What was wrong with the Gamecube?

[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.