Nintendo GameCube

The Nintendo GameCube is Nintendo's fourth home video game console, released on 14 September 2001 in Japan, 18 November 2001 in North America, 3 May 2002 in Europe and 17 May 2002 in Australia. The successor to the Nintendo 64, the GameCube is the most compact and least expensive of the sixth generation era consoles, coming in a variety of colours, such as platinum, indigo, and black (also a limited edition Resident Evil 4 platinum and black game console). Japanese models also include limited edition colours such as Copper, Mint Green, Crystal White and White with black pinstripes.

Despite Nintendo's best efforts, the GameCube has not recaptured the market share held by earlier consoles such as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), possibly due to family-friendly franchises such as Pokemon pushing the console towards a younger audience which represents only a minority of the gaming population. Many games popular with more mature players (such as Grand Theft Auto series) were not released for the GameCube, but went instead the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. The console's initial lack of online capabilities also played a part in its loss of the market share; whilst Microsoft and later Sony actively promoted online gaming by soliciting developers and releasing online titles, many games that had online functionality with other consoles were released offline-only on the GameCube.

Although the GameCube has a smaller market share than earlier Nintendo consoles, the huge increase in the total number of console owners around the world means that it still has a large number of loyal followers, selling 21.20 million units worldwide by September 2006.

In this section, you can find out more about the GameCube, including a look at the all-important games, official and third-party accessories, storage media, hardware and controllers, in addition to a detailed rundown of the specifications.