Building the Ultimate GameCube

I make a point of trying games on a wide variety of systems throughout history, and after trying out a wide swath of them, my favorite still remains the Nintendo GameCube. It's not necessarily the flashiest system with the most features or unique qualities, but it's the system whose library I love the most. It helps that it was at the height of its popularity back when I first getting into gaming. In my mind, GameCube games are just what games look like, even if they're objectively far obsolete.

Despite my fondness for the console, I didn't actually have one until fairly recently. Many of my friends had one growing up, but I was relegated to playing on handheld systems. My main exposure to the system wasn't until I got a shiny new Nintendo Wii, which was backwards compatible with the Wii. By that point, used GameCube games were also a fraction of the price of their new Wii counterparts — something I desperately wish I would have taken greater advantage of as a child. So, I built up a decent library of games that I continue to enjoy to this day. Your Super Smash Bros. Melee, Metroid Prime, Resident Evil, and many more. My all time favorite video game remains a GameCube title as well — Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, which certainly doesn't hurt its appeal to me.

However, I'm not here to discuss its excellent library of games, including its hidden gems like Skies of Arcadia: Legends or Chibi-Robo. Instead, I'm going to go over how I took a simple, run of the mill GameCube system and turned it into the Ultimate GameCube experience.

The GameCube Itself

As mentioned, I had no way of playing my GameCube games for many years aside from utilizing my Wii, which I have kept a hold of all this time. However, playing GameCube games on a Wii includes one fairly obnoxious pain point. You cannot boot the system directly into starting a GameCube disc, instead you have to first boot into the OS main menu, then navigate to the GameCube selection to start the game. This requires at least three button presses, which doesn't sound like much, except it requires the use of a Wiimote. The Wiimote in turn requires the sensor bar peripheral to be plugged in and at least haphazardly oriented towards the player, plus two AA batteries with enough charge to rapidly navigate the menus. None of this is the end of the world, but when you're sitting down to play a GameCube title, having to first find and set up a controller that will only be used for three button presses grows tiresome, especially if you've been doing it for 15 years.

Thus, I've had my eye out for a dedicated GameCube console, but was never in such a dire need to go out and buy the first one I stumbled across. This search finally ended in the Spring of 2024 when I discovered a local Craigslist listing selling a GameCube unit and various paraphernalia for $50, an excellent value given how much game with it. The experience of actually retrieving this system from the seller was a miserable experience, but I shall spare you those details. In addition to the console, it came with (in a garbage bag) several awful and rather filthy 3rd party controller, a few memory cards, the expected power and A/V cables, as well as a copy of Mario Party 5 and an ActionReplay device (although with no discs).

The system itself was in very good shape overall. There was a bit of grime indicating that the console had likely been left in a basement for some time, but this was entirely superficial dirt that was easily cleaned up. There were only two minor issues with the console. The first was that the eject button on the unit felt sticky, and often required a bit of jiggling to ensure the lid remained closed. To remedy this, I simply removed the outer housing of the system, disassembled the eject button latch, and using some isopropyl alcohol cleaned the area. There was some unknown residue which was causing the sticky sensation, but after cleaning it up, it's been in perfect working order since.

The other minor issue was that all three of the bottom plastic panels were missing. These panels have a bit of irregular shape, but mainly exist to cover the data ports on the bottom of the console which are used for optional accessories. It's probably possible to find loose replacements on eBay and the like, but given that I have a black unit, I simply used my 3D printer and 3D printed my own replacements. There are two panels that I needed to print, and overall I thought they came out well. I have an entry level 3D printer, so you can definitely tell they aren't the original covers and that they don't perfectly fit, but since they live on the bottom of they unit, they serve their purpose of filling the obvious gap. There's actually a third port cover on the bottom of the system which was missing as well, but I don't require it, as my system game with the accessory which goes there — a Game Boy Player module along with its accompanying Start-Up disc.

The Game Boy Player

For those who aren't familiar, the Game Boy Player was an official Nintendo attachment for the GameCube that allowed it to play Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance games. The unit has the same footprint as a GameCube itself, which sits directly on top of it, interfacing with the main console via the data port. The module uses two captive screws at the bottom to affix itself securely to the console, raising the whole unit by about half an inch in height. Cartridges are inserted into the slot at the front of the console, just below the controller ports, and there is a pull lever on the right-hand side of the unit to more easily eject games. There is also a Game Boy Link Cable port above the cartridge slot, allowing inter-system communications with other Game Boy Advance or GameCube systems, just like a real GBA.

In fact, the Game Boy Player essentially was just GBA hardware in a different form factor. Booting up your console with a cartridge inserted wasn't enough though, you also needed a special "Start-Up disc" which would perform the necessary initialization steps to play the title. Like the Super Game Boy before it, games would have a border around them to compensate for the extra resolution a TV provided, but unlike the Super Game Boy, the Game Boy Player did not offer any additional features, it would just play your Game Boy games as it would on the handheld hardware. In fact, even if you played a game that did have Super Game Boy enhancements available, the Game Boy Player wouldn't provide them, they would be played like normal a normal Game Boy game (which is consistent with playing them on a GBA as well).

The inclusion of the Game Boy Player is why I jumped on this deal after passing on so many others. Getting a GameCube alone for $50 was a pretty good bargain, but with a complete Game Boy Player? This was a steal, you could easily pay three or four times what I did. If you were setting up a GameCube back in 2004, this would've been the best configuration available, as the previous owners clearly had. However, the year was now 2024, and with nearly 25 years of experience under their belts, the homebrew and modding scenes had more in store for us.

A/V Output — Insurrection Industries' Carby

Let's begin with actually viewing your games. The traditional GameCube setup is to use composite output (those yellow/red/white cables) which will display at either 240p or 480i resolution. The GameCube can natively output at 480p, but not over the composite connection, annoyingly. This utilizes the first of two output ports on the back of the system, but there is a second, digital output port which has higher capabilities. (Note, apparently later GameCube models don't have this port, as Nintendo removed it to apparently save costs. Try not to get one of those units as you'll be stuck using composite output forever). With your digital output, you have two options. The first is to do as I did and pick up a Carby from Insurrection Industries. The Carby is a small dongle which sticks out the back of the unit and converts the A/V signal to HDMI, upscaling to (I believe) 1080p. For many, this is the simplest setup, as it allows you to connect to any modern monitor. The Caddy also will automatically prompt the GameCube to output at its full 480p, which is a noticeable jump in quality from even 480i. The device also comes with a small remote which allows you to access the Caddy's internal menu, giving access to features like scanlines and other resolution modes.

If you prefer to play on a CRT, another option would be to pick up a component cable, which also utilizes the digital output port. If you aren't familiar, component cables resemble composite, but instead of having the video signal travel over a single (yellow) connection, component uses three connections, colored red, green, and blue. (Despite the color scheme and the name, these cables do not carry one of the RGB channels each, but typically carry the brightness in one cable and the red/blue brightness difference in the other two. It's a whole thing.) I personally don't have a component cable for my GameCube (yet) but I have heard good things about Retro-bit's Prism cable. This might seem a bit silly, as if you want to play on a CRT you already can just use the composite connection the system came with, but trust me, there's a pretty dramatic difference in quality between composite and component, one that I think justifies the (admittedly shocking) price for the cables.

Optical Drive Emulator — TeamOffBroadway's FlippyDrive

Let's be honest, playing on actual hardware has a certain charm to it, but for usability you really can't beat just using an emulator. Play any and every game simply by selecting it from a menu. With the prices used games are going for these days, there are some GameCube games that I simply will never be able to actually justify owning myself. Go take a look at the prices of Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, or, god forbid, Pokemon Box: Ruby & Sapphire and you'll quickly see what I mean. If only there were a way to play games on hardware just as easily as you can on an emulator...

Fortunately, we live in the future and such a thing is possible using something called an "Optical Drive Emulator". As the name implies, it's a hardware modification to a console that allows it to boot games not from a disc, but from other storage media like an SD card for flash drive. These are not limited to the GameCube, but any system with an optical drive. You tend to not see them on newer consoles as jailbreaking the operating system can provide all the same benefits without needing to perform a hardware modification. For systems without a crackable OS — like the Playstation, Dreamcast, and indeed the GameCube — a hardware mod is the simplest and easiest way to consistently load games. (Other methods do exist on these systems, such as burning discs which contain an exploit — annoying on GameCube due to its mini-DVD format — or using an exploit in a specific game to then bootstrap the process, which takes a non-trivial amount of time to begin).

Optical Drive Emulator hardware mods have existed for the GameCube for some time, but up until very recently required the owner to solder a connection from the modchip directly to the CPU, which would allow for the data bypass. I'm not a fantastic solderer, and this always worried me enough that I never dug into attempting it. Fortunately, my trepidation paid off, as within the last year, an rather incredible new modchip came out that performs the same functionality without needing any soldering — the FlippyDrive from TeamOffBroadway. The FlippyDrive is a small daughterboard containing a RP2040 microprocessor, ESP32 Wi-Fi chip, and micro SD card slot which allows a GameCube to be booted up into a custom bootloader from which games can be booted off of the SD card. It is able to bypass the CPU solder connection by utilizing a wild looking ribbon cable. To install, first the chassis of the system needs to be removed, then the top half of the console removed from the bottom. This top half contains — among other items — the optical drive components, while the bottom half contains the processor and graphics. Like the Game Boy Player, these two halves connect via a single data port. By folding the middle of this ribbon cable into a 'W' shape, it can be placed between the pins of this data port, so that when the system is reassembled it can inject its own data, allowing for its "coreboot" bootloader to be loaded instead. The FlippyDrive then is secured to a relatively empty section of the GameCube's internals, and the whole thing can be buttoned up. It's a really excellent solution, and I cannot recommend this product enough. If you're going to buy any of the items in this article, I highly recommend getting a FlippyDrive.

However, being a new and innovative product, there are two notable issues with I have with the product, although I've discovered workarounds for both. The first is that while loading games off a micro SD card is an elegant solution, the FlippyDrive board — and thus the SD card slot — both live internally inside the reassembled unit, meaning that if you want to edit the data on your SD card, you have to disassemble the GameCube chassis again. I mentioned that the FlippyDrive does have a Wi-Fi chip, and this will eventually be used to run an FTP server, allowing remote management of the data. However, this functionality isn't yet available (or if it is, I couldn't get it to work). After taking apart my GameCube a half dozen times to fiddle with the SD card, I finally discovered that someone more intrepid than myself has come up with a solution. Laser Bear Industries has created an SD card ribbon cable extension that runs from the FlippyDrive's SD card slot up to the externals of the system, replacing the system's original LED diffuser next to the disc drive with one that has a slot cut out for a more easily accessible micro SD card port. To be clear, I don't blame TeamOffBroadway for not having an easy way to access the SD card slot. I much prefer having to take the system apart then being required to cut into the case for installation. I found Laser Bear's solution to be incredibly clean, being a completely reversible solution that integrates itself really well into the existing console. It too is a little on the pricey side for what it is, but retro gaming is by no means a cheap hobby.

My second issue with the FlippyDrive is with its bootloader, and thus hopefully can be remedied someday. When booting up the system, the console will automatically start the bootloader menu unless a button on the controller is held down, which will instead tell the console to run the game in the disc drive like a normal GameCube. This is well and good, until you try playing with a Bluetooth controller (see below for how that works). The bluetooth controllers I use pair with the system pretty quickly compared to other devices I have, but not quickly enough to be able to hold down a button to tell it to use the game disc. What I would really love to see is an option in the coreboot menu to do just that, boot from the disc, but after much searching through its menus, I've yet to find such an option. I know this functionality is possible because another popular GameCube bootloader — SwissGC — does have an option for this very thing. This is actually how I got around the problem, I have Swiss installed on my FlippyDrive as well, and anytime I want to play a disc, I have to first start up Swiss then use its menu to switch to a physical game. It's a better solution than having to have a second, wired controller just to start the game (flashbacks to my Wii complaints) but it's still a few more menus than I'd like to navigate. Hopefully someday coreboot will offer this ability as well and my last pain point will be gone.

Bluetooth Controller Support — Blue Retro Internal Adapter

When Super Smash Bros. for Wii U came out, it was one of the only times I've ever pre-ordered a game, simply because I wanted to ensure that I would get the edition with the Smash GameCube controller and Wii U adapter. I'll admit I don't use my Wii U too much these days, but that controller has been my main GameCube controller for some time. First party components, plus a longer cable than original OEM GameCube controllers have; it's pretty nice. While wired controllers have a simplicity to them, there's something to be said about having the option to use a wireless controller. Back in the day, the main way this was done was via the "Wavebird" controller, but these fetch quite a pretty penny these days. For more recent offerings, a number of companies offer wireless dongles that fit into a GameCube controller port and can then pair with a range of compatible controllers, such as 8bitdo's Retro Receiver. 8bitdo offers similar products for a number of retro consoles, such as the SNES, Sega Genesis, and PlayStation. I have tried their versions for those consoles, and quite enjoy them, but for my Ultimate GameCube™ I decided to use a more permanent solution. (Also, 8bitdo didn't offer their product until after I went with something else).

Enter the GameCube Internal Adapter from Blue Retro. This is a daugherboard that completely replaces the original GameCube controller board. It still has four wired ports, allowing you to still use your old controllers, but it also provides the ability to pair Bluetooth controllers to it. The pairing process is pretty painless and straight-forward, the board simply begins searching for controllers upon system power, and if a compatible controller is searching to pair, the connection is made. I've tried it with a range of controllers — mainly from 8bitdo — and it's worked without issue. The adapter board does expose a web server that you can access by pairing a computer to it over Bluetooth (this is the only time I've ever seen a web server over Bluetooth). This will likely be required at least once, as I found the default bindings for controllers rather bizarre. Face buttons in particular seemed to be bound to the wrong input. Their web UI is... pretty awful, I must admit, but once you figure it out, it isn't too tricky to get the inputs mapped to the right outputs. For myself, I only had to do this once, then other controllers I've paired inherited the new changes.

Wireless Controller — 8bitdo Mod Kit

Now that I have Bluetooth controller support, what controller am I actually using? While any old wireless controller would work, the GameCube controller has a noticeably different layout than most modern controllers, which occasionally leads to some uncomfortable holding grips. Fortunately, 8bitdo has thought of this and offers a mod kit to convert a wired controller into one with an internal battery and Bluetooth support. Before you panic though, I did not modify my Smash controller. I always feel guilty modifying perfectly working controllers. I searched for a while on eBay to find a controller for parts that I could modify, but I quickly ran into the problem where broken controllers often would be too broken for the mod kit to fix, would be too gross to really want to use, or frankly too overpriced. I was debating giving up on the venture when it dawned on me that there are companies out there who make shell replacements for controllers and consoles (see how I replaced my original GBA with a custom shell). If these new shells are designed to work with the original controller boards, and the mod kit is designed to replace those controller boards... then maybe they'd be compatible?

Sure enough, I picked a replacement shell from eXtremeRate (the transparent Atomic Purple one, of course) along with 8bitdo's kit, and attempted to combine them together. It's a bit tricky, as both instructions assume you have a complete controller as a starting point, but pretty soon I was able to get both kits working together, and to my immense pleasure, it worked perfectly. The one caveat is that neither kit includes a replacement motor, so I don't have rumble support, but that's a small price to pay. It's a pretty flashy controller, and works well paired either with my GameCube or with my PC for use with Dolphin. I actually built a second one for a Christmas gift for my brother, and I think he's been enjoying using it exclusively with emulators as well.

Memory Card — MemCard Pro GC

Last but not least is the memory card. I had a few decent sized cards from my youth, and my initial purchase of the GameCube came with a few more. However, these weren't terribly large cards (the largest being a respectable 64 MB), and given that I now had the ability to play every GameCube game ever made, it seemed that storage would be an issue at some point in the future. I also wanted the ability to transfer my save files from the physical GameCube into an emulator easily, and vice versa. My setup thus far technically did offer this support via a Homebrew app called GCMM. I've used it the past on my jailbroken Wii to transfer saves to an SD card, but again, setting up the Wii just to manage GameCube saves is a bit of a hassle. The FlippyDrive also mentions support for GCMM as well, but there is no documentation on this, and any attempts to back up my saves onto FlippyDrive's SD card met with failure.

Instead, I decided to pick up a MemCard Pro GC from 8BitMods. This is a GameCube memory card adapter which allows saves to be stored onto a micro SD card, accessible from the front. This alone would alleviate the struggles with storage space (as even a 4 GB SD card would be more storage than I could possibly ever use up) but also allow for easy back ups. This isn't the end of its tricks though, as it also includes an OLED screen so you can view information about your current game, FTP and HTTP servers to manage your saves remotely (which I played around with, but honestly just prefer to move the SD card manually), as well as support for "virtual memory cards". This is an interesting feature where rather than structure the SD card like one giant memory card, the MemCard Pro will automatically create a new "virtual" card that will only store the data from that game. You can still have multiple saves per virtual card, but they will be partitioned away from any other saves. It's an interesting feature, which I've enabled, but one that I probably could live without. It does make transferring saves to and from a PC much easier, and it's clear which memory card data is stored where, but that still could be managed without the virtual cards. Lastly, the MemCard Pro features two physical buttons on its top. In addition to navigating the UI, these buttons can be used to cycle through additional virtual memory cards per game. Want to play a game like Animal Crossing which only allows for one save per card? Not a problem, press the button on the top of the MemCard Pro and a new virtual memory card is hot swapped in. It's a very slick feature.

Transferring saves over to the MemCard Pro was a bit of a hassle though, I'll admit. There might be better ways to do it, but I ended up having to boot up every game I had once, just so the MemCard Pro would create a virtual card, then once they were all created, use the GameCube's memory card manager tool to move the games over to the correct virtual card. It was a bit of a process, made easier with the FlippyDrive, but one I only ever have to do once. You probably could do it more easily with a jailbroken Wii and GCMM, but I didn't attempt it. One small problem that I still have yet to remedy are games whose saves are encrypted. These games do not let their data be moved or copied at all, and include games like Animal Crossing and F-Zero GX. I suppose this was done to prevent cheating, but seems like a massive hassle for Nintendo to go through. I think I will need to use GCM to fix this, as those saves are still on my original memory card, but I have yet to do so.

Conclusion

Is this at all an economical hobby? Not in the least. Even with all this extra equipment, emulating a game on your PC with Dolphin is both easier and objectively better. Game compatibility is incredibly high these days, and Dolphin allows for features that a real GameCube cannot, such as the upscaling of graphics. That being said, there's something about having the physical hardware itself, and given that this is my favorite system of all time, I feel pretty pleased with what I've put together. I did debate doing a shell replacement for something more extravagant, but those are admittedly somewhat gaudy, and I already have matching GameCube and Game Boy Player units. All of this just to play Sonic Adventure 2 in ultimate style.