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Gamecube is the most underrated console while it was in circulation.

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’

RightHandOfIkaros ,

GameCube was good, but I say the SEGA Dreamcast definitely takes the Underrated and Underutilized Console award.

killeronthecorner ,
@killeronthecorner@lemmy.world avatar

Wii U: Am I a joke to you?

Everyone: YES

MrScottyTay ,

To me, the WiiU is the modern Dreamcast. I miss it and it’s promises that we’re never kept :(

CorrodedCranium ,
@CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

It’s a shame the Wii U never really saw the modding community the Vita had

RightHandOfIkaros ,

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.

KpntAutismus ,

nintendo is kind of known for bad performance, but the wiiu really took the cake for outdated and low performance at launch.

also the gamepads are region locked (why, nintendo?)

Squizzy ,

They weren’t though, they were keeping up all the way to the Wii when it became a different lane so it didn’t matter as much but their catalogue and capabilities have struggled since then.

I’m actually headed for anti Nintendo because I’m so sick of them at this stage. Everything is gimmicky and expensive.

DarienGS ,

I dunno who told you the Wii U was 720p-only. Mine ran at 1080p all day, every day - albeit some games used upscaling to reduce the graphical workload.

umbrella ,
@umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

tbf 720p and 1080i are pretty similar

RightHandOfIkaros ,

Not really. They’re nearly as similar as 1080p and 720p, really. 1080i is a vertical resolution 1.5 times bigger than 720p, just like 1080p.

The only difference actually is that 720p is a progressive scan inage, not an interlaced image. This means the field is constructed top down row by row. Once the field is constructed, it is displayed as a single field.

An interlaced image constructs two fields separately in short succession, with one field having only odd rows and the other having only even rows. They’re displayed on screen fast enough so that the image appears complete, but an interlaced image can have a noticeable “jitter” effect because every other vertical row on screen is updated slightly later than the others. Depending on the display, it can also have decreased brightness or a flashing like effect because the time inbetween both fields being displayed can be visible to the human eye.

Pacmanlives , (edited )

Kind of missing the point of Nintendo. They make epic games. The Wii-U was a massive miss step for Nintendo from a marketing perspective and even the control pad had some massive flaws around it too but damn I love this console for what it was and the games.

It was a stepping stone to get to the Switch though. It was super under powered compared to the PS4 and Xbox when released and even more so with the PS5 and Xbox Fridge or Toaster or whatever the One is called these days. Based on specs but it played great and looks damn good on my 4k UHD tv and the OLED console display really pops for its size. But all and all it’s shit on paper based on specs and that’s fine as Nintendo knows how to work with what they got and it’s a mighty fine console.

Also Blast Processing!!! Bro

RightHandOfIkaros , (edited )

Nintendo used to make powerful hardware that was actually competitive too. I wish they’d go back to that. So many third parties dropped most Nintendo support because they keep making decisions that severely limit third party developers. N64 lacked CDs, Gamecube had tiny CDs, Wii was literally just the Gamecube in a different shell and therefore underpowered, WiiU was underpowered, Switch is underpowered.

Nintendo literally changed their entire business strategy because they want to repeat the sales of the Wii.

Imagine how much better TotK could have been if it had an actually powerful console. Korok Forest would get more than 15 fps.

clearleaf ,

The only thing wrong with the wiiu was the price of the games. People call it the “switch tax” but I had to pay $90 for pikmin 3 in 2013, when the idea of $70 games was still rocking the world of Sony and MS fans. If it wasn’t for a gift I never would have accepted that price.

foggy ,

Had an internet browser.

Controllers had mini screens available.

Shit was OP, ahead of its time.

chitak166 ,

Man issue with most things is $$$.

No point in releasing the most advanced console if people can’t afford it or its features, ensuring no developers actually make games for it.

frezik ,

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:

christmas.musetechnical.com/…/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.

highenergyphysics , (edited )

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!

frezik ,

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.

Cort , (edited )

Plus the whole ps3 Linux controversy, that likely hurt sales too

Blackmist ,

Doubt it.

Aradina ,
@Aradina@lemmy.ml avatar

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.

Cort ,

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.

NinjaTeensy ,

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…

chitak166 ,

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.

GentlemanLoser ,

PS2 was my first DVD player. First DVD was Braveheart!

tiramichu ,

The GameCube was a flop mostly because of image and marketing, not because it wasn’t technically good.

I have one and I love it, but I only got it long, long after release.

What 12-year-old boy asking for a Christmas present is going to choose the cutesy purple brick that “only has kid games” over a sleek black PS2 that is seen as being adult, with action and fighting games? Not many, and so the GameCube flopped.

I think Nintendo were starting to see at that time that consoles weren’t just for boys. They were for girls too, and for the whole family, and the GameCube was a step towards that. But it didn’t go far enough. They ended up stopping short and falling smack in the middle where it didn’t appeal to the established ‘male gamer’ demographic, and still didn’t grab families either.

Then the Wii came along and went HARD on the family-friendly aspect, and just blasted off the shelves. Nintendo learned a lesson, but the GameCube was the price they had to pay for it.

aard ,
@aard@kyu.de avatar

And for the family friendly aspect nothing after the wii beat it.

The multiplayer games there are just better than something like the switch offers, and the controllers are a good size and weight for emulating whatever they are representing in games. Stuff like tennis with the tiny light switch controllers just feels wrong.

orclev ,

The market forces of today are also vastly different from when the GameCube or even the Wii launched. When the GameCube launched videogames were still largely considered something for children, game consoles were the primary platform for gaming, and the PC gaming market although it had been around for a while was still very much a hobbyist demographic. For context the GameCube was released in 2001 while Steam wouldn’t even be available till 2003 and wouldn’t have any 3rd party games until 2005. Today in contrast I think it’s very much accepted that people of all ages play videogames and the gaming market is pretty evenly divided up between PC and console gaming. Nintendo is quite happy with the niche they’ve carved out for themselves with their systems being largely a platform for their own extensive first party catalog plus any other 3rd party games people care to play on them. We live in an age where cross platform releases are the norm now, so platform is largely a question of preference outside of exclusive releases.

Family friendly at the time meant that your kids could play it on the living room TV and there wouldn’t be anything your average uptight conservative suburban mom would start writing angry letters about. Recalling my point about Nintendo’s family friendly rep having been established during the era of the NES and SNES it’s important to note that the ESRB didn’t exist for the entirety of the life of the NES and only showed up late into the life of the SNES. During that timeframe Nintendo very much wanted parents and grandparents to be comfortable purchasing any NES or SNES game for their children no matter their age, and so were very strict about what kinds of content they would or wouldn’t allow. The fact they let Mortal Kombat onto the SNES at all was something of a miracle even if they did insist on the most pointless censorship ever.

What you’re referring to as family friendly I would say is more accurately described as social gaming or couch co-op. The physical aspect of multiplayer gaming on the Wii certainly added something unique to local multiplayer on the console, an experience wholly unlike a group of players sitting on a couch holding more traditional controllers.

aard ,
@aard@kyu.de avatar

What you’re referring to as family friendly I would say is more accurately described as social gaming or couch co-op. The physical aspect of multiplayer gaming on the Wii certainly added something unique to local multiplayer on the console, an experience wholly unlike a group of players sitting on a couch holding more traditional controllers.

Pretty much everybody copied it afterwards - Microsoft has Kinect, Sony has some support to use their camera for that. Switch controls can be detached for that kind of play - but there never was the high amount of well done movement games available on any other platform afterwards, and never again the good haptics of the wii remote.

We have the wii and on of our switches hooked up to the TV - in that mode we pretty much exclusively use the wii. I recently downloaded pretty much all remaining sports and dance games to get some more variety. For the switch the cool stuff is the mario cart with physical carts, and the Labo.

Being able to use the wii controllers and the balance board on the switch would’ve been a great thing.

orclev , (edited )

You touched on a few good points, but I think ultimately reached the wrong conclusion.

What 12-year-old boy asking for a Christmas present is going to choose the cutesy purple brick that “only has kid games” over a sleek black PS2 that is seen as being adult, with action and fighting games?

This was literally Segas entire marketing strategy. Nintendo early on decided to lean heavily into the family friendly marketing for their consoles starting with the NES (or famicom, literally family computer) for various reasons but most prominently because of the videogame crash of the 70s.

Sega saw an opportunity to position themselves as an edgier option that would appeal more to the tween and teen demographic and so leaned very heavily into that in their advertising in the 80s and particularly the 90s. This tactic was rather successful and so Nintendo developed a reputation as the console for children. This image was further cemented by certain decisions by Nintendo around game content, most prominently by the rather shortsighted decision to force the Mortal Kombat series of games to recolor characters blood to green instead of the red it was on arcade and sega systems (this could be disabled using a hidden cheat code somewhat rendering the entire exercise moot).

When Sony and Microsoft came along they didn’t really need to do anything special besides release whatever games they wanted, the damage to Nintendo’s rep was already done. Nintendo then made things even worse for themselves by releasing a console in bright candy colors most closely associated with marketing towards young children that literally looked like a small childs lunchbox.

Then the Wii came along and went HARD on the family-friendly aspect, and just blasted off the shelves.

Nintendo realized that they wouldn’t be able to shake the children’s console rep they had developed easily and so decided to lean heavily into messaging that their consoles were also for adults. Much of the marketing for the Wii (in fact the majority of it) depicted the console being played by adults and the elderly. It was actually somewhat rare to see advertising for the Wii showing young children using the console, a stark contrast from Nintendo’s previous marketing.

This was also reflected in the design aesthetic of the console and its packaging featuring a modern minimalist flat white color scheme with minimal light blue highlights. Compared with previous Nintendo consoles the Wii was downright drab looking. Its packaging looked more like a product from Ikea than a games console.

Nintendo further lucked out with the Wii in that it had a novel control system utterly unlike anything else in the market at the time and so had a massive novelty factor going for it. Additionally helping with this was that they positioned the console at the extreme low end of the market releasing it at a price point well below half the cost of their nearest competitor.

thethirdobject ,

I thought the Dreamcast earned this title

vivavideri ,

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.

Staiden ,

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.

maniel ,
@maniel@lemmy.ml avatar

I thought it was more powerful than ps2

SlothMama ,

Both the Dreamcast and GameCube are.

thethirdobject ,

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.

GunValkyrie ,

The dreamcast is still underrated it seems.

NegativeLookBehind ,
@NegativeLookBehind@kbin.social avatar

I mean what console has survived as long as those OG Gamecubes

Uhhh the N64, SNES, PS1 to name a few

Shah_of_Iran ,

Yeah, I still have a NES and 2 SNES that work perfectly

Vash63 ,

PS1? Those disc drives were very fragile. Mine didn’t work unless I physically tilted console sideways after like 2 years of use.

frezik , (edited )

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.

hansl ,

If you’re going to play with SDIO mod you’re better off on a MiSTer, tbh.

Aradina ,
@Aradina@lemmy.ml avatar

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.

chitak166 ,

My PS1 died before I got a PS2 :(

Pulptastic ,

The GameCube controller was hot garbage. Weird unfriendly shape, buttons in the wrong spot, my thumbs and index fingers we’re not happy with it. The N64 controllers had durability issues but the layout was spot on.

I also have the same complaints about the switch controllers. The secondary thumb functions (left d pad and right joystick) and primary L/R buttons are not in a good ergonomic place and cause my hands to hurt after a bit of playing.

ieightpi ,

Talk about an unpopular opinion. But hey your entitled to your opinion

erwan ,

I agree with him, and it baffles me that people this day still go out of their way to play Smash Bros on Switch with a GameCube controller instead of the superior Switch Pro Controller.

chitak166 ,

No, it’s pretty popular.

The gamecube controller is a pile of shit. There’s good reason why we don’t make them like that anymore.

cyberpunk007 ,

I loved the controllers

Dudewitbow ,

The gamecube controller and the xbox duke are basically in polar opposite sides of thr spectrum. If you had on the reletively speaking, smaller hands, you liked the gamecube controller and hated the duke. Conversely if you had larger hands, it was usually the reverse.

Situatiom of japanese company built something optimized for the average japanese hand

DerisionConsulting ,

My husband got one of the new xboxes, and I hadn’t touched one since the original Halo/Fable days. I was so disappointed at how tiny the controllers are now.

vivavideri ,

I love the small controllers. They’re so much easier on my joints than anything else, to the point where they’ve given me reaccessibility to my old games via emulator. Can’t do a button masher to save my life any more though.

I wonder, if you’re handy, perhaps you could gut one of the big ol’ XBOX controllers and do a frankenswap.

DerisionConsulting ,

I have the opposite problem that you do, the new smaller controllers make my hands start to cramp up after a couple of minutes on the new ones. It looks like Hyperkin makes a 20th anniversary Duke controller, so if I want to, I could end up just getting that.

I am pretty sure that the new controllers are a better fit for most people, so it’s probably better that they made the switch.

c0mbatbag3l ,
@c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve always considered every Nintendo control scheme to be garbage and usually people can at least agree that the N64 was trash, but to call it a spot on layout? Damn, what kind of hands do you have? Lol

Pulptastic ,

The button position is not compromised like it is on “normal” shaped controllers. There is one joystick right in the center of thumb ROM, the triggers are where my index finger naturally rests, it’s just nice to use. I don’t need Spiderman hands to hit button combos.

jordanlund ,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

The GameCube had one key flaw and that is that nobody actually used it to it’s fullest potential.

Look at something like the Resident Evil Remake:

youtu.be/x72pByrt9kI

Just a great looking game, head and shoulders above what was happening on the PS2.

But most GameCube games, even the good ones, looked like garbage.

youtu.be/MJLnDq6f2eM

RightHandOfIkaros ,

The key flaw was it using mini disks. Not only did this kneecap storage capacity for developers, but it also made it difficult to pirate games, which is ironically a big part of its failure.

Dead_or_Alive ,

Looks at OG Atari 2600 still chugging away on my gaming shelf after almost 40 years and chuckles.

Kolanaki , (edited )
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

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).

rob_t_firefly ,
@rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world avatar

I got rid of the fat boy as soon as the slim came out

Right about now, the funk soul brother…

sleepmode ,

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.

cyberpunk007 ,

Now it’s ads and garbage all over the screen. Even at that I think ps3 xmb was my favorite console os

Wahots ,
@Wahots@pawb.social avatar

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.

Thcdenton ,

I miss my gamecube. That and the ps2 have to be the pinnacle of home console. After those two consoles PCs have reigned supreme.

chitak166 ,

It’s a good thing we can emulate them easily with Dolphin and PCSX2.

CryptidBestiary ,

GameCube was the Nokia of the gaming consoles. Actually, it probably still is.

CorrodedCranium ,
@CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

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

utubas ,

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

SidewaysHighways ,

I like my hacked Wii u. Pretty versatile

reddig33 ,

The games that used the game boy as a controller and second screen were interesting.

Donut ,

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and Zelda Four Swords Adventure!

Sadly they remade FFCC and then decided to make it completely ass.

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