I recently posted about the Gamecube controller and there was some talk about the console itself. This video came out shortly afterwards and goes over a lot of what was discussed in that thread.
Gotta love this statement from a Nintendo of America person fretting about the Cube's colour before release:
I guess they were right since they were talking about American gamers in the year 2001
Incoming rant because this is a huge pet peeve of mine with gaming and art in general.
A lot of people don't seem to remember how shitty consumer culture was back in the 90s and early 2000s
I knew male friends who wouldn't touch a controller with big colorful buttons like the Gamecube because it "looked like a babies toy'"
People that wouldn't play a Zelda game because Link "looks like a girl" or some homophobic slur. Colorful games were deemed "for babies" to the point where one of the best Zelda games released, a game that is now considered a classic masterpiece, at the time was a huge flop because of the cartoony artstyle, yes, that's right, the artstyle that has aged amazingly and everyone loves now. People were PISSED that they didn't get a realistic looking Zelda game.
And this sort of "I'm a big mature man that doesn't play cute baby crap" additude was very common, way more common then now, as in, this was that mainstream opinion, not just fringe MRA toxic masculine types.
So yeah, we're talking about an era where people used to criticize the Gamecubes start up jingle for being too upbeat. I'm not even kidding. So while it might seem silly to us now, Nintendo actually aren't completely wrong for worrying about purple being too girly.
Also, this era was very much about pretending your gaming console wasn't a toy. Hence why the PS2 sold so well, because it played DVDs, it looked like a DVD player, you could put it on the shelf and it would be at home with your home entertainment system. Everyone wanted a DVD player so you'd be suprised how much being able to play DVDs played a factor.
Also the fact that in my country at least there was barely any advertising for the Gamecube. People didn't know it existed.
TLDR: the 2000s sucked. It was even worse in the 360 era when the "Hardcore VS filthy casuals" debates got into full swing and
military propagandaonline multiplayer FPS became the only "real games". People are only just starting to allow themselves to like color again.Hence why the PS2 sold so well, because it played DVDs
This was also an incredible stroke of luck on Sony's part. I remember convincing my mom to buy a PS2 because she wanted to upgrade to a DVD player, and the PS2 was cheaper than the average dedicated DVD player at the time and had all the same features.
Sony tried to replicate this success with the PS3, but it didn't work. People had just finished repurchasing all of their favorite movies and weren't about to buy them a third time in such a short span.
I'm sure a lot of people did, but I know a lot of people who've never owned a Blu-Ray player so I kinda get the impression that it didn't catch on the way DVDs did.
It didn't, I'm just saying that people still got the PS3 for its Bluray capability (though obviously only after it got cheaper)
Yeah streaming kind of killed Blu Rays for the mainstream
Interesting- I haven't paid attention to the console scene since when the 360 was my main gaming machine.
Wasn't the PS4 the clear winner of last gen though?
As usual with the PC master race fools, it was all lies. The PS4 is the best selling PlayStation since the PS2. 117 million ones sold. Sold more than even the Nintendo Wii.
Modern triple A PC gaming is niche amongst the mainstream because it's too expensive. A PS5 is 500 US dollars, usually bundled in with a controller and a game. There is no way to build a new gaming PC, with a decent keyboard and mouse or controller, at that price point. The GPU probably costs more than the entire PS5 bundle. The PS5 has already sold 40 million units for a reason, and games have only started to fully switch over to the new generation.
Can't go wrong with a good 'mater. Slice 'em up. Make 'em into ketchup. Eat the little ones whole. Yim yum.
Yeah, it was, by a large margin. The PS4 is Sony's second most successful console after the PS2.
The total number of PS4s sold was lower than 2s or 3s
PS4 outsold the PS3, it's the best selling PS console after only the PS2.
Price plays a huge factor as well. The PS3, while a great console, was more expensive then the 360 or Wii.
Also I get the feeling that 360 being an American console helped its sales in the west
, but I might just be being cynical and tin foil hatty.The 360 came out earlier, was cheaper, and Xbox Live was ahead of PSN for a while
You're right about MS getting homefield advantage in America, the PS3 outsold the 360, but 360 was the clear winner in the States iirc. Also, even when Sony was outselling MS 2 to 1 in the PS4 era I think it was essentially a tie in the states.
The PS3 outsold the Xbox 360 in the end, thanks to some late generation quality exclusives, free online multiplayer (lol) and brand reputation from the PS2.
The 360 was better early on when developers didn't know how to use the cell processor in the PS3, it was too expensive and Sony PSN got hacked.
In the 2000s, real was brown. Literal brown filters on every FPS. Black grey brown and blood red were the only colors allowed
That really began in earnest during the following generation
The yellow filters sucked, but they were better than the blue filters that came after. Battlefield 3 looks terrible going back. At least the older COD games and battlefield bad company hold up better, with their yellow filters.
"Mario and Sonic are for kids. Waah, Celda sucks, I want a realistic gritty Zelda!"
Yeah, it was pretty bad. One thing that most people don't really talk about is how there were almost no 2D games for consoles, because 2D was still considered "outdated" or whatever. Thankfully the GBA existed for 2D gaming 😏
edit: The Stop Skeletons from Fighting video about the N-Gage showing the announcement with the price painted on a topless woman's boobs
almost no 2D games for consoles, because 2D was still considered "outdated" or whatever
That infuriated me as a kid in the PS1/N64 era, when everyone was talking about how great the new era of graphics were, when we were going from
Showto
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and
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Super Mario 64 was really good though but yeah that 2d style aged much better
To be fair, I called the controller a "Fisher-Price looking thing" in my post
Though that was mostly the goofy shapes of the buttons. I myself love wacky colours and will go out of my way to buy a special edition controller when I need a new one
Theres nothing weing with calling it Fisher-Price toy looking (it reminds me of one too)
I'm more talking about people that wouldn't even give the thing a chance because of something as silly as that.
That generation of games was the only one where I had multiple consoles simultaneously, as before then I had sold my older console to help pay for the newer one every time I upgraded. I remember liking the Gamecube the best out of all of them because I could carry it in my backpack, which I did pretty frequently to bring it to a teen center to play Smash/F Zero/etc with friends. As far as I'm concerned Nintendo made the right choice in every aspect of the GC's design, from the distinctive color to the carrying handle to the mini-DVDs, but this was the generation when G*mers as a culture really emerged and decided that "having fun playing video games" wasn't their top priority anymore.
Mine is very happily sitting in the corner of my office. Best cube
What happened was the GameCube was great and the last good Nintendo console
IDK my Switch is pretty good, get to play Zelda on my lunch after being subjected to mountains of paperwork and constantly shifting tasks
It's no Steam Deck
AFAIK there's also no way to play a good Zelda game on Switch without modding
The Gamecube was pretty popular with kids where I lived. The Xbox was more for tweens who wanted to be seen as mature and teenagers. The PS2 appealed to everybody. People that I had never seen play a gaming console before had it and I haven't seen them pick up another one until the Wii.
The GameCube was actually very powerful, but was held back massively by the minidiscs with third party games. Texture and effects quality was way worse than the PS2 and Xbox, and soundtracks would be cut. SSX even had less tricks because of that, and the controller. The controller was very cool, but desperately needed another bumper at minimum.
The fact that they got Need For Speed Most Wanted, with the full open world and campaign, running on that thing is unbelievable. Even if the textures were muddy as hell, the yellow filter and weather effects were removed, and the soundtrack neutered.
The GameCube, followed by the Wii, which was basically an overclocked GameCube that used full DVDs and motion controls, really killed Nintendo's reputation with third party developers in the 21st century. Still can't believe they got the COD Modern Warfare games to run on the Wii. Another miracle.
I was a tiny baby idiot during the GameCube life (the only times I ever used it were at other kid's houses) but I think the main things that hindered the GameCube were
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Stiff competition, mainly the PS2 which had a monstrous catalogue of games
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tiny disks hampered graphics/performance and were irritating to develop for
The main thing to point to regarding these weaknesses is probably the Capcom Five
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