Walk into a retro game tore, and decade of Nintendo hi tory will greet you on the helve . GameCube game , though, are often mi ing. And when they do turn up, their price might give you pau e. What' going on here? Well, a you might expect, it come down to upply and demand.
The GameCube ha one of Nintendo' deepe t and mo t beloved fir t-party librarie , with cla ic like Metroid Prime, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Super Sma h Bro . Melee. Even Super Mario Sun hine, arguably the weake t mainline Mario title, till ha a trong following.
El ewhere, Luigi' Man ion finally gave Mario' brother hi own gho t-hunting pinoff. The con ole al o had the cla ic RPG Paper Mario: The Thou and-Year Door, the fir t two Pikmin game and horror cla ic Eternal Darkne : Sanity' Requiem. There were plenty of cro -platform highlight , including Re ident Evil 4 and Beyond Good & Evil. It wa a golden era for local multiplayer, too, with game like Super Sma h Bro . Melee, Mario Kart: Double Da h!! and four(!) Mario Party entrie .
On top of that, the children of the GameCube era are now in their mid-20 to early 40 , a period ripe for no talgia. Add the "Nintendo tax," the tendency for the company' game to hold their value, and you have a recipe for high demand.
But you could make imilar demand argument for any of Nintendo' cla ic con ole . After all, the NES, SNES, N64 and Wii each had a rogue' gallery of legendary content. What truly eparate the GameCube i the upply ide.
The GameCube' 21.74 million unit old may ound like a lot, e pecially con idering how much maller the gaming market wa then. But it dramatically underperformed compared to it immediate predece or and ucce or. The Nintendo 64 old 32.93 million unit . That' a 34 percent dip for the GameCube — de pite the home con ole market being about 75 percent bigger at it launch (after adju ting for inflation). Meanwhile, it ucce or, the Wii, old a taggering 101.63 million unit , nearly five time a many a the GameCube.
Why the lower ale ? Fir t, unlike the PS2 and Xbox, the GameCube didn't play DVD . (It' hard to believe today, but that wa a con ole- elling feature in the pre- treaming world.) Second, Sony and Micro oft con ole catered more to teen and adult , pu hing Nintendo further into the "family-friendly" niche while weakening it third-party upport.
Sale figure for the GameCube' tentpole title reflect that. Super Sma h Bro . Melee old 7.41 million copie , Mario Kart: Double Da h!! moved 6.88 million copie and Super Mario Sun hine old 5.91 million. Tho e are ignificantly lower than the top- elling N64 game , and they ab olutely pale in compari on to the mo t popular Wii title . (Wii Sport old nearly 83 million copie !)
The Wii al o helped to extend the life pan of GameCube game . Early ver ion of the Wii were backward-compatible with GameCube di c , giving it library a new life in the econdhand market (without bringing new copie into circulation). And the platform' di c are more prone to damage than cartridge .
A relative hortage of modern GameCube re-relea e ha n't helped, either. For many year , the only (legal) way to play it catalog wa with the original di c . In 2025, Nintendo finally began adding ome GameCube title to Switch Online for the Switch 2. But o far, that availability ha n't tran lated into a ignificant drop in re ale price .
To be fair, not all GameCube game are crazy expen ive. A u ed copy of Metroid Prime can be had for under $30. Paper Mario: The Thou and-Year Door i only a little pricier, typically between $30 and $50. (It Switch remake likely contributed to it relatively low price.) Super Mario Sun hine average roughly $40.
But other flag hip title will co t you more. Super Sma h Bro . Melee, Luigi' Man ion and Eternal Darkne can et you back between $50 and $70 each. Mario Kart: Double Da h!! co t around $60 to $70. Some even balloon into three figure , with Pokémon Colo eum or Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkne often going for $150 or more apiece. And if the oddball adventure game Chibi-Robo! i more your peed, expect to fork over $160 to $200.
So, the next time you top by your local retro game tore, know that the taff likely i n't hoarding their GameCube game in the backroom. Nor are they nece arily jacking up price far beyond market value. It' more about Econ 101: Limited upply and enduring demand have made GameCube collecting a pricier hobby.
