The Nintendo GameCube is beating the Microsoft XBox by a double in sales~!

Dude, this is OS X forum, not Xbox forum.

I think nintendo is winning because they shipped nearly twice as many units and Microsoft on the launch date...but, I hope they keep it up and Microsoft is shut out of that market.

-agasthya

I might as well post this here and wait for this thread to be moved to the Lounge�

The Cube ousold the Xbox because there are more GAMECUBES out there than Xboxes.. Both sold out. Besides, there are twenty times as many PS2's out there than there are Xboxes and GAMECUBEs combined.

We'll have to wait a few months before we know just how successful or unsuccessful these consoles are. Hardcore gamers will buy anything at launch. This is not a good gauge at how well these consoles will do in the long run.

This does not mean that consumers will walk away from Microsoft when they have a choice. The game console industry has no relation to the computer software industry.

It does now. I think there are lots of people out there who won't buy an XBox just because it's a Micro$loth product.

whereas if the xbox had been an apple product the poster would have been rejoicing "look! apple's xbox has already reached nearly half the sales figures of the nintendo gamecube!"

this constant spinning is making me dizzy!

I believe that's the iBox.

Really? I walked into a Target less than a week ago and couldn't find any GameCubes but they had a dozen XBoxes in the case and who knows how many more in back.

I'd say Target must be pretty special to be the only store that hasn't sold all theirs.

And ya, this has nothing to do with OS X so it's off to the Lounge.

That's because Microsoft has been faster in resupplying stores than Nintendo - at least according to the reports I've read.

The early sales don't mean much. Hardcore gamers will buy anything. It will take a while before the mainstream decides which (or both or neither) succeeds. Sega's Dreamcast had the best American console launch in history (at that time). Eighteen months later, it was discontinued.

And nonhuman, there are plenty of people who won't buy the PS2 and/or GAMECUBE because they're made by Sony and Nintendo exclusively. Read a few Dreamcast message boards and you'll find people blaming Sony for just about everything. (Who are these people?)

[ 11-29-2001: Message edited by: Adam Silver ]

It's the same thing here at K-B Toys. A bunch of X-Boxes (that must be sold in bundles costing $500 or more) and all sold out of GameCubes.

True, but I'd suspect Microsoft has more of a bad rep than Nintendo does. And my guess would be that the Dreamcast people, are even more of a minority than Mac people. I could be wrong though...

Last week? Lat week was A WEEK AFTER LAUNCH.

When I went to pick up my GC (the last one) at Circuit City, they were unloading BOXES AND BOXES of just-received XBoxes.

Just because you see it on a shelf DAYS after launch doesn't mean jack ****. They are shipping more, you know.

Mike

I hope the Xbox dies a quick death. Then maybe we'll get Bungie back.

Bungie will still be owned by Microsoft even if the Xbox fails.

The way Bungie designs games, I wouldn't want them back anyway.

Curiosity question. Why are Microsofts failings such an obsession with some Mac users? I mean, really. Even if the X Box is a complete and utter failure, will it make the Apple marketshare go up? No. Will it make MS a laughingstock? Not really, EVERY company has had failures, and IF the Xbox fails, it'll line up behind MS Bob, the Cube, Pippin, eMate, Newton, eVilla and countless others. So who cares if they fail?

The X box looks like it has some good games, so does Gamecube, however, I think in the long run, Sony'll get my cash, they done well by me thus far. Then again, if a Goldeneye 2 (and i don't mean that perfect dark crap) came out for Game cube, I'd consider changing my mind, I loved that game. I almost failed my sophomore year cause of that damn game...


Nick

You guys already have the GameCube over there???

damn you, all of you! actually, no, i like u guys...bring it to Australia now please Nintendo...

Jeremy
--
Check out my web page with heapsa photos of me and my friends =)

It's clear you didn't almost fail school because you read the news too often!

The reason why Apple folks care about MS entering a new market is because they worry about MS getting more mindshare with the computer buying public. In case you haven't been watching MS was found guilty in a US Federal court (or was it Supreme court?) of using monopoly power illegally to gain control over other software markets. Even now MS is using it's ill gotten gains to support the Xbox over the next two years until it breaks even. Those illegal profits are helping them even today. Plus MS wants to leverage those ill gotten gains to muscle in on the edu market, a place where they don't have a monopoly. Remember "monopoly" is not a cute board game with funny money, its an illegal enterprise where companies lose billions, even if they play by the rules.

When MS gets more mindshare, it means less for the rest of them, including my favorite fruit company, Apple.

It's also a small town in the south of Italy (inbetween Bari and Brindisi)

off topice point; In the USA, having a monopoly is not illegal (their are plenty on them). It's performing monopolistic pratices that MS got slapped for.

[ 11-30-2001: Message edited by: iCartman ]

Actually I read/watch the news obsessively.
However, thats not the point.

Do you *really* think that the video game market 'mindshare' could be stolen at this point from Sony and Nintendo? Do you think Nintendo alone would LET years of owning the market go without a fight against an upstart like microsoft? And do you *really* think that Sony would let that happen? Sony alone has more money than MS, I'm sure Sony and Nintendo would be more than willing to have co-licensing and pricing agreements if the X-box became a remote threat.

Nintendo and Sony will watch as the X-Box will go the way of the 32X, the Jaguar, and more recently, the Dreamcast.

Nick

heh. A couple of years ago people were probably saying the same thing about Sony (instead of MS). They ended becomming #1. It seems that the video game marketplace is pretty dynamic and it's hard for a company to hold on to a lead. I think the only contstant is that Sega will lose money

The difference here, as I see it, is that Sony was a predominantly hardware-based company. They knew how to sell a device. Microsoft is mainly a software company, so I'm not to worried about them.

Regardless, even if Sony and Microsoft both go under, the only constant in this particular industry will always be Nintendo.

One thing that should be noted is that the stocks of Game Cubes and X-Boxes were not distributed based previous sales numbers, so a complete sell-through is not to be expected with the first shipment. Not everyone everywhere wants one. So while some places had a 100 people begging to be allowed to pre-order, other locations has systems sitting on the shelves.

The Game Cube shipped 700,000 units in the first week and sold out less than 50% of them. 50% of 700,000 is 350,000. In Japan, the console completely flopped. 140,000 units sold the first week out of a shipment of half a million. It still hasn't broken 300,000 units yet and Nintendo has only sent out another 64,000 units to stores.

The X-Box shipped 300,000 units in the first week and sold out 73% of them. 73% of them is 219,000.

The quick response would be to say "WOW! Nintendo is kicking their asses!" But that's simply not true.

A few points to consider:

- Nintendo has nearly 20 years in the market and has built up a loyal fan base. While Microsoft is starting from Square One and doesn't even have a single mass-market franchise like the Mario series to pull people in with. Nintendo should be pulling better numbers, but they aren't.

- The Game Cube launched in Japan with 3 games. The game library is growing slowly and Nintendo intends to produce the majority of the games itself. Which is good, considering the lack of developer support. Something that the PS2 has a lot of, and the X-Box is gaining.

- Consoles make money on the games. They lose money on the hardware. The GC sold an average 1.3 games in Japan upon its launch. And only 1.7 in the U.S. That is the lowest sales rate of any console other than the N64 (which had far fewer titles).

- Luigi's Mansion and Rouge Squadron are selling. Nothing else is. Fifa sold 4,400 copies in Japan between November 12-18. Did I mention it was the 3rd most popular GC game? Figures like thast speak for themselves, they tell developers "Game Cube games don't make us money". While, on the other hand, Microsoft is paying the way for developers to cover their some of their expenses while an installed base is established. Helps Microsoft a hell of a lot. The developers risk very little.

Nintendo should be doing a hell of a lot better than they are. And they are not doing as well as they claim. Sure, they shipped a lot of units to retialers, but remember, Apple shipped a hell of a lot of Cubes the first quarter they were availible. It doesn't matter how many you send out in anticipation of demand if the demand isn't there when the product arrives in stores.



It's leftover hostility from the desktop wars of years ago. The rest of the world has moved on. Some Mac users are still like those Japanese soliders, trapped on remote islands who fought World War 2 all the way through the 1970s.

the difference was Sony bought out all of the game companies! Leaving Jack squat for Nintendo and Sega. Same thing with the GC and Xbox. Bringing such classics as Final Fantasy and Metal Gear (which were popular NES/SNES games) forces fans of these great games to switch platforms.

It's not the hardware, its' the games.

I'd like to know how you came up with those figures. Do you have any links to support your claims? According to Nikkei News Nintendo sold 60-70% of their units (280,000 to 300,000) in the first 3 days of their Japan launch. Although it wasn't a sellout, it sure wasn't a flop considering it only had 3 games. The U.S. sell figures aren't out yet but I'll bet they sold more than 50% during the first week. If not, then why are they shipping another 125,000 to the U.S. before Christmas?


The average number of games sold with the GC in the U.S. was somewhere between 2 or 3. Because the Gamecube is $100 cheaper than the x-box, people were using that extra money to buy more games. I can't find the link right now but I remember reading on IGN, an interview with the head honcho at Sega stating how happy he was with the sales figures of Super Monkey Ball. The game held the #4 slot in the U.S. following Luigi's Manson (most popular console launch game), Rouge Leader and WaveRace.

[ 12-01-2001: Message edited by: Stogieman ]

The "time to sell-out" isn't a very good statistic, because the first runs of the consoles were different. A more appropriate statistic would be this: how long did it take the GameCube to sell as many units as the XBox did?

Unfortunately, I don't know. Perhaps someone else here does?

Oh please. The PlayStation got most of the software because Nintendo never had a good relationship with its third party software devolopers (sticking with the cartridge format was the last straw for most of them - there is no way games like Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy VII could fit on N64 cartridges) and Sega managed to anger all of its third party developers by surprising and confusing everyone (consumers and software developers alike) by releasing the Saturn months ahead of its "official" release date (which is why the four launch games were the only ones available for several months). It didn't help that Sega was competing with itself by selling the 32X at the same time it was selling the Saturn.

Yes, to a certain extent, Sony did buy its way into the gaming industry (the temporary exclusive on Mortal Kombat 3 and the distribution/marketing deal with SquareSoft - which ended in 1998) certainly helped sell plenty of PlayStations, but stupid moves on the parts of Nintendo and Sega ensured Sony the number one spot.

Besides; Nintendo, Microsoft; and Sega have done plenty of their own buying out of game companies.

That's interesting, since according to a news post on www.igncube.com Smash Brothers Melee sold about 360,000 units in it's first four days in stores. So are people are buying multiple copies of the game? Probably not. A more probable explanation is that the game is moving Nintendo hardware. It doesn't mean that the GC will see future success or put up PS2 numbers, but it means that it's premature to call the GC a flop in Japan.



Well, this would be true if the numbers you quote are correct. But from what I've read, Nintendo's PR people have mentioned sales of 510,000 units in the first week of launch. Again, this doesn't mean the Xbox or PS2 sold poorly in the same time period, but it does mean that the GC is a pretty popular console in its own right.



Apart from Enix and Square, which Japanese developers are not developing for the Cube and instead working on Xbox games? Tecmo might be exclusive to Xbox considering the release of DOA3, but I haven't seen anything that confirms this. Capcom, Konami, and Koei are developing for the Cube, so most of the major Japanese developers that would appeal to US audiences are onboard. I don't know about the smaller Japanese houses though.



I'd believe the Japanese numbers, since there were only 3 games at launch. I'm pretty skeptical of the US numbers you mentioned, especially since Sega sent out a press release stating how Super Monkey Ball would be a popular title based on pre-sell numbers and how TRU and EB were expecting it to be a pretty good seller. I see a lot of the Acclaim titles on the shelfs at Best Buy and Target, but Madden and Tony Hawk have been a lot harder to find. Somebody must be buying these games. And again, regarding the Japanese sales, in the week of Nov. 19-25, over 350,000 units of SSBM were sold. It's not a third party title, but it must mean an installed base is growing. Finally, it's been stated by Peter Main at Nintendo that a few of those Xbox developers are doing cross-platform development as well. Of course, he's not the most reliable source, but it's not out of the realm of possibility.

I have no doubt that the Xbox is selling well, since a lot of people having been anticipating it as the next big thing. However, it's hard to believe that Microsoft's success is coming solely at the expense of Nintendo's system. And in any case, the success and failure of a system has never been determined within weeks or months of a launch. Next year will be much more enlightening, and hopefully for me, pretty rewarding for all the console companies.

[Edit: still fixing some UBB code]

[ 12-01-2001: Message edited by: JC Denton ]

I hope the Xbox falls off the face of the earth... It's about as cool as Windows 3.11