Remembering the GameCube's Launch

With the Switch 2 launch having just passed, it had gotten me thinking of some of the previous console launches I’ve experienced in the past. I’m not sure why the Gamecube launch has been sticking in my head recently, but maybe it has something to do with the reaction to the high price of the Switch 2. I had a bit of a similar sticker shock back in 2001 with the Gamecube. Not because the system itself was expensive, at $250 in the US it was very reasonably priced. But Electronics Boutique made sure if you wanted that system on day one, you were gonna pony up for more than just the base system.

In order to preorder a Gamecube from Electronics Boutique, you essentially had to make a bundle of certain games and accessories. As I remember it, you had to buy they system THREE games (and I think they could be any three games from launch) and a third party controller. Now I should point out that third party controllers meant something different 20-some years ago than they do today. These days you can easily go to a store and buy a non-Nintendo Switch controller and it will probably be pretty good. Controllers from Hori and 8BitDo are particularly popular choices, but other companies like Power A make pretty okay ones too. This was not the case back then. Third party controllers were cheap and terrible. They were the controller you bought and gave to your friend when they came over to play. Actually in my case that’s not even true, as until this point I had never bought a third party controller, it was official or nothing. I think the third party controller they made you buy was from Mad Catz, but I don’t even remember (I’ll have to see if I have that thing in storage somewhere, or if I just abandoned it at some point). I think I may have tried it once and hated it.

So that was your only choice when pre-ordering from Electronics Boutique, this huge bundle. It consisted of some things, like the games, that I would have bought myself, just not all at once, and some things like the third party controller that I would never have bought ever. It took a console that was reasonably priced at $250 and made you spend around $450 to get it.There were a small handful of games at launch, but picking the three I wanted was pretty easy. The three games I added to my bundle were Luigi’s Mansion, Wave Race: Blue Storm and Star Wars Rogue Squadron. Looking back I guess it was kind of nice that they forced me to buy multiple games, as I’m pretty sure I finished Luigi’s Mansion within the first week.

The Electronics Boutique I pre-ordered from was in one of the nearby malls, and they weren’t doing a midnight launch. That was okay with me, though, as a friend of mine had invited me to watch a meteor shower that was happening that night, so my midnight plans were spoken for! I think we tried to get a few hours of sleep, then woke up shortly before 11:00, as that was when it was predicted it would be busiest in the sky. So at around 11:00 that night I was laying flat on the front yard of my friend’s house in sleeping bag, watching the night sky, which really did have an amazing amount of meteors! The sky was full of shooting stars that night, and I’d never seen anything like it! We probably watched that for about an hour, then I got in my car and headed back home to prepare to wake up early for the Gamecube launch. I remember driving past the WalMart on the way home and seeing a line hanging around outside the store waiting for their systems and getting pretty excited.

The next morning I woke up early and headed toward the mall pretty early. The stores in the mall didn’t open until something like 9, but the building itself opened at least an hour before that, so you could walk around inside the mall, even with no stores open yet. It was a Sunday morning and the mall had a scattering of senior citizens, who would show up early at the mall and just walk around to get their steps in. There was a small gathering around the Electronics Boutique by this time. No one was in line yet from what I can recall, they were just sitting on the floor around the front of the store. I don’t remember how early I got there exactly, it was probably an hour before they opened. And oddly enough I don’t remember what I did while I waited! The Game Boy Advance was still new at the time, so it’s quite possible I was playing my GBA while I waited. I wish I could remember exactly.

When it got close to opening time we all formed a more uniformed line and got ready to take home our Nintendo goods. For some mysterious reason, there was one additional bonus we got for pre-ordering these huge bundles. Everyone who pre-ordered received a copy of the book Game Over by David Sheff, a book chronicling the rise of Nintendo. It’s a really good book and I actually already had a copy, so I ended up giving the one I got that day to a coworker.

Since I had work later that day, I didn’t have a lot of time when I got home. In fact, I don’t remember if I actually played anything before heading back out again. I do remember though opening the box to get a look at the system. I remember it seemed so small in person, just this little cute purple cube with a handle! And the controller seemed smaller than I expected too. That’s probably partially because the generation before we had that enormous 3-pronged N64 controller! But the d-pad was surprisingly small on it, I think the same one they used on the Game Boy Advance. I also remember looking over all the screenshots they had on the back of the GameCube box of upcoming games (I was really excited for Smash Bros. Melee and Pikmin) and seeing a quote by Shigeru Miyamoto printed on there. It was a unique touch back then, and to this day I don’t think I’ve really ever seen anything quite so thoughtful put on a system box. I liked it so much that I cut the quote off before getting rid of the box, and I still have that part of the box to this day!

The GameCube was a great system, and it had a really strong set of launch games. In addition to the ones I was forced to buy I a bundle, I would also get Super Monkey Ball a little while later, and that game was awesome. Even to this day with the Switch 2, I still enjoy the excitement of a console launch day, and try to remember to enjoy the experience as it’s happening. Because I’m sure 25 years from now I’ll be looking back fondly on Switch 2’s launch day, much like I’m thinking back on the GameCube’s.