Did you know? Despite piracy largely being something that
harms a game console’s sales, the lack of piracy on the GameCube actually hurt the system’s
performance in some regions. According to an article from IGN’s Southeast-Asian
branch, the ‘Cubes inability to run pirated DVDs and game discs was a big reason many
gamers in the area turned to the original Xbox and PlayStation 2. Piracy has been reported to run rampant in
Southeast-Asia, and although you might think this harms a console’s sales, it’s actually
one of the reasons why Nintendo’s handhelds like the GameBoy Advance and Nintendo DS sold
so well in the region. It wasn’t until Nintendo released the Wii
that they once again saw home console success in Southeast-Asia, with a big factor in its
high sales being its ease of access for piracy. Despite the GameCube having far less piracy
than Nintendo’s other systems, the ‘big N’ still published an official ‘Antipiracy
Training Manual’ that showed consumers how to spot fake ‘Cube games. Some of Nintendo’s tips included looking
out for a colored tone to the bottom of discs instead of a silver tone, poor quality printing
on the top of discs, distorted looking or low quality game boxes, incorrect box sizes,
missing components, and unrealistic price points. This guide would actually come in handy for
some, like certain residents of the United Kingdom. In Staffordshire in the UK on April 5th 2005,
an official anti-piracy operation confiscated around 20,000 counterfeit DVDs and CDs, including
games, films and music at a car boot sale -- which is sort of like a giant communal
garage sale. The estimated value of the counterfeit merch
was over 500,000 British Pounds, which adjusted for inflation, is over a million US Dollars
in today’s money. While much of the stock was fake game discs
for the then-newly released Doom 3 on Xbox, there was also software previously unseen
by the UK anti-piracy officials: fake GameCube mini DVDs. This was noteworthy, as the GameCube was much
harder for pirates to crack than Microsoft’s Xbox or PlayStation 2, and signified a breakthrough
had happened with GameCube modding somewhere behind the scenes. One of the main hurdles for pirates was the
system’s use of mini-DVDs, which were more difficult to replicate than standard sized
optical discs. That was until the UK-based company Datel
figured out what made the system’s discs so hard to crack. The GameCube’s mini DVDs each have their
own unique burst cutting area, or BCA, as do most regular CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays. This BCA is read by the system’s optical
laser lens just like a barcode. But not only do the mini-DVDs have unique
BCAs, they also have six unique marks burned on the discs that are at a very specific and
equal distance. These marks have to be burned onto the disc
with a special laser, and can’t be replicated using a standard DVD writer. The GameCube checks not only the BCA, but
that the six marks are in the right spot, and if everything checks out the game starts
up. If one of these marks is even slightly off
however, the GameCube won’t boot the disc. This is of course only the case if the GameCube
hasn’t already been modded with special hardware to interfere with these checks. But Datel figured out a simple way to get
their software running on the GameCube by adding a custom BCA that tricked the console
into thinking the disc had the six marks in the right place. After this was discovered, Datel published
their first Action Replay mini-DVD for the GameCube in 2003. This Action Replay disc let players input
cheat codes into save files on your Memory Card. For Homebrew software on the other hand, Datel
seemingly reversed this process. Rather than having a custom disc save custom
data onto a Memory Card, Datel released their own SD Media Launcher, which allowed you to
load your own software from the system’s Memory Card slot -- including GameCube game
ISO files. Outside of Datel’s SD Media Launcher, tons
of other custom memory cards were made to load files from your own SD cards, USBs, or
even devices that aren’t intended for data, like the USBGecko. The USBGecko is a custom “memory card”
that was designed for GameCube development and homebrew games and apps, but is more popularly
used for loading game cheats and exploits. But these aren’t the only ways to boot up
GameCube ISO files. In 2003, Sega released a port of their Dreamcast
original online RPG, Phantasy Star Online, on the GameCube. One of the game’s key features on the ‘Cube
was it’s compatibility with Nintendo’s broadband adapter, which allowed the game
to connect to the internet to keep itself updated and let gamers play with each other
on the game’s dedicated servers Some. hackers figured out that by changing DNS and
IP Address settings, they could trick the game to connect to custom programs running
on their own PCs using an exploit dubbed PSOLoad. The program developed for the exploit disguised
itself as an official Phantasy Star Online server that leaves the game always waiting
for a connection. This would allow hackers to send custom GameCube
executable files to their system and run them from Phantasy Star Online. This exploit could not only be used to run
custom files from the GameCube, but also allowed the GameCube to send data from itself back
to your PC. This hack was an efficient way to send your
currently loaded GameCube game to your PC as an official backup file. While it was a successful way to run homebrew,
it was quite time consuming, as any time you wanted to run homebrew, you must first load
into Phantasy Star Online. Like the Wii, the GameCube also has its own
homebrew utility, similar to the popular Homebrew Channel, in the form if Swiss. Swiss is an “all-in-one homebrew tool”
that allows you access to file browsing, custom DVD support, and offers support for previously
mentioned custom memory cards like the USBGecko. Swiss even lets you force 16:9 widescreen
and progressive scan on real hardware. The GameCube not only had homebrew for the
native console, but also homebrew for it’s add-ons, such as the GameBoy Player. GameBoy Interface is homebrew software that
allows anyone to play GameBoy games without the use of Nintendo’s GameBoy Player Start-Up
Disc, and also lets you play GameBoy to GameBoy Advance games in various different modes. The software’s “standard edition” allows
you to play GameBoy games more cleanly on modern displays, such as LCD and OLED TVs
and monitors. With hardware like USB Gecko, the standard
edition can also be used as a GameBoy Advance development kit. Other versions of The GameBoy Interface are
optimized for speedrunning GameBoy games as well as a version that’s more optimized
for video capture devices. Other features outside of software variants
include using the GameBoy Advance or Nintendo 64 Controller as a controller for the GameCube,
and even offered rumble support for the GBA using official Nintendo games and cartridges,
such as Drill Dozer, WarioWare: Twisted, and the Nintendo DS Rumble Pak. Outside of the GameBoy Player, additional
GameCube ports could also be used as an exploit for homebrew. The SD2SP2 chip is a custom PCB board that
lets players use their own SD card as a form of memory for the GameCube. What makes this unique compared to custom
memory cards is that SD2SP2 takes advantage of the GameCube’s Serial Port 2. Interestingly enough, unlike the Hi-Speed
Port and Serial Port 1, which are used for the GameBoy Player and Nintendo’s Broadband
Adapter respectively, the Cube’s Serial Port 2 was never used officially by Nintendo,
giving hackers access to both official Nintendo accessories as well as their own hardware
like SD2SP2, as long as their GameCube has the right homebrew setup. The GameCube also has plenty of hardware modifications
that aid in homebrew. One of the more popular hardmods for the GameCube
is a modchip named “XenoGC.” This modchip is applied to a system’s optical
drive logic board and injects its own custom patch onto the system. This patch would give a lot more freedom to
your GameCube by adding features such as region-free game loading, making your GameCube act as
both a PAL and an NTSC console, made DVD±RW content readable, which allowed you to play
custom GameCube discs, and much more. One important play in the modchips popularity
is it’s easy accessibility to hardmodding newcomers and it’s cheap pricing. But like most mods that were designed for
hobbyists to play around with, it was also abused by pirates. Despite Nintendo’s efforts to make GameCube
games difficult to reproduce, one feat hackers and programmers have found success with is
emulating the system’s hardware itself. The popular GameCube emulator, Dolphin, was
officially released on September 22nd, 2003. Almost exactly 2 years after the ‘Cube’s
official September 14th, 2001 launch in Japan. Since it’s release, the Dolphin emulator
has actually surpassed the original GameCube in features. Many of which are used to modernize the GameCube
playing experience, such as adding a 16:9 widescreen support, forced region change,
GPU overclocking, seamless online play, and by far it’s most popular feature, Wii emulation. Since it’s open source, the Dolphin emulator
can even be modified to include even more features. Most recently, a group of programmers led
by an engineer going by the alias, Fizzi, created a custom version of Dolphin named
“Slippi”, which adds features like online matchmaking to Super Smash Bros. Melee. While the Dolphin emulator is still updated
and worked on to this day, a specific version of the software was worked on very briefly. This emulator was titled the Dolphin Triforce,
and the goal of the emulator was to run official Triforce games on your own hardware. The Triforce hardware was an official collaboration
between Namco, Sega, and Nintendo used by the trio of companies for their own arcade
games-- such as Donkey Kong Jungle Fever, F-Zero AX and Mario Kart Arcade GP 1 and 2. The Triforce was made using official GameCube
hardware, specifically the GameCube’s custom graphics chip by ATI, nicknamed “Flipper”. The Triforce could be modified by Namco or
Sega at their own will, with Sega even opting to use the same optical disc format as their
Dreamcast console. Dolphin Triforce, naturally, let players emulate
these arcade titles. And this isn’t the only connection the GameCube
has to emulation. In July 2018, security expert James Chambers
figured out that you can load custom NES ROM images onto your GameCube using Nintendo’s
popular title, Animal Crossing. Within Animal Crossing, you can obtain a generic
NES Console item. Usually, NES Consoles come bundled with 1
of 19 NES games in Animal Crossing, most of which are locked behind e-Reader cards or
official giveaways. When trying to interact with the generic NES
Console, however, the game will bring up the message, “I want to play my NES, but I don’t
have any software.” Chambers found out what the game was actually
trying to do is find NES ROM images in your loaded memory card. Upon figuring this out, Chambers was able
to not only load official NES ROMs, but was also able to get custom NES ROMs he made himself
into the game. Many have theorised why Nintendo would include
such a feature. Chambers himself believed Nintendo could’ve
used the feature to sell promotional memory cards with the NES ROMs pre-loaded onto them. Animal Crossing could be used to load much
more than just NES ROMs, though. The same exploit used to load NES ROMs would
soon be reverse engineered into loading custom GameCube files, known as .dol files. Did you also know that Nintendo had a similar
arms race with modders of the Nintendo Switch? Or that dedicated modders gave a presentation
to warn how the DS could be modded to spread malware? For more facts, check out our videos on Nintendo
Switch and Nintendo DS Piracy and hacking.
