Nintendo Says Last Goodbye to the Gamecube with Kirby Game

The Gamecube was an unfortunate experience for Nintendo.  It wasn’t a failure, but it was the first time in the company’s history where they were in last place.  Many games were released for Gamecube that have lasting appeal like Super Smash Bros Melee, Metroid Prime, Pikmin and Legend of Zelda The Windwaker.  What’s even more interesting is the influence Gamecube development had on Nintendo’s Gamecube successor the Wii.

Many games developed and scheduled to be released on the Gamecube, didn’t make the cut, but that didn’t mean that Nintendo’s love affair with the system was over.  The Wii was rolling in, and these games were moved to the new console.  Simultaneously, Nintendo was shifting their development teams over to casual games, like Wii Fit, Wii Play and Wii Sports Resort.  The Gamecube ports had to help carry the “gamer” torch on the what was clearly not a core gamer’s console.

First came The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess in 2006.  Sure it was officially released on Gamecube too, but Princess was one of the pillars of the Wii’s launch and it sold extremely well.  The next title to get shoveled over to the Wii was 2007’s Super Paper Mario.  This well received 3rd entry in the series had few Wii specific features and had the distinction of being the first Mario game on the Wii.

Again in 2007 Nintendo went back to the Gamecube well and pulled out what was probably the biggest stinker of the bunch, Donkey Kong Barrel Blast.  A racing game, originally names DK: Bongo Blast was to be the 4th (5th in Japan) and final game to support the Donkey Kong Bongos (Remember those? Yeah, that happened).  Instead the hand movement control idea was shoehorned onto the Wii Remote and Nunchuk combination.  In a year the already had loads of great Wii games, it hardly seemed necessary for them to release such an ill advised pseudo port.

Then in 2009 Nintendo went whole hog and stopped masking the origins of their games by re-releasing a series of Gamecube games with “New Play Control” on the Wii.  These included Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, Pikmin, and Mario Power Tennis (even more were released in Japan: Pikmin 2, Chibi Robo, Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes).  Apparently these didn’t do to well, since no further titles were ever released under the “New Play Control” banner.  That didn’t stop Nintendo from hitting us one more time with that tiny purple lunchbox.  The aforementioned “New Play Control” Metroid games, were rolled into the Metroid Prime Trilogy that included the Wii release of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

Finally, its 2011 and the Gamecube has been pretty quiet for a few years.  The Wii is hemorraging and Nintendo needs products for store shelves this Christmas.  Sure, they have Skyward Sword, and the E3 announced Mario Party 9, but other than that none of their major franchises are appearing on the Wii this fall. In flies Kirby Returns to Dreamland.  Initially projected to hit shelves 6, count them, 6 years ago in 2005 Kirby Returns to Dreamland, a name that just got locked down, is the last Gamecube game (that we know of).  It will have a multiplayer focus and be set in the most famous Kirby land of them all.

Obviously Nintendo had completely dropped the development on this last Kirby game, in favor of Wii centric titles, and even released a completely different Kirby game for the Wii last year.  Let’s put this in perspective, Kirby’s Epic Yard was conceived, announced, completed, released, and discounted in the time its taken for Return to Dream Land to be re-announced.  By gosh Donkey Kong, that bananas!  Nintendo must have looked at some charts and decided that it was easier to finish this half produced Kirby game and release it for Wii than it was to waste creative resources on a platform that was essentially dead.

Goodbye Gamecube, I’ve missed your weird, big, green button, and your clicky shoulder triggers. May your tiny discs never be forgotten.  Unlike the Gamecube, the Wii doesn’t have a laundry list of unreleased games that can be ported to the Wii U, that new console might have to stand on its own.  I’m willing to bet that The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (another Gamecube game) gets ported to it…that would be sweet!