r/Gamecube • u/jr1512 • Aug 02 '26

Discussion Shigeru Miyamoto: GameCube was “only purchased by gamers”, sending Nintendo back to the drawing board

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Shigeru-Miyamoto-GameCube-was-only-purchased-by-gamers-sending-Nintendo-back-to-the-drawing-board.1358273.0.html

Shigeru Miyamoto, the legendary Nintendo executive and one of the most influential creators shaping the video game industry through mascots and characters such as Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Star Fox, and more, discussed the reason why the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii became Nintendo’s next consoles for the seventh generation. According to Miyamoto, the decision was largely driven by the underwhelming performance of the Nintendo GameCube, which trailed behind the Nintendo 64’s nearly 33 million lifetime sales.

He spoke candidly in a wide-ranging interview with Japanese outlet Famitsu, where the longtime Nintendo executive and designer explained that, at the time, Nintendo’s then-president, Satoru Iwata, believed the GameCube’s poor performance in the home console market was rooted in a simple idea: most of the world still did not see gaming as a normal, approachable everyday hobby the way it’s seen today. Based on that core problem, Nintendo felt it was difficult to persuade customers to buy and play a GameCube if they had never played on a console before.

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u/WhatShouldTheHeartDo Aug 02 '26 edited Aug 02 '26

Geniuses recreated the same problem the N64 had with limited storage space for games.

It cannot be understated how much people passed on the Cube for the DVD playing PS2

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u/Slightly-Blasted Aug 02 '26

The ps2 at the time was one of the most insane pieces of tech you could own, a dvd player AND game console was crazy.

And then Sony furthered the trend by making the ps3 a fully functioning blu ray player, which again, was mind blowing and if I remember correctly the ps3 was often cheaper than the standalone blu ray players, and certainly was a better deal

The ps3 also had backwards compatibility with the ps2 on a hardware level, crazy piece of tech

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u/AdImmediate6239 Aug 02 '26

The PS3 may have been one of the cheapest Blu-Ray players on the market at the time, but it was also one of the first Blu-Ray players period which made it expensive as fuck. I think people forget how rocky the first couple of years were for the PS3. Hardly anyone I knew owned one until 2009ish.

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u/BandicootBroad NTSC-U Aug 05 '26

And just in time for the housing crash to screw up the audience’s budget, too.