A Dolphin's Tale: The Story of GameCube

http://www.dromble.com/2014/01/07/dolphin-tale-story-of-gamecube/

by MBCook • 13 years ago

127 60 13 years ago

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guiomie• 13 years ago

This article was totally worth it just for the youtube link at 02:00 .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKlbx5niBu8

ChrisNorstrom2• 13 years ago

It was iconic in it's design no doubt but publishing for GameCube was a disaster for Capcom's Resident Evil franchise.

They released Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube and sold a total of 1.5 million copies. When they ported the game to the PS2 it sold a total of 8 million copies.

georgemcbay• 13 years ago

Financially not so great for Capcom, but the GameCube version was far superior to the PS2 port, so as a gamer who considers Resident Evil 4 to be one of the finest single player action games of all time, I'm glad they went out on the GC first and ported later rather than having the PS2 version be a "least common denominator" regulator during initial development because most games that went that route just used shitty low-res PS2-friendly textures across the board.

ChrisNorstrom2• 13 years ago

Oh of course it was. But the director flipped at the thought of it being ported to the PS2 because of this.

girvo3• 13 years ago

Yes. But RE on the GCN was far superior to the PS2 ports in feel and look.

MBCook4• 13 years ago

I really loved my GameCube, in many ways it was the best console of it's generation. But it just couldn't compete with the library of games the PS2 had.

It was kind of sad to read this. There are some thing in the article, like the idea of a console as a toy for fun, that are so quintessentially Nintendo and why I love them. But it's also so clear that it's not the direction the market went. You can see how the 3rd party problems got worse and the beginnings of the disaster that Nintendo's on-line efforts. There are points where it's just so clear their arrogance is causing them serious problems.

I really love Nintendo. I hope they can turn themselves around before it's too late.

joezydeco2• 13 years ago

So was the Wii really just a re-do of the GameCube and a chance to correct all the problems, especially the perceptions of being a toy?

MBCook4• 13 years ago

The Wii was their 'blue ocean' strategy. Let MS and Sony squabble over the hardcore gamers, Nintendo would go after the other 80% of the population. The strategy worked amazingly well.

The problem is, they didn't capitalize on it. A lot of people with a Wii didn't buy much software. The Wii had no real online component, despite being released a few years after the introduction of Xbox Live. Over the lifetime of the Wii, Nintendo appears to have learned basically nothing about online services. Sony & MS kept improving their online experience.

The Wii had the ability for downloaded games, but it didn't work that great. They were oddly tied to the console, and that was never fixed. Meanwhile it worked great for Sony and MS.

But years later, when the WiiU and 3DS came out... they had the same problems. Games tied to hardware (not accounts), terrible online components. They don't have the success to draw in third parties (on the WiiU), so they're having serious problems. That's four generations running of poor 3rd party support.

And they seemed to learn the wrong lesson from the 3DS. They tried something interesting with the Wii, and it worked pretty well. They tried it again with the 3DS, and it's basically failed. Even Nintendo is making games that don't use 3D. So when the WiiU came... it was full of new (and expensive) gimmicks. So the 'just games' console cost most of $400.

Sony, on the other hand, actually learned from the PS2 and PS3 and simplified. They didn't try to cram new exotic hardware in the console, and that made it easy for 3rd parties and cheaper to produce.

I don't think Nintendo will ever recover on the WiiU. I hope they can last long enough to fix things for the next generation.

thiagoperes• 13 years ago

"I really love Nintendo. I hope they can turn themselves around before it's too late."

Totally agree. Nintendo in the N64 era made games so good that became part of popular culture.

acjohnson55• 13 years ago

I still remember the first time I played Super Mario 64. That game had an impact on me like none other. I had played 3-D games before, but with the level of control over Mario and the realism of his movements, that was the first where I felt like I was inhabiting a virtual world. I truly believe that's the greatest game of all time, from a standpoint of historical context.

cookiecaper2• 13 years ago

I mean, Nintendo is not perfect by any stretch, but afaik it's not like they're on the ropes. The DS line is still immensely profitable, and they've had mixed success with consoles. There's no need to act like they're on the brink.

tostitos19792• 13 years ago

From what I've read online about Wii U sales, they may have a big problem. I haven't read anything about the holiday season so they might have turned it around. But I doubt it. There was no significant discounting or console bundles. I thought they'd release a Super Mario 3D world bundle to move sales .. surprising that they didn't do this in the US.

girvo3• 13 years ago

I still use my GameCube every week (playing through the Resident Evil series at the moment). I've built homebrew, run on my XenoGC chip I soldered on myself. I'm building up the courage (and time) to buy a new one and attempt the IDE adapter. It's my absolute favourite console ever. :)

cclogg• 13 years ago

Man I wish I still had mine. My luck with my Nintendo consoles has been pretty bad lol:

- I sold my Super Nintendo in high school for $20. What the hell was I thinking...

- My sister took my N64 to someone's house many years ago and I never saw it since (nor do we remember whose house... at the moment I didn't care... foolish me).

- And finally, I left my Gamecube at my girlfriend's apartment, and then she moved and forgot it in some old cupboard in the closet... it's been a few years now unfortunately so I doubt it's still there.

It's funny how in the moment you don't really care that much but later on you're smacking yourself heh.

mattl• 13 years ago

For about $100 you could buy a SNES, an NES and a Wii (can also play GCN games)

ZeroGravitas2• 13 years ago

The bonus mini-game for Resident Evil that is unlocked when you complete the game was astounding. You had to get combos to score so it involved getting yourself into the worst possible situation, totally surrounded by zombies before starting your counter-attack. Incredibly suited gameplay to the zombie genre. (I think they released it standalone for the 3DS too).

My Gamecube is packed away, but I still pull out the Bongo accesories to play Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat via Wii backwards-compatibility. This is possibly my favourite game of all time, there's just something magical about getting into the flow state playing a game that you control via bongos and hand-claps.

Here's a video review that agrees with my view that this is a hidden gem that introduced a lot of concepts use later by Nintendo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGi4yd545Ac

tfinch• 13 years ago

Just commenting to say thanks for mentioning the bongos! My house-mates thought I was mad when I bought them as a student, but it quickly turned into a house favourite. I would still recommend them to this day if you can get your hands on them.

Re: flow-state - perhaps the only game where this is possible at any level of intoxication.

1stop• 13 years ago

I like the WiiU concept:

- Off TV play

- DS on steriods kind of works

- In a family house hold, having the game on both screens completely gets rid of "You're in the way" frustrations.

- Wireless display streaming!? (When this gets better, it will be amazing).

peroo• 13 years ago

I agree Off-TV play is a really nice feature, but in my opinion the cons outweigh the pros.

- Few games use it in any meaningful way. - It's bulky and unfamiliar. - It muddies the image of what the console is (is the tablet the Wii U?) - It raised the price of the console significantly. - It threw away the momentum they had for something none of their install-base wanted.

While I love my Wii U, it's destined to become another 20m failure. I hope that I'm wrong and that with time they can really iterate on their online functionality and get some better 3rd party support, but I'm not optimistic. If nothing else the 3DS is killing it, so it's not like they're going broke any time soon.

hayksaakian• 13 years ago

Great quote that (IMO) demonstrates Nintendo's philosophy towards new technology:

----- [2003]

Each time Satoru Iwata did an interview with the press, the subject of online gaming would rear its head. As you can imagine, Iwata became increasingly annoyed with answering the same question over and over. He slammed critics who claimed that Nintendo couldn’t survive as a business unless they embraced online gaming as the future.

“All the talk in the industry regarding online gaming has been misleading. Network swindlers have made it seem like companies can’t survive in this business without network compatibility,” said Iwata. “That’s the same type of rhetoric people have been saying about the newspaper business, that the paper-based periodical business will be dead in three years. In reality, the number of users willing to pay a monthly fee for online games is small. Many of the American companies who were focusing almost exclusively on network games last year now view network capabilities as an advertising tool. The fact of the matter is, network games can’t provide a stable source of profit for a company of Nintendo’s scale.”

username223• 13 years ago

the paper-based periodical business will be dead in three years.

That quote was apprently from 2003. Many (formerly) paper-based periodicals may be dying, but some, like the Financial Times and the New Yorker, seem to have a reason to live.

mpyne• 13 years ago

Read the quote again. Iwata was saying it was rhetoric, not fact.

vinkelhake• 13 years ago

It could also be argued that their target group is younger than Sony's and Microsoft's. This age group generally have less money to spend so Nintendo's consoles have to be cheaper. Online gaming is also less important for this group.

wvenable• 13 years ago

Nintendo is used to selling games for $40-$60 a pop. They don't want to be lead into the situation like on the iPhone where the average game is 99 cents.

Their strategy so far is to pretend that it's still 2001 and that isn't a strategy that they can sustain forever.

ANTSANTS• 13 years ago

I dunno, it seems to be working pretty well for them on the 3DS (the WiiU, not so much...):

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/sales/hard_soft/index.html

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/sales/software/3ds.html

What's wrong with making good games and charging more than a fast food lunch for them? It's not like anybody levels this complaint at Microsoft or Sony, who tend to charge even more for new releases.

ZeroGravitas2• 13 years ago

A more classic quote about their approach to tech is (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi):

Yokoi articulated his philosophy of "Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology" (枯れた技術の水平思考?, "Kareta Gijutsu no Suihei Shikō") (also translated as "Lateral Thinking with Seasoned Technology") in the book, Yokoi Gunpei Game House (横井軍平ゲーム館 Yokoi Gunpei Gēmu-kan?), which consists of a collection of interviews. "Withered technology" in this context refers to a mature technology which is cheap and well understood. "Lateral thinking" refers to finding radical new ways of using such technology. Yokoi held that toys and games do not necessarily require cutting edge technology; novel and fun gameplay are more important. In the interview he suggested that expensive cutting edge technology can get in the way of developing a new product.[10]

dec0dedab0de• 13 years ago

To me the worst part of this whole ordeal is making the games shorter. I just beat Link between worlds on 3DS, and I really wish it would have kept going. Same thing for Pikmin3 on WiiU.

mandlar• 13 years ago

A Link Between Worlds took me about ~16 hours. I only died 3 times (twice to the 50 floor challenge in the Treacherous Tower because I didn't have enough bottles at the time). I can still replay it in hero mode, but the game just felt very, very short. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the game. I just wish the main content was longer.

Roritharr• 13 years ago

I still vividly remember spending nights online trying to find out more about the Dolphin... This is such a fascinating read, it strangely feels like hearing other points of view of a story I was part of, even if just very remotely.

This made me seriously consider buying a WiiU again, if only to experience how that story develops...

72deluxe• 13 years ago

Fascinating read. I still have two Gamecubes, one with a battery pack and portable screen that is barely viewable from a short distance, but the thought is there! I think Wind Waker is the only game that my wife could cope with me playing. She watched me play it from beginning to end. I love Link's little boat on the water....

I also have my Dreamcast and PSX with screen to keep me entertained. Not sure I'll ever move on to newer hardware, other than the PC games I have! Still reliably playing Homeworld 2 every Monday, pretty sad really.

Great console. Great read.

agumonkey2• 13 years ago

Funny how N64 to GameCube's focus on developer friendliness is similar to PS2/3 to PS4. Once number 1 then trimming the fat. http://imgur.com/okP8cdO

Raphmedia• 13 years ago

Say whatever you want about the GameCube, but it's a great console.

People over here are starting to play it once again. Lot of people would gather for a beer and a game of Super Smash Melee, even our non game friends.

The controller is great, the games are great, and since the games weren't aiming for looks but gameplay, they all age very well!

programminggeek• 13 years ago

Nintendo might not make great developer platforms, but they make great games and there will always be a place for a company that makes great games.

Kronopath3• 13 years ago

”People do not play with the game machine itself. They play with the software, and they are forced to purchase a game machine in order to use the software. Therefore the price of the machine should be as cheap as possible.” - Yamauchi

If there's one thing Nintendo seems to be forgetting lately, it's this. They seem to think, nowadays, that bolting on new hardware features will improve demand, but it's never true. Software drives hardware sales. Mario sold the NES and SNES. Wii Sports sold the Wii. Pokemon is selling the 3DS these days -- until Pokemon (and to a lesser extent Animal Crossing) came out, the 3DS was doing terribly. And nothing is selling the Wii U. A tablet controller alone can't save it.

derefr2• 13 years ago

They seem to think, nowadays, that bolting on new hardware features will improve demand

I don't think Nintendo has ever "bolted on new hardware features" for the sake of selling consoles to consumers. The new hardware features are pretty much always for the sake of luring third parties into developing something innovative for the platform.

See this excellent essay: http://www.lostgarden.com/2005/09/nintendos-genre-innovation...

Nintendo makes money on games that explore new genres. It can't keep doing that unless it keeps increasing the design-space and interaction-space to find those new genres within.

Kronopath3• 13 years ago

Nintendo makes money on games that people want to play. To suggest anything else is nonsense, or at least overcomplicating the situation. Innovation can help with that, but isn't guaranteed to. Consider that some of the best-selling games on the Wii and DS were the New Super Mario Bros. games -- these were games that were so popular they moved hardware, and yet their core genres and mechanics are identical to the Mario games of the NES and SNES era. In fact, it could be argued that their success was exactly because they stuck so closely to that old formula -- other Mario games, such as the 3D platformers, don't sell nearly as well.

Innovation is good when it supports the goal of creating games people want to play. Wii Sports, for example, could not be done without the Wii Remote. That was a good innovation that served both to lower the barrier of entry to games and to allow for new modes of play that people found fun. But things like the 3D of the 3DS, which Nintendo is now wisely backing away from, or the tablet on the Wii U, which substantially increased its price tag, don't provide those same benefits. And hardware innovation alone doesn't cut it -- it needs games like Wii Sports to support it.

And I think that for a company like Nintendo, third-party support is heavily overrated. The best way to get third-party support is to sell enough consoles that they can no longer ignore you, and the only way to do that is strong first-party games.

brianpgordon• 13 years ago

I'm amazed by how long and exhaustively-researched this article is. And it's all on one big page with only a few ads at the top. How can this possibly be profitable for the author?

A Dolphin's Tale: The Story of GameCube

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