It has been one year since the little purple/black GameCube has entered the American market and it’s been quite a year to date

Nintendo had lost a lot of its fans with the N64 because they were targeting a younger audience and they lost a lot of third-parties because the games of the N64 were made on cartridge while the competition were using CDs. Their big goal was to reclaim some of the big third-parties and to get their fans back. Sony’s Playstation 2 was already released for a year and Nintendo was facing a big challenge if they did not want to end up like Sega.

Then the console was released, with a strong launch titles like Pikmin, Luigi’s Mansion and Star Wars: Rogue Leader. Super Smash Brothers Melee came a month later and sold over a million copies in Japan. Later, Nintendo managed to starting reclaiming third-parties. First came Capcom with the announcement of the Resident Evil series being a GameCube exclusivity. Meanwhile, two companies, Rare and Retro Studios, were working on two of Nintendo’s biggest franchises: Star Fox Adventure and Metroid Prime. And it wasn’t the end of it. At E3 2002, Nintendo announced they were giving F-Zero to Sega and Star Fox to Namco while Square announced they were developing for both GameCube and Game Boy Advance. In late August, Mario was back!!! It hasn’t had the same impact as it’s precursor but Mario Sunshine was a great enjoyable gaming experience. Animal Crossing, the first ever “communication” game, was released a month later. You play the game as you were living. You can buy stuff, chat with people, celebrate holidays and much more.

Nintendo also released come peripherals. The GameCube/Game Boy Advance link cable was one, which is currently used to import data from GC to GBA and vice-versa. After Nintendo released what can become the best cordless controller from the business: the Wavebird. Instead of using infrared signals, it uses waves, which means that you can play a game outside of your house if the GameCube is still indoors(I’ve tried, it works). After came the Memory Card 251, which is four times bigger than the original Memory Card 59. And just recently Nintendo released the modem/broadband adaptor. Right now only one game is playable online and it’s Sega’s Phantasy Star Online Episode I&II, which is a really good game.

Last week Resident Evil 0 came out. I personally haven’t played it a lot but from what I’ve played I can tell that it’s going to be the best Resident Evil to date. And today, Nintendo has ended a long eight years wait with the release of Metroid Prime and it’s the best-looking game of the entire market.

So far we’ve seen Star Fox, Mario, Metroid, Resident Evil, Smash Brothers Melee, so it’s been quite a good start for Nintendo, as the first year is always the hardest to prove to the people what a product can do, even more with an infamous product as the Nintendo 64. And now, what can we expect from the “Big N” for the upcoming year? We all know that Rare is no more a part of Nintendo and some days after the sell, Nintendo said they were going to make a HUGE announcement this December. Personally, I think Nintendo might buy Enix, a company who’s only had one known project (Star Ocean 3) recently and who planned to release Dragon Quest 8 for GameCube. Yes, this is still rumors but my instincts tell me so, and usually they’re right. In the following year we’re going to see Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Resident Evil 2 and 3 and perhaps 4, Soul Calibur 2, Legend of Zelda: Wand of the Wind, F-Zero, Star Fox, Capcom’s 5 announcement from Friday, and a lot more... Miyamoto said he wants to make a new Pikmin, rumors says that another Zelda game is in development, online gaming has just started and Nintendo is always full of surprises.

In conclusion, Nintendo has regained the big third-parties, the fans are coming back, and Nintendo said in an interview that they would like to make a new franchise to complement their others. In my opinion, Nintendo has done a great job and they’re having a lot of things to come. It’s going to be a great year and a better one than the last. Good job Nintendo!!! Happy Birthday GameCube!!!