Welcome to NSports, if we feel that you as a sports fan will be interested in a game or peripheral, we will give it coverage right here on NSports. If you enjoy other genres of games in addition to sports, then be sure to visit NAdventures and NShooters in order to get your fill of gaming content. Check out http://hub.ngenres.com for the highlight stories from each genre.

Editorials   European Launch and European Orbit: The Cube Can Fly
- By Nathaniel Walker [Associate Editor]

When I recently mentioned to a friend of mine from the UK that I was going to write an article about Nintendo’s GameCube, she said something quite remarkable. Without pause, without question, without even a hint of shame, she uttered something of great import, something of critical and immeasurable meaning. She said that the GameCube had (drum roll, please!) “cool adverts.” Now, I have to admit that it probably seems like quite a normal thing to say, when you yourself have seen and approved of the “cool” Nintendo ads in the twilight hours between binges of playing Nintendo and reading about Nintendo on Nintendo websites and in Nintendo magazines. But this girl is no videogame nerd like you or I--in fact, she seems to hold a special place in her heart for a rabid antipathy of the things. And thus my point: I maintain that her comments were remarkable because not only does she know about our obscure little Cube, but she has hoppin’ (and specific) things to say about its advertisements. I ask you, how many young Americans who don’t care for videogames would have a single bloody thing to say about the GameCube, much less in its defense? If a non-gaming friend of yours even knows the dumb thing exists, it is probably because you have personally bothered them about it. I am convinced that my friend’s comments mean one of two things (and more than likely both): she is thoroughly well-informed and pretty Neat-O, and/or Nintendo has done a rockin’ job of promoting the GameCube in Europe.

The Nintendo GameCube (or the “GBox”, as many of us like to whisper in quiet, clenched-teeth Microsoft mockery) has made quite a debut in Europe. It is reckoned that 75,000 units have been moved in the UK. A mere drop in the bucket which poured 400,000 units into European homes overall. Not bad, when the dismal performance of the XBox in Europe gave the gaming industry every indication that console sales would be hard to come by in the Old World. The Playstation 2, Britain’s previous launch sales record-holder, moved a hefty 70,000 units when it first landed on those hardy shores. The GameCube has more or less met and raised Sony by 14%. Granted, the Playstation 2 is still way ahead of the competition, but a record-breaking launch is nothing if not a giant leap in the right direction for Nintendo.

So why the success? Nintendo’s hard-core marketing strategy in Europe is at least partially to blame. Adverts, adverts, and more adverts, all over the place and geared towards everyone’s most primal desires. Nintendojo.com reported an interesting tidbit about a group of models being painted up with Nintendo mascots--and if anything has proven to successfully woo what is typically the Playstation’s older demographic, it is female booty. And some uncharacteristically naked BabeCube--I mean, GameCube--posters were put up all over the Europlace, providing further evidence that Nintendo was aiming for a post-puberty crowd. This crowd was called and accounted for at the GameCube’s European launch.

For better or worse, that racy stuff just isn’t dished out by Nintendo here in the US. I honestly can’t help but wonder why. Granted, the European market is a different sort of place than the North American market, and this calls for a different sort of strategy. But the different sorts of success tells me that perhaps Nintendo is doing something woefully right in Europe, while failing to hit the mark in North America and Japan. That mark may or may not be scantily clad Milano models or unhealthily skinny buttocks plastered on the side of electric tram shelters--but over here it is being missed regardless. Perhaps the disparity in marketing strategies is more a result of American sensitivity towards child marketing than it is Nintendo’s confused and inconsistent publicity aims. Nintendo’s main global demographic is still younger folks--and while it may be permissible to titillate the youngsters in sexually jaded cultures elsewhere (while simultaneously managing to attract the older crowd), that particular advertising “shotgun” is not received so warmly on this side of the Atlantic. I’m not making moral judgments here--I am merely pondering the differences in Nintendo’s international approaches. But if what we would call more “adult” marketing schemes are executed in Europe while avoided in North America for these reasons, what is stopping them from hitting Japan? We all know Japanese culture is not necessarily one to hold back when it comes to using libidos for moneymaking. Come to think of it, maybe Japan is too accustomed to sexually oriented marketing for the heiny to have an impact worth the overseas PR risks. The Japanese launch was first, and the world was watching! Europe as a market is a little more to stage left, and little further away from the microscope. But who knows? My first guess is that Europe was an experiment, a chance for Nintendo to see if they could remain credible when their logo was plastered all over the human form. If so, the hypothesis stood mighty firm, and we can probably expect to see more of the stuff elsewhere. Frankly, I’m a little disappointed. Cheap, borderline-exploitative marketing tricks do little to further artistic credibility. But, I suppose business is business as usual.

Aside from the advert bonanza, there was another, perhaps even greater reason behind Nintendo’s success in the Old World market: price. The XBox, in the face of dismal sales, saw its price intentionally collapse. The GameCube followed suit just before launch, and it paid off. In countries where employment rates fare worse than our own and taxes are considerably higher (granted, accessible health care and wonderful transit systems are not things to scoff at), disposable income can be a little more difficult to come by. The GameCube offered more bang for the pound/euro/franc/zwoty/crown/ruble/kroner, and in the end this had to have as substantial an impact on the gaming crowd’s decisions as the racy adverts did. Top it all off with a tremendous launch library that made the North American and Japanese launches look like pizza-and-donut pre-church parties, and you’ve got a little Welsh kid with a big smile toting a GameCube home on the same streets where his recently-sold bicycle once rolled. Price is a factor everywhere, especially in my house, but I think the price differences between the GameCube and the other consoles gave it a greater advantage in Europe than it did in North America or Japan. But I’m no Adam Smith. These days I probably wouldn’t even qualify as an Adam.

Whether it was Nintendo’s broader, more aggressive marketing program, or the handy price tag, or both, or neither, it is fair to say that the folks at the Big N are probably smiling every time they hear a French accent. They have cause to celebrate their bang-up launch in Europe--which, by the way, is the fastest-growing videogame market on the planet. I presume that the Cube’s small size, nifty design, and lack of corporate stench all had something to do with the GameCube’s success as well. But who knows? It will be interesting to see if the Cube holds out in Europe, and if Nintendo hauls some of the marketing tilt employed over there, over here. My best guess is that if Nintendo hits the forthcoming World Cup in Japan and South Korea with Euro-style advertising, than we can expect that take on tactics to slide slowly into North America. Hell, anything that makes Nintendo more successful is going to have me interested and smiling. I just hope that we don’t see Nintendo decay into a Sony-style shadow of its former self, where their infallible ability to create quality and original games is blown down to the second tier in favor of crap games where sex and violence (and disgusting mixes of the two) are the secrets of success. A cutie-pie on a poster doesn’t scare me. Grand Theft Auto does. I hope that the phrase “The Nintendo Difference” continues to mean “The Nintendo Superiority”, even if they have to become more aggressive when it comes to pulling in the masses. But until they cross that line into petty corporate slimedom, I will continue to tip my hat to them, and at the moment especially to Nintendo of Europe. Well done, fellows! Now let’s get some Mario Kart in here and finish those wankers off.