A glance at the lowlights and highlights of Nintendo’s home video game console history
Since the launch of the Nintendo 64 in mid-to-late 1996 (or early 1997, depending on whether you live in North America, Japan or Europe), Nintendo have repeatedly struggled in their attempts to gain their previous stronghold authority in the video game industry. The Nintendo 64’s sales were reasonable, but totaled in at less than one third (1/3) of the amount the, then pretender to Nintendo’s throne, Sony PlayStation managed to achieve in it’s lenghtly life span. Reaching around 32 million consoles worldwide, the Nintendo 64 only sold around 3 million more consoles than its predecessor, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (also referred to as SNES), and sold 2 million less copies than the 1989 SEGA console, Genesis (MegaDrive) which were released in a far less video game-orientated generation.
Realistically, the PlayStation (released in North America and Europe in 1995) was what saw off competition from SEGA, effectively killing off opposition from two of its consoles, the SEGA Saturn and the SEGA Dreamcast, thus ending SEGA’s time as creators of video game consoles.
With the Nintendo 64 failing to live up to the standards set by previous Nintendo consoles selling figures, the 2001 release of the Nintendo GameCube was clearly surrounded with anxiety from the Nintendo team, and astutely so. The PlayStation 2 was selling in a big way since the release in October, 2000, but not only this - there was a new kid on the block.
Microsoft were previously a company who made Personal Computers, and whose only foray into video games were limited to a number of small games were now to enter the big time, by bringing out their very first game console, the Microsoft Xbox. Not only was the GameCube desperately trying to compete with the PlayStation 2, but they now had a second opponent; an opponent whose financial potential was unlimited.
The GameCube’s sales figures showed a noticeable decline in the fortune of Nintendo, with the company at this point more than ever, being considered as the ideal alternative for people who loved Mario and Legend of Zelda games, rather than ’serious gamers’. Snobbery was such, that many gamers were put off the console as they felt it has an alienating ‘cutesy’ element to it. This was certainly not the case in either the Sony or Microsoft consoles, which boasted hugely popular titles such as Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec and Halo respectively. The GameCube was also unable to offer gamers the huge number of titles the other consoles catered for. With the total sales of the GameCube (to date) being approximately 20.85 million, the console faired unsurprisingly worse than the PlayStation 2, which has to date recorded a massive 103.6 million shipments, but also worse than debutants Microsoft, who sold in the region of 24 million Xbox units.
This brings us on to more recent times, and Nintendo are set to take the metaphorical battle fields once more, this time taking on Sony’s third gaming system, the PlayStation 3, and the now weighty opposition of the already released Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 is performing reasonably (at not far under 4 million copies sold thus far), but speculation is rife that the PlayStation 3 console is set to disappoint some fans in a number of ways. It seems that the cost of the PlayStation 3 is going to be between $499 and $599 (depending on the size of hard disk desired, the options being 20 and 60 gigabytes respectively), a fee a lot of potential purchasers are put off by. Moreover, the PlayStation 3 has seemed rather anti-climactic in terms of improvements since the PlayStation 2.
The criticisms of the next Nintendo console, the Nintendo Wii are far more limited than those that the PlayStation 3 is receiving. People seem highly excited about many of the innovations the console is making, not least the motion-sensing “Wii Remote”. Frankly, the main concern people seem to have about the console is the name, Wii.
As such, it seems that the console will have much more backing from game developers than previous Nintendo consoles have enjoyed. LucasArts, of Star Wars fame seem likely to jump the PlayStation 3 ship, and bring out an exclusive game on the Wii instead.
With all the speculation surrounding the release of the PlayStation 3 and the Wii, it appears that the balance of fortunes could be set to swing unpredictably in favor of the Nintendo system. Should more big name companies pledge allegiance to the interestingly named system, there could be a huge alarm bell ringing in the Sony headquarters. Game on, Wii.
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