One of life's great mysteries

[Jibbajaba]

Lots of good points here. It can pretty easily summed up.

The N64 was cart based and a year late. Both the PS1 and the Saturn had a year jump on them, and both were CD based. Nintendo lost most "serious" outside support.

The Gamecube was goofy mini disc based, 2 years late to the DC, and 1 year late to the PS2, and then had to contend with the XBox. The developer support loss from the N64 generation continued.

After that, Nintendo stopped trying to be a big dog and decided to go after the elusive last remaining frontier, the "non-gamer". The Wii was vastly successful...but like most would expect, the "non-gamer" market quickly lost interest and returned to not gaming.

They've been tripping over their own shoe laces ever since, the WiiU is a commercial failure and I'm guessing the Switch will be more of the same. Starting with the collapse Nintendo/Sony joint venture of the early 90's, they have made one bad move after the next. If it wasn't for the GameBoy and their IPs lie Pokemon, they would have joined Sega in the grave.


On a personal note, I adore the GameCube, what a geat little system that thing could have been RE4 was beautiful.

All true. The only thing I would add is that their handheld business has been on-point the entire time. I wish they approached the home console business the same way.

 

[smokehouse]

All true. The only thing I would add is that their handheld business has been on-point the entire time. I wish they approached the home console business the same way.

They can make a mean handheld, no arguing that. It seems they are making a desperate attempt to cut into their handheld success with the Switch. I honestly don't feel its going to work, the Switch is an odd mix of things that handheld fans won't really like, and console fans won't really take to either. The N faithful will get one...I'm guessing the rest of the world won't care.

To this day...I'd still say the GameBoy Adv SP with the true backlit screen is the best gaming device ever made...by anyone. Not only was it a brilliantly made little thing, it was comfortable, had a good battery life, sported a beautiful display, and had a vast library of amazing titles.

 

[Lastblade]

Nintendo sees the handheld market facing strong headwind against mobile gaming, so it is a matter of time. Switch is a good gambit to merge the home and handheld console markets, meanwhile they are testing the waters on mobile gaming with Pokemon and SMB.

I love the Gamecube as well, such a tidy little system that could.

 

[smokehouse]

Nintendo sees the handheld market facing strong headwind against mobile gaming, so it is a matter of time. Switch is a good gambit to merge the home and handheld console markets, meanwhile they are testing the waters on mobile gaming with Pokemon and SMB.

I love the Gamecube as well, such a tidy little system that could.

God, mobile gaming. I know its different stroks for different folks, but I hate gaming on a phone unless it is something stupid like solitaire.

I still feel the Switch is going to fall on deaf ears though...

I really cannot put my finger on why it is I love the GC so much. "Tidy" is a really good way to put it. It had a few really good titles on it, the GBA player was just amazing at the time, and that Wavebird...what a great controller.

I used the GBA player up until I got a Retron. The Retron5 does a WAY better job of handling GBA games.

 

[NeoSneth]

God, mobile gaming. I know its different stroks for different folks, but I hate gaming on a phone unless it is something stupid like solitaire.

I still feel the Switch is going to fall on deaf ears though...

I really cannot put my finger on why it is I love the GC so much. "Tidy" is a really good way to put it. It had a few really good titles on it, the GBA player was just amazing at the time, and that Wavebird...what a great controller.

I used the GBA player up until I got a Retron. The Retron5 does a WAY better job of handling GBA games.

There's a lot about this generation of gamers that doesn't make sense, and that may be why people are so conflicted with Nintendo right now.
I have 2-4 games on my phone. Younger gamers will have 20-50. People play entire 3D RPG's, schmups, and 2d fighters on phones. It makes no sense to me, but that is the market.


It's a struggle to get my nephews to actually play games. They all prefer to sit and watch LP's.

Switch can grab all those mobile games the kids like while still having a decent console experience for the 30+ crowd.


I honestly don't know why people want a traditional console. That platform is dead. A box with controllers is dead. They are just weak mini PC's with a logo slapped on them. The era of black box console is gone.

 

[Electric Grave]

That's exactly the plan, draw in the young crowd with their happening on the go lives. The system is appealing from afar, if I was a hipster I'd be all over it yesterday so I can go to the ark and play with the crowd a game of milking the cows...right in downtown crossings...commercial worthy, it's gonna be great!

In all seriousness, the concept is cool. Come to think of it, there is not one Nintendo system that I regret getting, not even the virtual boy, telero boxer is the shit!! From a personal stand point, this system will be awesome, I will get it, I will get the half a dozen titles that appeal to me and I'll have fun with it, anything else after that is just a bonus. I've done the same thing with the N64, GC, etc. Nintendo like it or not always delivers a quality product no mater what. Granted there has been plenty of flops but the product is still good nonetheless.

Am I alone when I say Mario Sunshine and Luigi's Mansion are amazing games? Both games are all about hardware gimmicks, kinda funny. I know people shit on Metroid OM a lot, I loved it, the game plays awesome, samus looks hot, fuck the story just show me them zero suit tatas and blast some aliens.

 

[HeavyMachineGoob]

Am I alone when I say Mario Sunshine and Luigi's Mansion are amazing games?

You're not, those are two high watermark Gamecube games of many. Nintendo was still daring in their games with the Gamecube, in the traditional sense. I miss that Nintendo.

 

[NeoSneth]

Nvidia Shield with a previous generation Tegra can run GC upscaled to 1080p.
There's quite a few people hoping for some Switch versions of those games.

 

[famicommander]

The Wii is a one-time fluke that can't be repeated on purpose.

The 3DS and DS were both built on the same core ideas and both were massively successful too. The DS before the Wii and the 3DS afterwards.

The Wii U was the one they screwed up with. I love my Wii U, but it's easy to see why it didn't achieve the mainstream success of other recent Nintendo machines.

I don't think Switch will be anywhere close to Wii levels of successful, but I think it'll easily surpass Wii U.