Nintendo focuses on XBox now:

Nintendo can survive for a long time with their stranglehold on the handheld market.  Too bad the GC has underperformed sales-wise so far, but it will pick up this fall and they should pull away from Xbox (thank god).  I would pick up a Gamecube myself, but I hardly have enough time to play my ps2 let alone another console.  Long live the big N.

hehe... hehehehe...

Around Christmas Time, Nintendo will own M$.  Mario, Zelda, Metroid... cant compete with those franchises.  But X-Box always has Halo, and Halo 2, probably Halo 3, and 4, might as well give them 5,6, and 7, dont stop there because X-Box owners will rejoice when Halo 8, 9, and 10 hit the market.  Ok I\'m finished, I made my point about M$\'s lack of franchises.

Watch out "The One" Billy Gunn, your starting to sound like capcom

This coming holiday season, xbox is guaranteed to own



third place, that is



oops, I forgot about PSone

make it fourth place then

N will not be around for that long unless they change something.

Everyday kids are being born without any knowledge of when N was good (16bit).  To them, Mario, Metroid and Zelda are just games.  

More and more video games are becoming related to Sony and not N.

From all reports SMS is just M64 with better graphics.  With platformers like J&D, Sly, and Blinx that are actually bringing new ideas into the genre, it\'ll be easy for kids to not care.  If N still had its magic it would not be getting outsold by MS.  MS has no history, no name recognition, no franchises established.  For them to be outselling N speaks volumes.

What if Metroid is just another FPS?  With Doom, Unreal, Halo and MOH around, how many kids will remember the main character Samus?  And will they care as much as we do, who remember the original?  I\'m not sure.

I have little doubt that N will have a big Christmas, but what happens after that?  They are playing all their chips this christmas.  How long will it be until the sequels of these big games come out?  With N\'s track record, next generation.

Sega on the other hand is constantly developing new material, while producing sequels to long loved franchises.  MS is also trying to develop new franchises.  N seems to be out of ideas.

We all read about how close MS was to buying both Sega and Square leading up to E3.  If things go terribly for MS this Christmas who here would put it past them to add to their developer portfolio by passing around a few green hats?

Also, what if one or two of these big games turn out to be bad or just average (remember Eternal Darkness?)?  N is walking a very fine line.  Metroid isn\'t being made by anyone from the original team, early reports suggest SMS may not be the end all and be all of platformers.  It could happen.

Just trying to add some perspective.

Watchdog: I think most children will just play the game that\'s the most fun. (read: Mario Sunshine)

Eternal Darkness isn\'t average.

Bash away, my friend.. bash away.

I\'m not bashing.  I know you love N, and that\'s fine.  But my whole point is that to a 6 year old kid, what\'s the difference between Mario and J&D?

Why are you and most everyone here already heralding SMS as the best platformer ever?  More and more kids are growing up with a Sony under their television, not a Nintendo.  Why are you so sure SMS will be the most fun?

Good or bad, ED didn\'t move the millions of systems it was supposed to.

Your point holds true.

However.. I think you underestimate Nintendo. You also never, ever look at their bright side.

Your "perspective" is never positive.

6-year-olds account for an extremely small portion of the console market. J&D only came out with one mildly successful game less than a year before Mario Sunshine will debut. Even to young\'sters, Mario is a well-known name anyways. He\'s appeared in multiple games since 2000, among them the top-selling SSBM, and Mario Advance 1/2.

J&D and Mario Sunshine have virtually the same advantage over younger players all-in-all..

What are the odds a six year old kid is going to buy a console on his own.  I doubt a 6 year old kid just has $200 lying around.  The parents will buy it for the child, and they will buy the friendly childish looking machine like GCN.  They\'ll take one look at PS2 and realize games like DMC, MGS2, etc. are not games a 6 year old should be playing or are capable of playing.  Same w/ the XB.

xbox leads GC in sales in NA only and according to June figures, just barely. Considering the main target audience of GC aren\'t the ones shelling out for the system (as compared to xbox or PS2) it\'s holding it\'s own quite well. Nintendo doesn\'t have to rely on kids to remember the old franchises, for that job it has a generation of brand new parents, aunts and uncles kicking in right about now.

Good point about MS passing out the money hats if things get bleak for xbox this winter. But don\'t discount too much the role nationalism would step in and play if the ugly American decides he\'ll need to buy success rather than proving it\'s warranted. Japanese companies aren\'t necessarily for sale to the highest bidder.

Let\'s just say that for all practical purposes, no one is going to be out of the console wars by Christmas. Every system has enough games to carry them through.

"The One": Why do you say that there will countless reilliterations of Halo when not a single Halo sequel has came out?

Watchdog and Heretic both made some good points. Honestly, at times I don\'t know if I should be sceptical or optimistic about Nintendo\'s future. As I said above, I\'m sure the GameCube will do a very nice job this generation, but looking into the future I can\'t help but to be more sceptical than overly excited.

The thing is, the market is growing larger by the day and the people who have made the PSX a success (teenagers + young adults) are coming in at a fast rate. Nintendo aren\'t the guys they once were in this industry and I honestly can\'t see them competing against Microsoft or Sony in the long run (at least where consoles are at stake).

Now before anyone bashes on me, hear me out first:
During the PSX days, the N64 wasn\'t selling very well at all in Japan and infact the only market which rivaled the PSX one was the North American I believe. Now with Xbox out and competing very well, I expect to see Nintendo loose a big share of their market. They might hold a strong second with GameCube until the end on a worldwide scale, but compared to last generation I could be a huge drawback. Also, Microsoft is here to stay. And there\'s more at stake than just the money cake. With that in mind, we can expect Microsoft to deal out those moneyhats if we like it or not - it will happen, that I am more than sure of.

Rumours are already letting assume that Nintendo isn\'t thinking about another installment after GameCube. If they loose their marketshare (or a big deal of it) this generation, I fear they won\'t make a next console and just concentrate on their handhelds. One damn good reason is the market changing:

the future buyers aren\'t necessarely those that want a game-only console, but more an entertainment system or setup-box. Sure there will be always those hardcore gamers, but I\'m speaking about the masses here. Nintendo doesn\'t have the necessary resources to just go out and make the next super console with networking, dvd and what not - they have to rely on other allies such as Matsushita and others to do so. So what I\'m really getting at, is that the market is changing and it doesn\'t seem to be going Nintendo\'s way.

Of course, if GameCube proves me wrong and does very well - then I\'m sure they\'ll be back. If not though and the scenario Watchdog\'s refering to comes true, then I wouldn\'t hold my breath of them being back next gen.

Originally posted by nonamer
The One": Why do you say that there will countless reilliterations of Halo when not a single Halo sequel has came out?

exactly, yet X-Box fanboys have been raving about a sequel because PC(which has been confirmed now) is getting the first one.

The point is, and will be for quite a while, M$ is low on franchises they are almost inexistent.  Look at nintendo, in their first system, they had Mario, Zelda, DK, and Metroid, all of which will most likely come to the cube.

The fact of the matter is, and Seven alluded to it, N doesn\'t have the capital to compete with Sony or MS.  Their game studios are too small, and their vision is narrow.  MS and Sony are too big, too powerful, too rich.

I wouldn\'t be surprised at all if N focusses on handhelds, and becomes 3rd party, much like Sega.

You can also bet on this: MS is well aware of their numbers in Japan, and they already have a solution.  TGS we\'ll find out.  Could the long rumoured Enix/MS partnership become a reality?  The Sega/Square rumour?  Who knows?  But one thing I do know is that MS will do something.

N looks at their sales, but what can they do?  They don\'t have the money to do anything major.  They have to hope that their 1st party will do it for them.  It didn\'t do it for the N64, I\'m not sure it\'ll work with the GC either.

We went through this denial with Sega too.  Thier DC came out, put up a valiant fight, had the best games anywhere, but it failed.  Is this situation any different from N\'s?

Billy...

inexistent isn\'t a word

MS decided to build franchises not buy them--that doesn\'t happen in one year.  Those N franchises didn\'t all start with the release of the NES during it\'s first year--they weren\'t even all on the NES.  So I ask you, how long did it take N to establish franchises?  Want to rethink anything?

Uh oh, Watch...

You just gave mm some ammo to fire at the XBox fans.

"TGS we\'ll find out. "

It wasn\'t long ago when mm would fire off "Wait until E3".

:P