- published: 19 Oct 2015
- views: 617677
The Nintendo GameCube (ニンテンドーゲームキューブ, Nintendō Gēmukyūbu?), officially abbreviated to NGC in Japan and GCN in other regions, is a sixth generation video game console released by Nintendo on September 15, 2001 in Japan, November 18, 2001 in North America, May 3, 2002 in Europe, and May 17, 2002 in Australia. It was the successor to the Nintendo 64.
The GameCube sold 21.74 million units worldwide, and was discontinued on February 22, 2007. Its successor, the Wii was released in November 2006.
The Nintendo GameCube was the first Nintendo console to use optical discs as its primary storage medium, after several aborted projects from Nintendo and its partners to utilize optical-based storage media. In contrast with the GameCube's contemporary competitors, Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast and Microsoft's Xbox, the GameCube uses miniDVD-based discs instead of full-size DVDs. Partially as a result of this, it does not have the DVD-Video playback functionality of these systems, nor the audio CD playback ability of other consoles that use full-size optical discs.