Topic: The resurgence of Gamecube

It's arguably more popular than ever.

A console that was so maligned by anyone outside Nintendo's loyal fanbase at the time, it seems has now garnered a new level of appreciation by a whole new audience - some who maybe dismissed it in the early-to-mid 2000s in favour of the other big players.

Many games themselves have skyrocketed in value, and are typically kept under lock and key in glass cabinets at most used game or thrift stores I visit, while the PS2 and original Xbox games are significantly cheaper and housed on open shelves.

For a system that badly lost the console war at the time, its revival and surge in popularity has been nothing short of amazing.

As a Gamecube owner in the early 2000s who thoroughly enjoyed and the console and still do, it's comeback isn't entirely surprising given the quality of the games, but two decades later?

Discuss..

I can see a couple of factors behind it. Firstly, the people who grew up with the GameCube are now of working age and can be using their disposable income to collect all the games that they never had a chance to when they were younger.

Secondly, its best games have aged fairly gracefully. Thanks to lo-fi and stylized visuals, the likes of Windwaker, Metroid Prime and Sunshine still look pretty good and, if anything, have held up better than a lot of the more prominent Xbox and PS2 games of the time.

For what it's worth, I'd think that the N64 and the Wii U are in a similar situation. They might not have quite as much strength in depth with their games libraries but, as less successful machines compared to their Sony competitors, there's a lot less out there to go between the collectors. Those who grew up with the Wii U have a few more years to go before they're seriously into collecting for it though.

I'm guessing it's because my generation is sort of getting its moment in the spotlight? A lot of things from the early to mid 2000s have been coming back in style (for better or worse).
In terms of gaming, I'd say it's the generation before everything went HD...but it still looks good when upscaled?

N64 and PS1 certainly have fans and their own charms. But the GameCube/PS2 generation was more refined while keeping things quirky and experimental. As a kid the GameCube was my sweet spot, I enjoyed what came after but it was different. The Wii had games built around motion controls, and the other consoles had this period where everything was brown? I don't know why. It wasn't photorealistic...just dark brown 😅

These days I'm enjoying the GameCube still. It's my favourite controller, some of my favourite games are exclusives. I'm able to afford the games I couldn't find - or now I can emulate them on an adequate PC.
Nintendo can sell HD ports with minimal effort at full price so they must love that too
Everyone loves that weird purple lunchbox, and I'm grateful for that.

I personally prefer PS2 than GameCube since I grew up by PS2 games with its 3rd party games like Dance Dance Revolution, FF X, FF X-2, FF XII, K-1, Monster Rancher 4, Harvest Moon games, Bomberman, etc that shaped my gaming experience.

I have no idea about GameCube existence until I read from my local game magazine and also I found about XBOX existence.

When I grew up become adult and have a job, I have opportunity to play GameCube games on Wii but I still prefer the 3rd party games than 1st party games since I grew up by 3rd party games and I don't really have that much interest with 1st party games for two factors:

1. I'm not familiar with their gameplay so I can't jump into the games without understanding the gameplay concept.
2. 1st party GameCube games are extremely rare to find today and they are not cheap so it made me second thinking to consider them.

I have both PS2 & Gamecube games now but I have more PS2 games than GameCube as there are some 3rd party games have better performance on PS2 than GameCube, but there are also some 3rd party games have better performance on GameCube than PS2 and there are some 3rd party games have better performance on XBOX than PS2 / GameCube so I will consider the better version as possible.

This is normal for consoles. It's because they group that grew up with it are getting nostalgia for it and have the money and go back and buy their favorite games that they got rid of when they were kids. So now the games have surged in price.

For me though it's nice because NES and SNES games have dropped alot in price since now the market has shifted to GameCube games.

I'd say it's a combination of all of these things. It's old enough now that the pull of nostalgia and "retro-ness" of it is stronger than the lack of fidelity. We're also 20 years after its era so people who had this console as kids are now getting into their 30s and so have disposable income. Same thing happened with NES, SNES, GB, N64 before it

It also happens to be a console where less people owned it back in the day and skipped the games. So a lot of that library is new. Also Nintendo is a games first company so their content generally holds up better than their competitors. That's not quite as true for XBox and PS2 titles. I'd argue of all of the consoles of that era the one that's the most desirable for this reason is the Dreamcast. Problem is a working Dreamcast isn't quite as cheap as a working Wii with GC support

Yes, Nintendo's not our friend, Nintendo just wants our money (even though Nintendo Hates Your Money™️), but I feel Nintendo respects its IPs and its fanbase significantly more than other hardware manufacturers - there's more of a symbiotic relationship between Nintendo and gamers than you find elsewhere.

This cultivates stronger feelings of attachment, affinity etc. Nintendo's longevity in the industry is due in part to this, and this increases the the bond between gamers and Nintendo generations.

Sure, everyone respects what the other manufacturers achieved, but not as many people love PlayStation or Xbox or SEGA as much as they love Nintendo.

I really wish I didn't sell my copy of Eternal Darkness back in the day. It's absurdly expensive now.

Case and point, look at the face button layout of the vast majority of those portable emulation devices out there. They don't follow the XBox/Dreamcast layout, they don't follow the MegaDrive or Master System layout. They're not square, circle, triangle, cross. Even though there are devices out there that are capable enough to emulate deep into the GC era of consoles

Almost without fail they're the SNES layout. Because they know that most people buying those devices are buying them to play Nintendo's back catalogue. And they're doing that because those games remain relevant

Interesting thoughts! I'm sure there's several reasons for it after reading this thread.

Another thought ..

Anyone I spoke to at the time who didn't want it said they were steering clear of Gamecube because "it doesn't even have a DVD player".

Obviously that feature isn't important two decades later (Hell, PS and Xbox even sell disc-free consoles now) so maybe people who dismissed it at the time are drawn to the console after missing out.

@Tendo64 The kiddie lunch box design probably didn't help either. I know alot of my friends didn't like the design because it looked.to kiddie.

People probably realizing that its library was a lot better than people gave it credit for and regret skipping out on it. But unlike the N64(and probably the Wii U) a lot of which people have similar sentiments, those consoles don't have nearly the same amount of demand for their games as the GC does, that likely has to do with most of their major releases or most sought after games being readily available else where with a few exceptions. In contrast a ton of the GC's most beloved games are either still stuck on the GC or have had very little rereleases, just to name a few, F-Zero GX, Eternal Darkness, MGS Twin Snakes, The Star Fox games, the console Pokemon games, Mario Kart Double Dash, all the Mario Parties, Smash Bros Melee, Soul Caliber 2 with Link, all still stuck on GC. Even something like Viewtiful Joe, even though it got a release on PS2, ultimately is still stuck on 6th gen consoles. Though that doesn't explain why even most of the multiplatform releases are more expensive on the GC vs other consoles

F-Zero GX at 60fps - were any other games as fast at the time? It still looks great.

Super Monkey Ball was one of the best multiplayer games at the time.

Mario Smash Football is still my favourite version of the game and always fun for a quick multiplayer blast.

Hopefully the multiplayer games are part of the appeal in its resurgence, though I do agree that's probably largely due to it being a rarer console than the competitors at the time.

I'm yet to play Eternal Darkness but did buy a used copy about 10 years ago.

Nintendo's Gamecube games are often considered best of class. Nintendo is aware of that, so they're bringing them back. So far we have enhanced ports of Pikmin 1 and 2, a Metroid Prime remaster, and a remake of TTYD (well next month) all within beginning of last year to this this year. We also have the rumoured Metroid Prime 2, WindWaker, and Twilight Princess ports, which would be even more Gamecube games. There's likely even more on the way. There is a huge emphasis on Gamecube right now, no doubt.

I'm not sure why it took them so long. Wii U/3DS didn't have virtual console for Gamecube games, despite being able to get games from almost any other console (even Wii games were there on Wii U).
We also barely got any Gamecube recognition on the first several years of the switch, it was pretty much just Mario Sunshine, which was a part of a limited time collection. It's been 20+ years for a lot of these Gamecube games, and I am so glad they are making a return. Some of Nintendo's best games of all time come from this console, so I am more than happy for these to come to Switch.

Honestly I’m glad more people are seeing the epicness that is the GameCube. Seriously the GameCube exclusives are really great (Mario sunshine ttyd etc).

I’d say the generational nostalgia is for the GameCube/ps2/original Xbox era right now. The people who played these consoles and games back then remember them fondly, because there were a ton of good games put out back then. Metroid Prime, Pikmin 1 and 2. Thousand Year Door, etc. Last year was a pretty big indicator that Nintendo absolutely knows this and they totally cashed in on it last year. Metroid Prime got remastered. Pikmin 1 and 2 were given hd remasters to capitalize on the big pikmin 4 hype. Thousand Year Door is being remastered because it’s the favourite of the old paper Mario formula, and that could be Nintendo gauging interest to see if future PM entries should revert to a more Thousand Year Door style of gameplay and storytelling. I assume during the next era console’s run, there will be a demand for Wii/DS/3DS games, kind of what the GameCube is getting now: recognition.
So we will see Super Mario Galaxy 2, Kid Icarus Uprising, games like that get a focus in terms of remasters and ports for the next console most likely