The Nintendo GameCube is Nintendo's fourth generation console and their first disc-based console; it was released in Japan on September 14, 2001, the U.S. on November 18, 2001, in Europe on May 3, 2002, and in Australia on May 17, 2002. The European launch boasted 20 titles at launch, which included Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader, Wave Race: Blue Storm, Luigi's Mansion and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3.

Nintendo continued many of their popular franchises on the system, including Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Metroid, and Super Smash Bros.. The Nintendo GameCube is also responsible for several new franchises, including Pikmin, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, the Viewtiful Joe series, and P.N.03. The GameCube also revived the Metroid series with the release of Metroid Prime and its direct sequel, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes; although the games are no longer in the same style as the older Metroid games with the introduction of three dimensional graphics and a first-person shooter style. Nintendo had also gained exclusivity rights for the Resident Evil series and Capcom has released several GameCube-only Resident Evil titles, including Resident Evil 4 which is critically acclaimed to be the best in the series. Eventually Capcom backed out and allowed the Resident Evil titles to be released on the PS2 system, including the once Gamecube exclusive Resident Evil 4. The Gamecube also saw the return of Square Enix, the home of the flagship Final Fantasy series, as they released another Final Fantasy spinoff called Crystal Chronicles for the now DVD-ROM functional GameCube as well as Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for the Game Boy Advance.

Despite this, the GameCube is currently in last place in Australia, falling behind both Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox]. However, in the console wars, it is in firm second place in Japan; while battling with the Xbox for second place in the American and European markets. In terms of hardware sales, the GameCube is in a close second place, ahead of Microsoft's machine by a small margin. Commentators have noted that whilst both Sony and Microsoft are losing money from every console they sell, Nintendo makes a profit from every GameCube sold. As of June 2005, the Nintendo GameCube has shipped 18.76 million worldwide

The source of this article is Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL