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Jiyuu Tenshi
Nintendo's senior vice president of marketing and communications talks with IGNcube about the GameCube price drop, lack of success in the sports genre and -- gasp -- the next console. Any juicy bits? You'll have to click to find out.
September 24, 2003 - Earlier today Nintendo of America announced that GameCube would retail for $99.99 effective September 25 -- tomorrow. The company held a brief conference call with the press to talk about the new deal, in which NOA senior vice president of marketing and communications George Harrison also fielded some questions.
Afterward, Harrison called IGNcube for a more personal chat about today's developments. We spoke about everything from the price drop to the successor to GameCube. Following, that brief interview:
IGNcube: Nintendo has traditionally never been the first company to drop the price of its console. Why now?
George Harrison: Well, I think we try to run our own business and at this point we felt it was important to really dramatically accelerate the sales of the GameCube hardware. We wanted to get under the $100 price for the holiday season and we also felt that we have the only console that can hit that price point so we felt we would hae the competitive advantage.
IGNcube: There have been a lot of comparisons and parallels made between GameCube and what happened to Sega's ill-fated Dreamcast hardware.
George Harrison: Oh, not at all. This price drop is about setting up the next two or three years of GameCube sales. Key in all of this is to have a strong software lineup, not just for the holiday season but for the next couple of years. It will also help us gain some Nintendo fans who will be prepped to buy the next system when it comes out as well.
IGNcube: We've been hearing rumors that there may be a Mario Kart/GameCube bundle later this year. Is that true?
George Harrison: At this point we're really not talking about any additional bundles. Reducing the price of GameCube to under $100 is probably the most important thing we can do, so the prospect of adding game bundles at this point we don't think is necessary.
IGNcube: Is 2004 the last year of GameCube?
George Harrison: Not necessarily. GameCube will sell well until the next system's launch and I think historically the preceding consoles continue to sell for, say, a year after the following system. We believe now that the next systems won't launch until the end of 2005 or into 2006. That's based on our commitment that we will be at the market at the same time at our competitor's launch and our reading of the marketplace and whether they will be ready by the end of 2005 or not.
IGNcube: So it's likely to be 2005 at they very least before you launch the successor to GameCube?
George Harrison: Again, our commitment from Mr. Iwata is that we will be ready to launch the next system at the same time as our competitors. We won't be behind them as we were in the last two cycles.
IG
Ncube: In your conference call briefing today, you mentioned that Madden 2004 was the top-selling game. But according to our data it didn't sell nearly as well on GameCube as it did on Xbox or especially on PlayStation 2. Why do third-party sports games continue to be ignored by GCN owners and what does Nintendo plan to do about it?
George Harrison: We would love to have sports games sell better on GameCube. I think serious sports players sort of make their choice for their primary system and that was made over the last two or three years. So starting with the current installed base, it's a little discouraging that we can't sell more sports games. By comparison, though, sales of Madden on GCN this year are up dramatically over the prior year so there is some progress although it may not be as dramatic as we'd hoped.
We recognize that sports is a category where we have to come out of the starting gates strong with the next console so we're going to be making every effort to make sure we've got the best sports games lined up at the launch of the next system.
IGNcube: Why don't you think sports games aren't selling better already on GameCube?
George Harrison: Well, some of it can as simple as functionality. When we launched GameCube we didn't have a memory card at the time that was big enough to hold, say, a full season. People really fanatical about sports demand to have that memory whether it's in a hard-drive or a memory card capacity. So we kind of missed a beat there. Sports games were very important to the US market but maybe not quite as important to the Japanese one and as a result [memory card capacity] was overlooked at launch.
IGNcube: Is the GameCube/Game Boy Advance connectivity feature a gimmick?
George Harrison: Since we've launched the GameCube we've seen a really big opportunity for enhanced gameplay with the Game Boy Advance. We haven't seen the killer application for it yet which is why I think it's hard for consumers to fully get it, but there are some more things coming this fall. Clearly we've not shown the full potential of connectivity. We either have to deliver on that or we have to stop talking about it.
IGNcube: We're really pleased about the price drop. It's good to see Nintendo making more aggressive moves.
George Harrison: Yeah, it's a great opportunity for us this fall and we're going to try to follow through with lots of great software as well.
Quelle: IGN
September 24, 2003 - Earlier today Nintendo of America announced that GameCube would retail for $99.99 effective September 25 -- tomorrow. The company held a brief conference call with the press to talk about the new deal, in which NOA senior vice president of marketing and communications George Harrison also fielded some questions.
Afterward, Harrison called IGNcube for a more personal chat about today's developments. We spoke about everything from the price drop to the successor to GameCube. Following, that brief interview:
IGNcube: Nintendo has traditionally never been the first company to drop the price of its console. Why now?
George Harrison: Well, I think we try to run our own business and at this point we felt it was important to really dramatically accelerate the sales of the GameCube hardware. We wanted to get under the $100 price for the holiday season and we also felt that we have the only console that can hit that price point so we felt we would hae the competitive advantage.
IGNcube: There have been a lot of comparisons and parallels made between GameCube and what happened to Sega's ill-fated Dreamcast hardware.
George Harrison: Oh, not at all. This price drop is about setting up the next two or three years of GameCube sales. Key in all of this is to have a strong software lineup, not just for the holiday season but for the next couple of years. It will also help us gain some Nintendo fans who will be prepped to buy the next system when it comes out as well.
IGNcube: We've been hearing rumors that there may be a Mario Kart/GameCube bundle later this year. Is that true?
George Harrison: At this point we're really not talking about any additional bundles. Reducing the price of GameCube to under $100 is probably the most important thing we can do, so the prospect of adding game bundles at this point we don't think is necessary.
IGNcube: Is 2004 the last year of GameCube?
George Harrison: Not necessarily. GameCube will sell well until the next system's launch and I think historically the preceding consoles continue to sell for, say, a year after the following system. We believe now that the next systems won't launch until the end of 2005 or into 2006. That's based on our commitment that we will be at the market at the same time at our competitor's launch and our reading of the marketplace and whether they will be ready by the end of 2005 or not.
IGNcube: So it's likely to be 2005 at they very least before you launch the successor to GameCube?
George Harrison: Again, our commitment from Mr. Iwata is that we will be ready to launch the next system at the same time as our competitors. We won't be behind them as we were in the last two cycles.
IG
Ncube: In your conference call briefing today, you mentioned that Madden 2004 was the top-selling game. But according to our data it didn't sell nearly as well on GameCube as it did on Xbox or especially on PlayStation 2. Why do third-party sports games continue to be ignored by GCN owners and what does Nintendo plan to do about it?
George Harrison: We would love to have sports games sell better on GameCube. I think serious sports players sort of make their choice for their primary system and that was made over the last two or three years. So starting with the current installed base, it's a little discouraging that we can't sell more sports games. By comparison, though, sales of Madden on GCN this year are up dramatically over the prior year so there is some progress although it may not be as dramatic as we'd hoped.
We recognize that sports is a category where we have to come out of the starting gates strong with the next console so we're going to be making every effort to make sure we've got the best sports games lined up at the launch of the next system.
IGNcube: Why don't you think sports games aren't selling better already on GameCube?
George Harrison: Well, some of it can as simple as functionality. When we launched GameCube we didn't have a memory card at the time that was big enough to hold, say, a full season. People really fanatical about sports demand to have that memory whether it's in a hard-drive or a memory card capacity. So we kind of missed a beat there. Sports games were very important to the US market but maybe not quite as important to the Japanese one and as a result [memory card capacity] was overlooked at launch.
IGNcube: Is the GameCube/Game Boy Advance connectivity feature a gimmick?
George Harrison: Since we've launched the GameCube we've seen a really big opportunity for enhanced gameplay with the Game Boy Advance. We haven't seen the killer application for it yet which is why I think it's hard for consumers to fully get it, but there are some more things coming this fall. Clearly we've not shown the full potential of connectivity. We either have to deliver on that or we have to stop talking about it.
IGNcube: We're really pleased about the price drop. It's good to see Nintendo making more aggressive moves.
George Harrison: Yeah, it's a great opportunity for us this fall and we're going to try to follow through with lots of great software as well.
Quelle: IGN
