hazabaza1 said:
Mediocre to terrible is... 74 and 59. Scores which indicate "Pretty good" and "above average".
Even so, not that surprising. Did any console have a positive launch?
Positive launches are launches with killer apps--almost no consoles, historically, have been able to field a wide array of great titles. By this standard, we can compare the good with the bad.
Good launches:
NES (U.S.): Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt, Ice Climber, Excitebike--probably the best launch ever
SNES (U.S.): Super Mario World, F-Zero, Gradius III, Pilotwings, SimCity--another candidate for the best launch ever
N64 (U.S.): Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings--a little thin, but SM64 was a work of titanic significance
Dreamcast (U.S.): Soulcalibur, Power Stone, Sonic Adventure, The House of the Dead 2--a very strong launched that helped propel sales of the Dreamcast, and hindered only by the failure of Sonic Adventure to meet expectations
Xbox (U.S.): Halo: Combat Evolved, Dead or Alice 3, and Jet Set Radio Future, which would receive a lot of attention for being bundled in with the Xbox--it's hard to imagine what might've happened to the Xbox if not for the strength of this launch
Wii (U.S.): Wii Sports and Twilight Princess, with a side of CoD 3--the strength of the Wii's launch, which hinged a lot on the surprise trending of Wii Sports, helped cement the console's sales lead for the next few years
Bad launches:
Sega Genesis (U.S.)--Altered Beast certainly wasn't enough to attract attention away from the NES and its impending Super Mario Bros. 3, and the Genesis would hobble behind that console in sales until Sonic arrived
PlayStation (U.S.)--Not pretty. Street Fighter: The Movie was a laughably bad entry in a prematurely aging series, Battle Arena Toshinden was good but flaked at the market, and Ridge Racer was still years from hitting its stride as a series. The only redemption came in the form of the classic Rayman, which went on to be the best-selling PSX game in Europe.
PlayStation 2 (U.S.)--Not that bad--Tekken Tag Tournament, Fantavision, Smuggler's Run, and Unreal Tournament all found their niches--but the fact that the launch was totally overshadowed by the inclusion of a DVD player in the system speaks volumes about its inability to excite the public.
Gamecube (U.S.)--Rogue Leader and Wave Race: Blue Storm were good, but also for specialists. The only Nintendo home console to launch without a Mario or Zelda game, and also the least successful (the jury is still out on the Wii U). Coincidence?
Xbox 360 (U.S.)--Granted, the strategy of Microsoft was to beat its competitors to the marketplace, but this was still laughably bad. You had Rare's degeneration on display with the much-vaunted but ultimately vacuous Perfect Dark Zero, a soggy and completely pointless Quake 4, and a boatload of sports games--most of them available on last-gen consoles.
PS3 (U.S.): Anyone want to play Dynasty Warriors with Gundams? Or a bunch of mediocre action games like Genji or Untold Legends? You might've thought Sony would've learned from the PS1 and PS2, but they hadn't--this makes the PS2's launch look like the NES's.
Wii U (U.S.): Maybe Nintendo thought that by offering yet another New Super Mario Bros. title to the public they would save the Wii U from following in the Gamecube's underwhelming footsteps. Well, they were wrong: the Wii U is doing terribly, and I'm pretty sure Pikmin 3 or an HD Wink Waker remake won't solve their woes, either.
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Conclusion: Nintendo has historically given us the best launches--though as their talent pool has thinned, even they've grown unreliable. Also, launches weren't always bad: up until the sixth generation they were a mixed bag, though they've reached their absolute nadir in recent years, probably because of the time required to understand the architecture of modern consoles as well as the fact the industry is no longer associated with two or three major IPs (Sonic, Mario): it's harder to tell, in 2013's diverse marketplace, what will be a runaway hit.