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The proprietary discs and overall sales of the console were likely a big factor in many games seeing much smaller print runs and a higher level of rarity and desirability for collectors nowadays, which makes for a sometimes baffling and unexpected list of rarities, as you’ll see. The small discs and toy-like console aesthetics didn’t endear the console to an audience that had been maturing in average age since the introduction of the PlayStation in the mid-90s, which perhaps accounts for the fact that – despite a good number of excellent titles that are still highly regarded to this day – the GameCube simply didn’t fulfil its destiny as Nintendo’s expected comeback (though that has since come to fruition – which is a story for another day, perhaps).
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The console saw the company make a long-overdue shift to optical media, but stopping short of using standard size DVDs – instead taking the very Nintendo-esque move of using smaller, proprietary discs, mainly to reduce piracy but also to avoid paying licensing fees to the industry’s DVD Forum. It’s hard not to view Nintendo’s aesthetically unique GameCube console as a disappointment in sales terms.
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