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Note: Alright, I have to say something, everyone. I'm sorry that I haven't been able to keep up with the blog for the past several months. I have just started college, so my free time has been scarce. I also didn't bring my Gamecube to college, in the interest of saving space. In retrospect, that was a mistake; I brought my PS3, and haven't touched it once since I got here. So, next semester, I will bring up my Gamecube, and the articles will continue! So, regardless of my busy schedule, this is one event that I wouldn't miss for the world.


Ladies and gentlemen, today is a grand day, indeed. On this day, ten years ago, the Nintendo Gamecube was released in North America, and a legacy was born. So, let's take a look at the console's conception, and follow it through its whole life, starting all the way back in the tumultuous era of 1998, when development started on Nintendo's Project Dolphin, a successor to the Nintendo 64, released two years prior. Nintendo saw that the time had finally passed for physical media in home consoles, seeing the success of the Sony PlayStation (and in Japan, the Sega Saturn), and despite many quality games and the most powerful system on the market at the time, was left in the dust in the console race, having come in second in North America, and dead last in its native country of Japan. Nintendo had lost a lot of big-name developers like Capcom, Namco, Squaresoft, and Enix with the Nintendo 64, all of which showed little to no support for the system, and seeked to win them back in the next generation. In response to the former, and to keep up with Sega's peppy new challenger the Dreamcast and its head start to the market, Nintendo started development on Project Dolphin to alleviate the shortcomings of their current system. Things got even more complicated when the software partnership between Sega and Microsoft broke off, and Microsoft decided to try their hand in the console market with the then-named Direct-X Box, later renamed the Xbox. Then, soon after, Sega was tragically crushed under the weight of the PlayStation 2, and just like that, the console war was back to 3 factions again. In 1999, the Dolphin was revealed to the gaming public, and had many gamers salivating at the sight of the capabilities of Nintendo's new hardware. After some various name changes in development from the initial Dolphin, to the Starcube, it was eventually given its true name, the Gamecube.

Nintendo certainly had their work cut out for them with the Gamecube The PS2 got a huge head start on them by releasing in 2000, but due to hardware and software shortages on Sony's end, Nitnendo was able to maintain a strong foothold during the Christmas season with their N64 with new titles like The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and Banjo-Tooie. However, it was a minor victory, as future Nintendo 64 releases would quickly slow to a trickle in the coming months, to a point where there were no new releases for several months prior to the Gamecube's launch. In contrast, it was nowhere near as bad as the drought of games between the Saturn and Dreamcast, something Nintendo can surely thank their lucky stars for. In a surprise move, in an attempt to grab some of Nintendo's early adopters, Mircosoft launched their Xbox 3 days before the Gamecube, making the 'Cube the last-released 6th-generation game console. The Nintendo Gamecube was finally released on November 18th in North America, preceded by a September 16th Japanese release, ushering in a fresh new start for Nintendo.

Nintendo tried many different hardware concepts in development for Dolphin, even some very forward-thinking ideas like hardware-supported Stereoscopic 3D, which actually made it into the final hardware for the Gamecube, but Nintendo never allowed any game to use it due to the rarity of 3D televisions at the time. (However, it was left in the code for launch title Luigi's Mansion, but was left disabled in the final build of the game.) Speaking of which, the hardware of the Gamecube is actually something quite special; in a technical sense, it was significantly different than the PlayStation 2, which relied on software workarounds to utilize graphical tricks like lighting, graphical filters, or multi-level anti-aliasing, all of which was built into the hardware itself on the Gamecube. This allowed for developers to offload system work that would otherwise have been handled by an already-busy CPU, like in the aforementioned PS2 setup. This made the Gamecube a very easy system to develop for in the eyes of developers. Not to mention already being more powerful than the PlayStation 2 in raw statistics, this allowed the Gamecube to achieve Xbox-level graphical fidelity. Many developers even were so bold as to say that the Gamecube was, in a practical sense, equal to the Xbox due to the Xbox's unoptimized and inefficient methods of processing code. This has sparked no end of debate amongst graphics junkies, and remains a topic of controversy to this day. The only thing about the Gamecube that has been a major hindrance that has kept it from the same games as its contemporaries was its limited storage medium, the mini-DVD.

Nintendo was eager to rush into the 6th hardware generation with optical media in the forefront of their minds. But, in order to attempt to keep the many advantages of cartridges, such as fast loading times, durability, and a proprietary game format, Nintendo opted for another controversial and unorthodox approach. What was born was the Mini-DVD, a semi-proprietary disc format created by Panasonic. It was significantly smaller and had a much lower capacity than a standard DVD, weighing in at 8 cm (~3 in) and 1.4 GB. Although the Gamecube's disc drive was technically capable of reading standard-sized DVDs, due to the laser's metal reading track, it cannot read past the length of a mini-DVD. Because of the medium's small size, the disc drive could spin at a faster rate, and data could be read off the disc faster without fear of damaging the drive with larger discs. This is why loading times are generally very fast on Gamecube games compared to their PS2 ports. This decision was also made to keep in sync with the overall aesthetic of the system, which was intended to be one of a compact design. In the end, this decision probably caused Nintendo more problems that it solved, as the lack of disc space lost Nintendo some very big 3rd-party games like Grand Theft Auto 3. Thus, the storage medium nightmare of the Nintendo 64 began anew. The medium did have some notable advantages, however. The large, open world of games like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker would have never been possible, or at the very least, severely hampered if not for the fast loading speeds granted by the mini-DVD, continuing Nintendo's long-standing design tradition of lightning-fast loading times for first-party games; we all know the amount of care Nintendo puts into their first-party endeavors.

Even though the Gamecube was an amazing little machine in terms of specifications, it is really the software that stands out about the system. I've said this a few times before, but for Nintendo's in-house development, the Gamecube was a very experimental system. They did things that were actually pretty crazy when taken into perspective. A Mario game where the main focus of the game is not on his own jumping abilities? A Metroid First-Person Shooter? A Kirby Racing game? That weird-looking Zelda game? A Donkey Kong platformer that used a rhythm game controller? And weirdest of all, launching the console with a Mario game that doesn't star Mario? Insanity! These are all things Gamecube owners probably said at some point during the time they owned their system. It helped Nintendo try out a lot of concepts that they normally would never have been able to try. This is why the Gamecube is such a fascinating console; it gives the player unique experiences that they wouldn't ever find anywhere else, even on other Nintendo platforms. I'm not going to go into too much detail about the games here (each one really does deserve its own post), but the main point I want to convey is that the Gamecube is different. Who knows; if Nintendo had not gone and taken risks with the 'Cube, they may not have learned enough to make the Wii what it is today. That's not to say the Gamecube doesn't stand on its own merits; it more than does that. But, its influence extends far beyond what many people remember it as.

The Gamecube lasted almost 6 years before being discontinued in favor of the Wii. While it was outlasted by both the Xbox and by a much longer period, the PS2, its name will live on in gaming history. It is a console that deserves a lot more respect than it gets. But, the people who do appreciate it know exactly why it is such a great system. It epitomizes what makes Nintendo who they are. If nothing else, the Gamecube should always be remembered as the console that gave us something new and fresh, from a company that is so often criticized for being stale and predictable. All this is why I feel that the Gamecube represents one of Nintendo's finest hours. So, in closing, I want you to do something today. Something many of you may not have done in a while. I want you to play your Gamecube. Show it some love. What better way to close out an era than to go back to the very beginning, and remember what the Gamecube really is. Fun.



This is Lisalover1, and now you know the rest of the story.

P.S: There was a lot of stuff that I wanted to add to this article, like a top ten GameCube game list, or going into the various accessories for the system, but I just didn't have time. Maybe some other day, but right now, this will have to do.

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