E3

At an electronic show called E3 in 1999, Nintendo announced the initial specifications for its next-generation console, code-named Dolphin. The first thing that Nintendo made clear was that the new system would not use a cartridge medium.
The Nintendo 64 had done decent with the format, but games were expensive, and the format alienated some 3rd Party developers. As months past more specifics were released about the new console. Nintendo would have several companies involved in the project. IBM designed and manufactured the console processor called the “Gekko”.
The graphics processor called “Flipper” was designed by a small startup company called ArtX who was later bought out by ATI. The graphics chip was manufactured by NEC. Macronix and Factor 5 contributed the sound with MoSys providing the system memory. Lastly the console would use a proprietary 8cm optical disc game format capable of holding 1.5GB of data (twice the capacity of CD-ROMs). This disk was developed and manufactured by Matsushita (best known by its Panasonic brand name). It became clear that Nintendo was indeed developing something impressive.

Nintendo’s new console was revealed on August 24, 2000 at their Nintendo Spaceworld show. The console, which was now being called Starcube, was officially named the Nintendo GameCube. A fitting name for one of the smallest console system in recent history.
The GameCube’s power was demonstrated with a tech demo of a game simply called “Mario 128”. Displaying textures would be the GameCube's most potent asset. GameCube uses 6-to-1 texture compression, which will let texture data be shrunk to one-sixth its original size, with no appreciable hit on the hardware.
This was clearly apparent as onlookers watched 128 rendered Mario character models running around the screen at once. Many questioned why Nintendo would not utilize the immense DVD storage format and movie playback that rival consoles were using.
Nintendo would state that they have made a next-generation, powerful, easy to understand, and easy to develop gaming system and that would be their only focus. Nintendo also unveiled new forms of connectivity between Nintendo GameCube and their popular handheld portable Game Boy® Advance.
By linking the two systems, the Game Boy Advance can be used as more than a controller. For instance, players can transfer a character trained on GameCube to Game Boy Advance to continue game play while away from home. Or, transport characters or items via Game Boy Advance to trade with friends. And, with innovative technology such as "tilt control," players can maneuver a character just by tilting a Game Boy Advance controller. Nintendo would reveal other linking concepts in later years.

GBA connectivity

Nintendo would state that they have made a next-generation, powerful, easy to understand, and easy to develop gaming system and that would be their only focus. Nintendo also unveiled new forms of connectivity between Nintendo GameCube and their popular handheld portable Game Boy® Advance.
By linking the two systems, the Game Boy Advance can be used as more than a controller. For instance, players can transfer a character trained on GameCube to Game Boy Advance to continue game play while away from home.
Or, transport characters or items via Game Boy Advance to trade with friends. And, with innovative technology such as "tilt control," players can maneuver a character just by tilting a Game Boy Advance controller. Nintendo would reveal other linking concepts in later years.

Purple, is that all.

Nintendo launched the GameCube in Japan on September 14 2001. Although Nintendo would market the console in other colors, only the Indigo (purple) version was initially available. The decision to not use their proprietary format (rather then DVD) allowed Nintendo the ability to market the GameCube for around $100 less then the Playstation 2 and Xbox (Japan retailed at 25,000 yen).
A lack of initial game titles, plus a subdued publicity campaign, may have hindered the Japanese GameCube launch. Nintendo released only three games (Luigi's Mansion, Super Monkey Ball, and Wave Race: Blue Storm) and managed to sell 300,000 of 450,000 shipped units. Clearly not the usual publicized launch that usually occurs abroad, but another contributing factor may have been the world’s focus on the September 11th Terrorist Attack on the US.
The GameCube launch in the US was originally scheduled for November 5, 2001. Nintendo felt it wiser to delay the release in order to make more units and launch titles available. The GameCube was officially launched on November 18th, only a mere few days after the release of Microsoft’s Xbox. Over 700,000 units and 8 launch titles were available at launch. Even with two other next generation consoles on the market, the GameCube still managed to sell out it’s initial shipment. The success followed with the European launch in May of 2002.

Games, quality over quantity.

As the other rival consoles went about unveiling their online gaming strategies, Nintendo merely announced the availability of a network adapter that could be used with Phantasy Star Online. It appeared as if online gaming was not part on Nintendo’s overall strategy at that point.
The main focus however was to release quality game titles which had slowed to a trickle since the console’s debut. Toward the end of 2002 however, the GameCube saw the release of many quality “must have” exclusive games.
The GameCube has truly restored Nintendo’s popularity with both gamers and developers. It’s small unique shape and makeshift handle has inspired developers to create an attaching LCD screen and battery pack for a somewhat portable game experience.
Remakes and sequels to Nintendo’s popular franchise characters has pushed software sales for the console even further. It seems Nintendo has done well to continue their console legacy.

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GameCube Technical Specs

IBM Gekko CPU

PowerPC
485 MHz
32-bit integer
64-bit floating-point
64KB L1 cache (32KB instruction + 32KB data)
256KB L2 cache
1125 Dhrystone 2.1 MIPS
1.94 GFLOPS
CPU external bus

64 bits wide
162 MHz
1.3 gigabytes per second bandwidth
(GPU) ATI Flipper

162 MHz
4 pixel pipelines
1 texel per pixel pipeline
4 texels per clock cycle (4 pixels with 1 texel per pixel)
Maximum of 8 texture layers per rendering pass (done in 8 clock cycles)
650 megapixels per second
650 megatexels per second
Point, Bilinear, Trilinear, Anisotropic Mip-Map Filtering
Perspective-Correct Texture Mapping
Bump Mapping
Environment Mapping
24-bit Z Buffer
S3TC Texture Compression
Subpixel Anti-Aliasing
Geometry and Lighting Engine
33 million polygons per second (peak)
6 million to 12 million polygons per second (with effects)
Hidden Surface Removal (HSR) based on early Z-test
Virtual Texture Design
2MB Embedded Frame Buffer
1MB Embedded Texture Cache
10.4 gigabytes per second texture cache read bandwidth
scene texture data stored in 24MB 1T-SRAM main memory
8.6 GFLOPS
Custom Macronix 16-bit DSP Sound Processor

81 MHz
64 voices
ADPCM encoding
sound data stored in 16MB A-Memory
Main Memory

24 Megabytes MoSys 1T-SRAM
64 bits wide
325 MHz
325 megabits per second per pin
2.6 gigabytes per second bandwidth
A-Memory

16 Megabytes DRAM
8 bits wide
81 MHz
81 megabits per second per pin
81 megabytes per second bandwidth
Storage

3-inch Optical Disc Technology (1.5 gigabytes)
memory cards

Emulators

Dolwin -
DolphinTeaser - This one does play quite a few commercial games, keep an eye on it.
gcube -