Poor GameCube sales zap Nintendo

First-half operating profit plunged 51 percent on sluggish GameCube sales.

The story "Poor GameCube sales zap Nintendo" published November 24, 2005 at 11:00 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[wpholmes]

nintendo rocks!

I love gamecube

[Peter Bonte]

The old Nintendo rocks!

The old NES consoles made a difference, not anymore. :(

[digitallysick]

nintendo going down!

its to bad, it all went down hill after the N64, i think the problem was they changed the target audience to children instead of everyone, the N64, gamecube, etc are known for baby games

[Bobman]

actually...

Nintendo will still be around for a while. They made WAY WAY WAY more profit with the gamecube than Sony did with the PlayStation 2 or Microsoft with the Xbox (MS actually loses money on xBox sales). Oh and that "baby games" stereotype is a big load of crap. For example: go play the Resident Evil games on gamecube. All of them. Or, what about Metroid Prime and Zelda? Those are famous Nintendo franchises that are definately not targeting children, especially Metroid Prime 1 and 2.

[spraytec]

nintendo not now. later.

nintendo's continuing declining sales could be mostly attritubed to Gamecub sales...its time to turn your selves around with the 3D creation of your classic games

[tqt1586]

Boss's pay

Your boss has to save up his birhtday and xmas money to get a ps3? How much does he make an hour? 99 cents? Also what does Google have to do with this? They are not located at Redmond.

[n3td3v]

Nintendo will recover

I still use my "Nintendo 64", and you know whats cool? You can buy second hand games for real cheap. I think thats a lot of whats going on. Gamers are holding back on buying the latest consoles because the games are expensive after you buy the hardware. It used to be that new consoles would be a big jump in graphics capabilities, but these days the older consoles are bareable and next generation consoles arent as instantly desireable. Saying that, playstation and xbox sales are doing well, so perhaps Nintendo need to get better marketing strategies. Nintendo is still a respected brand and can recover under good management in Europe and across in America. Nintendo is a japanese corporation, maybe we shouldnt forget how well they've done, before we start writing them off the map. Nintendo will be back. Nintendo's reputation is historical, with their handheld eletronic single game pocket games, then NES and SNES...then N64...somewhere after N64 something changed for the worse.

[tm0054]

Nintendo lacking lately...

I have to agree... Nintendo just doesn't have the mystique it used to. I loved my Super Nintendo. The game selection was way beyong what Sega's Genesys could offer...

Then the N64 came along and it was one of the biggest dissapointments ever. The original Playstation trounced it in terms of game selection (even though the hardware wasn't as powerful). I don't think they ever recovered from that. The N64 had a few great games (mainly featuring Nintendo's characters) but its library was miniscule compared to the Super Nintendo.

I usually own two game systems from each generation... I had to skip by the Gamecube this time around. I'm going to wait and see what the Revolution can do. Beings backwards compatible with every Nintendo console to date could be an interesting selling point... Four player (2d) Bomerman here we come!

[peterichards]

exchange rate?!?

where do you exchange your currency because at these rates, I'd like to do business...

Nintendo didn't make $1.65 billion in profits, but $ 165 million...

oops.

[SuperStarNick]

More Marketing Needed

If Nintendo actually marketed their systems, they might actually get somewhere. My example is here in New Zealand where Microsoft and Sony dominate the console landscape. When the gamecube was launched (I can't even remember when it was), there was little if no marketing on television, the newspapers etc. Just a stand in each game retailer was given, with (I suppose) the expectation that the units would just sell themselves. I am not sure what sort of marketing was/is produced from Nintendo in north america, but there isn't much here. When a company sees their sales declining they should market they wares more, not less. Generate more hype is the key in any market, especially in the game console arena.

[BaldB20]

Nintendo/drop

First of all, to say the N64 was a step in the wrong direction is like saying hurricane Katrina only did a little damage to Louisiana. Nintendo actually contacted Sony to build them a game system. Sony delivered, only Nintendo decided that they wanted a *cartridge* based console instead of disk. So suprise, suprise Sony went ahead and realeased something called the "Playstation." Ninetendo countered with N64.

2. Sony has been 1# eversince, meanwhile Nintendo has dropped from 1# to 3#. (behind Xbox)

3. As far as profit goes, the playstation2 makes up 40% of ALL Sony sales, i.e. camcorders/walkmen/cardecks etc.

4. When 75% of your game selection is for kids YOU ARE A KIDDIE SYSTEM. Deal with it.

5. Lastly to say Nintendo will disappear is overated. They will continue to be around for a long time. Now will they ever reclaim the top spot the once held, probably not.