The Nintendo Gamecube. Weather you love it or… oh who am I kidding yall love this thing like it’s the son you never had, it’s hard to deny that it wasn’t exactly the most successful console in the 2000’s. Especially when it was competing with the Motion Dew powered alien box that has Halo on it and what might as well be Genghis Khan if he was a video game console with how much of the world the Playstation 2 conquered. Crazy to think the original model that sold the most units wasn’t even its final form!

And yet despite it being arguably one of the worst selling consoles of that era if you ask anyone nowadays, especially the die-hard Nintendo fans who grew up in this era, they will say it was one of Nintendo’s best systems ever and that it had some of the best games ever! And yet, I never owned growing up. Which is kind of ironic when you really think about it considering the amount of franchises I really love that happen to be Nintendo franchises or in cases like the Shantae series, started life on a Nintendo series. Crazy to think that almost wasn’t the case when you remember the first game was originally planned for the PS1. In fact, there’s only ever been one time in my entire life where I’ve ever been able to play on a real life, authentic Gamecube. And the circumstances for how I ended up playing it are, well they were not the best circumstances. Sit down, let me tell you the story of the ONE and ONLY time I’ve ever gotten a chance to play on the purple lunchbox that is the Gamecube.

So a little bit of background. I like to think I was largely a PlayStation child growing up in the 2000’s and I’m pretty sure I might have even mentioned this in the past. Well, that’s only half true. Growing up I had an equal amount of both PlayStation and Nintendo system. I had a PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and a PlayStation 3 on the Sony side of things while on the Nintendo side I had a Gameboy Advanced, DS and Wii with practically nothing from Microsoft’s side in my possession. In fact, I wouldn’t even own an Xbox system until after I had grown up and got the Xbox One in 2015 when I was 18 years old. So why did I not have a Gamecube growing up? Well, several reasons.

1. … What’s a Gamecube? Yeah, I didn’t even know the Gamecube was a thing back when it was new! In fact, I wouldn’t even properly know of its existence until around like 2005. Now I don’t know how it was exactly that I found out it was a thing, but I do remember it was because I was just randomly browsing the internet one day since we had just gotten internet set up in our house. All this time I thought there was only PlayStation 2 and Xbox meanwhile this tiny box that shared the same colour as Grimace was also a thing.

It was around this time though that I remembered something. A few years prior I was with my Dad and we were visiting a friend of his and he had a son. A son who turned on his TV to play a video game console with a startup screen different to what I was use to. Yeah, do I even need to say it? I actually HAD seen a Gamecube in real life this whole time and I just didn’t know it. I didn’t get to play it though because we were only there for like five minuets and Dad had some important stuff to do.

2. Do you really think my parents would get me a second home console when I already had a PlayStation 2? And many of the third-party games that were released on the Gamecube were also on the PlayStation 2? My parents were not super strict, I mean my mother got me a Nintendo Wii AND PlayStation 3 in the later half of the decade for Palutena’s sake, but there was no way BellmoTheChild was getting his hands on another home console anytime soon.

Do you wanna know a hilarious part about that second point though? One of the multiplatform games I did own was the Futurama video game and on that game, you could actually watch a trailer for it and at the end it advertised all the systems it was available and one of them was the Gamecube. That version never ended up getting released so… sorry Gamecube owners who were also Futurama fans!

Now I knew that Nintendo was a thing for a while now at that point. In fact, some of my earliest gaming memories was actually playing Mario Kart 64 at a friend’s place who sadly moved away to another state in 2010 but did have a Nintendo 64 with them. So did my uncle who let me play Super Mario 64 which I stupidly thought was referencing the year it came out in. Why did I use to think that? Am I stupid? The sad thing about the time I properly found out the Gamecube was a thing is that by the time I did, the Nintendo Wii was only about like a year from being released. And by that point I pretty much just stopped caring about the thing. I had no reason to care about it.

That was, until 2006. Not long ago my parents had divorced and I was at my father’s waiting for my mother to pick me up. So, to kill time I played outside. Just minding my own business running around when suddenly, I feel over and landed on my elbow and broke my humerus! Yeah it, it was quite painful. And yes, before you ask, that IS an actual bone in the human body. Look it up if you don’t believe me. And I was in a lot of pain two, so I had to be rushed to the hospital and stay the night.

The next morning, I wasn’t able to leave yet as we had to wait for some results or something so to keep me occupied the doctors rolled in a TV to play with. And I think you can tell what was plugged into that TV. A Nintendo Gamecube!

There it was! The system I had only just recently heard of and thought I’d never get to play was sitting right there in front of me. Waiting to be played. And of course, I played it. Because what the Hell else was I meant to do while stuck in a hospital bed? I don’t remember every game they had to play there but there are two in particular I do remember. Luigi’s Mansion and SpongeBob SquarePants Lights Camera Pants. And guess which one I spent the most time playing that morning? Lui… Yup it was SpongeBob SquarePants! Because why the hell would the kid who loves SpongeBob pass up this opportunity?

Okay but in all seriousness, I DID also try Luigi’s Mansion as well but it was on a save file that was already in progress, I had no idea what I was even meant to do and just got frustrated and swapped to SpongeBob. I would go on to play the Gamecube for the rest of the morning until we were able to leave. But leave more so because we got told that the doctors would have to preform a surgery on me to heal my arm which my mom was agents because she thought it’d be scary for me and eventually my arm just healed on its own.

And that’s it! That is the only time I’ve ever gotten to play a real-life Nintendo Gamecube. I wasn’t kidding when I said earlier that the circumstances for me playing it were not the best. A year after that I got my Nintendo Wii for Christmas which WAS compatible with Gamecube games but was never able to find any games for sale since most game stores I went to were no longer selling them. As I got older though I started to learn a lot more about the Nintendo Gamecube and its library games and all it had to offer.

And once I started to gain this much knowledge of it and went into my teenage years and then later my adult years where I noticed more people online were singing it’s praises as well as how more people in general were willing to say that the Gamecube was a good console… I honestly didn’t care that I didn’t own one. And no, it wasn’t because I had a Wii which was backwards compatible with Gamecube games. Again, I never brought any Gamecube games for it due to not actively looking for them. I don’t even use my Wii anymore after I got my Wii U which is compatible with original Wii games. Hell, it wasn’t even because I had no interest in collecting old gaming systems or anything. In fact, around the time of me writing this my PlayStation Vita I brought with my birthday money came in since it was the only PlayStation system I didn’t own yet and I am absolutely loving it so far.

No, the real reason I didn’t have any actual interest in owning a Gamecube is because of several factors.

1. Many of the more well-known games that were originally released on it ended up getting re-releases later on and they were all on systems I actually DID have! From Zelda Twilight Princess having a duel release on both the Gamecube and the Wii to the first two Pikmin games getting re-released on the Wii, Metroid Prime getting versions for both the Wii AND Switch, Zelda Wind Waker getting a HD port on Wii U which also added in the Swift Sali to make traveling across the Great Sea much less tedious, Luigi’s Mansion which got a 3DS remake to the remake of Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door coming out on the Switch soon. Yeah, not everything that was on the Gamecube would get this lucky but pretty much most of the well-known ones did or are.

2. Have you seen how expensive Gamecube games cost second hand? Alright, let’s just rip this bandage off right now. If you have any interest in buying a Nintendo Gamecube now you are, for lack of a better term, fucked! Not just because of the system itself but also because of the games! The actual games themselves go for way, WAY too much second hand! These games can cost upwards of close to or even over $100 on sites like ebay. In fact, I went to a convention a few years ago after COVID restrictions started to be eased and one of the stalls there was selling some old Nintendo games and you wanna know how much Super Smash Bros Melee cost? $120! Fucking… why!? And then you got stuff like Metal Gear Solid The Twin Snakes which on ebay costs $230. Let me just remind you that The Twin Snakes is widely considered to be the weaker version of Metal Gear Solid 1 yet somehow it costs 2x more than a copy of the original PS1 version! Then you got the original version of Metroid Prime which costs just as much used as the newer remastered version on Switch does!

This is something that has always bothered me about older first party Nintendo games. People who sell them second hand always, ALWAYS charge WAY too much for them! Not just Gamecube games either but also stuff like old Nintendo 64 games as well which can also go for over $100 used. I went into my local Cash Converters a few months ago and they had on display a copy of Mario Party 2 for $195, Pokemon Stadium for $295 and Metroid for $430!!! And yeah, I can understand why some games can be harder to get your hands on nowadays compared to others as there can be several factors that play into it such as how available they were on release or how many copies were made as well as if that game has ever gotten a re-release on modern systems or not but my fucking God good luck getting older Nintendo games for a reasonable price if you don’t feel like spending $60 a year on Nintendo Switch Online plus the expansion for whatever reason. Points like this are why I am such a defender of emulation. Which actually brings me to the last reason I have no real interest in getting a real Gamecube now.

3. Gamecube emulation is super easy to set up and do! You probably knew I was going to bring this up eventually. Playing Gamecube games on an emulator is pretty much the only way I’ve been able to play some of the exclusive games I’ve been able to that don’t involve having to starve myself. I used to play these primarily on Dolphin but ever since I hacked my Wii U I’ve been playing these games on Nintendont which is a Gamecube emulator for Wii U since it’s the closest I may ever get to playing an actual Gamecube again because of how the Wii U is built of off the Wii which itself was already built of off the Gamecube.

And in response to the comments I’m bound to get saying “eMuLaTiOn Is PiRaCy! YoU sHoUlD bE pLaYiNg On AcTuAl HaRdWaRe!” Number 1; shut up! Please! You people give me the same tired reaction I get when I see Helluva Boss haters complain that the show “only has one joke and it’s swearing” and coming off as if they have never actually watched the show they are criticising and are just saying that for the sake of that un funny meme. Go ahead, tell me I’m wrong about that one! Number 2; Many of the games I and a lot of others do emulate are ones that aren’t officially sold anymore and even if you do have the money to spend on a $230 used copy of Wario World NONE of the money you spend would be going to the people who made the game anyway! And let me tell you, I am NOT spending that much on a game I otherwise love for that reason alone!

Also, this isn’t actually related to my reason for not being interested in getting a real Gamecube but I wanna bring it up because I don’t know when I’ll get a better chance two, the controller. I’m… I’m sorry, I’m not the biggest fan of this thing but it’s purely because of how it looks. I’ve used the special Super Smash Bros Ultimate Gamecube controller that was released along side the game back in 2018 and it honestly feels great to use. Not even just with Smash but with other select games on the Switch. No, my reason for not loving the controller is purely it’s design! It’s not as bad as the Nintendo 64 controller, nothing is gonna top THAT thing in how ugly it is, but it’s still not the most pleasant thing to me.

-It only has three shoulder buttons compared to the four on the PS2 controller and despite the L and R buttons feeling like they should be pressure sensitive a whole generation before the PS3 and Xbox 360 they aren’t.

-There’s no Select button and you only got the Start button.

-While the left analogue stick is actually really good and I’d argue one of the best ones Nintendo has ever made the C stick on the other hand? Oh boy. It has NO REASON to be as stubby as it is especially when you consider that most games use it primarily for camera control anyway.

-Oh and can someone explain to me what in Hade’s name they were thinking when it came to the face buttons? Why is the A button so big and in the centre while the B button is so small with the X and Y buttons being so awkwardly shaped on the top?

Again, actually using the controller isn’t that bad and it feels fine. But if someone told me that this was there least favourite controller ever because of its design I can’t say I would blame them. AND THAT’S THE THING THAT SUPRISES ME! People say this is one of the BEST controller ever! And I have to ask, why? I mean it’s great that people love using it but I think I’m going to stick to my special gold Wii classic controller that came with my copy of the Wii remake of Goldeneye thanks. It doesn’t look like a miss mash of buttons and it works just as fine when I use it with Nintendont.

And… that’s pretty much it! That is my Gamecube story. How I learnt about it, how I even got to play it and why that will probably be the only time I ever get to play a real one because fuck selling those games at a reasonable prince am I right?! This… went on for longer than I admit I anticipated… I can’t think of a good way to end this……… Hey did you know that despite his hatred for it being a big part of his character now Batman back in some of his really early comics never actually had a problem with guns and even used them regularly?