Nintendo has been lagging behind the competition in the sales department recently. With all the gloom and doom that has been generating, I thought it might be fun to look back on some of their other panic-inducing ventures, their darkest hours.

Or, as most of us fondly remember those times, Nintendo’s Golden Age.

You might have been expecting scathing remarks about the Virtual Boy or the 64DD, which definitely fall into the abysmal failures category. But actually, during their eras both the Nintendo 64 and the Nintendo Gamecube were thoroughly outperformed by the competition. Funny how they’re all I remember playing on.

Nintendo 64



Released in 1996 and pitted against the mighty Playstation, the N64 sold a meager 32 million units, performing about half as well as the original NES and not even close to approaching the 102 million unit sales of the Playstation.

But numbers aside, the software titles released exclusively for this system top the charts as some of the best of all time, introducing graphics and control mechanisms that were revolutionary and that were pivotal in shaping the gaming world we know today.

Just to name a few of the legendary ones:

Super Mario 64

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

Mario Party

Super Smash Bros.

Mario Kart 64

Star Fox 64

GoldenEye 007

And I could go on for a while about some of my personal favorites (Star Wars Episode I: Racer, I will love you forever). But that controller. Oh, that controller. Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?

It certainly says something that nearly 20 years later people are still paying for and downloading virtual versions of these games. Mario Kart 64 never gets old.

In spite of the 64’s losing battle against the Playstation console, Nintendo’s stock price continued to climb through its tenure, largely driven by strong sales of their uncontested handheld systems, peaking in February 2000 at about 27 USD per share.

Nintendo Gamecube

The poor thing never stood a chance. Unable to regain the market share lost to Sony during the 64 era and facing Microsoft’s new Xbox at the same time, the Gamecube sold only 21 million hardware units, making it Nintendo’s worst-selling home console ever. It sold nearly as much software as the 64 had, but next to the Playstation 2’s approximately 155 million consoles sold and Xbox’s 24 million, it didn’t look like much.

Stocks plummeted following its poor performance, bottoming out at about 9.2 USD per share in 2003.

But, again, it touted some amazing software that we still love and play today. Examples include:

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Super Smash Bros. Melee

Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

Pikmin and Pikmin 2

Super Mario Sunshine

Animal Crossing

F-Zero GX

And who doesn’t remember this:

Those were the days, I tell you. We had an Ocarina of Time Master Quest back then! But the business world disagrees, and that’s fine.

We all spent too much time arguing about which system was best back then. The point was we all had fun playing them, am I right?

Anyway, we all know what happened after that. The glory days ended, the Wii was released, and Nintendo was saved. Doesn’t quite sound right, but that’s how I remember it. Fortunately, the Wii was backward compatible. One of its few redeeming qualities.

That brings us back to the present. What a nostalgia fest.

This whole thing has got me to thinking that we’re probably going to look back on the Wii U the same way: listing our favorite titles and remembering the doom and gloom whilst in the midst of another “Nintendo crisis.”

The lineup is already pretty impressive:

The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess HD remakes

The Legend of Zelda Wii U

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U

Yoshi’s Woolly World

Super Mario Maker

Star Fox Zero

Mario Kart 8

Splatoon

Pikmin 3

Heck, looking at that list I just realized I already own more games for Wii U than I did for Wii. Whoops.

Here’s to Nintendo’s failures.