The Nintendo GameCube ( ニンテンドーゲームキューブ , Nintendō Gēmukyūbu ? ) , officially abbreviated as GCN , is Nintendo's fourth home video game console and is part of the sixth generation console era. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 and predecessor to the Nintendo Wii.
The Nintendo GameCube is the first Nintendo console to use optical discs as its primary storage medium, after several aborted projects from Nintendo and its partners to utilize optical-based storage media. In contrast with the GameCube's contemporary competitors, the Sony PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Xbox, the GameCube uses miniDVD-based discs instead of full-size DVDs. Partially as a result of this, it does not have the DVD-Video playback functionality of these systems, nor the audio CD playback ability of other consoles that use full-size optical discs.
In addition, the GameCube also introduced a variety of connectivity options to Nintendo consoles, and was the third Nintendo console, after the Nintendo 64DD, to support online play officially, via the Nintendo GameCube Broadband Adapter and Modem Adapter. It also enabled connectivity to the Game Boy Advance to access exclusive features of certain games or to use the portable system as a controller for the Game Boy Player.
The console was released on September 14, 2001 in Japan, November 18, 2001 in North America, May 3, 2002 in Europe, and May 17, 2002 in Australia. The GameCube sold 21.74 million units worldwide. Nintendo ceased production of the console in 2007. Madden NFL 08 is believed to be the final GameCube game to be released in North America.
Marketing
Nintendo has used several advertising strategies and techniques for the GameCube. Around the time of release, the GameCube was advertised with the slogan "Born to Play." The earliest commercials displayed a rotating cube animation, which would morph into the GameCube logo as a female voice whispers, "GameCube." This was usually displayed at the end of GameCube game commercials.
A subsequent ad campaign featured the "Who Are You?" slogan across Nintendo's entire product line, to market the wide range of games Nintendo offers. The idea behind the "Who Are You?" campaign is that "you are what you play"; the kind of game a person enjoys playing suggests something about that gamer's personality. The "Who Are You?" logo is designed in graffiti-style lettering. Most of the "Who Are You?" commercials advertised games developed or published by Nintendo, but some developers paid Nintendo to promote their games, using Nintendo's marketing and advertising resources.
Nintendo also offered several different limited-edition software bundle promotions with the GameCube hardware throughout the system's production.
Hardware
Like its predecessor, the Nintendo 64, the Nintendo GameCube was available in many colors. The two most common, released during the console's launch, were "Indigo" (the standard color used in most early advertising) and "Jet Black." "Spice Orange" GameCubes were also offered as a standard model, but only in Japan. However, the standard controller was widely available in this color outside of Japan as well. Later, Nintendo released GameCubes with a "Platinum" color scheme, marketed as a limited edition product. Other limited edition colors and styles were also only released in Japan.
Following Nintendo tradition, the GameCube's model numbers, DOL-001 and 101, are a reference to its codename, "Dolphin." The official accessories and peripherals have model numbers beginning with DOL as well. Another Dolphin reference, "Flipper" is the name of the GPU for the GameCube. Panasonic made a licensed version of the GameCube with DVD playback, called the Panasonic Q.
Benchmarks provided by third-party testing facilities indicate that Nintendo's official specifications, especially those relating to performance, may be conservative. One of Nintendo's primary objectives in designing the GameCube hardware was to overcome the perceived limitations and difficulties of programming for the Nintendo 64 architecture, thus creating an affordable, well-balanced, developer-friendly console that still performed competitively against its rivals.
The development hardware kit was called the GameCube NR Reader. Model numbers for these units begin with DOT. These units allow developers to debug beta versions of games and hardware. These units were sold to developers by Nintendo at a premium price and many developers modified regular GameCubes for game beta testing because of this. The NR reader will not play regular GameCube games, only special NR discs burned by a Nintendo NR writer.
Technical specifications
The Nintendo GameCube Game Disc is the software storage medium for the Nintendo GameCube, created by Matsushita. Chosen to prevent unauthorized copying and to avoid licensing fees to the DVD Consortium, it is Nintendo's first non-cartridge storage method for consoles released outside of Japan (the Famicom Disk System and Nintendo 64DD were exclusive to Japan). Some games which contain large amounts of voice acting or pre-rendered video (for example, Tales of Symphonia ) have been released on two discs; however, only twenty-five titles have been released on two discs, and no games require more than two discs.
The MultiAV port is identical to the one used in Nintendo's earlier Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo 64 consoles, allowing most cables from these systems to be used interchangeably.
Nintendo found that the digital AV port was used by less than one percent of users, leading to the removal of the port from consoles manufactured after May 2004.
Serial Port 2 was also removed from models produced after the first product revision.
Memory and storage
The GameCube features two ports that accommodate memory cards for saving game data. The three official memory card sizes are: 59 blocks (4 Mbit/512 KB, grey card), 251 blocks (16 Mbit/2 MB, black), and 1019 blocks (64 Mbit/8 MB, white). Cheaper third-party memory cards are also available.
Controller
Main article: Nintendo GameCube ControllerThe standard GameCube controller has a wing grip design, and is designed to fit well in the player's hands. It includes a total of eight buttons, two analog sticks, a D-pad, and an internal rumble motor. The primary analog stick is on the left, with the D-pad below it. On the right are four buttons; a large green "A" button in the center, a smaller red "B" button to the left, an "X" button to the right and a "Y" button to the top. Below those, there is a yellow "C" stick, which often serves different functions, such as controlling the camera. The Start/Pause button is located at the middle of the controller face, and the rumble motor is encased within the center of the controller.
On the top of the controller there are two analog shoulder buttons marked "L" and "R," as well as one digital one marked "Z." The "L" and "R" shoulder buttons have both digital and analog capabilities. In analog mode, the shoulder buttons have an additional "click" when fully depressed. In digital mode, it will register it as digital only when fully depressed. This difference, in effect, serves as two additional buttons on the controller without the need to actually add physical buttons. This works by means of a dual-sensor system inside the controller, a slider piece, which is moved by pressing down on the shoulder button and a separate button press pad at the base.
The WaveBird wireless controller is a radio frequency (RF) based wireless controller, based on the same design as the standard controller. It communicates with the GameCube system wirelessly through a receiver dongle connected to one of the system's controller ports. As a battery power-conservation measure, the Wavebird lacks the rumble function of standard controllers.
Technical issues
Some earlier and later revisions of the GameCube consoles developed disc read problems with the optical pickup becoming thermally sensitive over time, causing read errors when the console reached normal operating temperature. Failures of this sort require replacement of the optical pickup. Affected consoles have sometimes been serviced free of charge by Nintendo even after the expiration of the warranty period.
Secret Startup Sounds
There are two secret startup sounds for the GameCube, which do not affect the startup sequence in any other way. If the Z button is pressed on one controller during startup, the sounds of a squeaking toy, xylophone, springs, and childish laughter will play. If four controllers are connected and all four Z buttons are pressed, kabuki-style sounds will be played, including vocalization and drumming.
Software library
See also: List of Nintendo GameCube games, List of GameCube games with ED support, Chronology of GameCube games, and Player's ChoiceLaunc
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