GameCube turns 20

As a fan of Nintendo's Cubic failure, I definitely feel old knowing it's 20. It was my main console back in the day and I still have fond memories of it. And when I can (and I mean WHEN I can, looking at prices of games these days), I still buy games for it (recently it's 007: From Russia with Love, rounding out all the Bond games on the platform).

Still, I can't help but feel this is what most of the modern praise for the Cube is like these days:

Besides that? Any positive memories of it, SW? Games?

outside of a handful of games, the gamecube wasn't that impressive to me honestly. I preffered the ps2 and OG xbox

Best versions of Nintendo franchises at the time

1. Double Dash= Best Mario kart
2. Wind Waker= Best Zelda
3. Melee= Best Super Smash Bros
4. GX= Best F-zero
5. Sunshine= Best 3D Mario
6. Adventure= Best Star Fox

Also a time where Nintendo dared invest in mature games: Eternal Darkness, Geist, Twin Snakes, etc...

I legit only bought this system for Resident Evil 4, so I was a late bloomer on GC. I found myself playing through the bigger titles it offered though, like Metroid Prime and whatnot. so it wasn't a bust

I still remember the day i got my Gamecube, me and my cousins played Melee for the entire day ... i have so many fond memories with this little Cube. I also remember buying Tales of Symphonia thanks to a scholarship, it was a big deal for me because it was the first game i bought with my "own earned money". Metroid Prime, Windwaker, Resident Evil 4, Sould Calibur 2, Rogue Squadron 2 ... way too many amazing games and memories.

Also ... we know why it failed, despite the great library, it doesn't compare to the mainstream appeal of the PS2 which was also plagued with timeless classics like Sons of Liberty, DMC3 or God of War 2. If any, the Gamecube should not have failed and it should have gotten better numbers, but again ... i get what happened.

Done before with 64 late in it's time with Rare. And despite that, still maintained it's kiddy reputation because the plumber, pink puffball, and an electric mouse still exist.

Definitely. I love how diverse the Gamecube is. It's a all around entertaining console, it's small, it's portable, it's purple... I love everything about it, even those tiny discs that made so many publishers drop support.

I love its wavebird controller.

It's by far my favourite Nintendo console and one of the best designs I've seen. I also love that compact PS2 slim.

Damn near half the gaming part of the internet did by the time the Wii came out. But, being the internet, there are receipts.

Happy birthday, Gamecube.

A true underdog story.

GameCube was basically Nintendo's Dreamcast. Dismissed as a commercial failure when it was around. It was only after it died that gamers began appreciating what a great system it was.

Gamecube was my fav console but it got overshadowed by MS Xbox when it was released the same week as GC did and the truth is, I actually put more hours of fun towards Xbox's Halo: CE and the rest of Xbox games than for GC when I got Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2 & Luigi's Mansion to combine. MS sure took a lot of thunder despite PS2 was still the king, GC had great 3rd-party support over the years. At the end of the day, its overall library was pretty strong. But this was the console that, due to its sales failure, force Nintendo abandon the graphics race, and is why both Sony/MS took advantage of the console race and also forcing Nintendo to abandon the console race in the process.

My top GC games are:

1. Super Smash Bros. Melee
2. Luigi's Mansion
3. Bloody Roar: Primal Fury (never understood why this franchise was never to be seen again?)
4. Resident Evil Remake
5. Mario Sunshine
6. Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
7. Metroid Prime & 2
8. F-Zero GX (and the last F-Zero game you'll ever see)
9. Mario Party 4-7
10. Beyond Good & Evil (Also on GoG)
11. Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn
12. Pikmin
13. Tales of Symphonia
14. Viewtiful Joe (bring this series back Capcom)
15. Mario Party 7
16. Star Fox: Adventure (wish it was still just Dinosaur Planet as Rare wanted it to be)

I still have my launch GC functional but I left it behind at my Mom's house still sitting in the basement when I move after I was done with High School.

I still have my GC from back in the day, It's still got the DBZ stickers all over it from 15 year old me. I still keep it around for one game and one game alone: Skies of Arcadia Legends. It's the best version of the game and it's criminally underrated. I will never get rid of my gamecube, or that game.

Great little console. it's a shame nintendo made an absolute mess of promoting it. I only got one because of windwaker (i hadn't played a zelda since a link to the Past. i never had an N64) then as time went on i found more and more gems like the magnificent metroid prime (my first metroid game).

Nintendo made a great selection hardware wise. it was easy to develop for but tricky to master. games like starfox adventures (rares last flex on nintendo hardware), metroid prime, mario sunshine, star wars and so on were not just great looking gamecube games, they were just great looking games...end of. The disc was a bit of an issue but not the deal breaker some think. 1.5GB was fine for the vast majority of games during that gen. morrowind and its expansions could fit in 1.5GB for example. it also helped with having shorter loading times which was a nice boon.

the controller remains one of the greats. if it had an R1 and clickable sticks i think it would have been nigh on perfect basically. it looks odd but when actually using it it makes a lot of sense. the dual stage striggers are a nice boon too and it was very comfortable to use.

i dont have a gamecube anymore (i took it apart when i got my wii) but i still have my wii, a gamecube controller and some GC games lying around somewhere i think. i just need a TV that it can connect to :S.

I loved the system too. Not as much as n64 but its close. I loved the miniature design, the handle on the back, the small disc and the smiley face light that came on when you powered it up. The gamecube also introduced the very first wireless controller of any console back in the day, called the wavebird. Sony quickly copied it and then MS, but it was nintendo that innovated. The best game of that generation released first on gamecube, resident evil 4, and it still holds up today. Metroid Prime still holds up as one of the greatest metroid games ever made, and man they innovated the shit out of that game too. So many techniques like cleverly hiding loading screens behind the opening/closing of doors, the HUD, the rain effects.

The gamecube was nintendos last traditional console though. I mean even though they shrunk it down, it was stronger than the ps2 yet weaker than the xbox. This is something unthinkable of nintendo nowadays...they always make the weakest POS system without even a single shred of doubt. When switch 2 releases in 2 or 3 years, it will just about catch up to base ps4.

The GameCube was a weird system for me I owned it but hardly ever played it and missed a lot of great games. The PS2 and Xbox took over my gaming.

The last Nintendo system i owned. In the first two to three years, it was awesome. Then i became what the Switch is currently is (okay, lets calm down, nothing other than the Wii is as bad as the current Switch situation).

nintendo had no choice, if they didn't separate themselves from ps and xbox, then they would have gone bankrupt. Its sad because I liked nintendos old traditional approach to this new gimmick one.

So what you're saying is that being on par graphically with the x/ps5 and while also having its strong system selling exclusives, it wouldn't have worked? Have we ever heard of SNES? Why is it every time power is in the conversation, we're talking about the GC/N64 and how these two didn't succeed? How about not using dumb mini discs/cartriges? How about having an online infrastructure on par with the other two? Can we please begin with these, and then talk about it being successful or not? Nintendo has not had a single "normal" console without massive flaws in so many generations that its not even funny. COPY THE OTHER TWO, while also having your system selling exclusives. Its not hard. Porting all third party will be very easy, so they'll have the third party support as well.

I am always triggered by Nintendo decisions because i want to own one, but i can't because their systems are stuck generations behind competition, and that's not what i consider as worth owning.

Amazing console.

@nintendoboy16: That meme really is true, but I kinda get how it happened. At the time it was frustrating to miss out on so much like GTA, Burnout 3, murdersimulator 6 etc. But at the end of the generation looking back at the games it does have, there is no denying the GC library is fantastic.

it wouldn't have worked out. People don't buy nintendo consoles for cutting edge tech, they buy them for new ways of approaching gaming. The Wii, Wii U, and Switch in the last 3 gens, the Wii U was closest to traditional and it flopped so hard, it barely even sold like 10 million consoles lifetime and barely floated nintendo in profit. Compare that to the Wii which sold 100 million+ and Switch which has a chance of even beating the monster ps2.

The cartridge thing isn't really an issue now. It was back in 2000ish, because the n64 cartridges were super low size / expensive compared to the playstation discs. The GC mini discs weren't really an issue, they didn't hold as much space as the other 2 consoles though. Nowadays the cartridge might be a benefit, because they relieve storage capacity on the HDD. People can have 100s of games for the switch, and not have to install them.

I never owned a Gamecube but I'm nostalgic for it it's weird.

@Jag85: Minus what happened in sales and where SEGA ended up, I'm sure the Dreamcast wasn't anywhere near reviled as the GameCube was by gamers and the press.

I never owned one but I built a decent library of GC titles on my Wii thanks to BC and its built in GC controller ports and memory slots. And in those early Wii days these games could be had cheap.

I owned the Dreamcast, Playstation 2, and Xbox but never the Gamecube during the sixth generation. Even though I owned every Nintendo consoles in the past ( NES, SNES, and N64) the Gamecube never appealed to me. It was the first time I skipped a Nintendo console. It wasn't terrible but I never got into its games.

It rightfully deserved to lose that generation. It was outclassed by the PS2 library. The Xbox n Gamecube have held up a lot better for unique titles than the HD Twins that would come after, but make no mistake, they got clowned in sales for a good reason.

It's a shame, because I feel like a lot of the wrong lessons were learned during the Gamecube era, given that we've now completely erased Nintendo games using top of the line technology, but it is what it is.

Metroid Prime. It had all the heavy hitters and was in between the other two systems power-wise.

Ahhhh Gamecube, so much nostalgia. Such a great console with a fantastic library of games.

When I think about what my favourite console is, my heart always says Gamecube. I still own and play it to this day.

I had fun with the Gamecube. No regrets with that purchase.

@nintendoboy16: The Dreamcast was reviled by the gaming press when it was around. The gaming press always bashed the Dreamcast every chance it got. Dreamcast and GameCube are similar in that regard. The difference is that Sega left the console business, whereas Nintendo came back with the Wii.

@Jag85: Not what I've been reading on the Dreamcast. That had way more praise in contrast to the GameCube. All it took for reputation to change on GameCube was the Wii's release, and that was it.

I owned a GameCube nearly two decades ago (it was the first home console I bought with my own money), and had fond memories due to playing Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Mario Sunshine. It was at that time that regain interest in console gaming after several years playing PC games like Ultima VII and VIII, Dune II, Warcaft, Heroes of Might and Magic I, II, and III, and Age of Empires II.

It is a shame due to its low sales that Nintendo decided to take the low-tech route after it with the Wii, as I feel that the home console market needs more competition with Nintendo releasing competitively powerful systems. At this time, the home console market is like a two-party system with Sony and Microsoft as the players, while Nintendo is the detached third-party monopolizing a market the others are ignoring.

Unless there is new leadership at Nintendo that brings back the Nintendo before the Wii era or that Nintendo collaborates with major electronic makers like Panasonic to make competitively powerful hardware, I see no serious competition in the console market. There will be no true progress without healthy competition.

Complete nonsense. Nobody buys a console for graphics. Everyone buys it for games, and visuals is a nice bonus, one that is very easy to sell, which is a big plus for the dev/publisher. You're gonna tell me that if BOTW2 was coming out in one month with Kena-like visuals, it wouldn't have been miles better than what it is? And lets not forget the 60fps that the Switch can only dream off of.

I do not understand this denial of Nintendo not wanting/not needing/its fans don't care, when talking about visuals (and fps as well). What is this BS? Why is Nintendo can only be a secondary system? Nobody but a non gamer will take a Switch as their primary, but how is it that no actual core gamers use it as their main? If it uses tech from a century ago, third party ports are difficult and some are impossible, so forget about good third party support. If you don't have access to third party, everything runs in sub 30fps and looks like its literally running on a 360, a console released in 05, it will never be a primary system. And this is my annoyance with it. I want it to be good enough so i could purchase it, and not require buying a PS5 unless it has many Bloodborne level of exclusives, but we will never get this kind of a Nintendo system, because you sheep somehow believe that the last Nintendo system that was allowed to be successful WHILE being a primary system, is the SNES.

I agree with this tbh. Though it is amusing that the GameCube was considered lame and the PS2 was the go to console back in the day. However, nowadays, people have rose tinted glasses for that thing. "Best Nintendo console ever!" Then why didn't y'all buy it?

My favourite console ever. GameCube was Nintendo at the top of their game. Really frustrating that it didn't sell as such, since Nintendo then decided that being on top of their game wasn't the right path.

Bye creative Mario Kart. Bye Pikmin. Bye Paper Mario. Bye F-Zero. Bye Rare. Bye awesome Nintendo graphics. Bye awesome controller. Bye hardware durability. Bye third party support. Love you all, and you are sorely missed.

I bought a GameCube mainly for its exclusive RE games (at the time all new RE games were supposed to be GC only). And I loved it for RE4 and Zero REmake. Other then that it mostly collected dust, I bought maybe 15 games for it total, and if it wasn't for RE and Wind Waker it would have been my worst console purchase.

Also the controller, yeah it worked mostly fine with first party games and even the RE games, but it was garbage for pretty much anything else. Sadly Nintendo hasn't learned their lesson fully seeing the joy cons are ass as well.

I love when people grossly overestimate the PS2 as being a much greater console than it was. Many base it off sales numbers, but gloss over the fact a huge number of people who bought it, only bought it because it was the cheapest DVD player at release. Or gloss over the fact Sony was selling them for $99 overseas up until 2013 meaning they were produced along side the PS3 for the PS3s entire generation. PS2 sales numbers are inflated, and its library was a step back from the PS1 library.

After that generation the only people who stuck with PS2 were the lonely kids with no friends to play Nintendo's great local multiplayers with, and too anti social to make new ones playing games online via Xbox Live.

"turns 20" Don't remind me. I had to open it up and de-solder the battery to change it a couple of weeks ago. That was fun, thanks Nintendo. Make sure the battery is in there good and proper, because they never need changing.

OG Xbox... go Bigly or go home. lol :P

I remember my kid hands trying to hold those controllers. They were bigger than a Switch, lol.

The Dukes baby! Loved'em.

I'm not bragging or anything but me got big hands big feet and big.... lol :P

Edit... By the way Zelda WW was awesome but I never played it on GC, I played it on Wii via BC and it was by far the best game on Wii.

Hence my addition of the Eric Andre shooting Hannibal Burress meme.

Minus maybe a few games (try playing Super Mario World or DKC with that thing), not in my experience.

This will sound so lame, but I was always amazed how the Gamecube's disc were so small but the system still had large, beautiful games/worlds. I never knew the technical end of the ramifications, but sounds like it was a bad move.

@vfighter: The GameCube controller is my favourite analog controller of all time.

Sure, the D-pad sucks. But other than that, it's the greatest analog controller I've ever laid hands on.

Honestly I have sang Gamecube's praises since the day I owned one and have to this day :) I got it for Christmas in 2003 with Zelda Collector's Edition and Kirby AirRide when I was 10 years old. The amount of time I sunk into those two games alone, along with Windwaker, Double Dash, Melee, Metroid Prime, and Paper Mario TTYD. Damn I have so much nostalgia haha. So many awesome memories of playing it with my best friend at the time. Wish I could go back and re-live it.

It's my favorite Nintendo system ever and likely always will be, although SNES and Switch are close 2nd and 3rd to it.

@girlusocrazy: In practice, GC discs had much faster loading than DVDs for PS2. Virtually every multi-plat loads faster on the GC. While larger discs should provide more read speed in theory, that's not how it works in practice. Load times have much more to do with latency and seek time than raw read speed. Smaller discs reduce the latency and seek time considerably, hence why GC discs load faster than PS2 DVDs.

Ah, ...the good ol' days of gaming back then.

@Jag85: This is the first time I've ever heard this lol. It's not my least favorite of all time, but it's pretty low on my list. I liked the dualshock and s-type way way more that gen. The duke was worse then the GC controller though.