GameCube was good, but I say the SEGA Dreamcast definitely takes the Underrated and Underutilized Console award.
this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2024
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Wii U: Am I a joke to you?
Everyone: YES
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.
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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.
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.
Some of this is factually wrong, some of this I disagree with personally.
I'm not gonna stand here and claim the WiiU was a good business choice or the best possible design for what they were going for. That was the Switch, and... well, yeah, it's the biggest console out there for a reason.
I'll say for it that, like the GameCube, it's less of an interesting retro ownership piece just because so much of its library ended up getting Switch ports. Given the scarcity, some of the reliability issues and the rarity of some games, though, you can be sure I'm sitting on my Wii U and physical games indefinitely. I'm not a speculative collector, but that Wii U copy of The Wonderful 101 is gonna be a good investment at some point.
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The only thing wrong with the wiiu was the price of the games. People call it the "switch tax" but I had to pay $90 for pikmin 3 in 2013, when the idea of $70 games was still rocking the world of Sony and MS fans. If it wasn't for a gift I never would have accepted that price.
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.
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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.
People commonly think the PS3 was a flop due to very poor performance in the US. Outside of the US, it did way, way better. Then later in the generation when you could get one of the Super Slim models for dirt cheap and the library was so massive, it caught up in sales in the US.
In Australia it cost over a grand on launch, and it still beat out the 360 for a while. Toward the end you could get a super slim and two games from EBGames for like $100.
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A lot of people don't realize this, but the same thing applied at an even greater scale with PS3's Blu-Ray player.
At the time, Blu-Ray players cost $1000 while the PS3 launched at $500 or $600. Sony was legit doing everyone a solid, and they got shat on for it.
It's so sad how the xbox 360 won that gen, considering it was the more expensive console when you factor in paying for 2nd internet. Then it ended up normalizing the trend of 2nd internet, lol.
Needless to say, I stopped buying consoles at the PS4 era. Thank god emulation is great, PC hardware is cheap, and many console exclusives are getting PC releases anyways.
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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.
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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.
The dreamcast is still underrated it seems.
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!
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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 mean what console has survived as long as those OG Gamecubes
Uhhh the N64, SNES, PS1 to name a few
PS1? Those disc drives were very fragile. Mine didn't work unless I physically tilted console sideways after like 2 years of use.
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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.
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The gamecube's durability was known during that era: https://youtu.be/ioWnoOjP9IA?si=zPRczUBOp4p4oYCZ
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Looks at OG Atari 2600 still chugging away on my gaming shelf after almost 40 years and chuckles.
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...
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
I agree with him, and it baffles me that people this day still go out of their way to play Smash Bros on Switch with a GameCube controller instead of the superior Switch Pro Controller.
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I've always considered every Nintendo control scheme to be garbage and usually people can at least agree that the N64 was trash, but to call it a spot on layout? Damn, what kind of hands do you have? Lol
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I miss my gamecube. That and the ps2 have to be the pinnacle of home console. After those two consoles PCs have reigned supreme.
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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.
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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
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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 games that used the game boy as a controller and second screen were interesting.
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Anyone remember when GameStop was selling refurbished GameCubes for $30? I think I bought 2.
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