The Gamecube was definitely more powerful than the PS2. I think the original XBox still outperformed it, though.
Really, the GC's main downfall was that the storage medium they used was horrible.
In all fairness Microsoft sits on a pile of money generated by Windows, which gives them quite an edge. But yeah, correct on all points.
There were loading times in Brawl? I really didn't feel it.
Brawl has a long load when first starting the game, otherwise it seems pretty negligible to me. I've already seen 3DS games with more intrusive loading than that. Not to mention, God help you if you find yourself in need of the Wii System's SD Card menu.
- Nintendo considering launching Skyward Sword around the same time Wii's successor hits
I sure hope not. The Wii's need of solid software is only going to grow more intense as people start anticipating new hardware, and if Nintendo's showcasing a power boost with the thing (as in, no easy generation-leaping ports like with Twilight Princess and Super Paper Mario), then that's all the more reason Skyward Sword should come sooner rather than later. I'm seeing too many late-lifecycle DS games already that are only suffering for it, be it in sales or in whether or not they get localized at all.
I'd be wary of that, the Wii tried that and we got [parasitic bomb] like "Chicken Shoot". What they should try and do is step up QA to keep freeware/cheap/lazily made garbage from reaching the console.
I don't think the Wii held back on releases so much as the gaming populace rebelled against Nintendo cutting their hype trains short. Brawl was basically the last non-Zelda Wii game to get a long pre-release media showing, Mario Kart kinda missed the mark, and Nintendo started their ninja-secrecy launches from there. It left the gap feeling worse than it really was, IMHO.
Now, with the 3DS, they've definitely held their best foot back and I'm getting annoyed with it real fast. Pilotwings was welcome, but they could have done much more with it. Kid Icarus can't come soon enough.
(Star Fox)
[tornado fang]. Yes.
Damn straight. *IF* they get back to the formula that actually works, anyway. Flight game sequels seem to always run into trouble when some idiot decides that flight isn't enough. >.>
What issues? Their saves being 60 blocks or so? why do those saves take so much damn space anyway? I've always wondered about that.
More like digital download issues. WiiWare games are subject to an extremely tight filesize limit, which is why MMU (before it was canned) was expected to skip it. Half a gig works fine for saves, but for a collection of N64 games, let alone original titles, you run into some serious storage issues. That's also why you basically never see post-release content developed for any Wii game.
Thankfully, with the 3DS, Nintendo had the good sense to design it to stream off of external storage (the SD card). The Wii was not, which leaves its "SD menu" as only an automated file swap with the system's flash memory, thus requiring one to leave empty space on an already tight system storage as well as grossly inflating the load time. It's one of my pet peeves with the system.