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While I personally disagree with the rest of your post... thank you... so many people need to realize this.
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Nintendo Faces Investor Pressure to Bring Games to iPhone
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While I personally disagree with the rest of your post... thank you... so many people need to realize this.
Ninetendo has never been quick to adopt new technology and they have not only survived, but they have led the video game industry not just once, but in at least 4 of the last 5 hardware generations (NES,Super NES,N64 and Wii). Their success has nothing to do with keeping up with HD connections or cramming more 1080P hype down the gamers throat by blowing sunshine up their buts like many providers out there and many gamers have bought into (they've been sold - my 720P plasma looks just as good to the naked eye at normal distance), but Nintendo has remained true to their roots and instead of piggybacking on emerging technology that does not differentiate their products, they have done somethign no other video game company has been successful at, INNOVATION. They are innovaters, the Wii took this generation by storm as it is something new and made games accessible even to grandma and grandpa if even for a short while. Love it or hate it, but as an owner of the 3DS, I am not even slightly disappointed with my purchase and we have 2 systems in this house. They communicate with each other and I have not had a sinlge bad gaming experience with the system.
Nintendo has established themselves with some of the most recongnizable characters in the world. Let us not forget that NINTENDO is the company that brought forth Mario, second only in global character recognition to one Mickey Mouse. The company has remained true to its roots in its games and continues to makes game that provide both fun and value for families across the globe. This is something that I have seen only Nintendo has succeeded at for decades. Long live Nintendo, Mario, Luigi, Peach, Zelda, Link, Samus, Kirby, Bowser, Donkey Kong, and the whole gang!!!
Nintendo has established themselves with some of the most recongnizable characters in the world. Let us not forget that NINTENDO is the company that brought forth Mario, second only in global character recognition to one Mickey Mouse. The company has remained true to its roots in its games and continues to makes game that provide both fun and value for families across the globe. This is something that I have seen only Nintendo has succeeded at for decades. Long live Nintendo, Mario, Luigi, Peach, Zelda, Link, Samus, Kirby, Bowser, Donkey Kong, and the whole gang!!!
nintendo should make a GPS, augmented reality, globally based Pokemon game.
where as you walk around you can catch/battle pokemon, they can set up geofences so you get a different selection depening where you are, ie in the city or in a park or in the countryside, even make a few exclusive pokemon for each country.
they can make it fully multiplayer where you can battle fellow 'trainers' around you and also trade pokemon globally.
basically a real world MMORPG.
I think it would be pretty successful and they could actually charge a good price for it.
where as you walk around you can catch/battle pokemon, they can set up geofences so you get a different selection depening where you are, ie in the city or in a park or in the countryside, even make a few exclusive pokemon for each country.
they can make it fully multiplayer where you can battle fellow 'trainers' around you and also trade pokemon globally.
basically a real world MMORPG.
I think it would be pretty successful and they could actually charge a good price for it.
I know that all of you at MacRumors are stupid Apple fanboys, but this is ridiculous. Nintendo is doing better than both Sony and Microsoft, and no one wants to play games on a crappy little iPhone. Seriously, Cut the Rope vs. Pokémon. Hmm, I wonder which is better. Fanboys.
I can't imagine ever being so bored and lonely that I'd find a group of people that like a different brand of electronics than me, and then waste my time reading everything they think so I could throw rocks at them.
I agree that nintendo will be fine without developing for other systems, but you don't need to be a jerk to express that. Don't you think that being threatened by someone else's choice of a cellular telephone or video game console, to a point that you'd need to insult them, is pretty ridiculous?
Angry Birds ended up making 50 million euro in total? And that's one of the largest games out there on apple devices? That's pretty much pocket change to Nintendo.....making games for iOS would be suicide.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-11/-angry-birds-maker-seeks-1-2b-valuation.html
http://www.appleinsider.com/article..._with_investor_for_1_2_billion_valuation.html
'Angry Birds' developer negotiating with investor for $1.2B valuation
Rovio Entertainment, the created of the popular "Angry Birds" game, is in talks with an interested investor to receive funding that would see the company valued at $1.2 billion, according to a new report.
People with knowledge of the discussions relayed the figure to Bloomberg, though they were unable name the entertainment company looking to make the investment. Sources said Rovio is considering the investment, despite the fact that it has, in the past, declined offers from larger institutional investors.
The influx of cash would reportedly be used for continued expansion on projects such as an "Angry Birds" movie, offices outside of its home country of Finland and retail endeavors in China and other emerging markets.
Rovio "Mighty Eagle" Peter Vesterbacka revealed this spring that the Angry Birds franchise is the third-most-copied brand in China, behind Disney and Hello Kitty. The company is currently in the process of setting up a local operation in China with the goal of becoming a "leading entertainment brand" in the country.
In March, Rovio received $42 million in funding from investors including Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom's Atomico and Facebook investor Accel Partners.
Vesterbacka has attributed his company's success to the iPhone, which he says "changed everything." According to him, Apple opened up distribution channels that allowed developers to directly reach their fans. The executive has also predicted that Apple will remain the number one platform for developers for a long time.
Google's Android OS, on the other hand, has been caused some difficulties for the developer. Rovio apologized late last year for not delivering "optimal performance" on Android because of problems with fragmentation.
Rovio success has also drawn the attention of patent licensing companies looking to ride on its coattails. Late last month, patent troll Lodsys added the company to its patent infringement suit accusing numerous iOS and Android developers of violating a patent related to in-app purchasing.
Rovio's rumored $1.2 billion valuation would rival the $1.3 billion deal that EA negotiated for its acquisition of PopCap Games, which makes the popular iOS game "Plants vs. Zombies." That deal, which was EA's largest acquisition ever, offered $650 million in cash up front and $100 million in EA shares to PopCap, as well as as much as an additional $550 million based on certain performance goals
And he has stated that Nintendo, under his watch, will never make games for any non-Nintendo console. That's strategic suicide, and he has said to investors and all others that want Nintendo to grow and prosper that he needs to go. This decision is far worse than any other mistake Nintendo has made in the past; the writing's on the wall, and he's refusing to read it.
I agree with much of what you're saying except for the stuff about 3DS (oh and N64 didn't dominate it's console generation either, it flopped in Japan and had very little 3rd party support elsewhere).
The 3DS has a serious design flaw where the bottom screen scratches and smudges the top screen. Every unit suffers from this and there is no fix, not a screen protector nor rubber bumpers. Check out your devices, you'll be slightly disappointed with it finally just like most 3DS owners. I hardly play my 3DS and even I have the lines. They mostly go away but not entirely. This, the PICA failures and crashes, the battery life, the external design. This is not what Nintendo is known for, their previous handhelds are built like a tank. The 3DS is more fragile than a PSP.
The argument that Nintendo always uses older proven tech is only slightly true. The SNES was quite a bit superior to its competitors. The N64, despite running off carts, was superior hardware to the PS1. The Gamecube was superior to the PS2. There was nothing like GBA when it came out. Even the DS was more impressive than any portable until the PSP outclassed it a few weeks later (the PSP was sold at a loss though). The Wii is the exception, it isn't the rule. The 3DS is graphically disappointing compared to even an iPhone 3GS. The 3D effect doesn't work the same for everybody either. I admit it's impressive in OOT with all the fairies and the depth, but it also suffers from ghosting.
The Wii only looks like it's still tearing up the charts because they sold a lot of hardware during the first few years. Last year the 360 outsold it during the holidays and YTD the Wii is in third place. The only game to look forward to is Zelda. The Wii wasn't as innovative as we thought it was either. When people talk about their grandma buying it, that's true but I bet grandma only has Wii Sports. Wii Sports baseball really wowed me in 2006 with the faux 1:1 and yet no game came close to that ever again, even with motion plus. The majority of the best Wii games only use motion in a gimmicky tacked on way (like NSMB and DKCR). It was little more than a fad. The non-HD graphics look weak on my 52" display. (BTW, what you said about the 720p and the viewing distance is true because say if you have a 50" set and sit 10' away, you don't get the full resolution. That's how 360/PS3 devs can make sub-HD games and people hardly notice).
Nintendo has always been innovative, they invented the dpad, popularized using the analog stick for 3D control, introduced force feedback to the masses, had four ports built in for multiplayer, the Wii, the DS, etc. The 3DS isn't innovative though, it's disappointing. The Wii is nearly dead and the Wii U has me quite worried that they are headed in the wrong direction.
I would love to play all their great franchises on my phone. Why would they have to give up innovation? I love Nintendo, I've loved Nintendo my entire life (seriously, I loved Donkey Kong the arcade game when I was 2). I want them to do the right thing and regardless of what many of our inner fanboy is thinking, the right thing is to eventually go software. I predict that two years from now, Apple and Nintendo will have a jointly-owned company that makes iOS games. That 2007 rumor before there was even an app store said they would do this and port DS games (back then at full price). That rumor was probably based on talks that fell through. The times have changed and that makes way more sense to be having those talks now.
If Nintendo gives up making consoles, they can still make peripherals and software of all their awesome and timeless franchises. They wouldn't go away, they'll be around forever. Heck I think they should make a theme park in the mold of Disney complete with themed lands and Peach's castle in the middle. Metroid-themed space land. Hyrule-themed land. Mushroom Kingdom, Mario-Kart bumper cars, a Pokemon kiddie land.
Honestly, that's fine with me cause I dislike the direction of trying to introduce live action into turn based action (like Parasite Eve seemed to be at the start of that). If I wanted a live action game, I'd buy one! I like turn based action where the point is to use strategy to plot the moves I'm going to do.
Also, I have played games that would be better with button controls. Yeah, they'd be better, but they're still fun (Prince of Persia comes to mind). They're not so bad I'm going to go out and buy a separate player just to play them (though part of this is I am on a budget so I gotta pick what I want to spend my money on).
Plus, my iphone is always on me, I'm not going to also carry some big ass device just for games. So the iPhone is just plain more mobile than a mobile game player (which you make sacrifices in the first place to play, screen is smaller, graphics aren't as good, controller is still compromised since it has to accomodate a screen vs. a console controller that can be made specifically to be held and doesn't need to accomodate the screen. Honestly I think a lot of people bitching about iPhone's compromise of controls forget for any mobile device you have to compromise controls unless you want a seperate controller which kills the mobile part). Sure the games may be more extensive or a bit easier to play, but I've found iphone games that are good enough for the stuff I like (Racing games, jrpgs, rpgs) and even added stuff I usually didn't get into (stuff like Prince of Persia).
I know that all of you at MacRumors are stupid Apple fanboys, but this is ridiculous. Nintendo is doing better than both Sony and Microsoft, and no one wants to play games on a crappy little iPhone. Seriously, Cut the Rope vs. Pokémon. Hmm, I wonder which is better. Fanboys.
Sony and Microsoft are huge companies that make more than just game consoles, Nintendo is not doing better than them. If you mean Nintendo is doing better than Sony and Microsoft in the video game industry, that isn't true at the moment either. They have more hardware out there, but it hasn't been selling as well recently and neither have the games. From your comment, you must be a Nintendo fanboy. That's okay, I guess I kinda am too. That's why I want them to make games on iOS. Your cut the rope analogy is a poor one.
Are you serious? There is nothing complex about the controls in FFXIII, nothing that requires sticks It isn't a platform game. It is mostly menu driven which is perfect with a touch screen and no it isn't that far removed from FFIII which controls absolutely fine on iOS. FFXIII is not a good game either IMO (I would say the same about FFIII but I actually enjoy this better than the DS one due to the upgraded visuals).
There are more than angry birds on the app store and you know it. Square sells FFIII and FFT for $16 which probably gets them the same amount in profit as physical distribution at $30 retail. Attitudes will change if more quality games are on the app store. The fremium stuff is just a way for the leeches to suck money out of people, not 'just to turn a profit' but capitalistic pigs. The same pigs have made a fortune doing this on facebook.
Modern portable game consoles are designed to play games. They are crappy music players, meh video players, horrible web browsers. I bet that 95% of users avoid those features. GTA:VCS wasn't nearly as good as GTA:CW which is on iOS along with some GTA Gameloft clones. Vita isn't even out yet btw
I'm sure you think that, but it's probably not the case. I doubt some armchair analyst posting in a rumors forum knows how to better run a company than the company that's been posting profits for a century does.
missing the point...
I think ya'll are missing the point. In the end we have people who are willing to buy a dedicated portable gaming device, and people who, for whatever reason, are not. Those of us in the second category are not apple/android fan-boys, we aren't praying for the day that apple takes over the world, we're not console haters, and we're not trying to slap all you hard-core gamers in the face with our iPads. We just love the Nintendo brand, we love playing the games, and we'd spend a ton of money on them; but at this point in our lives the cost of adding another portable device outweighs the value of playing Zelda. That will never change for us, but we'd just love it if Nintendo would let us buy some Nintendo games - even old ones - on our iPhone/Android and we get really excited at the prospect of it.
Just like I don't carry a camera, a video camera, a cd player, and a dvd player along with my iPhone and iPad/laptop, I'm not going to carry a Nintendo DS. Plus, if we are playing games on a DS at work, it's a lot more difficult to say we were just checking our mail when the boss stops by.
I think ya'll are missing the point. In the end we have people who are willing to buy a dedicated portable gaming device, and people who, for whatever reason, are not. Those of us in the second category are not apple/android fan-boys, we aren't praying for the day that apple takes over the world, we're not console haters, and we're not trying to slap all you hard-core gamers in the face with our iPads. We just love the Nintendo brand, we love playing the games, and we'd spend a ton of money on them; but at this point in our lives the cost of adding another portable device outweighs the value of playing Zelda. That will never change for us, but we'd just love it if Nintendo would let us buy some Nintendo games - even old ones - on our iPhone/Android and we get really excited at the prospect of it.
Just like I don't carry a camera, a video camera, a cd player, and a dvd player along with my iPhone and iPad/laptop, I'm not going to carry a Nintendo DS. Plus, if we are playing games on a DS at work, it's a lot more difficult to say we were just checking our mail when the boss stops by.
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There's more, but who cares when 99.9% of them are disposable minigames and IP ripoffs.
As far as comparing Square to Nintendo, Nintendo has its own digital distribution system tied into its own hardware. Square doesn't.
Personally I'm waiting for Rovio to fall off the map. All they've done is ripped off a Flash Game, jacked someone else's physics engine, reskinned the same game X number of times, and branded the hell out of it. I don't see any innovation coming from them. Their whole strategy rests on reskinning the same game over and over and selling bird toys.
Between Rovio and Zynga IPO's which make no sense, EA trying to snatch up any mobile developer with one hit to their name, and race to the bottom pricing caused by Freemium, I wouldn't be surprised if Mobile gaming turns out to be a bubble.
Those GTA games you're comparing are generations apart.
Also, just like handhelds are horrible at doing things not gaming-related, a lot of people think the iPhone doesn't cut it for gaming.
I think that a 19.99+ Premium Games section could help weed out the race to the bottom.
Still not sure why Nintendo gets singled out for not putting their games on iOS when neither Microsoft or Sony does.
Code:
Sony Nintendo Microsoft Total
Y/E 1998 $902,811,090 $1,023,333,867 $1,926,144,957
Y/E 1999 $1,102,563,557 $1,301,350,000 $2,403,913,557
Y/E 2000 $722,738,949 $1,368,207,547 $2,090,946,497
Y/E 2001 -$449,776,290 $677,576,000 $227,799,710
Y/E 2002 $629,101,056 $895,872,180 -$1,135,000,000 $389,973,237
Y/E 2003 $935,569,253 $834,333,333 -$1,191,000,000 $578,902,586
Y/E 2004 $627,195,212 $993,161,303 -$1,337,000,000 $283,356,515
Y/E 2005 $419,888,799 $1,056,056,202 -$539,000,000 $936,945,001
Y/E 2006 $69,129,058 $774,478,055 -$1,339,000,000 -$495,392,887
Y/E 2007 -$1,970,923,859 $1,914,666,388 -$1,969,000,000 -$2,025,257,471
Y/E 2008 -$1,079,994,103 $4,322,637,887 $426,000,000 $3,668,643,783
Y/E 2009 -$664,313,787 $5,691,428,301 $169,000,000 $5,196,114,515
Y/E 10Q1 -$413,541,667 $420,843,750 $312,000,000 $319,302,083
Y/E 10Q2 -$653,333,333 $710,655,556 $375,000,000 $432,011,111
Y/E 10Q3 $210,629,750 $2,087,904,452 N/A N/A
Total
$387,078,407 $24,072,504,822 -$6,157,000,000 $16,004,049,028
Full Year Average
$103,665,745 $1,737,758,422 -$1,001,857,143 $914,270,499
Profitable Years
8 12 2 10
Non Profitable Years
4 0 6 2
Average in Loss Year
-$1,041,252,010 N/A -$1,251,666,667 -$1,260,325,179
Average in Profit Year
$676,124,622 $1,737,758,422 $333,000,000 $1,389,625,094nintendo is so dead... poor nintendo...
Yeah, maybe I'm wrong. I value my vision, and I can feel the relief in my eyes after focusing on near objects for more than a few minutes, so I make a point of giving my eyes a frequent break, and think that's wise advice for anyone.
I'm 43 and see 20/13 both left and right. I can't say that for any of my friends. Something to think about.
Carry on.
the 3DS 3D effect is just one feature of the system, not the only meaningful one.
first of all you can adjust the 3D effect to your liking to not hurt your eyes, or if you want to you can totally turn it off.
second of all, and the most important thing, nintendo itself said from the get go that they will be developing 3DS software that doesn't have 3D at all, and Satoru Iwata repeated this statement during the last shareholders meeting, but i'm sure all you guys who like to talk so much about it read all the 12 pages of questions and answers.
3DS compelling features are more power, better graphics, much better online system, spotpass and streetpass.
3D is just an added bonus.
And before you guys start saying that nintendo is just riding the moment and choose to add 3D to it's own console because it's the cool feature to have right now, you should know that nintendo was experimenting 3D at the beginning of the Game Cube era with Luigi's Mansion.
They ditched the idea because they didn't find compelling to sell the console with it's own display to make you see the 3D effect.
but once again i'm totally sure that all you guys know this kind of thing.
The 3DS is actually a great system and they've made significant improvements to it already with software upgrades. Whoever said that it's "as big as the original DS" has obviously never played one. It's a very compact and powerful device with amazing display technology. I don't even think the launch price was that big of a problem but the lack of 1st party game support definitely was–that's going to change very soon though. The battery life isn't great but I never play long enough for that to matter anyway. I like the Nintendo properties and have been a fan of the company since the NES days. I like iOS devices for quick, on-the-go play but without physical buttons they are pretty useless for precise adventure or platform gaming. Give me Mario and Zelda over yet another damn 1st person shooter, sport title, or cut the/slice the/burn the clone any day of the week.
Thats not entirely true. During the NES years they had no real competition. The SNES wasn't the market leader until the very end of its lifespan. The N64 was NEVER the market leader. It was thoroughly beaten by the Playstation.
Like I said in an earlier post, I'm no Nintendo fanboy at all. But I had to point that out.
With that said, the 3DS is (still) not a failure. They do need to make some changes to better compete. But the 3DS (and DS, PSP, Vita) all provide an experience that iOS will never be able to match.
N64 being "superior" depends on how you look at things. It had hardware texturing filtering, but the PS had the real world polygon count advantage, had a HUGE fill-rate advantage which lead to more games running at 640x480 and 60 fps. N64 had memory issues leading to the use of super low resolution textures stretched out over large areas then being blurred into oblivion by filtering. Post 1997 games basically cured all of the PS "problems" like lack of z-buffer and such. Some games in 1998 and beyond even had forms of software texture filtering. See Crash Team Racing as a perfect example. It even had effects thought "impossible" on the PS, like alpha transparency.
Not so. There were no games as graphically complex as say Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo, or Grand Theft Auto on the GameCube. The first three Ratchet and Clank games on the PS2 also had significantly higher polygon counts than platformers on the GC, ran at solid 60 frames per second, and had extremely high amounts of onscreen activity. Ratchet and Clank on the PS2 looked so good that the PS3 version was terribly disappointing, with its frame-rate problems.
The GameCube was only "better" than the PS2 in the eyes of Nintendo fans.
All FF games beginning with FFX have been so bad I don't think anyone would WANT to play them on their iOS device.
Yeah, Vita isn't out yet. I never said it was. But theres no denying that it will bring the experience the modern home consoles give to the portable world.
I'm sorry, but Chinatown Wars is AWFUL. Vice City Stories was built on the same gameplay and world as GTA: Vice City, second best GTA game of the previous generation. Chinatown Wars on iOS as well as Gameloft's clones show just how bad touch controls are in games where real controls are practically demanded.
You obviously never owned a PSP or never knew anyone who owned a PSP. I knew people who bought them just so they could have portable video and browsing and ended up playing games as a result. Don't forget, the PSP came out many years ago. It had portable browsing and video playback before iPods had video playback. The PSP also had a pretty good music player for the time.
Edit: Also want to add that the App Store as it is will probably cause itself to implode. Too many games are going "Freemium" or relying on IAP to unlock the full experience. Look at Let's Golf 3 as a perfect example. The previous two games were great, for iOS games. But Let's Golf 3 is almost entirely pay to play, unless you're extremely patient. You have to pay for everything, including "Energy Points" to continue playing to the next hole. Unless you didn't get par or better on the previous hole, which you then have to play again and use "energy" to play again. You don't have that kind of nonsense on true portable gaming systems.
So again, the fact remains that the 3DS, DS, PSP, and soon Vita offer an experience completely impossible on iOS. And when it comes to pricing, you know what you're getting from the start. No "freemium", no nonsense IAP. I'll take a $40 3DS game that will give me as many hours of play as dollars spent versus a "Free" iOS game that tries to sell me the "Best Deal" $65 in-app purchase to keep me playing through the whole game.
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I will fully agree here (and I'd like to see games succeed on the iPhone). If more games go this way, it will make buying a dedicated handheld a lot more appealing even to me (iPHone has gotten me back into gaming but those kind of tactics will make me think it may be worth it to actually buy a handheld gaming device). Sony and Nintendo can only hope that more companies go in that direction as for the people who can do the math, a 50 dollar game where you get the full game is a lot cheaper than Freemium games are (GT Racing has one car that will cost you 50 dollars just for the car!). It will certainly help encourage people to rethink just gaming on their iphones.
(Yes, I'm annoyed, Game Loft is seeming to go in this direction. They also did this with GT Racing (and pulled the one you paid for the full version off. ANd they just pulled off Let's Golf 1 and 2 so you can't just pay for those and not play the freemium 3rd one. Game Loft being a pretty big developer of games that aren't the "angry bird" and "cut the rope" style games going this way is going to really hurt the game market at least for me on the iPhone).
I will say though, that unfortunately, it seems that freemium is paying off (Sux for gamers but apparently people still fall for the scam enough that it makes the developers a lot of money) and there is nothing saying that Nintendo and Sony (and game makers for their devices) won't find a way to introduce it into their games... I mean with many of these devices getting internet enabled, there's nothing really stopping them from starting to do "freemium" with their game (for example advertise how cheap it is to buy the game now, only 10 bux (or whatever number to make them look super cheap) vs. the usual 50 dollars.. And look, you can advance ahead quicker if you send in more money in game. And program the game to be very frustrating to try to play without paying to advance).
But I guess freemium is a whole new can of worms...
Didn't read the whole thing, because you clearly didn't know, or mislead in what you were talking about. For example, the Sega Genesis had a couple years head start before the Super Nintendo, but when the Super Nintendo came out, it was clearly king, and out sold the Genesis. And not only did the specs of the GameCube were superior to the PS2, it showed it in the games that came out for both Systems. You're just not a reliable source, so I immediately stopped reading, so who knows what else you said.
I guess when Nintendo finally goes belly up, they can do it with their heads held up because they know they didn't have to resort to cheapening their brand of games to 0.99 junk on an iOS device. Lol... I think times are changing and Nintendo isn't quick enough with the software releases. It's pretty disappointing to think that I'll buy their console/handheld just to play two kickass games every 3-4 years... It seems like Nintendo has now become a mom and pops store in the gaming industry...
completely agree about most of the stuff you say, but to the NGC / PS2 thing and some other historical things you got wrong.
the ps2 totally had a better library, but technically speaking was much less powerful then both the NGC and the original XBOX.
you can clearly see that looking at RE4
nice seeing someone that knows what's talking about anyway
Freemium needs to die in a fire. I'd rather support the current rip-off DLC model of the consoles than freemium. At least with the console model you get a full game at full price and any additional content is just that, additional content. It's not required to play the full game, it's just extra. Look at Mortal Kombat as an example. I bought that. Played the single player story and have had a ton of fun playing all of the other modes. Haven't bought any of the DLC because it is just "extra". Thats the way it should be. But "Freemium" games, as you said, end up being a lot more expensive than a regularly priced game.
The SNES was technically superior to the Genesis. However, as far as sales go, they were neck and neck until almost the end of the generation. If you do some research, you'll see the SNES didn't truly overtake the Genesis and "win" the generation until Donkey Kong Country was released. That was at the end of 1994. The Sega Saturn was released in late 1994 in Japan and early 1995 in the US. The Playstation was released in late 1994 in Japan and about a year later in the US. The Nintendo 64 didn't come until mid-late 1996. The SNES was all Nintendo had to compete from the end of 1994 until mid/end of 1996. So they cut prices and pushed big titles out for it, while Sega focused on the Saturn and essentially dropped the Genesis. The SNES winning also was due in part to Sega trying to push out expensive add-ons, like the Sega CD and 32x.
As far as the GameCube is concerned, you should (again) do some research. Carmack has gone on record stating that the Wii is essentially a slightly faster GameCube and, as a result, the GPU is still weaker than the original Xbox GPU. I only bring that up to show that the GameCube was weak at the time of release. If you want to prove the GameCube was better, prove it. Show me a platformer on the GameCube that looks better than Ratchet 3. Show me a racer that looks better than Gran Turismo 4's 1080i mode. Show me an RPG that looks as good as FFX. Madden running at 480p on the GameCube doesn't mean much when it had frame-rate problems and v-sync issues. Other than Madden and some sports games, multi-platform games were exactly the same (I had both consoles). So, again, show me some games that look as good as those I named. You can't use the "console exclusive" argument because it's pretty easy to compare when one game looks better than another. For example, in this generation, people like to point to Uncharted as the PS3's best looking title and fanboys try to say it looks better than "anything" on the Xbox 360. Then you point out Gears of War and how the texture resolution is literally several times higher than Uncharted, and how Gears of War doesn't use any Playstation Vasoline© or other nonsense to hide low quality assets. And how Gears of War has a significantly higher polygon count. So it can be the same for GameCube versus PS2. One could point to how Super Mario Sunshine had pretty water. But it only ran at 30 frames per second and had actual slowdown issues. Not just frame drops, but actual slow down. While Ratchet always ran at a solid 60 frames, had higher resolution assets, significantly higher polygon counts, and it generally always kept that 60 frames unless there was literally hundreds of things on screen at a time. And as far as other games are concerned, there wasn't a racing game on the GameCube that even came close to looking as good as Gran Turismo 4 did, let alone one that ran at 1080i. The multi-platform games, like Need for Speed, actually looked and ran better on the PS2. Again, I know because I had both systems.
Capcom practically admitted to RE4 being a bad port. Not only that, but the game didn't look all that great. And the awful controls and camera angles were used to make the game look "good" while hiding all of the low quality assets.
The original Xbox was definitely the most powerful system of that generation. And had I known Sony would become a bunch of arrogant jerks, I would have gone with the Xbox instead of PS2.