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GameCube (Games) Entertainment Games

Key Publishers Scaling Back GameCube Titles, Zelda Sequel Hints 97

Posted by simoniker from the gc-on-the-dl dept.
Thanks to Gamesindustry.biz for its article discussing the list of specific games and publishers going without GameCube support, mentioning: "Joining the swelling ranks of publishers without any Cube titles in their portfolios (which already includes the likes of Acclaim and Eidos) is Lucasarts, which currently has no titles for the platform on its internal schedules." It goes on to note: "While support from Japanese publishers remains strong... Western third-party support for the Cube is facing a serious decline this year." Elsewhere, 1UP reports that a Game Developer's Conference lecture by Nintendo's Eiji Aonuma had oblique news on a GameCube Zelda sequel, since he "showed in his presentation a slide reading 'Wind Waker 2: 2XXX,' so we can expect to play the game within the next 996 years." Aonuma also "strongly hinted at the prospect of a new Legend of Zelda or Zelda-related game for the DS."
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Key Publishers Scaling Back GameCube Titles, Zelda Sequel Hints More

Key Publishers Scaling Back GameCube Titles, Zelda Sequel Hints

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  • It's been said before (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @07:26AM (#8665963) Homepage Journal
    But it's worth saying again.

    Relevent Penny Arcade Comic [penny-arcade.com]

    People always talk about how Playstation and XBox have more games than the GCN. They sure do, but have you seen those games? They are all the random, crappy, hollywood licensed, violence without gameplay, total crap games. On the GameCube you have to compete with Nintendo to sell software and so very few developers can hold a candle.

    When a Nintendo game comes out for the GCN it sells zillions. When other games come out for the cube the players compare them to the Nintendo games they have and say "screw that! it isn't worth my money or time." So what you get on the cube is quality before quantity. If you stop making games for the cube your only two possible reasonings can be these
    1) You're stupid
    2) You can't compete with Nintendo in quality.

    3rd parties can succeed on the cube *cough*soul calibur 2*cough*. Cube owners are just too smart to buy stupid generic movie based game number 3.

    • Re:It's been said before (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Lucasarts, Acclaim and Eidos have made billions of dollars and hundreds of great games. I would not be so quick to dismiss all of these 3rd party devs as useless hollywood licensers.

      I loved Dark Alliance on Gamecube, but the sequel and the other couple games that use its engine only came out on Xbox and PS2. I bought a PS2 because of this, and wouldn't have otherwise. My Cube, otoh hasn't been touched since Double Dash!!.

      If Nintendo's in-house developed games weren't exclusive to the Cube there would b
    • Your one of those people that bought the virtual boy because mario tennis was awesome right?

      So let me get this straight, smart people don't buy stupid generic movie based games apparently... smart people buy rehashes of popular 80s titles? It's all the same to me.

      I am in awe of the moderation of this post...

      "soul calibur 2" succeeded right? Now was that because the other two versions were of lesser quality or because it had link in it? yes, cube owners are just too smart to fall for those simple advertis
      • I bought soul calibur on gamecube because it was one of the few fighting games for the system. (we only have a gamecube, we got it for zelda).

        • I bought soul calibur on gamecube because it was one of the few fighting games for the system.

          Perhaps this is because when you already have the greatest fighting game of all time (Smash Bros.; although the original soul calibur on dreamcast was pretty incredible (I haven't played the second one much)), having tons of other fighting games available would be redundant and unnecessary.

      • I bought a Virtual Boy because it was cheap (in this case, Target was liquidating inventory.)

        That said, Mario Tennis is quite fun.

    • Cube owners won't buy 'stupid generic movie based game number 3'.

      But damn sure they'll buy stupid generic Mario based game number 10...and 11...and 12...

      When Nintendo makes a game for the Gamecube, of course it sells zillions. A lot of Gamecube owners are true fanboys. And that is the problem for the 3rd party publishers. Maybe when they get older they will find out that just because Mario/Wario/Princess Toadstool are in a game, doesn't mean that it is fun.

      If BMX-XXX could somehow be re-named "Kirby's
      • Given Nintendo's record of quality and polish, I'd rather assume that a game featuring Mario/Wario/Princess Peach is fun, than a game based on whatever action movie blockbuster. Because 9.9 times out of 10, the Mario game will be fun, and the movie game will be rushed, ugly, messy and not be fun.

        Quite honestly, I'm at a loss to name a recent Mario game that wasn't fun. People don't just jump at Nintendo franchises like puppets on a string, they continue to jump because the games have earned their respect.

      • But damn sure they'll buy stupid generic Mario based game number 10...and 11...and 12...

        Pardon me, but which Mario has been generic, exactly?

        Super Mario Bros.: no questions asked here, I assume.
        SMB2: An entirely different game remade from Doki Doki Panic.
        SMB3: Far more polished than any NES game I've played, and introduced what a lot of people mistake for "classic" mario gameplay, such as chain jumping off of enemies (which you couldn't do in SMB1).
        SMW: Alright, so the gameplay here was rather close

        • Here is a good list of Mario Games [rateitall.com].

          Mario Golf
          Mario Golf 64

          Mario Party
          Mario Party 2
          Mario Party 3
          Mario Party 4
          Mario Party 5

          Super Mario Kart
          Mario Kart 64
          Mario Kart Double Dash
          (Diddy Kong Racing could be thrown in here too)

          A lot of their other games fall into the same trap- just re-making the same game for each generation of console.

          I'm not going to say that it is junk. I owned the first 3 Nintendo consoles and I played the crap out of them (okay..not so much the 64, it was the beginning of the end for me
          • I think the only true "junk" in that list is Mario Party. I loved the first game, it was a nice idea and carried out well. But every game after that has been almost exactly the same.

            The "Mario Kart" are all pretty similar too, but a lot of developers churn out an update of an old game for a new systems - in fact, most do (Capcom [Resident Evil & Street Fighter], Eidos [Tomb Raider], Sega [Sonic], Sony [Gran Turismo], Namco [Tekken], Naughty Dog [Crash Bandicoot], Ubisoft [Rayman] - the list (which is

    • It was a tough call between modding you down as the fanboy/troll you are, or replying, but hey, work's slow right now...

      They sure do, but have you seen those games? They are all the random, crappy, hollywood licensed, violence without gameplay, total crap games.

      Yes, all of them are mindless, gory, and violent. Just like all of Nintendo's games are kiddie-oriented crap, right?

      On the GameCube you have to compete with Nintendo to sell software and so very few developers can hold a candle.

      In terms of

      • Solid post, good reply.

        One of the reasons evelopers are cutting back on GC releases because of people like me. I don't own a Gamecube but I own 2 PS2s (one with a Linux kit in it, the other with FFXI)

        Late last year I got a flyer from Nintendo in the mail for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. (Square must have given them my street addy) FFCC seems just like the sort of game I like, a fun little Diablo/Gauntlet Legends style game. However, the connnectivity features are a turn off. I don't own a GBA and
        • I hate to make a "me too" sort of posting, however you're right. I'm only 26, but I don't have friends that will come over to my house in the burbs to play video games. Hell, even if I did have local people that would be interested, I wouldn't want them over on a worknight in the first place. That said, I am a fan of the GC - the single player games are great - and so are games like Mario Kart and Soul Calibur II.

          • Re:It's been said before (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Zigg ( 64962 )

            I'm 27, and I'd rather have people in the room playing games with me than seek opponents amongst the truant 13-year-olds who know every secret and strategy that clog the online gaming world today.

            Online play is seriously overrated. You can say it's because I hate getting beat by those little brats, and you'd be right -- but it's really because I'd rather have actual fun. And that's why I'm a Cube owner with a stack of GBAs.

        • Thanks for your comments... you're dead on about the multiplayer and connectivity functionality, too. I bought my Gamecube for Metroid Prime and SSBM. Then I beat Metroid Prime, and never touched it again. And I'm in the same boat; I'm 23, and I don't have my buddies dropping in for multiplayer anymore like I did when I was living in the dorms, so SSBM was very old, very fast.

          And for the GBA connectivity? I kept my Gamecube because I was looking forward to FF:CC. As soon as they confirmed it required GBA s

          • On a slightly related note, it's funny to take a look at this thread. Almost every single Nintendo-critical post in the discussion has been modded down as troll or flamebait. Seems Slashdot's got an even bigger collection of Nintendo fanboys than I originally thought. :\

            It makes you wonder if they *really* think all games on other platforms are so terrible, or if they're just modding because of Slashthink.

            If ANY post in this thread was flamebait, it was the great-great-grandparent. This entire thread is

      • Why is this moderated as troll?

        Seriously, who, reading this, things, "oh, this is a troll commend and can't possibly be an opinion from one of the readers."

        Man, come on Moderators. The only comment there that's even *slightly* trollish is the one about Nintendo being the Disney of the video games industry, and that's not a trollish enough comment to offset the other valid points.
      • I wish we could all just throw away the kneejerk arguments pro and con a particular camp.
        Windwaker is not evidence of whoring out characters straight to video, nor is it a waste of money. WW (for me) took about 40 hours to finish. Roughly $1.10 per hour.

        Mario Kart, WW, and Mario, are not cheap re-treads. They offer significantly different dynamics from their previous versions. Kart on the GC introduces all kinds of handling characteristics to the carts, expands the characters, each character has weight

        • I wish we could all just throw away the kneejerk arguments pro and con a particular camp.

          You're right. Wind Waker isn't a cheap re-tread. Double Dash is a legitimate sequel, as is SSBM. But how about the 80-some million Pokemon games? Luigi's Mansion? The entire Mario franchise?

          Admittedly, the GCN's lineup is more respectable than Nintendo's shameless whoring on the GBA, but it's still pretty bad.

          It's no contest; EA and Sega are by far the biggest whores in the industry, but Nintendo's not that far beh

    • There is definitely some truth to what you're saying. Nintendo games generally sell a lot better than third party titles. Whether this is attributed to Nintendo producing better games or just plain fanboysim doesn't make much difference. The end result is that 3rd party developers really have a tough time competing with Nintendo the software company.

      I think last year the top two software publishers were EA and Nintendo.
    • Kinda like people who tout the Windows platform(s) as superior to Linux/Mac/whatever because of all the software available, ignoring the marvelous 'quality' of all those shareware offerings they point to.
    • Seriously, what are ANY great games, besides KOTOR, that have been made by any of these companies in the last few years? The Jedi Knight series has, in my opinion, been "good," but nothing special since the original Dark Forces (which was great... back in 1996).

    • People always talk about how Playstation and XBox have more games than the GCN. They sure do, but have you seen those games? They are all the random, crappy, hollywood licensed, violence without gameplay, total crap games. On the GameCube you have to compete with Nintendo to sell software and so very few developers can hold a candle.

      I can't speak for the Playstation or Playstation 2, as I don't own them, but I do own an XBox and I can safely say that your comment is way out in left field.

      Does XBox have c

      • Not really, most of those games never make it to the Cube. (Cube buyers tend to be parents, long time Nintendo fans, classic gaming fans, or hardcore gamers who own all 3 consoles. There isn't much of a market on the Cube for most of that drek).

        The Cube has the lowest noise to signal ratio in terms of games of any console out there. You might not like it's good games, but they're for the most part of very high quality(Nintendo is notorious for not allowing much "crap" onto their systems). Couple things
        • The console version of Counterstrike has MUCH better maps (that actually have correct proportions) and, most importantly to me, are practically guaranteed to be cheat-free. Plus 1337 hax0r kids aren't as annoying without keyboards.
    • I'm afraid a generalization like this:

      "They are all the random, crappy, hollywood licensed, violence without gameplay, total crap games"

      ...really isn't accurate. There are quite a few first and third party Non-GC games that Nintendo would and has had difficulty competing with:
      -Halo
      -Ninja Gaiden
      -Splinter Cell
      -Knights of the Old Republic
      -Fable ??
      -Chronicles of Riddick ??
      -Metal Gear
      -Jade Empire ??
      -Crimson Skies
      -Mech Assault
      -Gran Turismo
      -GTA 3
      The list goes on and on. None of those titles are
    • If you stop making games for the cube your only two possible reasonings can be these 1) You're stupid 2) You can't compete with Nintendo in quality. "Cube owners are just too smart to buy stupid generic movie based game number 3."

      For god's sake mods please mod parent down! That has to be the most biased comment Ive ever read on slashdot!

      And FYI the gamecube has ETM, T3 and The Hulk which fit the "generic movie to game" bill perfectly.

      If you actually do the numbers all consoles have basically the

  • Within 996 Years? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If only the Duke Nukem Forever team gave us such a specific release date, eh?

  • Nintendo hard to work with? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by scumbucket ( 680352 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @07:32AM (#8665985)
    I have thought about this for a while. Wasn't the gamecube one of the best selling systems over the past holiday season? Is so you would think publishers would be drooling over game releases for the 'cube.

    Or does Nintendo hold some kind of draconian hold over development houses that want to make gamecube games? Restrictive licenses, exorbitant fees, overly complicated SDK's, etc. There are many ways Nintendo could be making it difficult, but you wonder for what purpose?

  • Big deal. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bartyboy ( 99076 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @07:32AM (#8665987)
    When's the next platform due - 2005? That's a year or so away. If developers were abandoning a future system before it hit the market, Nintendo would be in trouble. Right now they can just coast to the next system on sequels to their best games (Metroid 2, Wind Waker 2, Mario Tennis).
    • But I've also heard that they'll push forward the release to match the PS2 release date, so...2006.

      Frankly, I can't say I'm interested in any of the new systems myself; I'd much rather just have all three companies stick with their current system (well...okay fine the PS2 could use an upgrade still having poor load times and missing a few rendering features). Really; what are they going to do, render the arm-hair better? I don't look that closely in the heat of the action.

  • i bet nintendo make most of their money off of their gameboy line anyway. less and less games have been coming out for their consoles for ages...nothings really changed anyway. they may still be making a nice profit off of the japanease market, with games that havent been converted to english or watnot.

  • Lucasarts?! Oh NO! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bludstone ( 103539 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @08:24AM (#8666221)
    That was sarcasm.

    You mean I cant play crappy, repetative, inane, consumerist based Starwars games with poor writing on the gamecube?!

    OH NO!!

    Oh well, I still dont own a gamecube yet. Gotta get one and play through metroid.

    I already posted my thoughts on lucasarts [slashdot.org].
  • ...another company comes into the industry, prepared to lose billions to buy out some market share? Nah, that can't ever have any effect...

  • swelling ranks? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by MagicM ( 85041 )
    "Also joining the swelling ranks of publishers without any Cube titles in their portfolios (...)"

    This is the biggest load of FUD I have ever seen. How can the list of publishers with no title for a specific system possibly grow with respect to publishers that have been around for ages? That's like saying "55-year old Area Man recently joined the ranks of people that have never eaten fruit in their entire lives."

    The only way for the list of non-GC publishers to grow, is if new publishers come out with n

  • It's not such a zero sum game anymore (Score:4, Insightful)

    by moof1138 ( 215921 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @10:07AM (#8667084)
    I have a GC. I love it. I also have a PS2, which I love, but I spend more time with the GC. I know a lot of folks with two systems.

    I don't think the GC was originally meant to be a secondary system, but it is cheap enough that it works well as one. And as a second system, the titles that matter are the unique ones. And Nintendo has a lot of great titles that are unique to the platform.

    As an aside, some people say that they are not innovative since the same characters are used, but I don't see why they care. Even if Super Monkey Ball 2 still has a monkey in a ball, it is still a blast to play, and the same with Mario Cart, Super Smash Brothers, and other titles. The game play is fun, and for a game that is the important part.
    • But the other games are innovative, because they have different names than the Nintendo games! Ugh.

      Some people really seem to think that it's a bad idea to take a risk on innovation (even though they don't mean innovation, just new trademarks) when you can just improve on something everybody already loves. Doing the tried-and-true thing is generally better business, and generally produces better product.

      Of course, the characters in the games are largely meaningless, except for their contribution to the at
    • If it weren't for Super Monkey Ball 2, Super Mario Sunshine, Viewtiful Joe, the Wavebird,and the GBA Player, I'd be able to get rid of my Cube forever and ever. But I can't because of those 5 things. Dammit! My XBox gets played about 30x more than my Cube, yet it still has its place on the media center, and will for at least the next few years.

  • Misinterpretation (Score:5, Funny)

    by crawdaddy ( 344241 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @11:31AM (#8668087)
    Elsewhere, 1UP reports that a Game Developer's Conference lecture by Nintendo's Eiji Aonuma had oblique news on a GameCube Zelda sequel, since he "showed in his presentation a slide reading 'Wind Waker 2: 2XXX,' so we can expect to play the game within the next 996 years."

    I don't think "2XXX" is referring to a generic release date, but is actually part of the title. I think it means that there's going to be adult content in the game, like Zelda and Link porn. The '2' just means that it's going to be twice as hardcore as the nudity in "BMX XXX".

  • They're developing for the nextgen system (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Paladine97 ( 467512 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @11:55AM (#8668473) Homepage
    If publishers are dropped GCN games, it's because they are preparing their titles for the next gen Nintendo system. Nintendo has made it known that they want to be first 'out of the gates' with their system, so it would seem logical that they have dev kits ready for it and have distributed them to developers. Hence, the companies are moving their game ideas to the new system.

    I hope I'm right ;-)

  • Acclaim *does* make games for the GameCube (Score:3, Informative)

    by Ondo ( 187980 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @12:40PM (#8669175)
    (which already includes the likes of Acclaim and Eidos)

    No, it does not include Acclaim. It was reported that they were dropping support for the GameCube, but the *same day* they clarified that this was wrong, they were merely no longer going to release every game on every platform. A check of their website shows upcoming GameCube games, including one that's not coming out for the PS2.
  • Think about it: The GameCube [seriousfix.com] is the one platform that is mostly geared towards children. It seems no one wants to make games for it anymore which would lead me to believe that children are playing adult games. Or that adults are the majority of video gamers. I wonder what the demographics are for something like this?

    Personally, I really like the system. Serious Sam: The Next Encounter will be released for it soon and I will be all over that!
  • Ok. I don't really care. I have a lot of good titles for my Cube already, some more good titles are coming out, and most of the ones I'm looking forward to were going to be exclusive to one platform or another from day 1. The cube doesn't suffer from N64 or Sega syndrome so I'm pretty happy with it overall.

    And, Lucasarts? Bah, screw them, they cancelled Sam and Max. They could release the best game ever produced and I still wouldn't buy it at this point.

  • Article is bullshit. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fondue ( 244902 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @03:18PM (#8671367)
    Codemasters have never supported the GC, so how can they pull out?

    LucasArts have not dropped the GC, this is pure speculation.

    Neither have Ubisoft.

    EA are only going to release one football game on the GC this year (FIFA 2005) instead of two. Holy shit, man the lifeboats.

    GI.biz and Eurogamer are already well known as sites with a vendetta against the Gamecube.

  • Pointless article... (Score:4, Informative)

    by scot4875 ( 542869 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @06:06PM (#8673844) Homepage
    The only 'new' information in this article is that EA isn't planning on publishing a European football game on the 'Cube.

    Umm, so? The 'Cube isn't selling terribly in Europe, which is a large part of the non-Madden-type football-game-buying market. I can hardly say I blame them.

    Lucasarts has no games scheduled for this year? Well, it's fairly well known that Factor 5 is working on a Pilot Wings sequel for the next Nintendo system, so in that sense they've dropped support for the 'Cube ... to work on the N5.

    Codemasters isn't releasing any 'Cube games? You mean they made it out of the '80s alive? Why should I care again?

    After those few factoids, the author of the article apparently had to flesh it out with the usual "so and so has also dropped support, as has such and such," but then they don't even get those facts straight. Acclaim is still working on Gamecube titles ... Maybe he meant Midway.

    Pointless article, author didn't even do rudimentary fact-checking ... Wake me up when the next Metroid and Zelda games get cancelled, or at least fail to sell a million copies.

    --Jeremy
    • "The only 'new' information in this article is that EA isn't planning on publishing a European football game on the 'Cube. Umm, so? The 'Cube isn't selling terribly in Europe, which is a large part of the non-Madden-type football-game-buying market. I can hardly say I blame them."

      Nah, you misunderstand - football to Europeans means soccer to Americans. We call your football "American Football". I think there should be a debate over which football is the real football! Go!

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