Collection essentials #471: Nintendo GameCube

Wait, didn’t I just talk about the PlayStation 2 yesterday? Why move on to the GameCube without even talking about any PlayStation 2 games?? Well, looking at the upcoming games, I realize that some titles from this generation have some versions and sequels on different systems. If I tackled all my PS2 games, then everything on GameCube, etc., then I would run into some awkward situations where I’d be talking about certain games in an order that wouldn’t make a lot of sense. I am still mostly going to be talking about PlayStation 2 stuff in the coming weeks, but I want to get the competing consoles’ introductions out of the way so I can feel more free to bring up their games whenever I wish.

Anyways, about the topic at hand:

Nintendo was king of the video game world by the end of the ‘80s thanks to their hugely successful Famicom/NES. In the first half of the ‘90s, Sega gave them a serious challenge with their Mega Drive/Genesis, but the Super Nintendo was still clearly the best-selling console when considering worldwide sales. After that, though, they were knocked off of their high horse by the Sony PlayStation, thanks in part due to some regrettable decisions with their next console, the Nintendo 64. The N64 wasn’t a flop or anything, but it sold quite a bit less than the Super Nintendo as Sony became the undisputed leader of the home console business. 

As the new millennium rolled around, it was time for the next generation of consoles, signalling a potential “fresh start” of sorts for Nintendo. Their answer to Sony’s PlayStation 2 was the Nintendo GameCube. This would be the first Nintendo console to use CDs, avoiding the Nintendo 64 mistake of stubbornly sticking with cartridges in the previous generation. The hardware would be more powerful than PS2, capable of better graphics and faster loading times. It would also launch at a price $100 cheaper! There would be more games made by third-party companies than Nintendo 64 had, and of course Nintendo was going to give the system lots of their own high-quality exclusive titles from iconic franchises like Mario and Zelda. Sounds exciting! So Nintendo must have really bounced back, right?

Erm….nope. At the end of the day, believe it or not, the GameCube was a step back from the Nintendo 64, selling even fewer units. So what the heck happened? Well, as usual, there are a variety of things you can point to. First, of course, is simply that beating the PlayStation 2 was pretty much impossible, since it had such a large base after the success of the PS1, plus the fact that it got a year-long head start and more than enough big-name titles early on to give it unmatched momentum.

I can’t imagine any scenario where the GameCube would have outsold the PS2, but with other things being different it perhaps wouldn’t have been utterly and thoroughly dominated like it was. Most notably, I think it’s impossible to understand the relative failure of the GameCube without first understanding Nintendo’s “image problem” it had back then.

I’ve brought this up a couple times before, but it bears repeating: Nintendo back in the day had a real problem with being seen as a “kiddy” company who made products for young children, and thus were seen as uncool and undesirable to many gamers who were or wanted to be more mature. The GameCube did not do enough to address that problem, and in some ways it even made the problem worse.

First of all, just look at the darn thing. The system’s primary color that it was most often advertised and displayed with was purple. It’s physically quite small for a game console, especially compared to its competitors, and its game discs are about half the size of a normal disc, too. The controller, which was quite polarizing, featured buttons that looked like jellybeans, and an unusually small d-pad. And when you turn the system on, you hear a series of sound effects and an animation that seem like they were meant to appeal to kids. Instantly many people get vibes that this is a toy made for young children.

Speaking of a controller, it’s a very interesting beast. There are many people who love the GameCube controller, while others hate it. Many, including me, love the grip, which feels distinct and very comfortable. The button layout is highly unusual, and it works really well for some games. The controller has cons, though, such as that button layout being pretty miserable for many fighting games in particular. The d-pad is certainly as responsive as it needs to be, but there’s no question that its size is less than ideal. I find it usable, but never ideal. 

There is, of course, some truth to the idea that Nintendo was trying to appeal to young children. Of course, they did want kids to beg their parents to buy their new console, one that might seem more family-friendly than the other consoles on the market. But it wasn’t accurate to think that Nintendo ONLY cared about what little kids were buying and playing. Nintendo is like Disney in that they try to make products that can be enjoyed by anyone including young kids, and certainly Nintendo’s family-friendly GameCube games are plenty good and sophisticated enough for adults to enjoy. But, again, with the image problem Nintendo had at the time, right or wrong, the way they designed and marketed the GameCube didn’t work out. 

Of course, there were GameCube games rated “M for Mature” and “T for Teen” by the ESRB that clearly weren’t specifically aiming at young kids. Perhaps most notable were various games in Capcom’s very popular survival horror series, Resident Evil. But aside from a few exceptions, many M-rated games sold poorly on the GameCube, as well as third-party titles in general as the versions on competitors’ consoles saw much better sales. As a result, many companies opted to stop making GameCube versions of their multiplatform games, especially when those games were M-rated. And this of course reinforced the perception that GameCube was a “kiddy” console because it often didn’t get the M-rated games that other consoles did.

The GameCube was also hurt by its lack of features. It was the only console of that generation that could not, under any circumstances, play DVD movies. It was technically capable of online play, but its capabilities were very limited, and only a tiny handful of GameCube games could be played online. I think Nintendo’s thought process was to make it the best “gaming machine” they could and for the lack of features to allow a lower price point that would be more attractive at the end of the day. But lacking these capabilities probably led too many people to see the console as an inferior and undesirable piece of tech.

And of course the tragedy of all this is that the GameCube is, in fact, very good. Nintendo’s output for the console was very strong. Years later, there has been a ton of enthusiasm for the GameCube among retro gamers, with many people eager to revisit the console or play its games for the first time. The “kiddy” stigma around Nintendo isn’t really a thing anymore, so people are much more open to discover how great Nintendo’s games were back then.

Now, for my own personal history. I was very much a Nintendo kid back in the day. I believe I first learned of the GameCube from Nintendo Power magazine previews (and I still have my childhood issues of said magazine). Of course, I was instantly stoked and knew that I had to have it. The graphics were SO much better than Nintendo 64! And there was a new Super Smash Bros. game!! GameCube was instantly my top priority, I had no thoughts of going for the PlayStation 2, Dreamcast, or any other console first. 

I wasn’t able to get a GameCube at launch in the fall of 2001. But my dad saw how eager I was to get this new machine, and he gave me an incentive-based way to get it. He employed a point system that he called “NPT”, which stood for “nice, polite and thoughtful.” Basically, any day that went by where I was well-behaved, I would get a point by default. Doing things that are “NPT”, as well as other things that pleased him (such as doing well in my piano recital) could net me bonus points! And of course, behaving poorly could lead to the loss of points too. Once I reached 100 points, GameCube would be mine. I can’t remember exactly when NPT started, but I know that I reached 100 points sometime in the summer. And the fateful night where I would get my coveted console was on July 19th, 2002. I wasn’t there when my parents bought it at the store. But I knew I was getting it that night, and I had my cousin Kevin over for the occasion. And, indeed, that evening I was bestowed my much-desired GameCube, along with three crappy third-party controllers, a 1018-block third-party memory card (which I still use to this day), and the new and amazing Super Smash Bros. game. And I would have it in my bedroom hooked up to my tiny tube TV. It was surreal. Euphoria. Heaven. I played that thing to death. It was my beloved.

I knew back then that GameCube wasn’t as successful as it was supposed to be. And I was aware of Nintendo’s image problem and the console being seen as “too kiddy,” especially after my family finally got the internet at home at the end of 2003 and I got to see more opinions. And of course, this bugged the crap out of me. I took every opportunity to defend my precious GameCube whenever someone would bash it on the internet forums I was a part of. And, well, I was right to defend it, because the console really was better than the naysayers gave it credit for. In 2004 I acquired the other two competing consoles at the time, but GameCube still was my favorite with a special place in my heart.

Nowadays, what do I think of the GameCube? Well, it’s not my absolute favorite console or anything. In fact, I’ve come to like the PlayStation 2 more, as I now appreciate its incredibly vast library. But as you can tell, it does have a special place in my heart, and it played an important role in shaping me to be the gamer I am today. 

If you have any affinity for Nintendo games, then you definitely do owe it to yourself to experience what GameCube has to offer. Nintendo’s next console, which sold far better, had great backwards compatibility with GameCube games, so that probably ought to be your hardware of choice with which to carry out the task. It’ll be a while before I cover the bulk of my GameCube essentials since I have to get through PS2 and the era’s Game Boy system first, but you can look forward to reading about how wonderful this little purple box was before too long.