The , often abbreviated as GCN, is Nintendo's fourth home video game console and is part of the sixth generation console era. The hardware system is the most compact, and second-cheapest after Sega's Dreamcast, of the sixth generation. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 and predecessor to Nintendo's Wii. The console was released on September 14 2001 in Japan, November 18 2001 in North America, May 3 2002 in Europe, and May 17 2002 in Australia. The GameCube sold 21.74 million units worldwide.

Marketing

Nintendo has used several advertising strategies and techniques for the GameCube. The earliest commercials displayed a rotating cube video, which would morph into the GameCube logo. A female voice whispered "GameCube." This was usually after the normal commercial for a GameCube game.

Subsequent ad campaigns had Nintendo advertising with a "Who Are You?" tangent to market the wide range of games Nintendo offers. The idea behind the "Who Are You?" campaign is that "you are what you play"; the kind of game a gamer enjoys playing suggests a dominant trait in that gamer's personality. The "Who Are You?" logo is similar to graffiti lettering. Most of the "Who Are You?" commercials advertised games developed or published by Nintendo, but some developers paid Nintendo to promote their games, using Nintendo's marketing and advertising resources.

Hardware

Like its predecessor, the Nintendo 64, the Nintendo GameCube was available in a variety of colors. The two most common colors, made available during the system's launch, were "Indigo" (the "default" color) and "Jet Black". Later, Nintendo released GameCubes with a "Platinum" color scheme, marketed as limited edition. "Orange Spice" GameCubes were also manufactured, but were primarily available only in Japan.

The GameCube's model numbers, DOL-001 and 101, are a reference to its Dolphin codename. The official accessories and peripherals have model numbers beginning with DOL as well. Also, other types of Nintendo hardware before and after the GameCube has its developer's codename as a model number. Another Dolphin reference, "Flipper" is the name of the GPU for the GameCube. Panasonic made a licensed version of the GameCube with DVD playback, called the Panasonic Q.

Benchmarks provided by third-party testing facilities indicate that Nintendo's official 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 Nintendo 64 architecture; thus creating an affordable, well-balanced, developer-friendly console that still performs competitively against its rivals.. The development hardware kit was called the GameCube NR Reader. Model numbers for these units begin with DOT. These units allow developers to debug beta versions of games and hardware. These units were sold to developers by Nintendo at a premium price and many developers modified regular GameCubes for game beta testing because of this. The NR reader will not play regular GameCube games but only special NR discs burned by a Nintendo NR writer.