Staff Special | Birthday Bash: Cubed

With the release of the GameCube we saw Nintendo breaking free from an old stigma, they advertised it all very well, and made people listen. Of course, the old Nintendo faithful nearly had a heart failure when this all happened, it was just so different, but was it t set the scene for the rest of the year? It was clear that Nintendo put lots of effort into the launch of the GameCube, things were going well, then came the summer drought. Like most of the industry Nintendo still feels the need to shut up shop in the summer months; the reason? Well, we don't play games...

So there was no major concern about that, but when it came to the winter, things seemed a tad on the sparse side. Mario Sunshine, whilst being a great title, was a great disappointment to many, and all of the games seemed to come and go whilst never really making a lasting impression. Sony had clear domination of the charts and Microsoft were clearly getting cold feet as they started to advertise like it was going out of fashion. Nintendo were no in a tricky situation and they didn't have a hope in hell of getting out of it!

Being new to this whole aggressive industry it soon became clear that Nintendo had little clue of what to do, the wheel were falling off this grand old wagon. Christmas came and went, and every sceptic in the world started to predict that fall of Nintendo into little more than an obscure blip on the gaming scale, of course, these people also predicted the fall of Microsoft and announced the N64 as a huge failure when it made millions for the Japanese giants. The fact is, whilst Nintendo wasn't setting the world alight, it wasn't getting pissed on by the world just yet.

Enter the New Year, and a new start. Nintendo had shuffled about the cabinet a bit and sorted out a few things with new personnel and some clever new ideas. Online gaming anyone? Well Nintendo broke the boundaries by becoming the first of the big three to go online, but in typical Nintendo fashion nobody really knew about it. If we were to compare this to a war, Nintendo's online launch would scale somewhere on the playground tiff, whilst Microsoft's Xbox Live would gain Hiroshima status. It was clear that Nintendo didn't care, online gaming, in their eyes, was not the way forward, as so they bought it out to keep people happy, and moved on. It was what they moved onto that is the most important thing...

The people who keep their eyes on Nintendo's movements in Japan slowly started to notice something strange happening. Nintendo was investing in various different companies, from the obscure to the huge, nobody had escaped. One that was particularly surprising was the announcement that EA would be getting special privileges. Any fears that the GameCube was a bit sparse software wise could not be quashed, over 20 games would be released by EA with exclusive features for Nintendo gamers, not only this, but Shigsy himself was going to be helping out. Before this we had the Capcom 5, Namco working on Starfox Armarda, Camelot showing more than just a passing interest in some of Nintendo's biggest franchises, and of course, the excellent F-Zero being developed in part by Nintendo's arch rivals, SEGA.

It was obvious that Nintendo had a plan that suited them, and their way of working in the industry. From a company renowned for making the worlds best games, Nintendo's response to increased pressure to do better sales wise was quite simple: make more games. Pokemon was never going to last forever and Nintendo needed new and talented minds to work for them and come up with new and interesting ideas, adverts cropped up in various Japanese newspapers and magazines stating that Nintendo was recruiting an training new staff. Nintendo was reacting the way it deemed best, not the Microsoft way, or the Sony, the best way, and thus the Nintendo way.

These decisions would shape the future of the GameCube, Nintendo had focused on spreading it's wings with the arrival of the GameCube, with the sale of RARE behind them, they could concentrate on making things better. First off Retro, the makers of Metroid Prime, were taught the ways of the world and turned into one of the most promising development houses on the planet, Silicon Knights were also increased in stature thanks to some help from Nintendo they were able to develop a new style of game in what seemed like a dead genre, this was Eternal Darkness.

Whilst the GameCube's first year might not have been the most successful thing ever, it is clear that Nintendo are learning and bettering themselves. Things are changing and morphing, there is a real buzz surrounding the industry again, one that only Nintendo can create. With E3 still not here we don't know the full effects of Nintendo's hard work, but one thing is clear; any gamer who likes Nintendo is going to have a great next twelve months of gaming...