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"Nintendo in deep water"

Nintendo's share price is falling faster than a leaf in autumn. Why? The industry is pointing the finger at the poor sales of the Gamecube, citing all the surplus stock sitting on the warehouse shelves.

Nintendo are a big company, of course, but they are pretty worried about the fairly hefty fall in their company's profits by about 37 percent. Even their usual fallback on the handheld market is now being threatened by Sony's new handheld Playstation, currently being readied for release over the next year, and their Pokemon franchise, which is slowing down of late.

The news is that they want to ditch the Cube and try again, but doing this would drastically affect their company image. This was a company founded on trust, when they took back faulty NES consoles without arguement and replaced them with new ones in Japan it made their sales jump through the roof.

Whatever way they decide to stay afloat, it looks bad for the true gamers who were hoping and believing that there could be room for 3 consoles in the market. E3 showed that some companies are cutting back again on their Gamecube titles, despite earlier efforts from Nintendo to gain support from big players like EA Games. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Oh and Rogue Leader 2 : Rebel Strike.

Can't forget that, looks superb.

I grew up with Nintendo, I've got a NES, SNES, GB, GBC, GBA and N64.

But I don't want a gamecube. I've got at least two versions of all the great games, and to be honest, this time round I wanted something different, plus I needed a new DVD player.

Nintendo have a lower age group to appeal to, I still enjoy the games on GC immensly, I've played them on my brothers loads (he's 15, I'm 20), But playing essentially the same game in the case of Mariokart does get boring for someone who's had it for the majority of his life.

Cube's future will be decided this Xmas I think.

If games like Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes , Final Fantasy : CC, Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil Code Veronica, Mario Kart : Double Dash, F-Zero GX, Pikmin 2, 1080 Snowboarding: Avalanche, Viewtiful Joe, PN03, amongst other big, exclusive releases don't manage too lift sales then Nintendo are gonna have some really serious trouble on their hands.

I think we should also expect some bundles and also a price drop to be announced just before the Xmas season.

Tiltawhirl wrote:
> I was talking about peoples opinions on which console has the best
> games.
--

Fair enough.
But doesn't the fact that sales are not too good indicate that the games aren't that popular outside of loyal Nintendo fans?

Thats purely down to image for Nintendo, too many 'cute' games

On one hand, what you see in the shops and on tele is governed by sales figures, etc, but on the other, what you choose to play games on is down to personal opinion. Some gamers like the style of consoles, some are loyal to certain companies because they grew up with their consoles. God only knows where Nintendo went wrong with that theory though - they have good looking consoles AND plenty of loyal gamers, yet I still fail to take the Gamecube seriously.

Goatboy wrote:

> No, it's financial sales figures and stock market prices plummeting.
> This isn't about computer games and internet forum posters claiming
> they hold the answers.
> It's economics.

I wasn't talking about that.
I was talking about peoples opinions on which console has the best games.

I agree its down to opinion. I like my Silent Hills, my Final Fantasy's and my Metal Gear Solids and im quite happy with my PS2. On the other hand i feel these days, with the amount exclusives that each console tries to get, its better having more than one console, in a few days ill have the money for another console. Many people can tell me many useless facts about both the GC and the X-box. If it wasnt for fear of the GC being halted id go for it straight away because as previously stated, it has more veriety whereas X-box successfull games are mostly shooter games, which dont interest me (same reason i didnt get a N64). So chances are ill go for a GC, not because its the better machine (i dont beleive there IS a machine that stands better than the rest because there are too many factors, factors ion which change every day, from advertising to exclusives) but because it suits my personal requirements more than the X-Box.

Tiltawhirl wrote:
> It's all opinion though.
--

No, it's financial sales figures and stock market prices plummeting.
This isn't about computer games and internet forum posters claiming they hold the answers.
It's economics.

Fair-dos.

I'm actually veering more towards the xbox at the moment - purely for Halo.