GameCube was good, but I say the SEGA Dreamcast definitely takes the Underrated and Underutilized Console award.
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Wii U: Am I a joke to you?
Everyone: YES
To me, the WiiU is the modern Dreamcast. I miss it and it's promises that we're never kept :(
It's a shame the Wii U never really saw the modding community the Vita had
It finally got there though at the end of it's life. I have mine available still because it's basically a modded Wii with the ability to also play WiiU Roms too.
WiiU was underpowered when it launched. Even if someone had utilized it 100%, it still would have been behind compared to the Xbox360 and PS3. 720p only when the Xbox and PS2 were already supporting 720p and 1080i was also a bad choice.
WiiU was just a bunch of bad choices combined in a single product. Bad hardware choices, bad marketing, bad name, requiring the massive gamepad for console setup, etc.
nintendo is kind of known for bad performance, but the wiiu really took the cake for outdated and low performance at launch.
also the gamepads are region locked (why, nintendo?)
I dunno who told you the Wii U was 720p-only. Mine ran at 1080p all day, every day - albeit some games used upscaling to reduce the graphical workload.
Had an internet browser.
Controllers had mini screens available.
Shit was OP, ahead of its time.
It did cloud game streaming in 2012 and, unlike the Sony Portal, the Steam Link or Xbox Cloud, it actually worked.
Granted, while you were within spitting distance of the unit and had clear line of sight, but still. Impressively lagless wireless video out of a console in the early 2010s? We don't respect that enough.
The Dreamcast did that in 2012? How?
I think he got it mixed up with the Wii U...
I think it's safe to say that Sega wasn't doing anything with Dreamcast in 2012, ten years after it was discontinued.
DVD playback was a big issue at the time. Buy a PS2 and you got a built in DVD player. Here's the 2000 JCPenney Christmas catalog for DVD players:
https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ShowCatalogPage/2000-JCPenney-Christmas-Book/0689
Around $250-$350. The PS2 was introduced that year in North America for $300. So you could get one for about the price of a standalone DVD player. Why wouldn't you? Nobody cares now, of course, but it was a big thing at the time.
Oh, and the PS2 played all the existing PS1 games. To this day, I still tell people that the PS2 is one of the best deals in retro gaming because of the wide range of titles it can play. Lots of hidden gems to find. Even better if you can score an early model PS3, but they're harder to find and more expensive than a PS2.
The early model PS3 had a literal PS2 crammed inside of it for the sole purpose of backwards compatibility which was fascinating. The death of physical media (blu ray) and high price kind of caused it to flop that generation. Look who’s laughing now though!
PS3 still outsold the XB360 globally, barely. 87M vs 85M. That was also the generation Nintendo decided to take its ball and play by itself with the Wii. Microsoft had its own fuckup with the red ring of death. PS3 wasn't a total flop, though certainly not as dominant as it has been against Microsoft before or since.
The GameCube was a flop mostly because of image and marketing, not because it wasn't technically good.
I have one and I love it, but I only got it long, long after release.
What 12-year-old boy asking for a Christmas present is going to choose the cutesy purple brick that "only has kid games" over a sleek black PS2 that is seen as being adult, with action and fighting games? Not many, and so the GameCube flopped.
I think Nintendo were starting to see at that time that consoles weren't just for boys. They were for girls too, and for the whole family, and the GameCube was a step towards that. But it didn't go far enough. They ended up stopping short and falling smack in the middle where it didn't appeal to the established 'male gamer' demographic, and still didn't grab families either.
Then the Wii came along and went HARD on the family-friendly aspect, and just blasted off the shelves. Nintendo learned a lesson, but the GameCube was the price they had to pay for it.
Okay, here's my obligatory reminder that it's less of a flop than people, particularly in anglo territories, give it credit for. It sold just shy of the original Xbox and it outsold well liked stuff like the Dreamcast or the Vita about 2 to 1.
A few consoles at that time were very regional. The N64 was a rare sight where I'm from, I have seen an original Xbox in the wild exactly once, it was being used as a DVD player and the owner had no games for it. The Gamecube picked up a lot of steam over here once the price went down to 100 bucks and it got a reputation for having some of the best excluisves of that generation later in its lifespan.
The one thing I'd argue about its longevity as a retro console is that it's almost entirely superseded by the Wii, which can play the entire library natively, has more functional output options and is super easy to find. The Cube is cuter, more iconic and built like a brick, though, so it's a better thing to have on a shelf.
Here’s MY obligatory reminder that GameCube had little compartments on the bottom that you could hide yer drugs in!
You touched on a few good points, but I think ultimately reached the wrong conclusion.
What 12-year-old boy asking for a Christmas present is going to choose the cutesy purple brick that "only has kid games" over a sleek black PS2 that is seen as being adult, with action and fighting games?
This was literally Segas entire marketing strategy. Nintendo early on decided to lean heavily into the family friendly marketing for their consoles starting with the NES (or famicom, literally family computer) for various reasons but most prominently because of the videogame crash of the 70s.
Sega saw an opportunity to position themselves as an edgier option that would appeal more to the tween and teen demographic and so leaned very heavily into that in their advertising in the 80s and particularly the 90s. This tactic was rather successful and so Nintendo developed a reputation as the console for children. This image was further cemented by certain decisions by Nintendo around game content, most prominently by the rather shortsighted decision to force the Mortal Kombat series of games to recolor characters blood to green instead of the red it was on arcade and sega systems (this could be disabled using a hidden cheat code somewhat rendering the entire exercise moot).
When Sony and Microsoft came along they didn't really need to do anything special besides release whatever games they wanted, the damage to Nintendo's rep was already done. Nintendo then made things even worse for themselves by releasing a console in bright candy colors most closely associated with marketing towards young children that literally looked like a small childs lunchbox.
Then the Wii came along and went HARD on the family-friendly aspect, and just blasted off the shelves.
Nintendo realized that they wouldn't be able to shake the children's console rep they had developed easily and so decided to lean heavily into messaging that their consoles were also for adults. Much of the marketing for the Wii (in fact the majority of it) depicted the console being played by adults and the elderly. It was actually somewhat rare to see advertising for the Wii showing young children using the console, a stark contrast from Nintendo's previous marketing.
This was also reflected in the design aesthetic of the console and its packaging featuring a modern minimalist flat white color scheme with minimal light blue highlights. Compared with previous Nintendo consoles the Wii was downright drab looking. Its packaging looked more like a product from Ikea than a games console.
Nintendo further lucked out with the Wii in that it had a novel control system utterly unlike anything else in the market at the time and so had a massive novelty factor going for it. Additionally helping with this was that they positioned the console at the extreme low end of the market releasing it at a price point well below half the cost of their nearest competitor.
They didn't "luck out", they were reproducing the strategy that had already worked in the DS. Remember "Brain Training"? To this day I know people who claim to loathe videogames who owned a DS and were cool with it. Same core design: accessible, unorthodox input system as a trojan horse for adults, here are all the games it turns out you also enjoy playing.
It's the same with the Switch and the detachable controller, dockable console gimmick. If anything, the Wii U is the outlier in them not designing it well enough to pay off that ongoing strategy. One could argue that the 3DS did as well, but that glassless 3D screen is amazing, particularly once they figured out eye tracking, you're all wrong about that one.
And for the family friendly aspect nothing after the wii beat it.
The multiplayer games there are just better than something like the switch offers, and the controllers are a good size and weight for emulating whatever they are representing in games. Stuff like tennis with the tiny light switch controllers just feels wrong.
I thought the Dreamcast earned this title
For sure. Lots of people knew how awesome game cube was and what it was capable of. Its lacking graphics with extremely well made games. The dreamcast was a powerhouse with VGA out. Barely anyone knew how amazing it was. It could have blown away Sony. Sega really dropped the ball. I wish I had known when it came out.
I'm on my 3rd dreamcast but it's been fine for the last couple decades. My genesis, though, 1991 and still fine. Kicking myself actually, the cartridge port was feisty for EVER but i finally had the guts to really look in there and i tweezed out 30 years of fuzz that had felted down in it.
I mean what console has survived as long as those OG Gamecubes
Uhhh the N64, SNES, PS1 to name a few
Yeah, I still have a NES and 2 SNES that work perfectly
PS1? Those disc drives were very fragile. Mine didn't work unless I physically tilted console sideways after like 2 years of use.
Not a console, but I have a working Tandy 1000 from 1984.
Mobo in great condition and case isn't even yellowed, whoever had it before me must have had it in a dark coat closet for 30 years.
The GameCube had one key flaw and that is that nobody actually used it to it's fullest potential.
Look at something like the Resident Evil Remake:
Just a great looking game, head and shoulders above what was happening on the PS2.
But most GameCube games, even the good ones, looked like garbage.
The key flaw was it using mini disks. Not only did this kneecap storage capacity for developers, but it also made it difficult to pirate games, which is ironically a big part of its failure.
The gamecube's durability was known during that era: https://youtu.be/ioWnoOjP9IA?si=zPRczUBOp4p4oYCZ
Looks at OG Atari 2600 still chugging away on my gaming shelf after almost 40 years and chuckles.
My roommate and I stood in line for it, I remember marveling over how well-made it was. They got everything right. Even the little beeps and boops using the OS itself. You don't really see that anymore.
GameCube was the Nokia of the gaming consoles. Actually, it probably still is.
I mean what console has survived as long as those OG Gamecubes.
I still have my OG SNES from when I was a kid and got one the year they came out as a Christmas gift. And Dreamcast. And PS2 (but the slim; I got rid of the fat boy as soon as the slim came out).
I got rid of the fat boy as soon as the slim came out
Right about now, the funk soul brother...
Ive had 2 PS2's go down, a PS3 Gen1 break, 3 Xbox 360, and very sadly an OG Xbox that did last from 2005 to 2015, an N64, and my PS4 Slim is getting there for sure. All (except the 64) gotten years (some a decade) after this Gamecube I still have today.
What do you mean by PS2s going down? I feel like they're the most robust console I've come across especially when the benefits of modding are taken into account
I miss my gamecube. That and the ps2 have to be the pinnacle of home console. After those two consoles PCs have reigned supreme.
I just grabbed a Wii U and modded it so I can play mostly Gamecube, but also some Wii and Wii U games. So much fun completing Timesplitters, and the occasional Mario Football
I like my hacked Wii u. Pretty versatile
Check out the raspberry pi mods you can do now!
The GameCube controller was hot garbage. Weird unfriendly shape, buttons in the wrong spot, my thumbs and index fingers we're not happy with it. The N64 controllers had durability issues but the layout was spot on.
I also have the same complaints about the switch controllers. The secondary thumb functions (left d pad and right joystick) and primary L/R buttons are not in a good ergonomic place and cause my hands to hurt after a bit of playing.
Talk about an unpopular opinion. But hey your entitled to your opinion
The games that used the game boy as a controller and second screen were interesting.