Nintendo is barely doing better with 3rd parties on GCN than on N64.

A refutation of the claim that GCN's 3rd party support was little improved over that of N64.

Common Responses

Wake up. First of all there's sheer numbers. Just looking at the amount of games out for GameCube now, and for the N64 at this point in its life, there's just no comparison. Here is a page that lists the games out in the US for the N64 as of August 1, 1997 compared to the GCN as of August 1, 2002. Even though that's ~10 months for N64 and ~8.5 months for GCN, in terms of third party games the GCN handily beats the N64, 54 to 12.

OK, so the numbers are much greater. But what about important games, from major third parties? Allow me to compare a few, mentioning what they did with N64 and what they're doing with GCN.

Capcom: For N64 they released a Disney Tetris game, a port of Resident Evil 2, and a port of Mega Man Legends; if there was anything else it doesn't come to mind. For GCN they've released the Resident Evil 1 remake, REs 0 and 4 are in the works, and ports of 2, 3, and Code Veronica are coming. Mega Man Battle Network Transmission (name not final) looks to be GCN exclusive. The already-released Mickey's Magical Mirror was developed by them. There are a few more games they've admitted are in the works, but nothing official has been said about them.

Konami: For N64 they released several major soccer titles, several Castlevanias and Goemons, and actually quite a few others. While for GCN they've pretty much released second-tier soccer games and sports games with Disney characters.

Namco: For N64 they released a few things like a super-deformed Japanese baseball game and one of their classic games packs, and allowed Nintendo to make a Ridge Racer port. For GCN there've been a few things already like a Pac-Man platformer and a Namco-themed party game, and in the future are things like a Tales of Phantasia game, another RPG with little known about it called Baten Kaitos, a space shooter Star Fox game, and a few other multiplatform titles like Soul Calibur, Dead to Rights, and Ridge Racer.

Sega: Obviously Sega wasn't a third party last generation, but there have already been plenty of exclusives/enhanced exclusive ports from them for GCN: Super Monkey Ball and its sequel, the improved port of Sonic Adventure 2, the latest version of Phantasy Star Online, and Beach Spikers. In the future are coming more ports of older Sonic games, Skies of Arcadia Legend, an F-Zero game, Virtua Fighter Quest, and more.

Square: For N64 they released nothing. For GameCube their first game is a Final Fantasy; FF Crystal Chronicles. It's the only one officially known of yet.

I list Konami because it is the main trend-bucker; a company that gladly supported the N64 in a big way but doesn't seem to want to do the same with the GCN. As for the rest of the listed companies, there's already far more from them released and known about then there was from them in the full life of the N64.

September 16, 2002