No shit. I mean what console has survived as long as those OG Gamecubes. I have had mine for 20 years and the first issue came up this year. Turns out it’s an easy fix I can do myself and nothing destroying the console itself I can still play while working on this fix.
Also the Gamecube had so many games that were moved from the N64 that and some of the rarest games exist on Gamecube. Sometimes I can’t believe it was ever a flop for them because it was a childhood favorite. I’m so glad I kept mine and tried to take good care of it even when it was in storage for so long.
I don’t think any console today or even back at the time in 99 or early 2000s would last 20 years with kids turning into adults and 5-6 moves without having a console breaking issue.
Ive had 2 PS2’s go down, a PS3 Gen1 break, 3 Xbox 360, and very sadly an OG Xbox that did last from 2005 to 2015, an N64, and my PS4 Slim is getting there for sure. All (except the 64) gotten years (some a decade) after this Gamecube I still have today.
Thank my lucky stars my sister gave it back to me because it is my rock of a console. It should have done so much better than what articles and money say. It’s a very sought after retro console and I’m glad I still have and take care of mine from 2003 when I was a youngin’
My roommate and I stood in line for it, I remember marveling over how well-made it was. They got everything right. Even the little beeps and boops using the OS itself. You don’t really see that anymore.
The console and its software were so incredibly well designed. Different era of design. I really miss it. Now everything is filled with bugs and ads.
Now it’s ads and garbage all over the screen. Even at that I think ps3 xmb was my favorite console os
Anyone remember when GameStop was selling refurbished GameCubes for $30? I think I bought 2.
That’s how I got mine and realized how wrong I was about refusing to buy Wind Waker because kid Link was the protagonist. Bought it because Twilight Princess was coming out and I got a used Wind Waker copy for like $20 too.
I got one for $5 at a garage sale. It didn’t have controllers, the AC cord, or the video wires. It did however have a copy of smash in the disc drive which I consider a win, but I still haven’t tested it out lol. I bought the AC cord (cost twice as much as the console lol). There’s not really official cables that work for modern TVs. There’s some janky Chinese ones on Amazon that need power to operate, and the fire danger of some random off brand AV cord sketches me out. I’ve also been too lazy to look for controllers. One day though, there will be smash.
I’m fairly certain Nintendo recently released new controllers that are compatible with Bluetooth and have the old cord input for the GC adapter\console they sold for WiiU\Switch. So controllers should be fairly available for you at least.
@[email protected] wait it was a flop???
Only when compared against the previous console. Part of the problem for Nintendo is that they take a slight loss on console sales expecting to make up for that out of licensing fees from game publishers. In order for the model to be profitable they need to reach a certain sales threshold on games, and in order to do that they need a certain sized player base. If they don’t hit their console sales target their market is too small, they won’t sell enough games, and the per game licensing fee won’t be enough to cover the shortfall for console manufacturing.
By most sane metrics the Gamecube was a decent success. By Nintendo’s internal metrics it was a terrible flop. Nintendo screwed up their own price modeling on the Gamecube so badly they actually worried they might need to declare bankruptcy.
And compared to their competitor at the time which was the PS2 which is still the console that sold the most to this day.
At the time it was their lowest selling home console ever. Only Wii U has done worse since. Meanwhile PlayStation 2 is the highest selling console of all time - even to this day. The disappointing figures of GameCube led Nintendo to find their own niche with Wii.
GameCube is still my favorite game console of all time.
The GameCube being your favorite console has a lot more to do with your age, than anything to do with the console.
Same reason the NES is my all time favorite.
I mean what console has survived as long as those OG Gamecubes
Uhhh the N64, SNES, PS1 to name a few
Not a console, but I have a working Tandy 1000 from 1984.
Mobo in great condition and case isn’t even yellowed, whoever had it before me must have had it in a dark coat closet for 30 years.
Yeah I’ve seen a lot of SNES still working today. I had one myself just a few years ago and sold it when I had a big move. So that’s a lifespan of about 25-33 years depending on when the existing units were produced.
My PS1 died before I got a PS2 :(
Yeah, I still have a NES and 2 SNES that work perfectly
PS1? Those disc drives were very fragile. Mine didn’t work unless I physically tilted console sideways after like 2 years of use.
SDIO mod is almost mandatory at this point. Not an easy mod, though. Certainly not a first time soldering project. You have to carefully scrape away the protective layer of some very thin traces to expose the copper and solder a fine wire to it.
Still, the quality of life improvement is worth it, even if you don’t download ISOs off the Internet. Vastly reduced loading times and no dealing with scratched discs.
If you’re going to play with SDIO mod you’re better off on a MiSTer, tbh.
For the PS1 disc drives, typically the issue is caused by a rubber band that hardens and falls apart over time. It’s a fairly easy replacement. That and greasing the rails.
The gamecube’s durability was known during that era: https://youtu.be/ioWnoOjP9IA?si=zPRczUBOp4p4oYCZ
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Thank you for this. I remember parts of this skit to this day.
DVD playback was a big issue at the time. Buy a PS2 and you got a built in DVD player. Here’s the 2000 JCPenney Christmas catalog for DVD players:
https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ShowCatalogPage/2000-JCPenney-Christmas-Book/0689
Around $250-$350. The PS2 was introduced that year in North America for $300. So you could get one for about the price of a standalone DVD player. Why wouldn’t you? Nobody cares now, of course, but it was a big thing at the time.
Oh, and the PS2 played all the existing PS1 games. To this day, I still tell people that the PS2 is one of the best deals in retro gaming because of the wide range of titles it can play. Lots of hidden gems to find. Even better if you can score an early model PS3, but they’re harder to find and more expensive than a PS2.
The early model PS3 had a literal PS2 crammed inside of it for the sole purpose of backwards compatibility which was fascinating. The death of physical media (blu ray) and high price kind of caused it to flop that generation. Look who’s laughing now though!
I’m pretty sure the PS3 flopped because of its new architecture most developer just cheaped out on, resulting in most 3rd-party game having significantly less graphical quality on PS than other consoles.
PS3 still outsold the XB360 globally, barely. 87M vs 85M. That was also the generation Nintendo decided to take its ball and play by itself with the Wii. Microsoft had its own fuckup with the red ring of death. PS3 wasn’t a total flop, though certainly not as dominant as it has been against Microsoft before or since.
Plus the whole ps3 Linux controversy, that likely hurt sales too
Doubt it.
People commonly think the PS3 was a flop due to very poor performance in the US. Outside of the US, it did way, way better. Then later in the generation when you could get one of the Super Slim models for dirt cheap and the library was so massive, it caught up in sales in the US.
In Australia it cost over a grand on launch, and it still beat out the 360 for a while. Toward the end you could get a super slim and two games from EBGames for like $100.
I had one of those early model PS3s and I loved it. Eventually it died from overheating I think and I got a PS3 Slim to replace it only to discover my PS2 library was now unplayable…
PS2 was my first DVD player. First DVD was Braveheart!
A lot of people don’t realize this, but the same thing applied at an even greater scale with PS3’s Blu-Ray player.
At the time, Blu-Ray players cost $1000 while the PS3 launched at $500 or $600. Sony was legit doing everyone a solid, and they got shat on for it.
It’s so sad how the xbox 360 won that gen, considering it was the more expensive console when you factor in paying for 2nd internet. Then it ended up normalizing the trend of 2nd internet, lol.
Needless to say, I stopped buying consoles at the PS4 era. Thank god emulation is great, PC hardware is cheap, and many console exclusives are getting PC releases anyways.
Not only did the ps2 play all the ps1 games, it made them look better! I remember paying Spyro and Tony hawk on a friend’s ps2 and they looked so much better. That was the factor that made us go with ps2 over GameCube and Xbox og.
Looks at OG Atari 2600 still chugging away on my gaming shelf after almost 40 years and chuckles.
Ive had 2 PS2’s go down, a PS3 Gen1 break, 3 Xbox 360, and very sadly an OG Xbox that did last from 2005 to 2015, an N64, and my PS4 Slim is getting there for sure. All (except the 64) gotten years (some a decade) after this Gamecube I still have today.
What do you mean by PS2s going down? I feel like they’re the most robust console I’ve come across especially when the benefits of modding are taken into account
I had an issue with my launch day PS2 when it was still in circulation. Thankfully the fix was to open up the console and flip a toggle switch to allow it to read both both DVD and PS2 games again. Console is still going strong to this day for me.
I just grabbed a Wii U and modded it so I can play mostly Gamecube, but also some Wii and Wii U games. So much fun completing Timesplitters, and the occasional Mario Football
I like my hacked Wii u. Pretty versatile
I thought the Dreamcast earned this title
For sure. Lots of people knew how awesome game cube was and what it was capable of. Its lacking graphics with extremely well made games. The dreamcast was a powerhouse with VGA out. Barely anyone knew how amazing it was. It could have blown away Sony. Sega really dropped the ball. I wish I had known when it came out.
The sad thing is I knew at the time, but lack of games and, most of all, the lack of my friends having it, made the dreamcast lose in favour of its contenders.
I thought it was more powerful than ps2
Both the Dreamcast and GameCube are.
The dreamcast is still underrated it seems.
I’m on my 3rd dreamcast but it’s been fine for the last couple decades. My genesis, though, 1991 and still fine. Kicking myself actually, the cartridge port was feisty for EVER but i finally had the guts to really look in there and i tweezed out 30 years of fuzz that had felted down in it.
Like others said, ut was competing with ps2 which had a dvd player. Also, I didn’t actually care for the gamecube games available at release, whereas ps2 had some great options, AND it was backwards compatible with ps1. So right off the bat ps2 had a great bunch of games available, many of which you could get really cheap and used. For kids at the time who were on a budget and buying games with their allowance, ps2 was a far better value at the time. If I had enough money to get but, I absolutely would have.
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Spent so many hours on Smash, Wind Waker, Pikmin, Twilight Princess, RE4 (originally GC exclusive).
Also have that Zelda OOT promo with Master Quest on one disc, as well as the one with various Zelda games on one disc including MM.
I mean what console has survived as long as those OG Gamecubes.
I still have my OG SNES from when I was a kid and got one the year they came out as a Christmas gift. And Dreamcast. And PS2 (but the slim; I got rid of the fat boy as soon as the slim came out).
I got rid of the fat boy as soon as the slim came out
Right about now, the funk soul brother…
GameCube was good, but I say the SEGA Dreamcast definitely takes the Underrated and Underutilized Console award.
Wii U: Am I a joke to you?
Everyone: YES
WiiU was underpowered when it launched. Even if someone had utilized it 100%, it still would have been behind compared to the Xbox360 and PS3. 720p only when the Xbox and PS2 were already supporting 720p and 1080i was also a bad choice.
WiiU was just a bunch of bad choices combined in a single product. Bad hardware choices, bad marketing, bad name, requiring the massive gamepad for console setup, etc.
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