More than two decades after the GameCube’s release, you can finally take Nintendo’s beautiful blue box with you on the go. In a genius-level mod, YouTuber GingerOfOz has fangled a portable version of the iconic console that bring an original render from 2008 to life.
Seen in this video from YouTube’s early years, the portable GameCube render looked like a combination between the classic blocky Nintendo console and the GameBoy Advance SP. Even though the video and the render are both more than a decade old, GingerOfOz decided to build a fully functional one as a fun project. The YouTuber says in his video that he was trying to recreate the render to the best of his ability, rather than making an improved, more polished product.
Labor of love —
As noted in the video, GingerOfOz’s DIY build is actually more of a portable Wii if you’re judging by the guts. It uses a heavily trimmed-down Wii motherboard, since it’s a lot more efficient and customizable than the GameCube mobo. The Wii is completely backwards compatible with GameCube games, so you wouldn’t even know the difference anyways. Of course, there’s no built-in GameCube intro or those menu cubes for that extra hit of nostalgia, but GingerOfOz said he programmed these in anyways.
Most of the parts are custom-printed or designed, including case parts and circuit boards, which required a lot of assembly know-how. In some departures from the original render, the modder custom-fits smaller GameCube buttons into the case and adds start buttons and triggers on the shoulders.
Even though the original render features a disk drive, GingerOfOz’ recreation doesn’t include it, because Nintendo’s disk drives are too large to make portable. As an homage, he does include a slot that appears to fit a GameCube disk, but isn’t actually functional.
The finished product is everything we could’ve ever hope for, but GingerOfOz says there’s two noticeable issues with his build. The battery life only lasts about an hour and a half long and that the glossy black paint job he chose to match the render makes for a lot of fingerprint smears and visible scratches.
Not for sale —
Unfortunately, GingerOfOz says he isn’t currently doing commissions. He did, however, put in some investigative work to find out more about the original render and the artist behind it all.
In the video, explains that the original artist is someone named Demond, who made the render for fun while practicing product rendering in college. Unfortunately, the original files for the portable GameCube are stuck on a dead hard drive, so GingerofOz’ recreation may be the closest thing we’ll ever see.
