You get a say on gaming's most important issues.

Grand Theft Auto rules Christmas. Ever since GTA3 absolutely tore up the competition in 2001, and then shattered the public consciousness again with Vice City a year later, it's been accepted that as far as Xmas goes, GTA rules okay. Last year offered some breathing room for other titles, but the series is back in just under five weeks with San Andreas. Rockstar have reamin tight-lipped about the game, but you can be sure games stores are going to be flooded with crazy gamers, dying to get a copy. As if that wasn't bad enough, there's Halo 2. The first game was one of the better FPS' in a long while (easily the Xbox's crowning glory) and anticipation for the sequel has been building up for so long it looks to explode at any moment. Against such competition...how on earth does anything esle have a chance?

Can Nintendo's line-up handle the Halo 2s and the San Andreas'?

Mike_D:

Since the GameCube launched in Europe in 2002, its Christmas lineups have got better and better. This year there's almost too many great games coming out! If I was given a choice between Halo 2 and Metroid Prime 2, I'd go for Prime every time. Paper Mario or GTA? Mario wins for me.

The thing is, although this year's Christmas lineup from Nintendo is anticipated by Nintendo fans just as much as XBox fans are looking forward to Halo 2, nobody outside the set of people who already own GameCubes seems to know anything about Nintendo's Christmas releases.

Nintendo needs to crank up the old hype machine and get everyone knowing about its new games if it wants its sales figures to come anywhere near those that Halo 2 and GTA are going to get.

Cube Chris:

In the UK, Nintendo's Christmas line up will come and go, due to these heavy hitting titles and the feeble UK Public not knowing quality when they see. Apart from Pokemon nothing will do too great!

TeamSonic0916:

I think that the Gamecube still has a really good chance. I mean, it beat the pants off Xbox last year, and now it just has to get to Playstation. But with heavy hitters this year like Metroid Prime 2, Paper Mario 2, Donkey Konga, Mario Party 6,and MARIO TENNIS (yeah!) and tons of 3rd party games, Nintendo still has a chance. Even though that Resident Evil 4 and Star Fox, the Legend of Zelda, Advance Wars, Fire Emblem, Geist, aren't coming out until 2005, Gamecube will possibly rule in 2005. Especially with the debut of Zelda.

GTA San Andreas is a pointless game, your running people over and shooting the heck out of them, and then you'll do the same thing over and over again. What's fun about that after doing it over 10,000 times? Anyhow, Halo 2 is the only game for the Xbox that may get my attention. I may get one that's used when it's WAY LOW in price, and just get Halo 2.

That's the only game that I would get, and just with the Xbox Live, and I would like Gamecube still the best definitely. Plus, in 2005, Sony has a few good games coming out then, but for Xbox, the good games start to tapper down as you get into 2005. The only good game there people is probably going to be Jade Empire. That's it. Conker probably won't do them much good.

Gamecube has tons of perfect killers for 2005, and Zelda will lead them all the way. As for 2004, Halo 2 might actually lead Xbox to victory this year, but I still have high hopes for Metroid Prime 2 to beat Halo 2's pants off. But we'll have to just wait and see.

Bikes!! Unstoppable surely...

Shadowlord:

Yes, Nintendo has a great christmas line-up once more. With Tales of Symphonia, Paper Mario 2 and Metroid Prime 2:Echoes coming out on November(though unfortunately their release dates are very close together - but you can't have it all) the Christmas line-up is great.

Metroid Prime 2 will be as good if not better than Halo 2 and the feature of multiplayer will make everyone happy. Paper Mario 2 and Tales of Symphonia are two very interesting games that hopefully have big lifespans and will keep people interested more than GTA: San Andreas would, since it seems to not differ much from the previous installments of the series.

So concluding, people who already own Gamecube will be in for a great Christmas season having probably the best line-up but more advertising is neccesary (as always in Europe) to sell more consoles.

kellet03:

Last year Nintendo did a great job marketing the 'Cube at Christmas, dropping the price of the 'Cube and with Mario Kart: Double Dash. This year Nintendo's line-up is screaming class all around, but if you ask a casual gamer if they knew a AAA title for the 'Cube, you would be lucky if you got an answer. So for Nintendo to succeed they need to start getting their games out in the public view. I'm sorry to say this but I cannot see Nintendo doing very well this holiday season in terms of software and hardware sales. (hopefully I'm wrong)

Microsoft and Sony have dropped their prices for their machines (might not europe) and with games like San Andreas, Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, Halo 2, KOTOR II plus heaps more I think people are going to be buying more PS2s and Xboxs than Gamecubes.

...or is it?

oldie:

I think that N will survive this Xmas. Halo 2 and GTA though will trounce the opposition, especially GTA. N are the worse at marketing and those games have a very high profile at the moment even without any marketing. Also the PS2 and Xbox have a lot of momentum after their price-cuts and they will do very well if they can keep it going until the new year. Nintendo don't really have any aces up their sleeve, but certainly have enough to keep people interested. Assuming MP2 kicks ass then they're OK.

Halo 2 is preaching to the already converted, and to be honest with it looking like the emphasis is on multiplayer then I'm not too sure how well it'll do, as the multiplayer on Halo is good enough. Thinking back to the games Rare did after Goldeneye, all good, but people thought that Goldeneye was enough and they were right.

It's really after xmas that N need to go for it. With games such as Star Fox 2, Geist, Killer 7, RE4, VJ2, LoZ, Fire Emblem etc. N could do very well and to be honest they need to. They need to survive well enough to be a viable platform for the next 3 months, and then let it rip with the big guns I've mentioned, or else they're in trouble.

Monopolyman:

In one word; no

In many words; although Nintendo has many class titles coming out this Christmas, they're not quite 'bigger then Jesus' (sorry if that offended anyone) like Halo 2 and San Andreas (although MP2 is verging on it). The Gamecube might do well this Christmas, though, but will look almost invisible next to Xbox.

Also, it's on the Gamecube, so even if they released an earth shattering game this Christmas, say the Legend of Zelda, it's still going to be just a bit behind Halo 2 and San Andreas because of its sub-Xbox&PS2 sales.

Hellfire:

I don't think the first Halo is a great game, so I'm not too interested in the sequel and GTA might fun for a while but it gets boring. But that's my opinion. The thing is, GTA sells A LOT and trying to fight that with, let's say, for example, a Zelda would be too risky, because it could lower Zelda's sales, instead of the desired result.

The games coming out for Gamecube in the coming months of 2004 are great games and can boost sales, but it's hard to fight against GTA. Metroid Prime 2 might change this though.

...Ah who cares about Halo 2? Am I right? No? Oh, okay

Zelda_Rulez:

I'm a bit sceptical about this. Sure, the games by Nintendo will be great, but if I look at the previous supposed to be big hit games they stayed in the multi-format chart for a few weeks and then they dropped out of it.

But I think the most important reason why that happens is that most games in the chart are multi-format and they have combined sales of 3 consoles and sometimes the GBA as well. This is why they stay so high in the charts.

I think Nintendo's line-up will sell great because everyone who has one is sure to buy at least one of the games in the Christmas line-up. But I don't think they will stay in the multi-format charts for a long time. But consider this: if one or more of those games make the top 10 of the multiformat charts it will have beaten the sales of other games of which a lot are combined sales of 3 consoles. When they've achieved that I think the sales are very good.

But I think GTA and Halo 2 will stay in the charts for at least the same time and a lot more likely even longer. They will sell a lot more than Nintendo's games because they're very good selling franchises if you look at their prequels.

Metroid Prime 2 has the greatest chance to beat GTA and Halo 2 in my opinion. But I don't think that will happen.

The best thing Nintendo can do is advertise about their games more. That way more people will know about them and maybe buy a GameCube for it which is of course good for the sales.

pelican:

Hopefully Resident Evil 4 [Err..isn't that out next year? - Conor] and Metroid Prime 2 will at least dent into sales for Xbox and PS2's big hitters, but it's unlikely to make much difference and Nintendo may as well give up hope for domination this generation. In the meantime we fanboys can play Pikmin 2 and Donkey Konga, comfort in the knowledge that Nintendo are going to give us the time of our lives come 'Revolution'.

Of course it worries me that Nintendo are in an unhealthy state, but what worries me more is the state of the industry itself; on our console and those of our supposed 'rivals' all I see is sequel upon sequel, the industry cannot sustain itself if it continues in such a hit-driven direction.

leto:

The PS2 has GTA4, the Xbox Halo 2 but the 'Cube has more than only one great game: Paper Mario 2, Prime 2, Pikmin 2, Tales, and all the games we can't buy now (Animal Crossing, Second Sight, Day of Reckoninge etc). The problem is that, in Italy (where I live), people consider these games less cool than Sony or Microsoft's, because Nintendo hasn't great space on the Italian magazines, sites and stores.

But the real problem (for me) is GAT4 because for the Gamecube there aren't "clones" and this can push the PS2; Halo 2 is a FPS and the cube has a lot of FPS' (Timesplitters 2..) and Metroid is "similar" (better if it loves exploration, worse if it prefers action).

That's all for this week's (actually rather good, I thought) edition. Be sure to check out the Gamecube Forum for the next topic, and your name could be here next time. Didn't contribute? You can still post your thoughts below (I don't think GC has a chance - but maybe you're more optimistic).