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I think you and ssx are in the minority as far as fans angry about the lack of Gamecube support. I didn't mean that 21 million people was a few fans; I meant only a few were annoyed.
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Well, first, me and SSX are on different pages of this particular book. This, along with a lot of other stuff, annoyed him so much that he doesn't even want a Wii. I did, and still very much do, want to purchase a Wii. However, I am just calling this what it is, and it is terrible. If I had bought an N64 and had endured the same thing that generation, I have to admit that I very likely would be jumping ship by now though. In fact, think about the numbers of units sold for the N64 compared to the Cube. 40 million vs. 21 million. Doesn't that look to you like the numbers you'd expect if this kind of treatment really did lead to a lot of consumers jumping ship? I think that the proof is already there that this kind of thing does not go unnoticed. Besides, wouldn't Nintendo also like to get some of the fans who bought Xboxes and PS2s this generation? Are those players any less likely to believe the "Nintendo systems get no games" thing now, having seen what happened to the Cube? Are soccer moms, seeing the meager racks of Gamecube games, likely to still assosciate Nintendo with games?
I think it may affect the Cube -->Wii transition less than it did the N64-->Cube one though. This is because the Wii is targeting an audience who probably didn't even play games last generation, and who won't mind the lack of Cube support. As well, they are offering something (sorry Bluemonkey and SSX), that is different enough to generate hype on its own. However, I do know that dropping Cube support early is very unlikely to help Wii sales anymore than they could have helped themselves anyway.