The Nintendo GameCube was a weird little console that had all sorts of crazy add-ons and peripherals released for it over the years, from LAN adapters to Game Boy Links to bongo drums. One thing I didn’t know about to this day was the company’s plans for an official LCD screen.
Over Go Nintendo, Adam Doree has uploaded an uncut video of a presentation by Nintendo at E3 2002, starring Shigeru Miyamoto, Satoru Iwata and Bill Trinen. In this video after the crew talked about it for ages wind alarm clock And Metroid PrimeIwata reveals that they have one last surprise to discuss: a first-party LCD screen designed to attach to the top of the console and make it level more more portable than it already was (the GameCube famously had a carrying handle on the back). I set the video to autoplay via the screen at the start of the discussion:
I never knew that! Sure, other companies have stepped into this vacuum over the years, releasing different screens of varying quality, but it would have been very cool to get an official Nintendo monitor.
It was just five inches across, had a 4:3 aspect ratio, and a resolution of just 320 x 240. Which sounds bad by 2023 standards, but that was 2002, so they weren’t for the time abominable, as you can see in the footage above where Mario Sunshine just looks good! It’s also interesting to hear Iwata say that it was peripherals like this that convinced Nintendo to install digital outputs—itself a forgotten but amazing aspect of the hardware– for the GameCube.
Iwata even reveals that he met up with Sega’s Yuji Naka—in happier times-around Fantasy Star Online, and the pair discussed whether they could take that title and “make a portable game out of it” to make the most of that screen. Of course, none of this ever came to fruition, but it’s still nice to imagine a GameCube era when you could have grabbed your console by the handle, taken it to a friend’s house, and played Mario Kart Double Dash on your own little official Nintendo screen.
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Only because I am Just learning about it today doesn’t mean there aren’t other things about the screen; Here is a report from 2002 IGN about how beautiful it lookedfor example during his listing speculates on console variations that the high cost of LCD screens at the time made it too expensive to publish. The video below, meanwhile, has a good look at footage of the screen alongside some speakers forming part of the most imaginable 2002 gaming setup.
TO UPDATE: Thanks to Spindash on Twitter, there is more! Satoru Iwata quietly revealed years later that the monitor had secret glasses-less 3D capabilities that Nintendo “kept secret,” along with the little things that the Fantasy Star Online Numbers visible in some of the display units was eventually stolen from the showroom!
