15 GameCube Facts You Probably Didn’t Know

We love the GameCube. You probably love the GameCube too, and how could you not? Nintendo’s wonder box of dreams offered some of the best games you could ever hope to play during the sixth console generation, but despite the console’s enduring popularity, there’s plenty of obscure tidbits and knowledge you might not be aware of. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the weird and unknown facts about the GameCube.

 

1. Modders Made Online Work Back In 2003

Online gaming was possible during the GameCube era, but the list of games that supported the function could be counted on one hand. Homeland and Jikkyō Powerful Pro Yakyū 10 (Powerful Pro Baseball 10) offered online play only in Japan, while SEGA’s three GameCube releases of MMORPG Phantasy Star Online all supported online play. As an alternative, the GameCube did allow LAN play too, provided players were able to provide the TVs and extra consoles required to make a LAN session work. Even then though, only 1080 Avalanche, Kirby Air Ride, Mario Kart: Double Dash and Homeland offered LAN play. However, back in 2003, some enterprising young modders managed to convert LAN into online play.

An Indiana University student by the name of Chad Paulson, because of course his name was Chad, had become annoyed with the fact that there were LAN-enabled GameCube games when his friends didn’t live in Indiana, so he decided to make his own solution. Working with a group of like-minded individuals, Chad and the lads managed to create Warp Pipe Alpha, which utilized the Universal Plug-And-Play architecture of the GameCube to essentially spoof a LAN game over the internet. Sure, there were a few extra steps, like connecting the GameCube to a router and then connecting the router to a PC with Warp Pipe Alpha installed, but the results speak for themselves. In a way, Warp Pipe Alpha could be seen as a precursor to initiatives like Parsec or Steam Remote Play, which aim to make local multiplayer games online enabled.

 

2. The Panasonic Q Let You Watch Van Wilder

The GameCube’s tiny discs have become one of the most enduring and iconic aspects of the entire console’s legacy, even if a large number of people didn’t know that you could press the middle button to eject the disc. If you’ve been guilty of yanking a GameCube disc out from the edge and cracking the inner rim in the process, consider this your bonus fact of the video. Anyway, while Xbox and PS2 had adopted DVDs as their method of physical distribution, cute and quirky Nintendo decided to opt for the tiny discs instead, but what if there was a GameCube out there that managed to take DVDs as well as regular GameCube discs?

There was one of those, but only in Japan.

Nintendo partnered with hardware manufacturers Panasonic to create the Panasonic Q, a version of the GameCube that included a regular sized disc tray, allowing for DVD and audio CD playback alongside the regular functions of a GameCube. The design is a total departure from the legendary look of the normal GameCube, with the Panasonic Q looking like a space age toaster with an LCD screen, but this particular model has become something of a collector’s item in recent years thanks to its stainless steel case and unique features. Less than 100,000 units of the console were sold, either because this model was only available in Japan or because it was being sold for a higher price than a GameCube and a DVD player combined.

Yes, you better believe that this is a collector’s item now, and a pricey one at that, owing to the rarity and how rarer it is to find them in proper working order. Q for you: is watching Van Wilder on your GameCube really worth it?

 

3. The Newer Memory Cards Have Compatibility Issues

Do you remember those halcyon days when you had to store all of your saved games on a memory card, often being forced to make agonizing decisions on what saves to keep when you buy a new game? Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to get what you want, and sometimes that sacrifice is deleting your Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 save in order to make room for your new Sims family. Those games ate blocks like I eat slices of toast in the morning. The early days of the Nintendo GameCube led to a memory crisis, with Nintendo and other third party manufacturers creating memory cards with much bigger space for all your games to fit. However, these memory cards came with their own sets of problems.

Nintendo released the 1019 Memory Card, which basically quadrupled the amount of memory players could have access to, but in a statement on Nintendo’s official website, the company delved into the issues that could arise from the memory card’s usage.

For starters, playing Backyard Football could straight up wipe your memory card, while playing Sonic Adventure 2: Battle with a fresh 1019 memory card would cause the number of free blocks to display incorrectly. Also, the memory card can only hold 99 SA2 saves, despite mathematically being capable of holding more. Lastly, WTA Tour Tennis along with Disney Sports: Soccer and Skateboarding don’t recognize the memory card at all, with Nintendo recommending players use the older memory card models instead. With memory cards alone, Nintendo managed to demonstrate the dangers of what we leave behind during the forward march of progress.

We cannot truly evolve if Disney Sports: Soccer isn’t along for the ride, is what we’re saying here.

 

4. Dev Kits For UK Universities

People like to talk about some of the negative things that Nintendo has done over the years, which definitely includes how fastidious they are about enforcing copyright laws on anyone who just so happens to enjoy Mario music on YouTube. Regardless, Nintendo has put plenty of positives into the world too, whether it’s former President Iwata’s decision to take a pay cut in order to protect Nintendo’s employees, or their commitment to creating games filled with imagination and joyful optimism. Also, they do a lot for charity. Something Nintendo did that has seemingly been lost to time however is their commitment to fostering game development talent in the UK during the GameCube era.

In 2003, Nintendo partnered with the console manufacturer SN Systems to give four universities in the UK GameCube dev kits, allowing development on this iconic console to become part of the student’s core curriculum. You know, game dev students specifically. Art history students weren’t being forced to crunch to develop some students’ side-scrolling platformer.

The four institutes in question were the University of Hull, the University of Abertay, the University of Northumbria and Liverpool John Moores University, and would have marked the student’s first time developing on a more up-to-date console. Nowadays, learning about game development via higher education is a lot more common, but in 2003, Nintendo were serious about creating the next generation of excellent game developers.

 

5. Dead Phoenix: The Missing Capcom Five Game

Anyone who’s discussed the amazing games that have been released on the Nintendo GameCube will likely have spoken about the Capcom Five. As the name suggests, this was a collection of five games Capcom were releasing, all of which were overseen by Resident Evil director Shinji Mikami. Some of these were slated to be GameCube exclusive, but most found their way to other platforms eventually, but the real story of the Capcom Five is that only four of the games (Viewtiful Joe, P.N. 03, Killer7 and a little game by the name of Resident Evil 4) were ever released. The question is, what happened to that fifth game? Titled Dead Phoenix, this fifth project is the one stain on the otherwise wonderful Capcom Five legacy.

Oh, come on, P.N. 03 was good! It was. Fine, it was good enough.

Details about Dead Phoenix are thin on the ground, as it would seem that the project was canceled before too much development had taken place. However, enough work had been put into the game for videos to surface in the years since. In a fantasy world with dragons and demons, you control a mysterious winged protagonist who’s shooting his way through the hordes of enemies. With the winged lead character and plenty of firepower, comparisons could be drawn to the Capcom coin-op shooter Legendary Wings, so maybe Dead Phoenix was a spiritual successor to that game, but we’ll never know for sure.

Capcom have never properly acknowledged this lost GameCube title’s cancellation, and the trademark reportedly lapsed, meaning this one isn’t rising from the ashes any time soon. You could put together a pretty good video on canceled Capcom games over the years. Deep down, is that something you’d want to see?

 

6. What’s The Deal With Them Colored Triangles?

Do you happen to have a GameCube case in view right now? First of all, congratulations Mr Lottery Winner Man, secondly, you might be more curious about triangles than Pink Floyd.

If you’re a European, or you’ve built yourself a collection of PAL region GameCube games (or even Nintendo products post GameCube in general), you’ll notice a colored triangle at the bottom of the spine. Far from looking weird or trying to ruin the color scheme the developers were aiming for on the front cover, these colored triangles actually serve a really, logistical purpose that’s pretty clever if we’re being honest.

Basically, because Europe as a whole is a multilingual melting pot of cultures, Nintendo utilized the colored triangles as a shorthand for warehouse workers to determine what games were meant to be sent to certain countries. Most PAL games included options for English, French, Spanish, Italian and German, but those triangles helped ensure games with the proper covers for each country were sent to the right place, while also taking into account countries like Portugal and the entirety of Scandinavia, which required their own localization.

The triangle method had actually been utilized since the NES era, with the triangle found on the spine of a game’s manual, but the GameCube marked the first time that the triangle was found on the outer case; a method that Nintendo still employs to this day.

 

7. Nintendo Stopped Production In 2003 (Briefly)

It’s not often that a console manufacturer has to stop making consoles, unless you happened to make a Game Boy competitor in the 2000s of course, but in the case of Nintendo, they were forced to halt the production of the Nintendo GameCube in 2003.

These days, a console halting being manufactured would likely be due to some kind of chip or material shortage, or some kind of crisis in the world preventing parts from getting to where they need to be. Nintendo in 2003 suffered none of those downfalls though, instead choosing to halt production of the GameCube for a couple of months simply because they were making more than they could sell. Despite having a handle for easy carrying capabilities, it seems like few people wanted to take the GameCube out of the warehouse.

At the time, then-President Satoru Iwata stated that the reason why the GameCube wasn’t selling well is because people wanted less sophisticated games. Specifically, Iwata claimed that some games take months to finish so people are buying less of them, with Iwata quoted as saying: “This trend is clear to everyone, and the trend continues this year”.

Meanwhile, Final Fantasy X-2 launched in 2003 and managed to sell 2 million copies in Japan alone. We’re not trying to say Iwata was a liar or anything, as Mario Kart: Double Dash also managed to achieve a great amount of success that same year, but that emerging complexity of games was what made the medium so exciting in the early to mid-2000s.

 

8. Super Mario 128

Was Super Mario 128 ever real, or was it the greatest psy-op that Nintendo and Shigeru Miyamoto ever committed on the unsuspecting gaming public? Originally the name for a Super Mario 64 follow-up for the 64DD before that was shelved, the 128 name resurfaced for a tech demo shown during the GameCube’s reveal at Space World 2000.

Instead of just being 64 doubled, the demo took 128 literally, showing over 100 Marios running around a spherical surface at the same time. 128 would then disappear, with Super Mario Sunshine being revealed the year afterwards, though Nintendo always maintained that the development of Sunshine and 128 were separate.

However, that tech demo would be the last anyone would see of Super Mario 128, bar one cheeky reference to it as an Event match in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Nintendo and Miyamoto would always insist that Super Mario 128 was still in development throughout the GameCube’s lifecycle. Miyamoto would even claim in 2005 that Super Mario 128 had actually played a large role in the creation of the Wii, with Wii even being developed around this game in question.

Flash cut to 2007 and Miyamoto’s GDC keynote address, when the madlad would say the following: “The one question I’m always asked is, ‘What happened to Mario 128?’ … Most of you already played it … in a game called Pikmin”. He also stated that the free flowing level design also inspired Super Mario Galaxy, but none of these plug the Super Mario 128 sized hole in our heart.

 

9. The Big Dumb GameCube Keyboard Controller

We mentioned the online capabilities of the Nintendo GameCube earlier, or the almost lack thereof, as the entire functionality is propped up by the existence of Phantasy Star Online Episodes 1 & 2. SEGA’s iconic MMO series might not have the same cultural impact today as it once did, but 20-25 years ago, Phantasy Star Online was the byword in online console gaming. It started on the Dreamcast, with SEGA and Nintendo keeping it up for the GameCube. Still, every good MMORPG needs to support a keyboard of some kind, purely so you can flame the rest of the party when you’re clearly the one who made the team wipe-worthy mistake. Fortunately for those in Japan, you were covered there too, as this absolute monstrosity would allow you to slay adds and chat shit all at once.

The ASCII Keyboard Controller is exactly as the name implies, with some clever or psychotic manufacturers essentially slicing a GameCube controller down the middle and shoving a standard keyboard in the middle. The keyboard supports both roman lettering and hiragana, making it useful outside of Japan too, so naturally the controller has become somewhat of a collector’s item over the years. Combine that with the fact that Phantasy Star Online Episodes 1 & 2 still has a fairly active player base in 2024, supported by community-led private servers, and you might just be able to use this big, silly controller for its intended purpose. You know, if you can afford to buy the thing anyway. Jeez.

 

10. GameCube Almost Had 3D

Look, we promise that we don’t go into writing these facts lists wanting to talk about 3D, it just so happens to be that a lot of 3D related technology pops up whenever we research a console. Don’t blame us, blame the guys who kept thinking that 3D was cool, which turns out to be everyone in charge of consoles.

Nintendo’s love of 3D is well documented, considering they made it a core selling point for their DS follow-up, the 3DS, but the 3DS was far from Nintendo’s first attempt at getting 3D gaming off the ground. In fact, according to Satoru Iwata in 2011, plans were in motion to make the GameCube Nintendo’s first ever 3D capable console, beating the competition to the punch by a wide margin. The only thing that stopped it from happening wasn’t even the 3D.

According to Iwata, the GameCube was built with 3D compatible circuitry anyway, meaning the console was designed to support 3D from the get-go. However, in order to make use of the console’s 3D, you’d need to fit a certain LCD screen that would have been sold separately, but that accessory never released. As Iwata puts it: “We couldn’t have done it without selling it for a price far above that of the Nintendo GameCube system, itself!” Iwata goes on to say that Nintendo did have a working prototype for Luigi’s Mansion running in 3D, so it’s a shame that this accessory never saw the light of day. We came close though, as in 2023, GoNintendo discovered footage from E3 2002 of Nintendo proudly showcasing a portable LCD screen accessory for the GameCube.

 

11. The Background Music’s Easter Egg

Hey gang, did you know that if you hold some buttons when turning on the controller, it makes funny noises? Oh, you did know that? Well, try this one on for size.

After you’ve booted up the Nintendo GameCube and you’re plonked into the console’s system menu, you’ll hear an iconic, ethereal sounding piece of music. It might be childhood nostalgia talking, but whenever we hear it, we feel safe. Maybe that’s because playing a GameCube means you’ll never have to see that dreaded PS2 red screen, but we digress. The music sounds futuristic, almost space-like, but there’s not really a melody to it, or so you’d think anyway. Dedicated internet sleuths have actually figured out that the music hides an Easter Egg you probably don’t know.

The Easter Egg itself can’t actually be experienced on the console, but instead requires you to crank the music to around 16x speed. In doing so, you’ll actually hear the same notes as the Famicom Disk System’s start-up sound. The discovery dates back to around 15 years ago, with multiple videos on YouTube showcasing the similarities between the two songs.

It’s a bizarre yet incredibly interesting Easter Egg that makes you wonder what other references or leitmotifs are hiding in different pieces of gaming music. It also seems like it doesn’t get referenced that much these days, so we’re doing our bit to ensure this bit of GameCube trivia is preserved for as long as possible.

 

12. Half-Life Was On The GameCube (Sort Of)

We’re continuing the musical theme with this one, stick with us. It’s well known that Nintendo struggled with third party support for the GameCube, with three out of the four Capcom Five games that were released marketed as exclusives for the GC, only to be ported to another platform within a year. In the case of Killer7, exclusivity was abandoned entirely. Point is, third party support wasn’t great for the Nintendo GameCube and one huge game that skipped the console entirely was Half-Life. Valve’s seminal FPS experience had already blown PC owners away in the late 90s, before being ported to the PS2 and almost the DreamCast before it all fell apart, but no GameCube release. However, we did get something from Half-Life on the GameCube. Kind of.

One of the most celebrated aspects of Half-Life is the soundtrack, with Diabolical Adrenaline Guitar perhaps taking the crown as the most iconic track, but Namco might have taken samples from the track for their racing game, Smashing Drive. An arcade racer from 2000 that was ported to the GameCube in 2002, Smashing Drive’s first music track, titled Early Bird, contains some riffs that appeared in Diabolical Adrenaline Guitar, which is a pretty strange crossover when you think about it.

Maybe it’s just us who’d like to imagine Gordon Freeman being whisked around New York in a game that can basically be described as competitive Crazy Taxi, but it’s definitely an amusing thought.

 

13. The GBA Transfer Cable Offered Some Cool Bonuses

The GameCube Game Boy Advance cable was probably the most well known and popular accessory for the Nintendo GameCube, especially considering that LCD screen didn’t pan out. The cable allowed both of Nintendo’s console’s to hook up with each other, and while the cable’s mere existence is a well-trodden fact at this point, it’s interesting to discuss what the cable could actually do.

Certain games would require linking up to a companion game, with Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour pairing with Advance Tour, allowing the player to import their Advance Tour player character while also unlocking Luigi, Bowser, Wario and Waluigi, while linking Metroid Fusion with Metroid Prime would unlock a Fusion inspired suit in Metroid Prime. Side note: Samus’ Fusion suit is the best one, I don’t even care.

What’s more interesting is how many Link Cable games didn’t require a GBA companion game, and still offered some kind of bonus or new way of interacting with the game. Animal Crossing allowed players to create custom patterns on their GBA, or access a virtual pet style minigame, while channel favorite Billy Hatcher And The Giant Egg included minigames based on ChuChu Rocket, Nights Into Dreams and Puyo Pop. Perhaps the most outwardly useful iteration of it came with the original Splinter Cell trilogy, which allowed players to use their GBA as a minimap or radar during play, which is a pretty cool iteration of second screen gaming.

It’d take ten years for Xbox to try and approach that kind of interactivity with SmartGlass, and absolutely nobody remembers SmartGlass. It was kind of neat in Dead Rising 3, though?

 

14. The Last WWF Release

We all remember where we were when the World Wrestling Federation, aka Vince McMahon’s House of Nightmare Halloween Mirrors, was brought down by a bunch of pandas, but you might be wondering what the specifics of copyright and trademark law have to do with facts about the GameCube.

Turns out, the GameCube actually played host to the last ever WWF release, that game being WWF WrestleMania X8. Of all the wrestling games to mark a transition from WWF to WWE, WrestleMania X8 is perhaps the most “mid” pick of them all. At least the follow-up, WrestleMania XIX had the absolutely unhinged Revenge Mode, where you decide to get revenge on Vince McMahon by yeeting security dudes into oblivion. Of course, the other path to revenge would have been to wait 20 years and watch him self-destruct.

At least you didn’t have to wait for closer to 30 years.

Wrestling games typically launch “out of season”, whether it be due to changes in a wrestler’s music, updates to the show’s production or wrestlers joining and leaving specific companies. However, in the case of WrestleMania X8, the entire game was completed before the results of the lawsuit, but was ultimately released after, so the packaging still bore the WWF name despite the fact that the company “got the F out”.

Reprinted versions of WrestleMania X8 soon hit the market, with updated WWE branding on the cover and on the RAW and SmackDown arenas, but the WWF branding could still be found in other areas. As a bonus fact, following Stone Cold Steve Austin “taking his ball and going home”, the EU and Japan versions of WrestleMania X8 had a bonus reprint with The Rock on the cover. Hulk Hogan was on all versions though and that’s definitely aged well.

 

15. Nintendo Wanted To Put You In The Game

Back in the 2000s, video games were obsessed with the idea of trying to put you in the game itself. EA Sports games were particularly bad for it, using a system they termed as Game Face to let players upload images of their own face to place on their own character. Similar systems were available in games like Tony Hawk’s Underground and others, and by and large, they were all naff. Anyone who remembers the pain of trying to join dots to your own facial features, only to be told that the photos were unusable or some other crap will tell you that they hope to see the person who came up with the feature tarred and feathered. Well, Nintendo had plans to join this cursed group with a game by the name of Stage Debut.

Designed to pair with a Game Boy Advance GameEye camera, itself a spiritual successor to the original Game Boy’s camera, Stage Debut would ask players to take pictures of their face to then be imprinted on some basic 3D models. These in-game versions of actual people would then interact with characters from across Nintendo’s vast library, including the Animal Crossing Villager, Pikmin from Pikmin and, of course, Mario and the gang.

If you’re wondering what the hell the GameEye is, don’t worry: plans for the camera were shelved completely, with the only traces of Stage Debut left being a handful of videos and screenshots. After looking at the footage though, perhaps Nintendo were completely right to mothball this one. Some of those characters look haunting, but honestly also like Bo Dallas? Is it just me?

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