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"Getting Left Behind ?"

So, Xbox is down to £159.99 withj two free games, Xbox Live is available soon, Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Sega Gt2002, Elder Scrolls, Blinx and many more are scoring highly and sales are picking up.

On the PS2 front Sony is seeing GTA Vice City fly off the shelves as fast as it can be shipped out whilst console sales continue to go from strength to strength and Sony's Broadband network aims for a 1st quarter 2003 release. With more good games on the way like the Getaway, Kingdom Hearts, WWF 4 and so on, things couldn't be brighter.

Then we have Nintendo, who appear to have spent this years marketing budget on Super Mario Sunshine, and to whom online gaming seems something of a mystery. Starfox Adventures is the next BIG release, but I think from import reviews that it may not be all it's cracked up to be. Resident Evil provided a great, but dated gameplay wise, experience, and Eternal Darkness was good. Timesplitters 2 excelled, which was a good job when you consider the number of FPS games available. Coupl all this with the surrender of Rare to Bill, and I have to wonder what on earth Nintendo's strategy is right now, considering it's the Christmas run up.

If someone this Christmas is looking to buy a console then I honestly don't know how Nintendo expect the GC to do well. Advertsiing is appaling - or non existent in most cases - as are promotions - the Mario bundle was a step in the right direction but not far enough due to it's limited availability. There is the promise of some good stuff next year - Zelda and a few more I cannot remember.

As for online gaming, with Nintendo its like a "what strategy ? WE don't have a strategy !" attitude. Online Gaming will really take off in March 2003 with the official release of both Sony and Microsoft's online services. Imagine an online Mario Kart, or Mario Party 4 ? Nintendo should get Mario away from plumbing and into broadband pipes PDQ !

In short, the Gamecube is rapidly becoming a rerun of the N64 which should not be happening, but it is, and Nintendo as usual - despite promises to the contrary - doesn't care about the situation in Europe, where recent sales figures show the GC is doing a Custer's Last Stand.

Just over 5 months, and it's gone like this already. Pathetic, and Nintendo knows it. The Gamecube is a great machine with excellent ideas - the Wavebird in particular - but there are not enough games to back it up. I've got;

Luigi's Mansion
WaveRace
Tony Hawk's 3
Super Smash Bros
Eternal Darkness
Timespitters 2
NBA 2002
Burnout
Super Mario Sunshine
Pikmin
James Bond
Rogue Leader

And I traded in Resident Evil.

I can honestly say there are no games out right now that I want until Starfox. Even when I had a PS2 from it's launch there were always games coming out that I wanted. I've had an Xbox for a week, and there are loads of games I want for that.

Nintendo are being left behind, they need to get in gear and actually bother to fight for sales this Christmas, not sit back and lose.

~~Belldandy~~

Belldandy wrote:

> Next year we have
> F-Zero
> Lylatwars
> Metroid Prime
> Zelda
> 1080 white Storm
> Animal Crossing
> Resident Evil 0
> Resi 3, 2 and Code Veronica
> Phantasy Star Online 1+2
> Wario World
> Galleon
> Hitman 2
> XIII
> Donkey Kong
> Baldurs Gate
> Soul Calibur 2
> Broken Sword 3
> Settlers 4
>
> Of these how many will be decent ?

All of them are looking superb actually, I hand picked them cause they're the games i'll be looking forward too. There's plenty more i've forgotten but I haven't got a release list in front of me.

>incidentally
> Phantsay Star is pretty pointless without online play.

You can gurantee that whenever Phantasy star Online comes out, so will the modem and broadband adaptors.

> I really think that online play will take off next year,

This is very debateable but I won't get into that, I think you'll find Nintendo have got an ace up their sleeve. The fact that they have planned a 'big' announcement for sometime around Xmas that will apparently bring a lot of user to Cube and the fact that they released a picture of a Poke ball with a modem slot on it too me says that they have something planned for online games. We'll have to wait and see though.

> And to whoever mentioned the GC getting Ghost Recon - it may be, but
> if its anywhere like as fast as the GC getting Desert Storm (March in
> the USA) then it's going to be a bit late....

Last time I saw it was planned for before Xmas but that may have changed, to be honest games like that only have a small fanbase anyway so it's not gonna be a big loss if we have to wait a bit. It does annoy me though that we always have to wait longer for seemingly no reason for some 3rd party games.

Tiltawhirl wrote:
> Ummm recently released for Xmas we have had
>
> Super Mario Sunshine
> Eternal Darkness
> Resident Evil
> Timesplitters 2
> Smugglers Run Warzone
> Sega Soccer Slam
> Beach Spikers

Beach Spikers was hardly great was it, in terms of gameplay, and DOA Volleyball has it beat :) Soccer Slam and Smugglers run were hardly must buys either...


> Still to come we have
>
> Clone Wars
> Bounty Hunter
> Jedi Knight 2
> Starfox Adventures
> Mario Party 4
> BMX XXX
> Tony Hawks 4
> Medal of Honour
> James Bond: Nightfire
> Die Hard: Vendetta
> Super Monkey Ball 2
> Tiger woods: PGA Tour 2003
> Ace Golf
> Mortal Combat Annihalation
> Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions

How many of those are GC exclusive ? I count 4 - Die Hard: Vendetta, Super Monkey Ball 2, Starfox Adventures, Mario Party 4 - the rest are multiformat.

> Next year we have
> F-Zero
> Lylatwars
> Metroid Prime
> Zelda
> 1080 white Storm
> Animal Crossing
> Resident Evil 0
> Resi 3, 2 and Code Veronica
> Phantasy Star Online 1+2
> Wario World
> Galleon
> Hitman 2
> XIII
> Donkey Kong
> Baldurs Gate
> Soul Calibur 2
> Broken Sword 3
> Settlers 4

Of these how many will be decent ? GC's initial 39 game launch line upsounded great too, until everyone realised only about 8 were worth buying... don't get me wrong, I like the GC and the games I have for it, but as I see it it's becoming a repeat of the N64 - incidentally Phantsay Star is pretty pointless without online play.

I really think that online play will take off next year, and that Nintendo may as well forget it if they don't get a plan together soon. All they need to do is come up with a 56k online gaming solution and they could zoom straight past MS and Sony. sure, Broadband is great, but with dial up you can get a larger base of users immediately. Lack of dial up is Sony and MS's one weak link - Nintendo could exploit it, if it had the sense to...

And to whoever mentioned the GC getting Ghost Recon - it may be, but if its anywhere like as fast as the GC getting Desert Storm (March in the USA) then it's going to be a bit late....

~~Belldandy~~

Belldandy wrote:
> Online Gaming will really
> take off in March 2003 with the official release of both Sony and
> Microsoft's online services.

I can't really see it myself. Broadband is still hard to come by, except if you live in the larger citites, and BT arent much help setting absurd trigger levels.

Ummm recently released for Xmas we have had

Super Mario Sunshine
Eternal Darkness
Resident Evil
Timesplitters 2
Smugglers Run Warzone
Sega Soccer Slam
Beach Spikers

Still to come we have

Clone Wars
Bounty Hunter
Jedi Knight 2
Starfox Adventures
Mario Party 4
BMX XXX
Tony Hawks 4
Medal of Honour
James Bond: Nightfire
Die Hard: Vendetta
Super Monkey Ball 2
Tiger woods: PGA Tour 2003
Ace Golf
Mortal Combat Annihalation
Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions

Next year we have
F-Zero
Lylatwars
Metroid Prime
Zelda
1080 white Storm
Animal Crossing
Resident Evil 0
Resi 3, 2 and Code Veronica
Phantasy Star Online 1+2
Wario World
Galleon
Hitman 2
XIII
Donkey Kong
Baldurs Gate
Soul Calibur 2
Broken Sword 3
Settlers 4

I could go on listing but I grow bored, oh and bare in mind that they're all the main games that intrest me, there's tons more as well.

The Gamecube is anything but getting left behind, compared to the N64 Cube has far, far, far more 3rd party support. It seems that a lot of people are jumping to conclusions, just cause Microsoft happen to be selling a few more consoles in the UK than Nintendo does not mean the end of the Cube.

I know you say that Vice City is being swept of the shelve by a tidal wave of people and that the GC is going to get left behind this Christmas, but Vice City is the only game i'v heard of that is being bought faster than it can be made. I haven't really heard much about anything else on the PS2 at the moment. But when you talk about the GC, people come up with a load of games they want to buy, or get for Christmas. with the PS2 its only Vice City. my brother doesn't have any other game for the PS2 other than GTA 3 and Vice. whilst i have quite a few games on the GC. Don't you think that after a while everyone will have VC? what else will they go out and buy? most other games on the PS2 are slowly (but surely) coming out on the gamecube too, so we will be able to buy them sooner or later.
I know the gamecube is slow, but it won't get left behind.


and i like the controls on Resident Evil, there's more suspence to it, don't you think? it not outdated at all!

Ghost Reacon *is* on the Gamecube!

And Splinter Cell is only exclusive to X-box for a while.


I trust then, that you would not class Resident Evil: Zero to be outdated?

Resident Evil isn't outdated in the slightest, the GC remake proves that.

The control system is intentional, it WILL NOT change. It's supposed to be tricky, when some Zombies leap out at you, you panic, as you most probably would if it really happened, the tricky control system makes it hard to perform a quick exit, simulating the shock you would be in if *you* were attacked suddenly by some undead monster.

Insane Bartender wrote:
> I think there are enough games coming out to satisfy the number of
> GameCube owners. What needs to happen is Nintendo need more third
> parties to put together a few more non-nintendo-esque games worth
> buying a cube for.

That one of the things I mean, everything decent is nearly all from Nintendo. I want to see stuff like Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon, if the PS2 can do SOCOM and Desert Storm then the GC should be able to do a lot better !

~~Belldandy~~

Whitestripes wrote:
> *ahem*
>
> Resident Evil games outdated?
>
> Then so is DOA3 and Tekken 4. So is SEGA GT2002 and Ghost Recon.
>
> Wheres your point?

Resident Evil was outdated because, underneath the fancy graphics was a PSone game, and the control system proved it.

The games you mention are not - DOA3 improved on the previous with analogue control for movement but not attacks, Tekken 4 got rid of the gimmicks but took a backward step by having many new characters who were simply the same as previous ones but with new names and graphics. Ghost Recon introduces small level on the fly squad control and is unique for that, along with it's focus on small covert ops, and GT2002 does have all the modern features anyone could want in a new racing game.

~~Belldandy~~

*ahem*

Resident Evil games outdated?

Then so is DOA3 and Tekken 4. So is SEGA GT2002 and Ghost Recon.

Wheres your point?

~~~Whitestripes~~~

I'm happy with some of the games I have right now, but there are some that I'm not too keen on.

I've also got a big list of games of what to get. Already have 8 games.