Nintendo Game Cube

First released in 2001 in Japan, the Nintendo Game Cube was Nintendo's sixth generation video gaming system. This game console was the most compact, while at the same time, being the least expensive in its era. This unit succeeded the Nintendo 64, and at the same time was the predecessor to the Nintendo Wii.

Originally code-named the Dolphin, the announcement of the release of the Nintendo Game Cube was made in 1999 at the E3 convention. It would not be until a year later, when Nintendo's very own Space World convention would announce the official name of the Nintendo Game Cube. The system came out with a variety of colours that included a very special Resident Evil 4, black and platinum game system.

This system used a proprietary optical device storage that was created by a subsidiary corporation of the Panasonic Corporation. The CDs that were utilised by the Nintendo Game Cube were smaller than your standard CD due to the fact that they were 8 cm in diameter and were capable of building 1.5 GB of disk data. These discs featured a special encryption key, which made them unreadable, and at first unable to be copied. When the game Fantasy Star Online Episode I & II was released, there was a flaw in the programming that could allow a homebrew programmer to connect their PC to the Nintendo Game Cube in order to create their own programming.

Nintendo Game Cube did not come with a DVD or audio CD support like the Panasonic Q did. Nintendo's reasoning for this was the fact that due to the smaller disk size load times would be less and there was no need for licensing fees, they would also be able to provide this unit at a cheaper price. This lack of DVD capabilities, did not make the system appealing to the DVD playing community, and instead they opted for the Sony PlayStation 2. Since its release, there have been a number of mod chips that have been created to allow a standard DVD-R with a pirated game on it to play on the console.

The Game Cube also featured the ability to connect to several different versions of the Nintendo Game Boy. This would allow one to play the Nintendo Game Boy series of games on your television set rather than just on the handheld. The interchangeability functions between the Nintendo Game Cube and the Nintendo Game Boy have allowed a player to access a huge number of levels and new characters.

The Nintendo Game Cube could also be set up at LAN parties. In this situation as long as each Game Cube had its own television, you could connect up to eight Nintendo Game Cubes together to play LAN style games. This LAN capability also made the Nintendo Game Cube a very popular choice as an Internet gaming café replacement. Throughout various parts of Asia, you were likely to find a Nintendo Game Cube Café.

This system was designed to be more portable than any of the other systems, and even featured a handle to move it around. The Nintendo Game Cube was also considered to have superior graphics capabilities, as well as sound capabilities than the the Sony PlayStation 2 system. If one were to hold the "A" button, and boot the Nintendo Game Cube, the system would load up with any game in the tray. This was excellent for accessing the various choices in the menu controls, as well as memory card data.

Similar to the Nintendo 64 system, the Nintendo Game Cube’s controllers did not have a select button. Unlike the competition, the Nintendo Game Cube’s joystick controller was not clickable.

Although Nintendo officially released the network adapter for the Nintendo Game Cube in 2002 during Christmas, they did not support nor promote the online gaming similar to that of Sony or Microsoft. There were actually two separate adapters that were released by the Nintendo Corp., one of which was an adapter for a modem for the Nintendo Game Cube, while the other one was a broadband adapter.