Eidos to drop Cube support in key 2004 titles

Publisher Eidos looks set to join Acclaim in dropping support for the GameCube, with CEO Mike McGarvey announcing that the company will not be creating Cube SKUs of its key titles for 2004.

Speaking to The Times Online about Eidos' results, which were announced last week, McGarvey described the GameCube as "a declining business" which had accounted for only a tiny fraction of the company's revenues.

Eidos' "pillar" titles for 2004 will therefore be appearing on PS2, Xbox and PC, but not on the GameCube - which sounds for all the world like Eidos is dropping support for the platform, but the company's PR division apparently denies this, stating instead that the company simply has no current plans for the Cube.

This is very similar to the situation which arose in June where Acclaim boss Rod Cousens said that his company would not be supporting the Cube in the foreseeable future - asking why they should support platforms "that don't deliver profits". Officially, however, Acclaim claims not to have dropped support for the Cube - it just happens not to be making any games for it.

It's understandable that publishers would prefer not to anger Nintendo by officially dropping Cube support, especially since the forthcoming next-generation platform wars are still very much a three horse race. However, ending Cube development even in an unofficial way is still damaging for Nintendo, which has experienced limited success in building third party support for the Cube and GBA.

From a business perspective, however, it's hard to fault Eidos' reasoning in ending development for the platform. Cube versions of multi-platform titles invariably sell far fewer copies than their counterparts on PS2 and Xbox, and with Nintendo itself as the main competition on the platform, even third-party Cube exclusives have difficulty finding a foothold in the market.

While Cube publishing continues to make sense for a company like EA - whose internal middleware makes developing an SKU for an additional console platform relatively painless, and more importantly, whose special deal with Nintendo makes Cube publishing far more attractive financially - it would come as little surprise to anyone to see more small- to medium-sized publishers dropping out of the Cube market in the coming months.