The Nintendo Gamecube was the House of Mario’s main offering during the sixth-generation of consoles. Pitted against Microsoft’s original Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation 2, however, Nintendo hardly stood a chance against the competition.
That said, it doesn’t mean they didn’t put up a fight. The GameCube had an amazing library of games, including Super Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, and Super Smash Bros Melee. But gamers at the time wanted graphics and gameplay that really pushed the envelope, which Halo on the Xbox definitely managed to pull off alongside Square Enix’s offerings on the PS2 like Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy X.
Of course, the main reason why the GameCube didn’t get off the ground in Southeast Asia was due to the rampant game piracy that plagued the region. With the Xbox and PS2, cracked versions of these consoles could run pirated DVDs of games. Nintendo curbed piracy by using mini-DVD discs, which were pretty difficult to replicate.
Nintendo’s handheld offerings, on the other hand, reigned supreme in Southeast Asia, mostly because of piracy. Game Boys and Nintendo DSes were everywhere during this era, and yet Nintendo’s home console only gained a foothold in the region following the release of the Wii. The Wii was the perfect storm of accessible gameplay for all ages, as well as being very easy to pirate across the board.
And yet, the GameCube actually ran a lot better than the PS2, despite the latter’s penchant for having games with higher graphical fidelity. Thanks to the tiny discs, games on the GameCube had relatively short load times even if they were rendering wide open game worlds like those in Wind Waker and Metroid Prime.
The GameCube’s portability and four-player controller ports should have also been a huge draw for people. Carrying around the original Xbox and the larger first-edition PS2 would have been cumbersome. The PS2 only allowed for two-players at a time, unless you had the elusive multitap.
Another big selling point for Nintendo was the Game Boy Player add-on for the GameCube, which allowed gamers to play any GameBoy, GameBoy Colour, or GameBoy Advance game on TV through the GameCube. This amazing feature is almost like a proto-Nintendo Switch and truly showed how Nintendo was way ahead of its .
Overall, it is a damn shame the GameCube was a niche console at the time - only the most hardcore gaming enthusiasts would go out of their way to get their hands on it. And, in some ways, that hardcore fan mindset lives on, especially with the Super Smash Bros. Melee fandom.
While Nintendo hasn’t made a Virtual Console service for the GameCube or Nintendo 64 for their latest console - the Nintendo Switch, at the very least, a handful of the GameCube’s finest can be played on the system.
These include Resident Evil 4, the upcoming Super Mario Sunshine port and the recently released Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered, though we’re hoping for other titles to be rereleased, like Kirby’s Air Ride or Skies of Arcadia: Legends.
Here’s to the GameCube’s 19th anniversary, hopefully we’ll see a proper celebration by Nintendo themselves during next year’s 20th anniversary.
