Wind Waker preorder started and it was my first console of that generation, if we don't include the Dreamcast. I really enjoyed playing things like the Ocarina of Time bonus disc, Wind Waker, Midway Arcade Treasures, and such in that first year. I don't have many games for it compared to the PS2 and Xbox (Only 40 games or so, since I bought all my multiplatform releases on the Xbox when available), but it ended my being my 2nd favorite of that console generation.

Ouick note on the Xbox's short market time- the 360 was rushed and the Xbox was discontinued because Nvidia stopped producing the GPU used in the Xbox in mid-2005, which meant no more units could be made beyond the remaining stock of GPUs.

You make it sound like Nvidia killed the Xbox.

They stopped manufacturing the GPU because Microsoft couldn't get the price down to make the system profitable and didn't feel the need to keep selling the system at a loss with a successor out. So they didn't renew their contract with Nvidia. That's why Nvidia ceased manufacturing.

Nvidia stopped manufacturing because Microsoft stopped buying, not the other way around.

My biggest problem was with the controller. It was just clumsy and clumsily laid out. Seriously, C-Stick? Would another full analog stick there have been -that- much trouble? It cripples the system in terms of FPS.

It was a full analog stick, though? Are you just talking about its shape? Never seemed to be a problem for me.

I personally didn't care for the tiny d-pad, the face buttons, and the analog triggers. Otherwise I think it was a pretty decent controller, especially in WaveBird form.

Do the games look that much better if they're in 480p vs whatever my composite cable produces? What is their resolution anyway?

They look better and it's a noticeable boost. I don't think the component cable is worth the investment for just the Game Boy Player, though.

The GBA resolution is 240×160.

It's interesting how many people are mentioning the lack of online multiplayer. It always seemed to me that online multiplayer was never that popular on consoles until Xbox 360. The fact that you had to buy a $50 accessory (even on Xbox, despite having an ethernet port on the console already) didn't help. .

You got to spend $50, or whatever the current rate is, to jump in on online multiplayer with the current Xbox as well. A subscription isn't really an accessory and every Xbox was "Xbox Live Ready" or whatever you'd want to coin it, out of the box.

Xbox Live sure seemed pretty popular to me on the Xbox. Many games had large, active communities and the online component was a major component of reviews for the console's lineup. And the online multiplayer often ran well due to the broadband requirement and substantial network Microsoft put in place to support it, outperforming it's peers with ease with what I ever experienced online with the Dreamcast and PS2.

From my perspective, Xbox Live on the original Xbox is what popularized online multiplayer for home consoles. It stopped being almost a niche that companies like the other three treated it that generation and was instead a major focus for Microsoft.

Midway Arcade Treasures 3 didn't have game save corruption problems as the others did

Too bad it performed worse, otherwise. Beyond the well known areas it was deficient in with regards to things like Rush 2049, compared to the Xbox build, I even encountered an extreme amount of slowdown in Super Off Road on a canyon map with a ton of tall pillars scattered around it. That never happened to me on the Xbox build.

I own both; I play the GCN one if I want to progress alone in Hydro Thunder or Rush 2049, the Xbox version for it's superior performance otherwise in that games that didn't need a save or for multiplayer (I've had the save become corrupted multiple times, not a isolated problem, sadly).

[exit]

I remember getting the Gamecube on my birthday shortly after it came out for the REmake and it received lots of loving until I eventually got a PS2. The only problem was that at a certain point, the Gamecube didn't have much to offer exclusively (although they did have a few superior multi-plat games), so I'd go upwards to a year not buying anything for it as a result. The best thing about the Gamecube was that it could take a beating, I used to carry that thing everywhere and let people borrow it from time to time, some of which had kids around all the time who I know were abusive to things.

So I wouldn't really say there was anything wrong with the Gamecube.

[BetaWolf47]

I still don't understand the hate. IMO, GameCube is Nintendo's Dreamcast. It had amazing games, great hardware, good reliability, etc. Heck, I can't think of anything it had a deficiency in besides 3rd-party support.

3rd-party support is something that will always be a problem on Nintendo home consoles though. Namco said it best: when you put games on a Nintendo system, your biggest competition is Nintendo itself. It's no secret that people buy Nintendo systems to play Super Smash Bros., Super Mario, and Pokemon. 3rd-party companies are well aware of this. Nowadays, it's easier for 3rd-party developers to make shovelware and make modest profits than it is for them to spend a lot of money on development, praying that it'll sell millions.

GameCube did do a few things right that its competition did not. It is one of the most reliable disk-based systems of all time. There's video proof online of people abusing their GameCube past the point of which the PS2 and Xbox shattered, and it still runs. I actually plugged my GameCube and two other things into what turned out to be a faulty surge protector many years ago. My GameCube still runs to this day. Both other things bit the dust. On top of that, no revision of GameCube is known for disk read errors. Compare that to PS2's track record.

It also managed to have fast loading times, something which PlayStation consoles still haven't managed without the assistance of hard drives. On a more technical note, it was also the first gaming console to successfully run on PowerPC architecture, something which has now been adopted by Sony and Microsoft.

[j_factor]

You got to spend $50, or whatever the current rate is, to jump in on online multiplayer with the current Xbox as well. A subscription isn't really an accessory and every Xbox was "Xbox Live Ready" or whatever you'd want to coin it, out of the box.

I'm not talking about the subscriptions. With the original Xbox, you had to buy the Xbox Live Starter Kit before you could use the service. A $50 accessory (although a 1-year subscription was included). Actually I think it was more than $50 initially, but I don't remember for sure. Unlike 360, you couldn't just get your console online, give them your credit card number, and start playing (360 even gives you a free trial). You had to buy the kit, a physical item, at retail.

Xbox Live sure seemed pretty popular to me on the Xbox. Many games had large, active communities and the online component was a major component of reviews for the console's lineup. And the online multiplayer often ran well due to the broadband requirement and substantial network Microsoft put in place to support it, outperforming it's peers with ease with what I ever experienced online with the Dreamcast and PS2.

From my perspective, Xbox Live on the original Xbox is what popularized online multiplayer for home consoles. It stopped being almost a niche that companies like the other three treated it that generation and was instead a major focus for Microsoft.

Xbox Live reached 2 million subscribers in July 2005. As of early last year (don't know the latest numbers), Xbox Live had 23 million subscribers. 2 million is not insignificant, but that's chump change compared to what they have now. Also I bet that's not much more, if it's even more, than the number of Dreamcast owners who went online (although I can't find that number). Xbox Live certainly never seemed to be driving sales of the original Xbox.

There were a number of factors limiting the appeal of Xbox Live on the original Xbox. Being broadband-only was a major hurdle early on (not to mention largely unnecessary in that generation). The cost was certainly an issue for many. The availability of free tunneling programs, which worked with more games than Live did, also put a dent in it. And finally, the early Live games were mostly frivolous. Remember Whacked! and Fuzion Frenzy? Halo 2 was the only really popular online game, and that came two years later. Even PSO was least popular on Xbox, despite the obvious negatives of the Gamecube version.

[Leo_A]

I'm not talking about the subscriptions. With the original Xbox, you had to buy the Xbox Live Starter Kit before you could use the service. A $50 accessory (although a 1-year subscription was included). Actually I think it was more than $50 initially, but I don't remember for sure. Unlike 360, you couldn't just get your console online, give them your credit card number, and start playing (360 even gives you a free trial). You had to buy the kit, a physical item, at retail.

The only thing included in the kit was a headset (Not required), a subscription card with a scratch off code, and oftentimes, a XBL enabled game such as PGR2. In fact I never even got a starter kit until after the 360 was released when places clearanced them off for next to nothing, despite the XBL 12 year subscription codes still being valid even on the 360.

I took my Xbox online without ever buying one. I forget if I used a trial code included with a game to activate my account, but I sure didn't buy a starter kit to activate the account I use to this day.

I don't know about statistics, just was giving my personal experiences. Many games had thriving communities and several lasted right up until the end (PGR2, several Tom Clancy titles, a couple of Star Wars titles, Counterstrike, Wolfenstein, etc). And several made quite a splash for a while, like RalliSport Challenge 2, before people moved on to new games.

It seemed pretty important to people at the time, even if the growth this generation makes it look small in retrospect. I think you can largely thank the original Xbox and things like Halo 2 for those 23 million subscribers today and the widespread acceptable of online connectivity for modern game consoles.

[j_factor]

The only thing included in the kit was a headset (Not required), a subscription card with a scratch off code, and oftentimes, a XBL enabled game such as PGR2. In fact I never even got a starter kit until after the 360 was released when places clearanced them off for next to nothing, despite the XBL 12 year subscription codes still being valid even on the 360.

I took my Xbox online without ever buying one. I forget if I used a trial code included with a game to activate my account, but I sure didn't buy a starter kit to activate the account I use to this day.

Well, I'm not sure how you did that. It must have been later in the Xbox life cycle. Because when Xbox Live first launched, there was no way to buy a subscription other than buying a starter kit. Initially, Microsoft wouldn't even reveal what the cost of a subscription renewal was going to be. All the original reviews of Xbox Live complained that "we have no idea how much it will cost once your free year runs out". Also the Xbox originally had no software to connect to Xbox Live with. And since it didn't have a browser either, you had to buy the starter kit for the Xbox Live software disc; there was no way to simply download the software. Maybe some later games included the software on the disc, but my Xbox to this day does not have Xbox Live settings in the system menu. And don't you remember the PSO controversy? It required Xbox Live even for offline play, and that really pissed people off. If there were some easy way at the time to get Xbox Live without having to buy anything separately, it wouldn't have been a big deal.

It seemed pretty important to people at the time, even if the growth this generation makes it look small in retrospect. I think you can largely thank the original Xbox and things like Halo 2 for those 23 million subscribers today and the widespread acceptable of online connectivity for modern game consoles.

I guess, but that doesn't really contradict my original post that it was "never that popular" at the time. It was 10% as popular. Also I think you can largely thank the Dreamcast and games like Phantasy Star Online for getting online console gaming going in the first place. PSO, at its peak, had almost half a million active users. I'm not sure how many Xbox Live games on the original Xbox ever surpassed that, but I'd bet it's not very many. I doubt Xbox Live would have ever gotten off the ground if not for Seganet before it. Microsoft's weirdly chummy relationship with Sega during the Dreamcast days would seem to be further evidence of this.

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

I still don't understand the hate. IMO, GameCube is Nintendo's Dreamcast. It had amazing games, great hardware, good reliability, etc. Heck, I can't think of anything it had a deficiency in besides 3rd-party support.

It's a shame that Sega would stop making consoles once they finally "got it right" in America for the first time since the Genesis... the CD and 32X had their good points but were a money pit for most gamers, and the Saturn was bungled by Bernie Stolar...

It's a good thing Nintendo avoided this fate, but I suppose a past of mistakes like Sega had in 1999 can catch up to you at the worst times...

I agree, GC and DC were both great, underappreciated consoles. Did you know the GC and DC were both more powerful than the generation sumo-wrestler in sales, the PS2?