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Launched in the US and Japan late 2001, Nintendo have now shipped over four million units of the GameCube worldwide.

The rumours of a pre-Xbox launch on the 8^th of March 2002, with a price tag of £199, proved to be untrue. After months of hype and anticipation, Nintendo finally put end to all the speculation and officially announced that the GameCube would be on sale in Europe from the 3^rd of May with a recommended retail price of 249 euros - around £152. But, it seems Nintendo may have underestimated just how serious Microsoft are about dominating the games console industry. When the Xbox’s price dramatically fell by a third, only a couple of weeks after its launch, Nintendo rapidly retaliated by dropping the GameCube’s RRP to £129.99.

Yes, it really is that small - the GameCube measures 4.5” by 5.9” by 6.3”. In the UK, the “Cube” is available in two colours – Indigo (purple) and Jet (black); in Japan there was also a Spice (orange) version.

GameCube games are stored on 1.5 Gigabyte Game Discs – 3 inch diameter CD-ROMs

The compact GameCube has 4 controller ports and 2 memory card slots; with a 485 MHz custom CPU, 40 MB memory and a 162 MHz custom graphics processor - which can draw 12 million polygons a second - all crammed into its tiny plastic case.

A unique feature of the GameCube is that it can be connected to one or more of its handheld cousins, the GameBoy Advance, which can be used as supplemental screens and controllers. Some games for the GameCube will include extra levels which can only be unlocked if a GameBoy Advance is connected.

There are also various LCD screens and speaker systems available for the Cube – pictured above: Spectavideo’s 5 inch TFT screen with built-in stereo speakers and 3-way sub-woofer Soundstation speaker system.

GameCube Accessories

Of course, the most important thing about the GameCube is the games. There are 20 titles that will be released along with the Cube on the 3^rd of May - a total of 50 software titles have been promised by the end of 2002.

GameCube Games

NIntendo Wii Console & Games

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