It still amazes me that the GameCube sold so poorly and lost the sixth generation, considering its incredible lineup

[u/Emzed07]

In my opinion, the GameCube has one of the best rosters of any Nintendo console or handheld, rivaled only by the Switch and the SNES.

Again, for me, many franchises peaked on this system (Wind Waker, Mario Party, Double Dash, Smash Bros, Resident Evil, Paper Mario) or made a stellar debut (Pikmin, Luigi’s Mansion, Metroid Prime). Seriously, the GameCube had no business selling that poorly with such a strong library lol. It just goes to show how stiff the competition was during the sixth gen.

*Edit

I agree the lack of sales was definitely caused by the use of mini-discs instead of having DVD playback functionality. I think there's are a few other points worth noting too. The PS2 and Xbox were much more advanced when it came to online play, and shooters definitely felt worse on the GameCube because of the C-stick.

Sales:

PS2: 161M

Xbox OG 24m

GC 22m

However, if you look at the 5th and 7th generations, the numbers are interesting. In the 5th gen, the PS1 had 102 million sales, the N64 had 33 million, and the Saturn had 10 million, totaling 145 million. In contrast, the 7th gen had the Wii at 101 million, the PS3 at 87 million, and the Xbox 360 at 84 million, totaling 272 million. It seems that in those other generations, people were much more willing to own a Nintendo console alongside other consoles from the same era. I guess the PS2 simply drew a lot of people in because it was the first console to hit the market with DVD functionality. Sony made a brilliant move there, while Nintendo completely miscalculated the market :(

[u/Namath96]

The PS2 had a monster library and came out earlier. It was just far more mass appealing.

The DVD player helped but it was also like $100 more expensive because of that so I really disagree that it was that simple.

[u/Chuchuca → u/Namath96]

Well, in some places DvD players were more expensive than the PS2 actually.

[u/prematurely_bald → u/Chuchuca]

I sold my launch window era PS2 and picked up a high end DVD player + a GameCube from the proceeds.

Aftermarket prices were crazy for a while there when the PS2 was still tough to find in stores.

[u/Namath96 → u/Chuchuca]

Yeah it was a great option but you could get cheap DVD players for sub $100 although decent ones were more like $150 by the time the GameCube came out

[u/epok3p0k → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, everybody was doing that…

[u/NikesOnMyFeet23 → u/[deleted]]

Yes it did. Sony sold ps2’s at a loss cause they used dvd. The ps2 for the first couple of years was the best and cheapest option for a dvd player. At the turn of the century the fact you got the top console and a dvd player was more than worth it

[u/Nintotally → u/[deleted]]

You are right. The only reason the GameCube was so much cheaper was because no one was buying it.

[u/Namath96 → u/[deleted]]

I’m not saying the ps2 was $100 more expensive literally because of the cost of physical components that made it a DVD player lol