Happy Birthday, Revolution Europe!

This generation is finally drawing to a close after a mere four years on these shores, and by gum, it hasn't taken its time.

If I could choose one game to epitomise the highs and lows of this generation, to best represent what I will most remember in years to come from these four years, it would have to be The Wind Waker. Why, you ask? It was a missed opportunity, but successful nevertheless. That's why.

Much like the whole of the generation, The Wind Waker was going to redefine how we perceived videogames, it was going to be the tip of the massive Nintendo iceberg that would sink the titanic Sony and those pretenders, Microsoft. But it didn't.

Sure, it was a good laugh for a while, looked a bit different, had some new ideas that weren't fully realised. But ultimately, just like the Cube, it felt far too short lived to make any huge impact. And that pretty much sums up this generation; it feels like it has been over too quickly. Time and again we have been presented with games that are great but not phenomenal. Mario Kart was a good laugh once you got used to it; Metroid Prime needed a decent multiplayer mode �and not the bolted-on module that we got with its sequel; Starfox Assault proved that it was not only Rare that could make a mess of what has always been my favourite franchise; Mario Sunshine was bright and colourful but never felt like a bona fide sequel to the genre-defining Super Mario 64. The Wind Waker sorely needed less padding and more excitement to have proven itself a worthy successor to the N64 versions. Don't get me wrong, I loved all these games and enjoyed every one. They each had outstanding qualities that made me proud to call myself a Nintendo fan. And before you start sending me hate mail, I am still proud to be a Nintendo fan, but that does not blind me to the fact that these games showed so much promise that they never quite fully delivered.

The PS2 may be coming up for six years on the shelf, and the four years enjoyed by the Cube and the Xbox are about average for what can be expected from a console, but doesn't it all just feel so rushed? Not long after the new wave hit the shores of videogaming, the next tide of consoles was being touted as the way forward; the new consoles were being sidelined in their infancy as the hardware giants lined up to tell us how great everything would be next time around.

Perhaps this is not completely accurate, as we had a good year before any new consoles were being discussed openly by the press and by the manufacturers themselves. But in that first year there were very few moments worthy of any note. The first Christmas of the Cube brought nothing phenomenal to the fore, and it would be six months until the aforementioned Wind Waker heralded the first of many false dawns which were characterised by the fluctuating sales of the machine. Originally, retailers laughed off the challenge mounted by the Xbox, believing that it would be run out of the market by Christmas. How wrong they were.

The Xbox quickly established itself as a machine with only one game of any major note �Halo, the Cube on the other hand lacked an absolutely killer title to shift systems, instead it had a spread of good quality titles, none of which were system-sellers themselves. Even Metroid Prime failed to ignite sales in the longer term, despite having an arguably better single player mode than Halo. At the time I was still on the front lines of retail, I remember having to forcibly persuade people to choose Metroid Prime over Halo. Xboxes practically walked off the shelves in their hundreds, whereas the Cube took a lot of persuasion to sell even to the most receptive of customers.

All throughout the lifespan of the Cube, this has been the case: short, sharp spikes in sales driven by key titles (often given low-key launches by Nintendo) that return to a low point until the next major title hit the shelves.

This is a terrible shame, because overall, the Cube has far more games that are worthy of purchase than the Xbox has, and yet the Microsoft machine has gone from strength to strength. It's baffling and frustrating at the same time. Cube owners have had he likes of F-Zero, the Resident Evil series, Mario Sunshine and the superlative multiplayer experience that is Super Smash Brothers Melee. The Xbox has had a slew of mediocre games mixed with one or two titles which were good but not great. Yet, marred with mediocrity, the Xbox succeeded and the Cube, blessed with brilliance, failed.

Not financially, you understand, for if we were to measure money lost and as the prime factor in the success of a console, then the Cube has outperformed the Xbox in every respect, as the Microsoft machine has been haemorrhaging money from day one: the peaks and troughs of the Cube have kept it in a reasonable position financially. The Xbox first made a major profit when Halo 2 was released, and has yet to repeat this spectacular success over the last year.

But it's not all bad for Nintendo: the DS has proven to be far more of a success than anyone first thought; the Gameboy brand has gone from strength to strength and the Revolution is currently the main talk of the coffee machine throughout our noble industry. And, let's be honest, the Cube has given us some truly great games to play for four years, even if they have not fully met our expectations, we've had some great times. I've really enjoyed the Cube, but I just wish that these four short years had been pumped full of even better games than the great games we had. That said, even if we're witnessing the final year of the Cube as a mainstream console, it's fair to say that despite the criticisms above, we've had a good run and some games that have been a heck of a lot of fun and really proved that nobody does it like Nintendo.

Here's to 2006! Happy Birthday, Revo-Europe. Let the Revolution begin!

Iun Hockley
[email protected]