Nintendo boss misses clue train
I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata blames the shortfall in GameCube console sales to "increasingly sophisticated games." I think he's off base. At least part of the problem is an economy that's in the toilet. Another part of the problem is that outside of their first-party titles, Nintendo games suck. Nintendo also does really stupid things, like make their console incompatible for anything except playing games. Sony and Microsoft both let you play audio CDs and DVDs on their systems -- something we've taken advantage of with our own PS2.
Based on Nintendo's comments at E3 this past year, they seem to think that leveraging their success with the Game Boy Advance is the right thing to do. Now you can buy a GameCube and get a free adapter that lets you play Game Boy games on your GameCube. And the company seems to be emphasizing GBA interoperability with the GameCube in future titles.
There's only one problem with that -- if my own kids are any indication, very few gamers care about using their GBAs with their GameCube. I explained the whole thing to Bob after I got back from LA in May, and his response was to shrug and tell me he didn't really care. If that's any indication, Nintendo's doomed.