I don't know. THe GC started with it's first system seller's, SSBM and Rogue Leader being rated T...
And it had two excellent M-Rated games within a year: Eternal Darkness and the RE remake. I think it's more perception than anything. XBox is periceived as cool. After all, it has the most power, so it has to be the best system, right? But graphics and gore don't make games. The Xbox had only one game worth buying it for at launch--and for most of it's first year.
THe GC had two at launch, and two more by June. Only perception that Halo was somehow superior itself to several quailty games saved the Xbox.
Which was my point earlier, that Nintendo can make all the E-rated games they want... But if they start making simple crap to 'attract a new market' then I might have to forgoe aquisition of the Revolution.
1. Just because we're older doesn't mean we still can' enjoy a good E rated game.
2. More than growing up, now it seems that younger gamers all just play crappy spongebob squarepants games so that games that are actually good such as Advance Wars or Super Mario Sunshine fall by the wayside comparatively. It almost seems like younger kids are less savvy. I played SuperMarioBros all the time when I was five, but now kids addicted to spongebob will complain that it's too hard.
Not that Nintendo was so much doing a bunch of things wrong... It's just that they are unwilling to do things that appeal to the mass media and to developers.