Part 7: The Defeat Told by Numbers
And then, the era delivered its cruel verdict. Ultimately, the GameCube's worldwide sales reached approximately 21.74 million units. In contrast, the champion, the PlayStation 2, sold 155 million. By the numbers, it was a clear "defeat" in everyone's eyes. The philosophy of "feel" and "pure play" that Nintendo believed in could not overcome the great wave of the era, which included DVD playback and the internet.
Part 8: The Turnaround from Defeat
But the story gets truly amazing from here. Nintendo never looked away from that "defeat." They kept asking themselves and the world, "Why did our idea of 'fun' only reach a core group of game fans?" By confronting this question with sincerity, they arrived at an answer: "A new invention to make people who don't play games smile." From that answer, the protagonists of the greatest turnaround in history were born: the Nintendo Wii and the Nintendo DS. The touch screen, motion controls. New interfaces that anyone could play intuitively. Without the "defeat" of the GameCube, the Wii and DS would never have been born.
Part 9: The Path Lit by the Purple Glow
What the GameCube taught us, and Nintendo itself, was a precious lesson that cannot be measured by specs or sales figures. The "real experience of sitting side-by-side," something our modern era of online connections has slightly forgotten. Seeing your friend's expression, laughing out loud, getting genuinely frustrated. That irreplaceable time. And the lesson that "within every painful failure, a light that leads to the next victory is hidden." The GameCube was not the conqueror of history. But it was a great "sage" that engraved dense memories in the hearts of the 21.74 million who loved it, and reminded Nintendo of what was most important. That purple light, even now, quietly, but surely, illuminates the path ahead.