Wallpapers

 Challenge Coliseum
 Chat
 Boards
 Radio

After the what a lot of the media considered a huge failure from Nintendo, the N64, Nintendo vowed they would change their ways with GameCube. Nintendo has named a lot of ways about how they have fixed the problems with the 64 but the answer to one question will tell it all have they?

Have They Fixed the Console?

Developers had many problems with the 64. One problem was programming. Programming for the 64 was very difficult. Though it was the most powerful system at the time it took a lot of work to make fantastic games. The best example of that is "Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time", delayed forever but when it came out it was named Game of the Year and many magazines even named it "Game of the Century" though the end of the century was still 2 years off. Now we look at GameCube and just by looking at games that took close to a year to complete you see that high quality can come a lot faster. The system doesn’t take as much work to get as much out of it as you can. As for what programmers have said I have not heard one developer say that the GameCube is not the easiest system to develop for. Square even came out and said this a couple weeks ago and they even mostly work with the Playstation 2.

Another problem that the N64 had was it’s cartridges. Cartridges could not even come close to matching the space available on a CD and they were more expensive to make meaning less profit for developers and more money needed for buyers. Nintendo opted not to go with CD’s for the 64 for one reason loading time. They knew players would not be happy with sitting around a long period of time having to wait for a game to load. But things change with the GameCube Nintendo knew they had to leave more space for developers but yet keep loading times speedy while still keeping prices low for customers. They seemed to do just that with tier choice of a type of mini-dvd. Developers get 1.5 GB of space for their games and players not only get cheaper games ($10.00 cheaper and possibly more soon) but load times faster than the 64. Denis Dyack from Silicon Knights has commented before that the load time on the GameCube was so much faster than the 64 they actually had to add a pause of less than a second in so that players wouldn’t feel confused.

Have They Targeted a Broader Audience?

Yes and it is very easy to see now with Nintendo second party Silicon Knights’ Eternal Darkness and Capcom’s GameCube exclusive Resident Evil series both mature titles and both only on the GameCube. If maturity was ever a problem on GameCube this will prove to developers that there is a market for mature games on GameCube. Expect even more mature titles to follow this new trend.

Have They Changed How They Advertise?

Advertising has never been a problem for Nintendo. The biggest proof of this is the N64. There were no commercials for the 64 at all but yet it got hyped up by gamers and word of mouth spread and soon Mario 64 became the best selling game of it’s time. Nintendo is doing this with GameCube as well. Though there are a few commercials on TV from Nintendo most advertising is done by Nintendo’s newest idea the Cube Club where players get to test out the Cube and it’s newest games. Word of mouth spreads fast and the hype over GameCube’s big mascot games to come out this year is sure to grow. The only advertising I see that Nintendo is lacking in is demo disks. Nintendo sohuld just produce a million or 2 more of the copies they have at Wal-Mart and send them to GameCube owners. That will surely make GameCube’s future very bright, as if it isn’t already though!

PCM