Poll of the Day > The Gamecube was a top tier console and I'm tired of people pretending it wasn't

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yeah, it didn't have a DVD player, boo hoo. You could buy a basic DVD player for like $20 by 2004, no loss there at all.

People complained about third party support. Lmao okay, name a third party game that we still give a shit about today that was on both PS2 and Xbox but not Gamecube.

Meanwhile the Gamecube had Melee, two 3D Zelda games, two 3D Metroid games, two 3D Pokemon games, Mario Sunshine, F-Zero GX which is still considered a good standard for racing games, Animal Crossing, Pikmin 1 and 2, and a ton more games.

People shit on the Gamecube and yet I'd go so far to say that no console that Sony or Microsoft has made since that generation even comes close to it. And the Switch is pretty much the closest Nintendo has come to outmatching it as well.

I really liked the Gamecube, it's one of the consoles I keep coming back to

Yes, Gamecube wasn't a flop by a longshot. I don't consider it a real Resident Evil game but RE4 debuted on it too.

MagicalPrincess posted...

Yes, Gamecube wasn't a flop by a longshot. I don't consider it a real Resident Evil game but RE4 debuted on it too.

I remember being so glad it released on ps2. I did play GC version years later and it was graphically a gen ahead of the ps2 version almost

faramir77 posted...

People complained about third party support. Lmao okay, name a third party game that we still give a shit about today that was on both PS2 and Xbox but not Gamecube.

easy - silent hill 2
also, both Suffering games are fantastic.
Black is still a great game

Devil_May_Cry posted...

I remember being so glad it released on ps2. I did play GC version years later and it was graphically a gen ahead of the ps2 version almost

It's true

On-topic: the GameCube absolutely had a better library than the Xbox did

@Vegeta1000 will love this one

I know lots of babes who loved the cube. I was a cube man through and through.

It also had a fuckin' handle

It's a lot like the WiiU (though not as extreme) in that it had a solid library of really high-quality games, but not all that many of them. Notably, that was an era when JRPG's were big, and it had very, very few of those (though, again, Tales of Symphonia and Paper Mario TTYD are still highly regarded despite being less than numerous), which kept it from really thriving. That's actually a big part of why you struggle to think of third-party titles that we still care about: JRPG's have fallen out of vogue, and those made up a solid chunk of the PS2's success.

Still, I agree that it's a quietly underrated console. People generally won't actively disparage it aside from pointing out sales, but it's kind of tacitly accepted that it had a substantial number of games that are now considered classics, without many people overtly giving it credit for that.

Devil_May_Cry posted...

I did play GC version years later and it was graphically a gen ahead of the ps2 version almost

This is something a lot of people seem to have forgotten. Every system Nintendo's released since the GC has been dunked on for not being as powerful as its contemporaries, but there was a very substantial power gap between the PS2 and the GC/Xbox that didn't stop it from becoming the best-selling console ever, let alone within its gen. The ecosystem of the console industry is now very different in that the vast majority of third-party releases are multiplat, which makes parity a lot more important to avoid being excluded from such releases, but the bottom line is still that having a good library matters more than specs in terms of overall success (hence the DS outsold the PSP 2:1 and the 3DS utterly demolished the Vita).

Metalsonic66 posted...

It also had a fuckin' handle

I don't know why I like that handle so much, given that I can't think of a single scenario where it would actually be useful (99% of the time, it stays in place, and if I am transporting it, it's either a short enough distance that a handle isn't necessary, or it's long enough that it's going in a larger bag or something), but I really like the handle.

My sister and I got a Gamecube, controllers, memory cards, Animal Crossing and Double Dash!! for Christmas...2003? Only time I ever got a video game console for Christmas, that was major. Ended up playing tons of those (obviously), and a ton of F-Zero GX, Mario Party 6, Mario Golf Toadstool Tour, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Paper Mario TTYD, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, Konga 2 and Fire Emblem Path of Radiance. I had lots of friends to borrow games from, so that's how I played Wind Waker, Prime 1 + 2, Baten Kaitos, Super Mario Sunshine, Luigi;s Mansion, Pikmin 1 + 2, and Resident Evil 4.

Played a lot of multiplayer of all those, plus Starfox Assault even! My friends and me even did 4-player Zelda Four Swords Adventure and Crystal Chronicles. I only recall beating Zelda though.

Thing is, people don't even realize the handle is there so that you don't block the fan

It was a portable home console three gens before the Switch

It also had hands down the Best controller

I don't even know what top tier is supposed to mean in this context. People liked Xbox for fps games and people liked the PS2 for everything else. Gamecube had some first party games, but they didn't carry the console like they did for the 64. Gamecube is forgettable.

The GC had some questionable decisions (including the weird micro-discs), but it had native 4p support, a robust multiplayer library, etc.

Although it never felt like it broke ground like the N64, it didn't flop like the confusingly-named WiiU.

BlackScythe0 posted...

Gamecube is forgettable.

I strongly disagree.

Lokarin posted...

Thing is, people don't even realize the handle is there so that you don't block the fan

How would the fan get blocked?

Revelation34 posted...

How would the fan get blocked?

by placing the gamecube flush with a shelf above the cords

Do people think otherwise? I thought it was universally agreed it had one of the best game libraries of all time. If they don't agree they're wrong.

Metalsonic66 posted...

It's true

On-topic: the GameCube absolutely had a better library than the Xbox did

I don't even understand how the Xbox made it to the 360, I'm glad it did but all Xbox had was Halo 1&2, plus Fable 1 but aside from those games the library sucked ass and felt pointless next to a PS2.

The 360 was a champion of gaming, but the OG XBOX was just chaps

Cruddy_horse posted...

Do people think otherwise? I thought it was universally agreed it had one of the best game libraries of all time. If they don't agree they're wrong.

I don't even understand how the Xbox made it to the 360, I'm glad it did but all Xbox had was Halo 1&2, plus Fable 1 but aside from those games the library sucked ass and felt pointless next to a PS2.

Only if you didn't like RPGs.

Revelation34 posted...

Only if you didn't like RPGs.

Yea I was kinda confused so I actually googled to see if maybe I was misunderstanding something. I couldn't find a single website where the gamecube broke the top 10. The closest it got was #12 on a few of them.

While people individually can love it, I don't think most people like the console as much as this thread is trying to make me think they do. I had the console when I was a kid, I remember my brother playing luigis mansion, but I largely didn't care for any of the games we had on it. I played rpgs and that meant the playstation.

BlackScythe0 posted...

Yea I was kinda confused so I actually googled to see if maybe I was misunderstanding something. I couldn't find a single website where the gamecube broke the top 10. The closest it got was #12 on a few of them.

While people individually can love it, I don't think most people like the console as much as this thread is trying to make me think they do. I had the console when I was a kid, I remember my brother playing luigis mansion, but I largely didn't care for any of the games we had on it. I played rpgs and that meant the playstation.

I think I owned every RPG except one or two for it. Which was like 3 total and I'm including the Lord of the Rings game. There was like 6 total? That reminds me though that I need to get Baiten Kaitos remaster for Switch.

I can see arguments for it being 'underrated', but for me it's not close to the top tier of PS2, 360 etc.

I would put the exclusives of OG Xbox and Gamecube at about the same level:

Amped 1/2, Crimson Skies, Fable, Halo 1/2, Kung Fu Chaos, Midtown Madness 3, Whacked! (and probably some others I'm forgetting)
Vs.
Animal Crossing, F-Zero, Mariokart, Marioparty, Pokemon, Smash (I've never been that interested in Metroid, Pikmin, Zelda)

The PS2 port of Tales of Symphonia had to be stripped down to 30FPS due to hardware limitations and we're still paying for it now, since all rereleases/remasters are based on the lesser PS2 version. Sucks.

Revelation34 posted...

I think I owned every RPG except one or two for it. Which was like 3 total and I'm including the Lord of the Rings game. There was like 6 total? That reminds me though that I need to get Baiten Kaitos remaster for Switch.

Tales of Symphonia, both Baiten Kaitos games, Skies of Arcadia, Paper Mario, PSO episode 3, Crystal Chronicles, Fire Emblem, and both Lost Kingdoms were the ones I had. Gladius too but it was on all three consoles, and PSO 1&2 was also on xbox. Custom Robo's arguable but it's structured like one. Two of the ones I listed were also on Dreamcast but significantly expanded/better (Skies of Arcadia felt unplayable to me).

agesboy posted...

The PS2 port of Tales of Symphonia had to be stripped down to 30FPS due to hardware limitations and we're still paying for it now, since all rereleases/remasters are based on the lesser PS2 version. Sucks.

Tales of Symphonia, both Baiten Kaitos games, Skies of Arcadia, Paper Mario, PSO episode 3, Crystal Chronicles, Fire Emblem, and both Lost Kingdoms were the ones I had. Gladius too but it was on all three consoles, and PSO 1&2 was also on xbox. Custom Robo's arguable but it's structured like one. Two of the ones I listed were also on Dreamcast but significantly expanded/better (Skies of Arcadia felt unplayable to me).

I forgot about Skies of Arcadia. That needs a remake,

Wait, people hate the GameCube?

Muscles posted...

Wait, people hate the GameCube?

I think people equate the GameCube losing the console war to the PS2 with hate. That's simply not the case.

Cruddy_horse posted...

Do people think otherwise? I thought it was universally agreed it had one of the best game libraries of all time. If they don't agree they're wrong.

I don't even understand how the Xbox made it to the 360, I'm glad it did but all Xbox had was Halo 1&2, plus Fable 1 but aside from those games the library sucked ass and felt pointless next to a PS2.

Idk man it was definitely the worst of the three but Fable wasnt even the best rpg on Xbox.

Jade empire, Kotor, morrowind

xbox had a great library just not as good as ps2/gc

Can't say I've been a fan of any Nintendo console since the SNES.

I have a 5 game rule. If your console doesn't have 5 third party games I'd play (that are not available anywhere else) It's not a good console.

Top tier? The Snes was top tier. The ps2 was top tier. The Switch is top tier.

The gamecube was mid. Like every other major system it had some gems, but thats not enough.

BlackScythe0 posted...

I don't even know what top tier is supposed to mean in this context. People liked Xbox for fps games and people liked the PS2 for everything else. Gamecube had some first party games, but they didn't carry the console like they did for the 64. Gamecube is forgettable.

You're wrong.

it was my favorite console of that generation. it only really lacked silent hill for me but made up for it with RE4. it had its own RPG's and all the major nintendo IP's. the only issue i ever had with mine was that the lens got dirty really easily for some reason.

I just pulled out my GameCube so I could play Luigi's Mansion. It would have been easier to play on an emulator, but the physical console was worth digging through the shed.

agesboy posted...

Tales of Symphonia, both Baiten Kaitos games, Skies of Arcadia, Paper Mario, PSO episode 3, Crystal Chronicles, Fire Emblem, and both Lost Kingdoms were the ones I had.

I think that's pretty much a comprehensive list, though, and even then, Skies of Arcadia and Paper Mario are the only "traditional" JRPG's on there, and SoA was a remake. FE is strategy, BK, PSO3, and Lost Kingdoms were card battlers (weirdly ahead of the current popularity of deckbuilding RPGs, now that I think about it >.>), Lost Kingdoms and Tales are action JRPG's, and Crystal Chronicles just made pretty much everyone ask "why is this called Final Fantasy?". For people that wanted "more games like Final Fantasy," there wasn't a whole lot, whereas the PS2 had a metric ton of them (including FF itself).

adjl posted...

I think that's pretty much a comprehensive list, though, and even then, Skies of Arcadia and Paper Mario are the only "traditional" JRPG's on there, and SoA was a remake. FE is strategy, BK, PSO3, and Lost Kingdoms were card battlers (weirdly ahead of the current popularity of deckbuilding RPGs, now that I think about it >.>), Lost Kingdoms and Tales are action JRPG's, and Crystal Chronicles just made pretty much everyone ask "why is this called Final Fantasy?". For people that wanted "more games like Final Fantasy," there wasn't a whole lot, whereas the PS2 had a metric ton of them (including FF itself).

The irony is that the PS2 had Symphonia (you had to import it) and the better collection of Tales games. The Gamecube just had Symphonia, which did get people into the series but I know that there were plenty of people in the community at the time that imported Destiny 2, Rebirth and Destiny Remake because they got into Tales through Abyss and Symphonia and to a lesser extent the fan translations of Phantasia and Narakiri Dungeon 3 (how I got into Tales).

It's also pretty crazy that Tales has been pretty dead relative since Xilia and I don't remember Arise being all that well received (I didn't even buy Arise after how much I disliked Berseria)

The Lamecube

I just got my Cube set up with the Retro Tink 5x, wireless Bluetooth controller mod, and digital memory card - upgraded for 2023 and beyond!

F-Zero GX and Super Mario Strikers are two of my all-time favorite games. Super Monkey Ball 2, Resident Evil 4, Rogue Leader, and Double Dash are not far behind.

But perhaps the most fun I had with the Gamecube? The two Donkey Konga games!

GameCube is a great system to go back and play years later, but at the time there were long droughts while ps2 had a massive library pf bangers on a pretty consistent basis. "Who cares it ot barely had 3rd party support?" is a lot easier to say now as opposed to when other folks were playing Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3, the Final Fantasy games, GTA, etc and you were in between big releases. It's why I eventually got all 3 systems.

BoomerKuwanger posted...

There's a reason that basically every controller for the past 15 years has the same layout, even if that's boring

I'd argue that that design evolved from the SNES controller. This might be the reason for the GC controller love; it's evolved from the same layout that current controllers evolved from, and it's adorably quirky imo.

Edit: I thought the C-stick was fine. That d-pad was way too small, fr.

The Gamecube is probably my second-favourite Nintendo console after the SNES. Its library was absolutely legendary. The amount of fun I had playing SSBM, F-Zero GX, Phantasy Star Online, Animal Crossing, the Metroid Prime duology, Tales of Symphonia, Paper Mario TTYD, Rogue Leader, MGS: Twin Snakes, and the Sonic Adventure remasters was unreal. It might have been the console with my highest average playtime-per-game, as it had multiple games I dumped thousands of hours into (specifically SSBM, PSO, and Animal Crossing). Even what I'd dub it's "second tier" games - the Baten Kaitos duology, Star Fox Assault (the multiplayer, anyways), Super Mario Sunshine, etc., were fantastic.

I really don't know why more controllers haven't adopted a button layout like the GC's. The layout suffers a bit when you have to press simultaneous button combos that don't include A, but for the many, many games where there's one button you press more than others, having that button squarely in the thumb's neutral position with everything else being a small deviation from that is significantly more comfortable than having all four buttons centred around that neutral point so you're always deviating from it (or if one button is centred under the neutral point, having a larger deviation to reach anything else and/or games prioritizing a button other than that one because it's not clear where the neutral point is meant to be). Having a proper pad on the C stick would be an improvement, as would a larger d-pad, second Z button, and L3/R3, but the button layout is something I really miss.

Indeed it was. What I've been saying since ever.
People here play sales.

faramir77 posted...

Yeah, it didn't have a DVD player, boo hoo. You could buy a basic DVD player for like $20 by 2004, no loss there at all.

I didn't care about this in the slightest, yet I'd still argue that the GameCube was the fourth best console of its era.

I happily rank it behind the Dreamcast (if you want to talk about consoles done dirty by public perception and history...).



faramir77 posted...

People complained about third party support. Lmao okay, name a third party game that we still give a shit about today that was on both PS2 and Xbox but not Gamecube.

That's easy - nearly every game I bought that generation. Just off the top of my head I can think of the last good Final Fantasy game, the good Kingdom Hearts games, Suikoden III-V, the .hack games, Wild Arms, Xenosaga, GTA III/VC/SA, the Fatal Frame games, Deus Ex, SmackDown vs. Raw, Dreamfall, Knights of the Old Republic, the Myst games, Ultimate Alliance, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II...

And that's just what I remember. There were almost certainly more. There were more than 4000 games on the PS2. The Xbox had about a thousand. The GameCube had about 600. Even if you try to handwave it away and go "Oh, literally every game not on the GameCube was shovelware" (but if you did you'd absolutely be full of shit), there's a LOT of third party games out there that never made it to Nintendo.

The only worthwhile third party games that I can remember coming out on the GameCube that I even remotely cared about was Eternal Darkness and the Resident Evil games (nearly all of which were available elsewhere, and Resident Evil 4 came out on the PS2 later). Oh, and I liked Lord of the Rings: The Third Age as well, but that was on every console. It's a large part of why I never bothered buying the GameCube (in spite of buying both the PS2 and XBox). There was pretty much nothing third party on it that I couldn't get elsewhere.

NO ONE was buying the GameCube for third-party games.

Which leads me to...



faramir77 posted...

Meanwhile the Gamecube had Melee, two 3D Zelda games, two 3D Metroid games, two 3D Pokemon games, Mario Sunshine, F-Zero GX which is still considered a good standard for racing games, Animal Crossing, Pikmin 1 and 2, and a ton more games.

I didn't give a single solitary shit about any of those games.

Yes, that's a personal preference argument, but that's what this entire discussion is. Like it or not, there were zero Nintendo first-party games that mattered to me personally at all (or to any of the other adult gamers I knew at the time). The GameCube had almost no value to me for third party games, and it had no value to me at all for first party games.

Meanwhile, Halo was pretty much the franchise that sold me on the Xbox to begin with (even if it slowly became my favorite over time because of games like KotOR, Jade Empire, Overlord, and its collection of PC-port adventure games like Syberia). Fable is still popular. Tons of people loved games like God of War. Shadow of the Colossus was huge (pun intended). Neither the Xbox or the PS2 had huge first party libraries the way Nintendo did, but neither of them were really relying on first party libraries to sell their console the way Nintendo did.

I'd argue that when most people say, "The GameCube was bad because it didn't have third party games", what they actually mean is "I don't care about Nintendo's first party games, and that's the only reason to ever own a GameCube."



faramir77 posted...

People shit on the Gamecube and yet I'd go so far to say that no console that Sony or Microsoft has made since that generation even comes close to it.

I'd argue that every console made by every company since then far surpasses it in every meaningful way, other than the childhood nostalgia of 90s kids.



MagicalPrincess posted...

Yes, Gamecube wasn't a flop by a longshot.

It's mainly considered a flop if you compare it to the PS2, but everything was a flop compared to the PS2.

Market share that generation was something like 4% Sega, 10% Microsoft, 12% Nintendo, and 74% Sony.

The other reason people occasionally consider it a flop is in comparison to Nintendo itself - the GameCube sold like 2/3rds of what the N64 did and a quarter of what the Wii did. So it's a clear downturn in sales (as was the N64 from the SNES) for the company at a time when the overall market was exploding in popularity.

That being said, while how well a console sold can be indicative of its quality/the quality of its game library, there are tons of other factors that come into play, so you can't really use that as the sole definition of quality (which is why Argument from Popularity is a logical fallacy).

slacker03150 posted...

It also had hands down the Best controller

I'd argue that this should say "worst controller", but honestly, even in its generation the Dreamcast existed, and it was coming on the heels of the N64, so even I can't say that.

It was still a terrible controller though.



Cruddy_horse posted...

I don't even understand how the Xbox made it to the 360, I'm glad it did but all Xbox had was Halo 1&2, plus Fable 1 but aside from those games the library sucked ass and felt pointless next to a PS2.

Never underestimate the power of Halo.

Not only was it one of the best-selling games of that generation period, it had a huge percentage of the overall install base of the console. The sales numbers alone are something like 1 out of every 3 people who owned an Xbox were going to own Halo (though that might be deceptive - throw in people buying replacement consoles and the correlation probably goes up). Halo 2 comes even closer to being like 1 copy for every 2 Xbox owners.

I know that from my personal perspective, I think pretty much everyone I ever knew who owned an Xbox also owned Halo 1 and 2. I can't think of any other game in the history of gaming that had that level of penetration (maybe Super Mario Bros, but that only pulls it off by virtue of being a mandatory pack-in that comes with nearly every version of the console).

Ultimately, the 360 got made because the original Xbox met Microsoft's expectations. They didn't jump directly into the marketplace and instantly become the #1 console, but they were still almost on par with Nintendo (the company perceived as THE video game company for more than a decade), and they beat Sega (the other long-term competitor). From their perspective, they'd proven they could be a viable company in the market, and understood that if they built on their success and corrected their mistakes, they could easily improve (and they very much did).

It's easy to compare other consoles to the PS2 and the Wii and view them as failures, but both of those were ridiculously unnatural outliers for their generations (and neither managed to repeat that success). I don't think any major console developer is going to see themselves as a total failure and decide to maybe drop out of the race unless they're selling below 20 million units (like Sega and the Dreamcast), or are having tons of totally unrelated internal corporate drama and chaos going on making it nearly impossible to continue (like Sega with the Dreamcast).

Hell, even Sega probably would have come out with a 7th gen console to compete with the PS3/360/Wii if not for the fact that they'd been spiraling internally since screwing up with the 32X and Saturn. It wasn't a single failure that drove them out, it was repeated failures and a lot of bad corporate decisions that left them unable to go on. But Microsoft was in a very strong and diversified position in the mid-2000s, and could easily take the chance on the 360 doing better.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

But Microsoft was in a very strong and diversified position in the mid-2000s, and could easily take the chance on the 360 doing better.

They didn't just take a chance, they invested heavily in the 360 after seeing a future with how well halo did. The 360 was the console to have because it had the diverse game catalogue of exclusives, the 360 was the console if you liked rpgs for example.

adjl posted...

I really don't know why more controllers haven't adopted a button layout like the GC's. The layout suffers a bit when you have to press simultaneous button combos that don't include A, but for the many, many games where there's one button you press more than others, having that button squarely in the thumb's neutral position with everything else being a small deviation from that is significantly more comfortable than having all four buttons centred around that neutral point so you're always deviating from it (or if one button is centred under the neutral point, having a larger deviation to reach anything else and/or games prioritizing a button other than that one because it's not clear where the neutral point is meant to be). Having a proper pad on the C stick would be an improvement, as would a larger d-pad, second Z button, and L3/R3, but the button layout is something I really miss.

Because then games need to be designed specifically with that in mind. It turns off 3rd party multiplatform developers. I imagine even some first party devs have trouble.

Judgmenl posted...

It's also pretty crazy that Tales has been pretty dead relative since Xilia and I don't remember Arise being all that well received (I didn't even buy Arise after how much I disliked Berseria)

Arise was pretty decently received and it's getting an expansion in the like next month. The main issue with it was the horribly blatant cashgrab DLC practices it employed. A scrolling banner on the camp rest screen detailing all the DLC you haven't bought yet? Ingame? Plus the launch DLC being too good and the enemies felt like damage sponges without it. The game itself was fine but it smelt of executive meddling.

Blightzkrieg posted...

Because then games need to be designed specifically with that in mind.

Not really. Even without deliberately designing them as such, most games have either one face button that gets pressed more often than others, or one face button that needs to be readily accessible while pressing others (like B to dodge (on a Switch controller) while mashing X or Y to attack in Monster Hunter). The only specific design that's needed is to think about how the game controls to decide which action should be mapped to A, and that's a thought process developers already go through in figuring out the rest of the mapping for any controller style (usually mapping the most common action to A or B, on a Switch/Xbox controller).

The only issue that might actually limit the design process is that it's implausibly difficult to hit B at the same time as X or Y, though in practice button pairs that cross the face buttons (X+B and Y+A on a 360 controller) are already awkward to hit and most games avoid that anyway, so remapping those pairs to X+B and Y+B on a GC controller isn't hard.

It's also very, very common these days for even console games to at least offer multiple face button configuration options, if not full button remapping, and that takes a lot of pressure off of the devs to pick an optimal "main button" to assign to A. They can pick something that seems good, but let players reconfigure that if something else would work better for them.