Nintendo almost created a GameCube that worked like the Nintendo Switch

If you remember, the GameCube always looked portable. A different reality might have created a different version of the console

Published: Sept 8, 2020, 8:00 p.m. MDT

Tsutomu Hagiwara, director of Genki Co. Ltd., looks at Nintendo’s new game “Pikmin,” played on the new Nintendo GameCube console, at the Nintendo of America Inc. booth at the Electronic Entertainment Expo E3, the world’s largest video game trade show, Friday, May 18, 2001, at the Los Angeles Convention Center. — Tsutomu Hagiwara, director of Genki Co. Ltd., looks at Nintendo’s new game “Pikmin,” played on the new Nintendo GameCube console, at the Nintendo of America Inc. booth at the Electronic Entertainment Expo E3, the world’s largest video game trade show, on Friday, May 18, 2001, at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Damian Dovarganes, Associated Press

If you roll the dice 10 times, there’s another world in which the GameCube looked a lot like the Nintendo Switch.

The Verge reports that Nintendo had plans to create a GameCube console that worked just like the Nintendo Switch with a docking system and increased portability.

One diagram showed plans for a portable console that would have attached to a TV through a docking system — just like the Nintendo Switch does now.

This Nintendo leak reveals major secrets about previous games, concepts

“However, it’s unclear if the project ever made it past this early planning stage,” The Verge reports.

If you remember, the GameCube had a handle at the end of the box, already making it a rather portable device.

The dock had GC controller ports, SD card / GC Memory Card slot, AV out, and then optional TV tuner + MPEG4 Encoder and wireless stuff. pic.twitter.com/FW5848Wdy0
— Yakumono (@LuigiBlood) September 2, 2020

This is according to leaked internal documents, which show Nintendo thought about releasing a new high-definition console to compete with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 more than a decade ago, EuroGamer reports.

Nintendo may upgrade the Switch at the end of the year

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The data is reportedly from the same leak in July that revealed major secrets about Nintendo’s games and plans, including a Zelda 2 remake, an asset from Super Mario World where Luigi flips the bird and a beta model for Luigi to appear in Super Mario 64, per PC Gamer.

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