I've always been impressed with what the Gamecube could do, even though it was designed from the onset to be a low cost machine. Not having a DVD player was one way to reduce costs and Nintendo's miniDVD format was a clever way to reduce piracy - something I fully support and always respected about Nintendo. I don't care about Nintendo's profitability per say, but I do care about working people getting paid for their work. But I must admit that I purchased a PS2 just to have a DVD player. Today I would never put the unnecessary wear and tear on the machine to just watch movies, but my daughter is still using her PS2 almost exclusively to watch movies with. She's not much of a gamer I guess.

I bought my first Gamecube after Nintendo removed the component out capability to further reduce costs on a Black Friday sale for $99. It came with Mario Kart and I could also choose any other Nintendo game of my choice for free. I took Zelda Four Swords and thought I'd gotten a great deal. I then asked to buy a used Gamecube because I wanted to buy an older version with the component out. Mind you, I live in a very rural area with a small population of people and I was simply STUNNED when they took me into the back of the store to pick out a used Gamecube. There was an entire wall filled with traded in Gamecubes stacked from floor to ceiling. I've often thought of all those people who were obviously disappointed with their Gamecubes. Some probably wanted to play Grand Theft Auto like their friends were, maybe some wanted to play Halo, and maybe some just grew tired of waiting for Twilight Princess.

I thought the Gamcube provided the most entertainment of any console of that era. I mean, only a company like Nintendo could show up at E3 and announce that what people really wanted to play was Pac-Man! Whoo Hoo!

Then we had Shigeru Miyamoto claim that he could have made Halo - if he had wanted to. So I suppose he could also claim that he could have been the first man to walk on the moon - if he had wanted to, using nothing more than his own flatulence as rocket fuel. Possible, possible, as the man is definitely full of something!

This nonsense could only be matched by Shinji Mikami's tantrum that Resident Evil 4 would ONLY be a Gamecube exclusive and never appear on Sony's PS2, a company he purposefully smeared as intentionally making console's that were easy to break. A comment seized upon and parroted ad nauseum by Nintendo's loyal fan base. The investor's - the people who actually paid for the development of Resident Evil 4 - ignored Mikami's rants, but I must say the game does look better on the Cube.

My Gamecube has been a reliable machine. I don't play it nearly as often as my Xbox or PS2, but it's never given me a single issue loading or reading disc's. I do respect Nintendo for making well-built hardware. The controller was never a problem for me. It's only slightly odd, but a huge improvement from N64's tri-winged discombobulation. It must have come as a shock for those who defend the N64 controller's as being "just fine" to see the Gamecube controller become two legged and slightly more like the Dual Shock design.

For most, the main purpose of having a Cube was to play Nintendo's first party software and those were undeniably the best sellers on the console. But I was never really big on Nintendo's classic cast of characters. But I was interested in the some of the oddball stuff the Gamecube offered like Cubivore, Animal Crossing, Pikmin and Odama. Plus I liked some of the stuff I was seeing coming from Nintendo of America's developers like Giest and Eternal Darkness. To top it off, the Gamecube had a nicely done updated version of Metal Gear Solid and an almost definitive collection of the Zelda and Resident Evil games. There were Metroid and Rogue Squadron games, Hell, the Gamecubes library was nothing you could turn your back on.

Another thing I liked about the Gamecube, and I don't know if this was just a mistake on Nintendo's part or what, but you could play imports using a simple boot disc, making it by far and away the easiest of the three to play Japanese exclusives. So I gladly picked up Kururin Squash, Mr. Driller Drill Land, Charinko Hero and a few others.

I know the Gamecube received a slew of badly ported games, but there were a few that benefited from the extra time the developer's had to make some improvements, such as...

4x4 EVO 2 received 5 extra trucks & 4 extra tracks

Conflict Desert Storm had changes made from player feedback that altered the gun-sight, improved enemy AI, revamped the inventory system, and added a Restart Level option

Dark Summit didn't have quite as much slowdown as the other versions

Midway Arcade Treasures 3 didn't have game save corruption problems as the others did

Prince Persia Warior Within had less framerate & sound issues than other versions

Star Wars Bounty Hunter had better framerate, less loading times and improved graphics

I don't think the Gamecube had any real problem other than Nintendo itself, which march's to the tune of a different drummer. Good for them!