Topic: Midway losses, Blames Nintendo- less support

[Armed]

Quote
Originally posted by: couchmonkey
Okay, just a second here, it's not like Midway says, "We're losing money because the GameCube sucks".  They're saying, "We're losing money because we can't sell games on the GameCube".  Which is entirely true.  Sure their games may be crap, but they have every right to take those games off the Cube, and if you all think they're so lousy in the first place, then why do you care if Midway withdraws GameCube support?

I don't care if they make anymore games for the GameCube, its just that they are putting Nintendos reputation down by blaming them instead of themselves, and this will lead to chain reactions of people not wanting to buy/produce games for Nintendo because this kinds of article makes it seem like Nintendo is not selling or is turning into a Sega.

[odinfire]

Oh come on... I dont care what they did to "improve" the MK series, the series is so old and overdone its makes me cringe just hearing the title.  Perhaps if they made some original content for once they might be able to sell some games.

[Kulock]

MKDA was actually pretty decent (and the Xbox port was sloppier than the GCN port, the Xbox version had a glitch where Frost could lock up the game by doing a Ground Freeze at the same time as someone else did a special attack), and I think it sold pretty well (maybe not as well as the Xbox version, because of Gamecube's positioning at the time, but close), but as for the rest of Midway's lineup, yeah.

The worst part is they don't understand why lazy ports of 2-3 month-old games aren't selling well... so people not only had to wait longer on something (during which they probably gave up and got it for another console or played a friend's copy), but we don't even get an optimised product for the extra time we wait. Gee, Billy (no reference to this site's now-retired leader), I wonder why Gamecube sales of a game are piddling in comparison... The only people that wait are those that don't have a second console, and really, most game fans can't be single-console gamers anymore, the market's changed too much. Two years ago I thought I'd be GCN-only. Today I have a PS2 and an Xbox as well. (Although I admit the Xbox does not get much mileage at all, and I'm not lying to "save face" or anything.) If you want to play the games, you have to go where they're available. So many gamers already have gone two-console or have a friend who's console they use.

So that's possibly why Xbox sales are inflated (it's harder to notice with the PS2 sales) versus the GCN sales, because half the audience who would've bought it on GCN had it been available at the time said, "To heck with it, I'm not waiting," and bought it on one of the other two consoles. And after they get into the trend of doing so, they don't stop when Midway finally releases one GCN port on-time with the other two releases.

[nitsu niflheim]

I guess it's the Gamecube's fault that Haven sold poorly on the PS2?

[PaLaDiN]

Stop and think about it, guys.

You're complaining that nobody buys Midway games because they're garbage, because Nintendo games are way better?

How convenient. They're gonna stop making those garbage games for you.

You win.

[Segnit BGS]

Look, as long as i get a remake of World Driver Championship i'll be cool.
Else, Spy Hunter was and still is a really, and i mean really a crappy port... it was sickening. It was just a massive disgrace. I really have no idea who was responsible for that. I didn't even know it was possible to downgrade a game so much... they must have really put effort into it. Or maybe they just had a time limit of 2 months to convert the code over to the GC, but seeing as they were too busy playing Luigi's Mansion, they only got underway with the crap-a-port the night before the game went gold. I can't believe i bothered to get out of bed and waste a single finger reflex on them.
Midway sucks on all the machines. Here's hoping their new batch of games is actually worth something. I am optimistic and really do hope for the best... there can never be too many good games. C'mon guy's you can do better, you most certainly can't do any worse (games wise)... or maybe you can

[Nintendork SP]

This is the most possitive negative thread I have ever...read.

[egman]

I'm torn by this. Midway has certainly earned a negative reputation in recent years so it's kind of insulting for them to blame GC owners if they do not take this into account.

While I won't miss them if they decided just completely cut support, this is just something else to feed the fanboys and media outlets who see Nintendo as a slowly sinking ship. It really didn't help that this press release targeted GC for bad sales. I accept the fact that GC is pulling the least amount of numbers (although Midway GC sales trail Xbox only by small margin), so dropping certain titles makes sense. But I just wish 3rd parties would more careful about what they say without completely factoring in what they may have done to result in poor sales.

Midway needs to realize that certain genres that sell on the PS2 are not going to move games on the GC and vice versa. Also, 3rd parties can't fool the whole GC userbase--some of us can smell a pos a mile away, so don't waste your time with a port if it's only going to get minimal effort applied because of the GC's "small" userbase. Crappier games != more $$$.  

[Ymeegod]

LOL,

You do realize Nintendo THEMSELVES stated the very same thing about the GC.

Sales are no-where's near as high as these companies expect and it really doesn't have much to do with ratings.

Madden, TS2, ect all sold the LEAST on the GC.  For example, Madden 2k3 sold a mere 200K on the GC when is sold 400K on the Xbox, and 1 Million+ on the PS2.

It's not rocket science to figure out that nintendo HAS to do something, which it has (it dropped the royalities DOWN, which now matches Xbox & PS2, yeah not only did the games sell less but they also generated the least on the GC).  Another step seems to be the DEAL with EA and it continuous Support.  Not really sure the exact deal but one can assume there was a one.

[ThePerm]

old and overdone people say...yet they havnt played it since 1992. This all happened because of street fighter. Mk takes a haitus and capcom continues to make a hundred iterations of the very same game on every console.

[Infernal Monkey]

Midway? Bah.

Wake me up when they announce their next Rush game won't be coming to GameCube. Then I might actually care

[WesDawg]

Funny thing is, if you go to Midways' site and look at earnings, last year in the same quarter, GC led sales, even over PS2. Ya' never hear nothing about that. From Midway:

Revenue by Platform (in thousands) Three-Months Ended March 31,

Platform.........................................................2003.......2002
------------------------------------------------------ --------    ---------
Sony PlayStation 2....................................$26,251....$8,779
Microsoft Xbox............................................ 11,471......7,839
Nintendo GameCube.....................................4,961....11,130
Nintendo Game Boy Advance........................2,357.........223
Sony PlayStation..............................................686.........700
Coin-Op and Other..........................................100.......2,336
---------------------------------------------------- ---------- -----------
Total Revenue...........................................$45,826...$31,007

Theres no doubt that the Cube didn't pull its weight to well in these first months. I don't really understand why PS2 sales were as high as they were, but they were amazing, and they make the Cube look kinda dumb. Thats getting to be a pretty common thing though. I guess having 10x the user base probably helps. Competing with Zelda and.... well Zelda, I guess you could understand why Cube owners would be a little slow to buy MK or even SlugFest.

I'm hoping the next few months see all the people buying the bundles invest in some more games.  I'm also hoping when finals get over I'll finaly have some time to finaly start playing again.

[Hostile Creation]

Gauntlet is the only Midway game I have, and I stopped playing it a while back.  It was fun before I beat it, though. . . nearly seven straight hours of that game with my friends. . . it's fun with many people.

As for their support of Nintendo. . . I don't care; I seldom buy anything other than Nintendo titles unless I suspect that I'll really like them.