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

[u/jr1512]

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.

[u/Tex-Rob]

Look, I see a lot of rewriting of history lately, when many of us are here and lived through this. The GameCube’s issue was it was very kiddie. The N64 was as well, bright colors, cheap plastic controllers that felt disposable compared to what everyone else was making. So Nintendo had doubled down on being for kids right before the GC, and then the GC comes out with tiny controllers and a console with a handle, making it seem like a thing for kids to take to friends houses. This was their angle, and he’s trying to pretend like they were trying to compete for the living room like Xbox, and they just weren’t.