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Posted: Aug 09 2009 11:13 am

Well, the original XBox only sold 2 million more units than Gamecube (24 million vs. 22 million), so I guess that's a failure too.

The fact is, numbers don't tell the story of the sixth generation. The sixth generation was dominated by the PS2 by a huge margin, but that alone doesn't make the other systems failures. PS2 had huge momentum at its launch; Dreamcast and Gamecube did not. The Saturn had been a disaster, and Nintendo's unwillingless to bend to market pressures to switch from cartridges to CDs with the N64 had driven off a lot of developers. So there was not a lot of enthusiasm when Dreamcast and Gamecube launched. And there was outright backlash when XBox launched. No one wanted Microsoft in the console market, and their giant console with its giant controllers didn't initialy impress anyone except grossly overweight, barely mobile techies. But all three systems did reasonably well in terms of sales, with Microsoft's sales coming at a great financial cost to them.

Posted: Aug 09 2009 12:11 pm

Pandajuice wrote:

I mean, it's not even in the same league as the massive failure that was the Saturn. Why is that not on this list?

its supposed to be this decade, and the saturn came out last decade.

Posted: Aug 09 2009 12:43 pm

So did the Dreamcast. 9-9-99 ring a bell anyone?

Posted: Aug 09 2009 12:55 pm

Knyte wrote:

So did the Dreamcast. 9-9-99 ring a bell anyone?

touche, good sir. i completely forgot about that.

UsaSatsui's Youtube Channel · Posted: Aug 09 2009 01:18 pm

The reason I consider Gamecube a failure is, well, Haddox said it. Numbers don't tell the whole story.

The system was weak, looked silly, could not play movies, had far less game support than the other two system out at the time, concentrated mostly on gimmicks like the Game Boy Cable, and more than once I remember had production halted. It was another Dreamcast, except Nintendo has two things Sega doesn't: Miyamoto, and a fuckton of cash (with little to no debt). And again, this is Nintendo, so they're expected to do well in the market, and they didn't. So I sure as hell wouldn't call it successful. No other company (except maybe Microsoft) could have taken the Gamecube as far. In fact, I think that Nintendo could have done a lot more with the DC than Sega did too.

XBox, on the other hand,exceeded it's expectations mostly. It blasted into the market, carved out a niche, and held it's ground to establish Microsoft as a serious competitor, despite all it's problems. Yes, Microsoft lost money on the systems, but they fully expected to (Playstation 2 was a loss leader too. You make it back on games). It set Microsoft up well for the follow-up console. So I'd call it a success.

Posted: Aug 09 2009 01:43 pm

Gamecube exceeded market expectations for everyone except perhaps Nintendo. The N64 debuted to positive buzz, but within 2 years, things had quickly turned south. When the system's life had finally ended, the N64 was left with a relatively small, relatively awful game library, and most of their large consumer base from NES/SNES days had left for the greener pastures of the PSX.

You have some drastic misconceptions about the Gamecube. It was not weak, nor did it look ridiculous. The Gamecube was comparable in power to the PS2, with each one being slightly better at different things. The GCN was also easier to develop for: http://cube.ign.com/articles/086/086984p1.html

Both systems were underpowered compared to the XBox. The XBox's library was not particularly bigger or better than the Gamecube's, but due to its increased power, it was able to sell itself as THE console for sports games. This allowed it to carve out a niche for itself among frat boys and minorities.

The system could not play DVDs, but that was not the major issue. The major issue was that the system's optical discs were small, and could only hold 1.5 GB of information, roughly 1/3 the amount of space on the DVDs the PS2 used. This was the dealbreaker for most developers. Plus, Nintendo wasn't aggressively throwing money at developers the way Microsoft and Sony were.

Nintendo did almost everything right with the Gamecube, but for the most part, the devs just didn't bite. And that hurt them. A lot. But again, the lack of dev interest can mostly be attributed to the N64, which damn near destroyed the Nintendo brand.

Posted: Aug 14 2009 06:18 am

i disagree with a few things being on there, for something to be a flop i would be inclined to think that not only did nobody buy it but the general concensus among consumers is that its assy and terrible/not worth buying

the dreamcast being on there is just wrong, thinkgeek still sells them, i still own one, and people still talk about how great it was no matter how short lived

and i also disagree with the umd being on there, sure as MOVIE FORMAT it sucked VERY hard, because of the high prices, but as a games format, its actually pretty cool and CAN NOT DIE otherwise the psp would be dead, and yes i know about the go, but although i will get one, it will only be so i can hack it, as i also own psp slim and phat, my interest with the go will be on homebrew and playing MY backups on it without re-buying them from the PS store i own like 50-60 games plus like 25+ umd movies(most are 5 bucker deals from futurshop) it would be a royal pain in the wallet to have to buy 50+ games again

i got off topic, but to say the umd is a flop is just stupid... i mean if blu-ray as a movie format, died the ps3 would still be alive, and producing games on blu-ray

TL;DR
HD-DVD and betamax were flops umd isnt as they still make umd games for psp

Posted: Aug 14 2009 06:41 am

Haddox wrote:

When the system's life had finally ended, the N64 was left with a relatively small, relatively awful game library, and most of their large consumer base from NES/SNES days had left for the greener pastures of the PSX.

at the time i owned all three current gen consoles and even now i own all 3 next gen consoles... come to think of it i always own all three... the only reason why i own the wii was curiosity, wanted to see what all the hype was about so i bought a used one(to purposley not fund nintendo but ill never know for sure) and after hacking it and playing every game that cought my eye its just been sitting on my entertainment unit NOT being played

my N64 and gamecube however i still play frequently aswell as Ps3(gets the most play time) ps2 and ps1, hell all my consoles 'cept for the wii, 360, and xbox 1 get REGULAR use in my house, mainly cuz i never ever like the xbox 360 or the wii but thats for another thread

my point with this post is that with the n64
for the majority of its library this is how I see it

the good games were REALLY good

and the bad games were REALLY bad

and i cant find a happy medium on the 64 i either love a game or i hate it for the 64
but it did have ALOT of REALLY good games(challenge me on that i dare you)

for ps1

there was LOTS of inbetween games, games that were in the high 7's but not tens with few 10 quallity games, but yet again when they were good they were REALLY good

then theres the saturn which i always thought looked like complete shit minus a VERY FEW select games that were OKAY

then theres the 3do with a VERY abismal library, and there was NO game on there that was truly excellent or even half-way distant

and finally theres that damned cd-i from philips.... waaaaaaaay out in left field jackin off, not even playin the game..... what a peice of shit infact i CHALLENGE anyone to find a decent game for that peice of shit

not to say i dont wanna own a saturn, cd-i, or 3do

infact i REALLY wanna own them because i think that its cool to see all the crazy fuckin shit that got passed off as good ideas on those systems, and i have a strange fetish with collecting shitty videogames, non sexual i assure you.

Posted: Aug 14 2009 07:44 am

The Dreamcast was awesome, no one will deny that.

but I pretty much played all the good Dreamcast games when they came out and there are very few I could really go back and play that would hold my interest today as it did then.

Shenmue was cool for the time, but very boring now
Zombie Revenge was a cool Final Fight eqse game that hasn't aged well
Grandia II was a good RPG, but not worth going through a second time
Resident Evil CV was an awesome game, but I beat it too many times

I do think some games like Sonic Adventures and Skies of Arcadia or maybe Phantasy Star Online would be worth a replay but which I have no interest in

Basically the only game worth playing the Dreamcast now for me is "Border Down" which came out in like 2003, a truly awesome space shooter R-Type game which is much better than the sequel to Radiant Silvergun on the DC.

Posted: Aug 14 2009 07:52 am

detective jon kimble wrote:

Haddox wrote:

When the system's life had finally ended, the N64 was left with a relatively small, relatively awful game library, and most of their large consumer base from NES/SNES days had left for the greener pastures of the PSX.

at the time i owned all three current gen consoles and even now i own all 3 next gen consoles... come to think of it i always own all three... the only reason why i own the wii was curiosity, wanted to see what all the hype was about so i bought a used one(to purposley not fund nintendo but ill never know for sure) and after hacking it and playing every game that cought my eye its just been sitting on my entertainment unit NOT being played

my N64 and gamecube however i still play frequently aswell as Ps3(gets the most play time) ps2 and ps1, hell all my consoles 'cept for the wii, 360, and xbox 1 get REGULAR use in my house, mainly cuz i never ever like the xbox 360 or the wii but thats for another thread

my point with this post is that with the n64
for the majority of its library this is how I see it

the good games were REALLY good

and the bad games were REALLY bad

and i cant find a happy medium on the 64 i either love a game or i hate it for the 64
but it did have ALOT of REALLY good games(challenge me on that i dare you)

for ps1

there was LOTS of inbetween games, games that were in the high 7's but not tens with few 10 quallity games, but yet again when they were good they were REALLY good

then theres the saturn which i always thought looked like complete shit minus a VERY FEW select games that were OKAY

then theres the 3do with a VERY abismal library, and there was NO game on there that was truly excellent or even half-way distant

and finally theres that damned cd-i from philips.... waaaaaaaay out in left field jackin off, not even playin the game..... what a peice of shit infact i CHALLENGE anyone to find a decent game for that peice of shit

infact i REALLY wanna own them because i think that its cool to see all the crazy fuckin shit that got passed off as good ideas on those systems, and i have a strange fetish with collecting shitty videogames, non sexual i assure you.

I read all what you said but I was too lazy to quote each stanza but I will say your pretty much correct in your total assesment of the consoles you mentioned