Small but mighty! Remembering the GameCube, Nintendo’s purple bundle of joy
Small but mighty! Remembering the GameCube, Nintendo’s purple bundle of joy. Remembering the GameCube, Nintendo’s purple bundle of joyThe first console I ever bought, it was hyped as a threat to the PlayStation, then mocked as a flop.
What happened
The first console I ever bought, it was hyped as a threat to the PlayStation, then mocked as a flop. But now, as it marks its 25th anniversary, it’s looked back on with misty-eyed reverence This week marks the 25th anniversary of the Nintendo GameCube, the first console I ever bought with my own money. I vividly remember getting on the bus after school with a year’s worth of savings safely zipped into the pocket of my bag and going to a branch of Currys, where I dumped a bunch of notes, coins and vouchers on the counter to collect my pre-order. (It turned out that some of the vouchers from the previous Christmas had expired, but the guy at the checkout clearly felt so sorry for me that he redeemed them anyway. If you’re out there, Currys guy: thank you for taking pity on a desperate 13-year-old. )If it hadn’t been for the ill-fated Wii U console, whose failure to take off in 2012 resulted in the first unprofitable periods in Nintendo’s game-making history, the GameCube would be remembered as the company’s biggest flop aside from the infamous Virtual Boy, from 1995. Released in Japan this week in 2001 (and in May 2002 in Europe), this surprisingly powerful purple cube sold less than the Xbox and the PlayStation 2. With its squat, colourful form and unusual controller, arranged around a big traffic-light-green A button and small analogue sticks designed for small hands, it had a hint of Fisher-Price about it. Continue reading. . .
Photograph: Yoshikazu Tsuno/EPASmall but mighty! But now, as it marks its 25th anniversary, it’s looked back on with misty-eyed reverence This week marks the 25th anniversary of the Nintendo GameCube, the first console I ever bought with my own money. If you’re out there, Currys guy: thank you for taking pity on a desperate 13-year-old. )If it hadn’t been for the ill-fated Wii U console, whose failure to take off in 2012 resulted in the first unprofitable periods in Nintendo’s game-making history, the GameCube would be remembered as the company’s biggest flop aside from the infamous Virtual Boy, from 1995.
Nintendo has walked a different path ever since: the GameCube was arguably the last console that it designed with “core gamers” foremost in mind (although I think the Switch 2 has veered back in this direction). Skip to main contentSkip to navigation A hint of Fisher-Price about it … The new GameCube is displayed at a press preview in Tokyo in August 2001. Released in Japan this week in 2001 (and in May 2002 in Europe), this surprisingly powerful purple cube sold less than the Xbox and the PlayStation 2.
The wider picture
With its squat, colourful form and unusual controller, arranged around a big traffic-light-green A button and small analogue sticks designed for small hands, it had a hint of Fisher-Price about it. But despite being mocked at the time, the GameCube is now revered, fondly remembered as an uncomplicated box of fun at a time when video games were in their performatively adult stage. The charts in the early 00s were dominated by Grand Theft Auto and Gran Turismo, and yet the GameCube launched with a cartoon haunted-house caper (Luigi’s Mansion) and a game where you rolled monkeys around inside transparent spheres (Sega’s Super Monkey Ball).
The idea of a Nintendo console launching with a Sega game was unconscionable to any child of the 90s, but the Cube ended up carrying the torch for that nostalgic flavour of Japanese development into the early 00s, with Sega out of the market and western-made games becoming dominant. Photograph: NintendoLuigi’s Mansion was a strange choice of launch game – really, no Mario? – but it was delightful. Super Smash Bros Melee, with its cast of newly higher-definition Nintendo legends, was inordinately exciting.
The GameCube was home to two excellent Zelda games, the whimsical Wind Waker and emo-tinged Twilight Princess. Shortly after buying a GameCube I started writing game reviews online for money, and got my hands on an Xbox and a PlayStation 2.
What has been reported
The GameCube felt like the end of something, and it was – just not in the way that anybody expected. Behind the scenes, its designers – and Nintendo’s late president, Satoru Iwata – had come to realise that competing on graphics and tech specs was futile and uninteresting. It’s obvious that there’s no future to gaming if we continue to run on this principle that wastes time and energy. ” Nintendo’s next consoles would be the touchscreen DS and motion-controlled Wii – consoles that would not only separate Nintendo from its competitors but change the market for video games and redefine who games were for.
When I bought it all those years ago, I expected it to be the beginning of a new era for Nintendo, but it turned out to be the end of an old one. For its 20th anniversary in 2021, Video Games Chronicle published deep-dive into the GameCube, speaking to several marketers and developers who were involved with its launch and life. Explore more on these topicsGamesPushing Buttons newsletterGames consolesRetro gamesNintendofeaturesShareReuse this contentComments (…)Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussionMost viewedMost viewed
I vividly remember getting on the bus after school with a year’s worth of savings safely zipped into the pocket of my bag and going to a branch of Currys, where I dumped a bunch of notes, coins and vouchers on the counter to collect my pre-order. (It turned out that some of the vouchers from the previous Christmas had expired, but the guy at the checkout clearly felt so sorry for me that he redeemed them anyway.
View image in fullscreenWhimsical … Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.
What happens next
The vivacious animation of the ghosts, the diorama-like detail of the haunted mansion and Luigi’s adorable cowardly voice and body language showed how extra power could infuse games with extra personality. Metroid Prime remains an unimprovable atmospheric classic. It had plenty of more experimental games, too: Eternal Darkness kept track of your character’s sanity and started to show you weird visions or glitch out on you if you let your character spiral into madness.
The lavishly animated brawler Viewtiful Joe looked like nothing I’d ever seen. And then there was that Donkey Kong game that you played with a controller shaped like bongo drums. Because I was a teenager in the 00s, I was deeply sensitive to the perception of video games as childish. I became much more interested in the new kinds of games I was playing on those systems: Ico and Metal Gear Solid on PlayStation, Halo and Knights of the Old Republic on Xbox.