The Gamecube is a video game console produced by Nintendo. It was released in Japan in 2001 and later in North America in 2002. It is the first console made by Nintendo to use a disc format instead of the old cartridge game storage system that they have been using since Nintendo was created. This console was the smallest and cheapest of the sixth generation of consoles, next to the Sega Dreamcast. The Gamecube is the successor to the N64 and predecessor to the Wii.

The Gamecube was which was codenamed "dolphin" was announced to the public in 1999 during the E3 conference. Shaped like an actual cube, it was available in many different colors, such as platinum, black, orange, white, etc. Using their own special designed disc medium, it was considerably smaller than a standard DVD or cd. This was most likely to prevent pirating of the game discs. DVD and cd support was not included on the system for three reasons, one it allowed the cube to be smaller, two Nintendo wanted to make it a game system instead of a full-on home entertainment system, and three they didn't want to have to pay the licensing fees. The lack of DVD support did hurt it a bit, making people turn to the Playstation 2 which did play DVDs. Gamecube does have some connectivity abilities, like it can connect to the Gameboy Advance to share game data such as saves etc. You can also connect it to another Gamecube to make a LAN connection, which many games support.

When the system was launched there were twelve available titles, such as Crazy Taxi, Luigi's Mansion, and Super Monkey Ball. Many titles were released later on, but my personal favorite would have to be Resident Evil 4. One of the defining aspects of the Nintendo Gamecube is the rejuvenated relationship between Nintendo and its licensees. Unlike previous generations in which Nintendo was seen by some as bullying its third-party game developers, Nintendo openly sought game-development aid on the Nintendo Gamecube. Sometimes, Nintendo would merely request that a third-party developer produce a game based on the third-party's own game franchises; other times, Nintendo would request that the third-party developer produce a game based on Nintendo's own game franchises. In both cases, Nintendo often took an active role in cooperating with the developer. This policy on Nintendo's part resulted in many exclusive third-party games for the Nintendo Gamecube, and the arrival of multiformat titles on the platform. Because of these efforts, Gamecube owners tend to support first-party games more heavily than third party games, whereas the reverse is true for PlayStation 2 and Xbox owners, as fewer high-quality first-party titles exist on those platforms.

Despite Nintendo's efforts, the Gamecube is not recapturing the market share held by the company's earlier consoles. "Family-friendly" appeal and lack of third-party support skew the Gamecube toward a younger market, which represents a minority of the gaming population. Some third-party games popular with teenagers or adults such as first person shooters and the controversial Grand Theft Auto series made by Rockstar were skipping a Gamecube port in favour of the PS2 and Xbox. The Gamecube does, however, have over forty M (for Mature) rated games, which is a considerably larger amount than Nintendo's previous consoles.

Also, due to Nintendo's lack of support for the online capabilities of the Gamecube, as opposed to Microsoft and later Sony, who actively promoted online gaming by releasing first party online titles, many multiplatform games with online functionality are released offline-only on the Gamecube. Although online support was added in late 2002 and both Sony and Nintendo followed a similar decentralized online model, lower sales of the Gamecube versions of games during its launch year preclude developers from including online support. The 1.5 gigabyte proprietary disc format may also have been a limiting factor since the Xbox and PS2 use the 8.5 gigabyte dual layer DVD. However, the Nintendo disc still has sufficient room for most games, although a few games tend to have less extra content than other versions, and video compression for some games is slightly more apparent.

The GameCube's model numbers, DOL-001 and 101, are a reference to its "Dolphin" codename. All of its official accessories and peripherals have model numbers beginning with DOL as well. Also, many other Nintendo hardware before and after the Gamecube has its developers codename as a model number. Another Dolphin reference, "Flipper" is the name of the GPU for the Gamecube.

Some benchmarks provided by third-party testing facilities indicate that some of these specifications, especially those relating to performance, may be conservative. One of Nintendo's primary objectives in designing the Gamecube hardware was to overcome the perceived limitations and difficulties of programming for the N64 architecture, creating an affordable, well-balanced, developer-friendly console that still performs competitively against its rivals. On a side note, unofficial reports claim that the Wii's architecture is derived from that of the Gamecube.