Disturbing trend?

In recent days, third-party companies including Sega, Activision, TH*Q, Lucasarts, Codemasters, and even EA have announced cancellations of GC projects or have even pulled out of GC development altogether.

Sega dropped their Sega Sports lineup for the Gamecube. Activision announced that Shaun Murray Wakeboarding was cancelled. TH*Q dropped up to eight separate GC games. LucasArts dropped Red Rock RTX. Codemasters has pulled out of any future GC development. EA announced that they would not be making MVP Baseball 2004 for the GC.

Is this an ominous sign for Gamecube owners, or is too much being made of these cancellations?

Peter J. Skerritt, Jr.
Freelance Writer (Video Games)
Multiple World Record Holder: Sea Wolf (10,800 pts on 5/31/2001) and Mania Challenge (1.24 million pts on 6/1/2002)

" A winner is you!"

I ' m not sure

on One hand Nintendo systems were always inferior in the sports games department

But Lucas Arts sold big with that Rogue Squadron game

and who wants a Wakeboarding game anyway?

I think it is a very bad sign if you only own a Gamecube and are interested in Thrid-party wares. Personally I own the PS2, GC and Xbox so third-party support being dropped on one machine is irrelevant to tme. I generally buy all multiplatform titles on Xbox now anyway. I bought my Gamecube, along with many others I am sure, mainly for the wonderful first-party Nintendo titles. These offer something you just can' t find on other consoles and as long as these continue to be made I think GC owners have nothing to worry about.

I agree with Pierre. I have all 3, so, 3rd party doesn' t matter to me. But, it doesn' t bode well for nintendo. The more 3rd party, the better off you are to sell your system. For people that are only going to buy 1 console, it is very important to get the big 3rd party titles.

Later,
deadmeat
xbox live gamertag: deadmeat

Gamertag: Atari81

Sega Sports is failing on all formats. Most Activision titles are made to appeal to the broard PS2 customer base. THQ is a blow in the US but we don' t know if the titles were pulled due to their poor quality. Again the quality of Red RockRTX could be in question. Codemasters havn' t featured on the GC anyway so far which means they won' t be missed. BaseBall 2004 doesn' t sound like a top 10 product.

Its not good to see titles canceled but I don' t think there' s too much room for concern yet. The ube base is still growing steadly. But lest put this into perspective from a sales point of view, neither XBox nor Cube are gonna make a dent in PS2 sales anyway!

The flat shaded polygons are much more rounded here...

Actually just noticed that there' s a news story about EA' s continued commitment to Nintendo on the front page of this site.

Is there really need for concern? No. I have all three " next-gen" consoles. I play my Xbox and GC. I buy my multiplatform games on Xbox and most all xbox fps. I and most of my friends play our GC' s for the first party stuff only. I don' t really care for any PS2 exclusives and the XBox mlultiplatform versions are usually better. So I see no need to wory.

The one that annoyed me the most was Sega Sports pulling out of the GameCube... I' m NOT a sports fan, I' m a Sega fan and I just wanted to see them spread the love to all three consoles like they said they would.

It' s funny how Sega of America is pretty much snubbing the GameCube whereas Sega of Japan is still showing it Much love.