The Nintendo GameCube was Nintendo's fourth home console.  It was the first console Nintendo decided to use am optical disc and not a cartridge.  It was released in Japan on September 15, 2001.

      North America's release date was November 18, 2001.  It was the first console not to be released with a "Super Mario" title.  Instead, Luigi took the spot in Luigi's Mansion.    

     Nintendo decided to use the GameCube disc size so they didn't' have to pay licensing fees to the DVD Consortium.  This was also done to prevent illegal copying of discs.  Due to its disc size, larger games, 25 in all, had to be released on 2 discs.

     The GameCube was the first console outside of Japan to have online play.  This was provided by the Broadband Adapter or Modem Adapter.  Only four games had online gaming.  No titles developed or published by Nintendo offered this feature.  Nintendo made game publishers responsible for the online content.

    The GameCube also provided access to gamers to play Game Boy games.  This was accomplished by the Game Boy Player.  The device plugged into the bottom of the Game Cube.  Games also had exclusive features of certain games.

     The GameCube sold approximately 21.74 units worldwide.  Sales became so sluggish, that Nintendo halted production to reduce inventory in 2003.  The GameCube came in several different colors.  Some of these included indigo, jet lack, and Spice.  The GameCube codename was Dolphin which is part of the model name.  Nintendo released approximately 639 games for the GameCube during its lifetime.
 
Nintendo GameCube Information

CPU Information
   485 MHz PowerPC "Gecko" (IBM)
   32 KB L1 cache / 256 KB L2 cache
   Bandwidth: 1.3 GB per second

GPU Information
   162 MHz LSI "Flipper"
   16 MB video RAM
   Bandwidth: 2.6 GB per second

Overall Peformance
   Up to 12 million polygons per second

Memory
   24 MB XX-RAM (2.6 GB per second)
   16 MB DRAM (81 MB per second)

Sound
   Stereo
   Dolby Pro Logic II
   Dolby 5.1 (Panasonic Q model only) with component cable
   64 audio channels (ADPCM)

AV Output
   480i or 480p

Storage
   512KB to 8MB memory card

Connections
   4x controller
   2x memory slots
   Broadband adapter
   GameCube Game Boy Player

Supported Media
   Game Cube Disc (1.5 GB)