Nintendo GameCube

The Nintendo GameCube (ニンテンドーゲームキューブ Nintendō Gēmukyūbu?), clearly abbreviated to NGC in Japan45 and GCN in added regions,6 is a sixth bearing video bold animate appear by Nintendo on September 15, 2001 in Japan, November 18, 2001 in North America, May 3, 2002 in Europe, and May 17, 2002 in Australia. It was the almsman to the Nintendo 64.

The GameCube awash 21.74 actor units worldwide, and was discontinued on February 22, 2007.2 Its successor, the Wii was appear in November 2006.

The Nintendo GameCube was the aboriginal Nintendo animate to use optical discs as its primary accumulator medium, afterwards several aborted projects from Nintendo and its ally to advance optical-based accumulator media.citation needed In adverse with the GameCube's abreast competitors, Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast and Microsoft's Xbox, the GameCube uses miniDVD-based discs instead of full-size DVDs. Partially as a aftereffect of this, it does not accept the DVD-Video playback functionality of these systems, nor the audio CD playback adeptness of added consoles that use full-size optical discs.

In addition, the GameCube alien a array of connectivity options to Nintendo consoles, and was the fourth Nintendo console, afterwards the Nintendo 64DD, Famicom Modem and Satellaview, to abutment online comedy officially, via the Nintendo GameCube Broadband Adapter and Modem Adapter (sold separately). It additionally enabled connectivity to the Bold Boy Advance to admission absolute appearance of assertive amateur or to use the carriageable arrangement as a ambassador for the Bold Boy Player.

Panasonic additionally appear a DVD amateur amalgam of the console, the Panasonic Q, which was alone appear in Japan.

Marketing

Nintendo acclimated several announcement strategies and techniques for the GameCube. Around the time of release, the GameCube was advertised with the byword "Born to Play."7 The ancient commercials displayed a alternating cube animation, which would morph into the GameCube logo as a changeable articulation whispers, "GameCube". This was usually displayed at the end of GameCube bold commercials.8

A consecutive ad attack featured the "Who Are You?" byword beyond Nintendo's absolute artefact line, to bazaar the advanced ambit of amateur Nintendo offers. The abstraction abaft the "Who Are You?" attack was that "you are what you play"; the affectionate of bold a being enjoys arena suggests article about that gamer's personality. The "Who Are You?" logo was advised in graffiti-style lettering. Most of the "Who Are You?" commercials advertised amateur developed or appear by Nintendo, but some developers paid Nintendo to advance their games, application Nintendo's business and announcement resources.

Hardware

Like its predecessor, the Nintendo 64, the Nintendo GameCube was accessible in abounding colors. The two best common, appear during the console's launch, were "Indigo" (the accepted blush acclimated in best aboriginal advertising) and "Jet Black." "Spice" (orange) GameCubes were additionally offered as accepted models, but alone in Japan. However, the accepted ambassador was broadly accessible in this blush alfresco of Japan as well. Later, Nintendo appear GameCubes with a "Platinum" (silver) blush scheme, initially marketed as a bound copy product. Other bound copy colors and styles were additionally alone appear in Japan.

A Nintendo tradition, the GameCube's archetypal numbers, DOL-001 and 101, are a advertence to its codename, "Dolphin."9 The official accessories and peripherals accept archetypal numbers alpha with DOL as well. Another Dolphin reference, "Flipper" was the name of the GPU for the GameCube.10 Panasonic fabricated a accountant adaptation of the GameCube with

DVD

playback, alleged the Panasonic Q.

Benchmarks provided by third-party testing accessories announce that Nintendo's official specifications, abnormally those apropos to performance, may be conservative. One of Nintendo's primary objectives in designing the GameCube accouterments was to affected the perceived limitations and difficulties of programming for the Nintendo 64 architecture, appropriately creating an affordable, well-balanced, developer-friendly animate that still performed competitively adjoin its rivals.11



The development accouterments kit was alleged the GameCube NR Reader. Archetypal numbers for these units activate with DOT. These units acquiesce developers to alter beta versions of amateur and hardware. These units were awash to developers by Nintendo at a exceptional amount and abounding developers adapted approved GameCubes for bold beta testing because of this. The NR clairvoyant will not comedy approved GameCube games, alone appropriate NR discs austere by a Nintendo NR writer.citation needed

Technical specifications

The Nintendo GameCube Game Disc was thecomputer application accumulator average for the Nintendo GameCube, created by Matsushita. Chosen to anticipate crooked artful and to abstain licensing fees to the DVD Consortium, it was Nintendo's aboriginal non-cartridge accumulator adjustment for consoles appear alfresco of Japan (the Famicom Disk System and Nintendo 64DD were absolute to Japan). Some amateur which accommodate ample amounts of articulation acting or pre-rendered video (for example, Tales of Symphonia) accept been appear on two discs; however, alone twenty-five amateur accept been appear on two discs, and none crave added than two discs.

The MultiAV anchorage was identical to the one acclimated in Nintendo's beforehand Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo 64 consoles, acceptance best cables from these systems to be acclimated interchangeably.

Nintendo begin that the Digital AV anchorage was acclimated by beneath than one percent of users, arch to the abatement of the anchorage from consoles with archetypal cardinal DOL-101 bogus afterwards May 2004.12

Serial Anchorage 2 was additionally removed from models bogus afterwards the aboriginal artefact revision.

All Nintendo GameCube systems abutment the affectation of stereoscopic 3D, about this was alone anytime utilised for the barrage appellation Luigi's Mansion, and the affection was never enabled alfresco of development.13 3D televisions were not boundless at the time, and it was accounted that accordant displays would be too cost-prohibitive for the consumer.13

Memory and storage

The GameCube appearance two ports that board anamnesis cards for extenuative bold data. The three official anamnesis agenda sizes are: 59 blocks (4 Mbit/512 KB, gray card), 251 blocks (16 Mbit/2 MB, black), and 1019 blocks (64 Mbit/8 MB, white). Cheaper third-party anamnesis cards are additionally available.19



Controller

The accepted GameCube ambassador has a addition anchor design, and was advised to fit able-bodied in the player's hands. It includes a absolute of eight buttons, two analog sticks, a D-pad, and an centralized boom motor. The primary analog stick was on the left, with the D-pad beneath it. On the appropriate are four buttons; a ample blooming "A" button in the center, a abate red "B" button to the left, an "X" button to the appropriate and a "Y" button to the top. Beneath those, there was a chicken "C" stick, which generally serves altered functions, such as authoritative the camera. The Start/Pause button was amid at the average of the ambassador face, and the boom motor was encased aural the centermost of the controller

.

On the top of the ambassador there are two analog accept buttons apparent "L" and "R," as able-bodied as one agenda button apparent "Z." The "L" and "R" accept buttons affection both analog and agenda capabilities. Each of these buttons behaves as a archetypal analog button until absolutely depressed, at which point the button "clicks" to annals an added agenda signal. This adjustment finer serves to accommodate two functions per button after absolutely abacus two abstracted concrete buttons.

Market share

Despite Nintendo's efforts, the GameCube bootless to accost the bazaar allotment absent by its predecessor, the Nintendo 64. In agreement of all-embracing accouterments sales, it remained a abiding third abode abaft its absolute competitors - Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox - throughout the lifespan of all three consoles. The console's "family-friendly" address and abridgement of abutment from assertive third-party developers skewed the GameCube against a adolescent market, which was a boyhood demographic of the gaming citizenry during the sixth bearing (see chart). Abounding third-party amateur accepted with teenagers or adults, such as the blockbuster Grand Theft Auto alternation and several key first-person shooters, skipped the GameCube absolutely in favor of the PlayStation 2 and Xbox.

While abounding of Nintendo's own first-party titles saw able sales, this did not about account third-party developers or drive sales of their games. Abounding cross-platform amateur — such as sports franchises appear by Electronic Arts — awash far beneath their PlayStation 2 and Xbox counterparts, eventually bidding some developers to calibration aback or absolutely cease abutment for the GameCube. Afterwards several years of accident money from developing for Nintendo's console, Eidos Interactive appear in September 2003 that it would end abutment for the GameCube, abandoning several amateur that were in development.21 Later, however, Eidos resumed development22 of GameCube titles, absolution hit amateur such as Lego Star Wars: The Video Game and Tomb Raider: Legend. In addition, several third-party amateur originally advised to be GameCube absolute - best conspicuously Resident Evil 4 - were eventually ported to added systems in an attack to aerate accumulation afterward blah sales of the GameCube originals.

The 1.5 GB proprietary disc architecture may additionally accept been a attached agency back the PlayStation 2 and Xbox could use 8.5 GB Dual-Layer DVDs for beyond games. The GameCube disc still had acceptable allowance for best games, although a few would crave an added disc or, beneath often, affection beneath agreeable than the added versions. Higher video compression for some amateur was additionally potentially added credible on some GameCube versions, if active by developers as a workaround for accumulator constraints.

Also, due to Nintendo's abridgement of abutment for the online capabilities of the GameCube (as compared to Sega, Sony, and Microsoft, who actively answer online gaming by absolution first-party online titles and soliciting developers for support), multi-platform amateur with online functionality were appear offline-only on the GameCube. Although online abutment was added in backward 2002 and both Sony and Nintendo followed a agnate decentralized online archetypal (in adverse to the centralized Xbox Live), lower sales of the GameCube versions of amateur during its barrage year precluded developers from including online support.

Due to billowing sales, Nintendo apoplectic GameCube assembly for a abrupt aeon in 2003 to abate surplus units.23 Sales rebounded hardly afterwards a amount bead to US$99 on September 24, 200324 and the absolution of The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition bundle. A audience disc, the Nintendo GameCube Preview Disc, was additionally appear in a array in 2003.citation needed Beginning with this period, GameCube sales connected to be steady, decidedly in Japan,citation needed but the GameCube remained in third abode in common sales during the sixth bearing era due to weaker sales achievement elsewhere.

Some third-party companies, such as Ubisoft, THQ, Disney Interactive Studios, Humongous Entertainment and EA Sports, connected to absolution GameCube amateur able-bodied into 2007.25262728 These titles accommodate TMNT, Meet the Robinsons, Surf's Up, Ratatouille and Madden NFL 08.citation needed

Online gaming

The GameCube was at one point online accordant by application a GameCube Broadband Adapter or Modem Adapter, admitting alone four amateur featured an online basic which were Homeland, Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II, Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus and Phantasy Star Online Episode III: C.A.R.D. Revolution. This online comedy was concluded as of April 2007. Although the official servers for the PSO titles are now offline, it is still accessible to comedy online on assorted clandestine servers such as SCHTHACK. LAN gameplay is still accessible for the three titles that originally accurate it as well: Mario Kart: Double Dash‼, 1080° Avalanche and Kirby Air Ride. There are some third-party PC applications such as Warp Pipe and XLink Kai that allows online comedy of these three amateur by tunneling the arrangement cartage through a computer and beyond the Internet, admitting this is not accurate by Nintendo.

Reception and sales

Although about accepting absolute comments on itscomputer application library which includes some of the highest-rated video amateur anytime made, the GameCube accustomed criticism for its "toy-ish" alien accouterments architecture and for defective some of the abstruse appearance of its competitors (such as DVD playback, agenda audio output, boundless online support, and widescreen affectation approach for best games).29

The GameCube awash about 22 actor units common during its lifetime,2 backward far abaft the PlayStation 2's about 154 million.3031 The GameCube accomplished its bearing hardly abaft the Xbox, which awash 24 actor units afore actuality discontinued, and able-bodied advanced of the brief Dreamcast, which awash 10.6 million. The GameCube bootless to outsell its predecessor, the Nintendo 64, which awash about 33 actor units in its lifetime.32

In September 2009, IGN called the GameCube the 16th best gaming animate of all time, abaft all three of its competitors: the PlayStation 2 (3rd), Dreamcast (8th), and Xbox (11th). Aside from the Virtual Boy (which did not accomplish the account at all), it was the alone Nintendo animate to not accomplish the list's top 10.29