Let me kick off by saying that I am a Nintendo fan boy, there is little sense in me denying this fact, I love Nintendo and I believe that apart from Capcom and Square no other games developer comes close to Nintendo for making great games. However only a fool would say that Nintendo are doing everything right. The figures are in and yes it’s true Xbox outsold Nintendo. Shout at me, scream at me it won’t change that very sad fact. Now apart from the fact it’s a very sad indication of society it also raises the question “what the hell is going on?”

The real sad thing about it all is Nintendo have no one but themselves to blame and frankly I am starting to loose my cool with my beloved games company. I often like to just browse the Internet and see what I can find and I stumbled across a feature on IGN. It was slagging off Nintendo to the hilt; the thing is the Nintendo section editor wrote it. This was in response to claims that Nintendo would only be shipping 50 000 units to the US for three months up until March. While this is fantastic news for Europe as it is a clear indication that we will be seeing a March release it is also really dumb as it means that over the next 3 months the US will see 150 000 new cubes. That is really really stupid for a console that has just launched. It means that customers who walk in to a game shop and see the gamecube sold out will just plump for the Xbox or PS2. I know that if Nintendo waited until September to launch the Cube I would be saying how stupid they were but man can’t they just open a new production plant because the basic fact of the matter is that 2002 will be the year where there are big shortages of Gamecube. There are of course counter arguments for this which as it happens I agree with, not least the one that says the more well thought out GC will prove over time to be better than the typical American style Xbox. Look guys bigger is not always better.

The mistake though that was unforgivable was it’s launch titles. I mean for god sake where was the Mario game. Releasing games that you can finish (secrets and all) in less than 10 hours, no matter how quirky will not convert the average western gamer. The Japanese are different they recognise what good games are, I bet my house that Xbox will not do well at all in Japan, but the Western market is huge and Nintendo would be wise to start being less arrogant. Mike raised a good point earlier this week by asking where is the hype from Nintendo about its Cube launch in Europe. There are plenty of people who stupidly say Nintendo games are for babies and not hyping your console will do nothing to change their minds. Eternal darkness, Metroid and more importantly the whole RE series is coming to cube. Yet who outside Nintendo circles knows that?

I do love Nintendo and I don’t think there is any real need to worry about the future of it. We are only at the start of the road of the Gamecube and there is a long way to go. We can look forward to new Mario and Zelda games. The 3rd party support is simply amazing. Yet Nintendo can’t go on assuming that they have some divine right to exist. Look at Sega.

Gary Samaden

PS.PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GRANT A LISCENSE FOR SQUARE PLEASE!!!!!!