GameCube

The **Nintendo GameCube** (also called **GameCube**, **NGC**, **GCN**, or **GC** for short) is the fourth home video game console made by Nintendo. The console was released on September 14, 2001 in Japan, November 18, 2001 in North America, May 3, 2002 in Europe, and May 17, 2002 in Australia. The GameCube sold 21.74 million units worldwide.

The GameCube had many new features compared to the previous Nintendo video game console, the Nintendo 64. It was the first Nintendo console to support online gaming (playing together without wires). It could also connect to the Game Boy Player to play Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance games.

The GameCube was discontinued in early 2009 to focus production on the Wii and DS. It was discontinued in Japan on October 28, 2007, Australia on December 3, 2007 and Europe on May 17, 2008. The last game for the console was *Madden NFL 08* (also released for the Wii and Nintendo DS), which was released on August 14, 2007. However, first-party development (when the creator, Nintendo, was making games for the console) ended six months before that.

Nintendo's next console is called the Wii, released in 2006. The original model of the Wii is able to play games made for the GameCube.

## Background
Nintendo was originally the most popular video game company. However, in the late 1990s, the PlayStation began to hurt Nintendo's business. For the first time, Nintendo's main console at the time, the Nintendo 64, was not the best-selling console. It sold over thirty million units, which was good, but only half of what Nintendo's earlier NES did. Nintendo was starting to fear, but they decided to try again.

The GameCube was given lots more power than the Nintendo 64, as well as features that were used by other consoles before. Some of these features were games stored on discs, and memory cards used to store game data. The GameCube used more detailed 3D models, and Nintendo put new series of games on the system, along with sequels of past games.

## Sales
In the end, the Nintendo GameCube did not do what Nintendo hoped it would do. It ended up selling just 21 million units, worse than the Nintendo 64. The PlayStation 2 was already the most common game console to buy, simply because it could play DVDs and had many more games. Another reason the GameCube sold poorly is because it used special discs, which were smaller than discs with a normal size and could hold less data for the game developers to use. Another problem was how some people saw the GameCube; it looked like a toy to many young adults.

## Description
### Console 
Like its name indicates, the GameCube is shaped like a cube. It also has a handle on the back. The original color of the console is purple, but different versions of the GameCube were made with different colors. It relied on a memory card with various different sizes to choose from in order to house save data for games. It should be noted that the cards only kept save data, not the full game.

### Controller 
The GameCube's controllers have two analog joysticks. In many games, one of them is used to control a character, while the other is used to control the camera, or some other secondary function. In addition to the analog sticks and the directional pad (D-pad), there are eight buttons: A, B, Y, X, L, R, Z, and Start.

Nintendo later released a wireless version of the controller, called the WaveBird. Instead of wires, it used RF signals to communicate with the console and was powered by standard AA batteries.

## Popular games
The Nintendo GameCube was known for its popular first-party games (the ones also made by its creator, Nintendo), including:

*''Luigi's Mansion*
**Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes*
**Pikmin* and *Pikmin 2*
**Super Smash Bros. Melee*
**The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker*
**Super Mario Sunshine*
**The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess*
**Mario Party 4, Mario Party 5, Mario Party 6, and Mario Party 7*
**Mario Kart: Double Dash!!*
**Wave Race Blue Storm''

## References
**Notes**