Super Mario Games on the Nintendo GameCube

Developed under the codename Dolphin and unveiled as the GameCube in August 2000, Nintendo’s sixth-generation console was its first home system built around optical discs. Matsushita designed the 8 cm GameCube Game Disc, a mini-DVD format holding up to 1.5 GB, while IBM supplied the 486 MHz Gekko processor and ArtX, later part of ATI, created the 162 MHz Flipper graphics chip, backed by 24 MB of fast 1T-SRAM. The compact cube had a carry handle at the back and four controller ports at the front. Its pad, with an oversized green A button and analogue shoulder triggers, was a clean break from the N64 design, and the WaveBird of 2002 is often called the first modern wireless gaming controller. Online play needed a separate broadband or modem adapter.

Japan got the console first, on 14 September 2001, for ¥25,000. North America followed on 18 November 2001 at US$199, and Europe on 3 May 2002, where a price cut announced shortly before launch brought it down from €249 to €199, or £129.99 in the UK. Unusually, the launch game with the Mario name on it starred his brother: Luigi’s Mansion was on shelves on day one in all three regions. Indigo and Jet Black were the launch colours, Platinum arrived about a year later and Japan had an orange Spice model, while Panasonic sold the Q, a GameCube that doubled as a DVD player, in Japan from December 2001.

The competition was the toughest Nintendo had faced. The GameCube outsold the Dreamcast but finished well behind the PlayStation 2 and slightly behind Microsoft’s Xbox, and Nintendo’s final tally is 21.74 million consoles and 208.58 million games. It still turned a profit, but critics blamed a thin launch line-up and a family-friendly image for falling so far short of Nintendo’s early target of 50 million units by 2005. A 2004 revision (DOL-101) dropped the little-used digital AV port, and the Game Boy Player, which clipped on underneath from 2003, let the console run Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance cartridges on the television.

For Mario himself it was a generation of bold ideas. Super Mario Sunshine (July 2002) strapped the F.L.U.D.D. water pack to his back for a working holiday on Isle Delfino and sold around 5.91 million copies. Mario Kart: Double Dash!! put two riders in every kart, one driving and one throwing items, and at about 6.88 million became the console’s best-selling Mario game. Intelligent Systems followed Paper Mario with Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door in 2004, still regarded by many fans as the high point of the series, and Hudson Soft delivered a party game every year from Mario Party 4 through Mario Party 5 and the microphone-equipped Mario Party 6 to Mario Party 7. Luigi’s Mansion itself sold about 3.33 million.

Nintendo also handed its characters to outside studios more freely than ever. Treasure made Wario World, Camelot returned with Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour and Mario Power Tennis, Namco produced Mario Superstar Baseball, Next Level Games built Super Mario Strikers and Konami packed a Mario-themed dance mat with Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix. Electronic Arts even added Mario, Luigi and Peach to the GameCube editions of NBA Street V3 and SSX On Tour. The partnership reached arcades too: the Triforce board, developed by Namco, Sega and Nintendo on GameCube architecture, ran Mario Kart Arcade GP from 2005.

Nintendo stopped making the GameCube in February 2007, a few months after the Wii launched, and most Wii models could play its discs and use its controllers and memory cards, which kept the library within reach for years. Several of its Mario games have since been revived. Mario Power Tennis returned on Wii with motion controls in 2009, Luigi’s Mansion was remade for Nintendo 3DS in 2018, Super Mario Sunshine joined Super Mario 3D All-Stars on Switch in 2020 and The Thousand-Year Door was rebuilt for Switch in May 2024. On Nintendo Switch 2, the Nintendo GameCube – Nintendo Classics library for Expansion Pack members has added Super Mario Strikers (July 2025), Luigi’s Mansion (October 2025), Wario World (December 2025) and Super Mario Sunshine (August 2026).