Josh H

Good news if they keep their promise. That's a hell of a lot more games than the N64 had in it's first year.

from cube.ign.com:

70+ in 2002

Nintendo promises more than 70 GameCube titles in the US by the end of 2002. Full story.

January 8, 2002


In a company held conference call this morning, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales and marketing Peter Main spoke on the firm's 2001 GameCube success and senior vice president of marketing George Harrison talked briefly about what's in store for this year.
Main said that 1.2 million GameCubes have been sold in the US through December. He also stated that 90% of the 1.3 million units allocated for Japan have also been sold. Nintendo plans to sell a "minimum of four million units [worldwide] by March 2002."

Harrison noted that in the first quarter of 2002 Nintendo expects "continuing strong sales of key launch titles." He also revealed that more than 70 GameCube titles will be available by the end of the calendar year 2002, including such anticipated offerings as Mario Sunshine, Eternal Darkness, Zelda, and Star Fox Adventures.

The executives seemed unwilling to divulge details regarding specific games, but Peter Main did state that several mature-branded games that have not been talked about are in the works and that Mario Sunshine is a shoe-in for the upcoming E3 show, which kicks off this May in Los Angeles. "The timing for [Mario Sunshine's US] launch won't be announced for awhile," Main said. "I think you'll see it at the E3 show and hear an update on its launch at that time."

More as it develops.

Liver&Onions

Great news, but I also read that they promised 41 titles by Mar 2002.

jeffdsmith

That number actually seems sort of low when you think about it. Don't get me wrong, its more then enough games, expspecialy since alot of them will definitly be A+++ titles. However, isn't there over 20+ out right now?

I 'm willing to bet that at least 100 games are available simply because of the GC ease of progaming. They may be ports, but they will be there.

mr.snowmizer

That doesn't "seem" low; that IS low.

In comparison, SNES had 135 through its second Christmas. Saturn had 153. Playstation had 220. Dreamcast had 190. And PS2 probably had to have more than PSOne.

On the other hand, N64 had 41, 3DO had 52, and the Jaguar had an amazing 11 (!).

jeffdsmith

Right, so it IS low. Compared to past products, and even competing products.

Thankfully quite a few will be Nintendo published titles which are always packed with goodness.

As the big N says, Quality before Quanity.

Regardless, if it sells well developers will be droping ports like farts after eating bad mexican. Hopefully a fair share will actually optimize it for the GC and bring original titles as well.

Overall things look good for GC.

mmconhea

we should keep a count going and then threaten to file a class action lawsuit against them if they don't follow through. The same thing happened to Intellivision back in the 80's.

Mezzanine

Actually it had 17, but who's counting?

But yes, 70 games by the end of 2002 does seem a little low. That's only about 50 for the entire year, about one game a week. That is a bit discouraging, but the real test for me will be how many of Nintendo's "big" games (Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Perfect Dark) actually get released this year. If they can get most of those games out, I think they'll be in very good shape.

darkside

Look at how many games PS2 and Xbox have coming and then look at how many you would actually think about buying. It isn't anywhere close to 70. As long as Nintendo has some quality mixed into that 70 (and it looks like they do) it will be enough games. It's certainly an improvement over the N64.

mr.snowmizer

Well now, Mezzanine's done it... by doubting me, he's forced me to break out the Atari Jaguar release list...

Jaguar packed-in Cybermorph when it came out in October '93. By March of '94, there had been two more games released (Raiden and Trevor McFur).

Atari matched that output in the next three months, releasing Dino Dudes and Tempest 2000.

The next quarter (through September '94) saw a whopping ONE release... Wolfenstein 3D.

But then, the Jag kicked it up a notch with 6 releases through Christmas day... Alien vs Predator, Brutal Sports Football, Dragon, Doom, Club Drive, and Checkered Flag.

And those are the eleven titles in that time frame (12, including the pack-in).

If you had forgotten why Jaguar failed, it should now all be clear again.

huh?

i'm looking forward to mario, zelda, metroid and perfect dark.

i just hope for my wallets sake that they don't all come out at once.... talk about taking a financial hit, maybe if they time it right i can hit up the relatives for some sweet holiday gifts.

Mezzanine

Well your list apparently only counts games released through November '94. Iron Soldier, Kasumi Ninja, Bubsy, Zool 2, and Val d'Isere Skiing & Snowboarding were released in December. But this is getting off-topic, so this will be my last post about it in this thread.

Thrillhouse

Yeah, that is true, but I don't know how you feel, but I think I would rather see a greater diversity of games on a system and not a bunch of first party games. Although Nintendo has come out with some of the best games ever they need to broaden their game library and then they have the exclusives and everything else .

gev115

Then why buy a Gamecube? You buy a Gamecube for the awesome first party games. 70 games is plenty is they include awesome games such as Mario, Zelda, Perfect Dark, Metroid, etc. Anyone expecting PS2-like 3rd party support and quantity is only kidding themselves.

jeffdsmith

I wouldn't say that the GC is incapable of the same level of support the PS2 has. Not at all.

If nintendo can get enough GC's sold the support will come, no doubt. The cost of making games for the GC is the same as the PS2 and Xbox (actually slightly cheaper), and the development on the system is also very easy.

Right now the main hurdle is market satration and market image. Once Nintendo and Capcom start selling mature titles in gross, most companies will finally see the true market of the gamecube.

The fact that you get some of the best first party titles in the world is definitly a good enough reason to own a GC, but that doesn't mean that other companies can't compete or won't be interested in releasing titles.

Josh H

70 games may be "small" compared to the Playstation or other past systems, but it is a huge improvement over the first year of the N64. Plus it's still a ton of games. At least 50 this year, or about a game a week, who has time for more than that? Plus many of the games on the systems with a higher quantity of release (cough, playstation 1, cough) are horrible. All systems tend to get the same amount of A+ titles. It's quality that matters, not quantity.

Anyway, I posted this just to show that the support is starting off better than it did for the N64, not to compare with other companies consoles. I was simply glad to see it, after suffering long waits in between games on the N64.

Gallant Pig

I can handle 70 since the must have games will be there. Many of the 70 will be ports, anything exclusive is where the treasures will be.

ChrisKnudsen

Woudln't it suck if all the third party games were sequels to Universal Studios (worst gamecube game ever)?

It will be awesome if Nintendo pulls out a few tricks next year and make sequels to Earthbound, Star Tropics, and Snake Rattle and Roll. It will also be cool if they made a library package like Namco's Museum series with enhanced graphics like Super Mario All-Stars. Or they could do a complete year series like Nintendo: 1985-1989 and include all the games they made in those years. Those wouldn't be too hard to port over and they would sell like crazy probably. Those are just my wishes.

Gallant Pig

What would you do with star tropics though, with a next gen console? It was so great as a 2D RPG, I'd hate to see them screw up the franchise and make it crappy.

ChrisKnudsen

Well the franchise for Star Tropics is currently almost non existent but I would love if Nintendo didn't try to be revolutionary with the Star Tropics franchise and really didn't change the format of the 2D RPG like set up (except for of course graphic enhancements). Like they could release Star Tropics, Zoda's Revenge, and make a third new one with graphical enhancements and not only do they have a trilogy but they also have Star Tropics All-Stars. Same with the Mother series and just port the N64 DD Mother 3 to Game Cube and make Mother All-Stars.

xmiyux

I bloody loved Snake Rattle and Roll and i've only actually talked to like 4-5 other people who even remembered the game. Man a cube sequel to that would rule.