Let’s do an old fashioned console face-off and instead of choosing two consoles that stared each other down in a similar face-off, I’d like to take two consoles with something in common. The GameCube and the Dreamcast.
Under-selling but influential. Underrated but blessed with incredible exclusive libraries. Both consoles have plenty in common, but which do you give the edge?
The Dreamcast had Powerstone, Jet Set Radio, Shenmue. The GameCube had Resident Evil 4, Metroid Prime, Wind Waker.
Let’s take this one to a vote — who have you got?
Comments
31 responses to “The Big Question: GameCube Vs Dreamcast”
No?
I was mostly done with DreamCast when cube came out.
I played PS2 continuously the entire time. Came back to both on the odd occasion
I couldn’t pick.
I’ve always felt the Dreamcast was a bit over rated. Maybe it’s just because it died almost before it reached me. I know there are some fantastic games for it but almost all of them felt like they lacked substance. Like really, really cool and influential ideas but still in their early stages and without much meat on them. It doesn’t help that a lot of the more awesome sounding titles at the time weren’t the games that went on to become classics. A lot of games that didn’t have much lasting appeal outside of arcades like Crazy Taxi were seen as the defining titles of the console even though history remembers stuff like Shenmue as the crown jewels of the Dreamcast.
I’ve said it before but I think a lot of the love the Dreamcast gets is from people who didn’t/couldn’t own one at the time. It was a really impressive console that basically had super powers, even rival fanboys were blown away by it, but for a variety of reasons it was out of reach for most of us.
GAMECUBE by far. Had a much larger library and full of Nintendo first party gems. Smash Bros was arguably the best on the cube, WW was amazing and we got the start of the Metroid Trilogy. It was 100% gamer focused, which the next console, Wii was not although I owned and enjoyed both.
This is an unholy abomination of a choice! A pox on you for even considering that such glorious machines could be compared and divided.
i dont think you understand the article….
pox on you for being narrow minded.
What. Way to take me too seriously. Of course I understood. It’s asking to choose between a Gamecube and Dreamcast, something that I think is an almost impossible choice since I consider them both shining stars in past console generations.
I appreciated your humour and agree on said point.
I owned neither and surprisingly, coveted neither.
When I was in high school I yearned for an N64 and even bought Nintendo Magazine every month as some kind of hedge against the day I would buy a console and all the information I gleaned from the magazines would finally be useful… but I never actually did. I had no consoles between the sega Master System and the PS2.
I have played some Dreamcast games, when visiting friends places. I liked Jet Set Radio (at least until the superior sequel arrived on Xbox). Chu Chu Rocket and Samba Di Amigo were fun party games. Otherwise my experience is limited.
Still, that overshadows my Gamecube experiences. Apart from the time I briefly worked at EB (and was accused of stealing one from the stockroom, somehow) the only time I’ve even been in the same room as a Gamecube was when I visited a friend at his university dorm in Melbourne during Manifest and heard the sad tale of an epic Smash Bros marathon combined with an inconveniently-placed space heater, which had catastrophic results and led to me taking possibly the saddest photograph ever.
Anyway, I guess I’d say Dreamcast. Based on my personal experience, the Dreamcast has at least four fun games, whereas the Gamecube has only offered me disappointment.
I owned and loved both. I can’t decide on a clear winner.
I remember at Christmas time opening up this massive box to find a Dreamcast purchased for me by my very generous Aunt. I pondered over why I would need such a thing, I had a Nintendo 64 and and a Playstation… what possibly could this new gaming console give me that Mario Kart 64 and Megaman Legends 2 hadn’t already given me?
How foolish I was. The console gave me perhaps my 1st or 2nd favourite game of all time, Sonic Adventure. Taking my favourite Sonic the Hedgehog characters through 3D levels, unlocking new characters through the story mode and magnificent boss fights. I don’t think I ever played another game besides Marvel vs Capcom 2 on Dreamcast, but it was all I needed.
I have cast my vote.
I went to a launch party at Sega World (Darling Harbour) for the Dreamcast and instantly loved it. I was always a Sega guy growing up and the Dreamcast was the last great hope, sadly it wasn’t to be (though I enjoyed every minute of Sonic Adventure, Powerstone, Shenue, Jet Set Radio and ofcourse Crazy Taxi.
I owned the Gamecube so my vote had to go to that.
Owned both, enjoyed the promise of the dreamcast and a couple of the whackier games, but the GameCube pounds it into the ground like a stake with its pile of exclusives, most of which are just as playable today as they were a decade ago (you can’t say that for many/any other console).
I refuse to vote on these glorious machines
GameCube as it has my 2 fav mario games, Sunshine and Double Dash
I only owned a Dreamcast and spent little time on friends Gamecubes.
I had so much damn fun with that thing and it gets my vote any day of the week. Interactive memory cards, bulky controllers, favourite Sonic game, internet!
Other notable games I loved on it…Spawn: In the Demon’s Hand, Chu Chu Rocket, Shenmue, Virtua Tennis, Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Ready 2 Rumble, Soul Calibur, Gauntlet Legends.
The Dreamcube was a lovely piece of tech.
How about that GameCube controller. Still the top dog IMO.
Definitely the Dreamcast. I was going to defect over to the GameCube after the Dreamcast died, but a few mates went Xbox, so that’s where I ended up. I own both consoles now though, and having to decide between the two, I’d pick Dreamcast every time. It’s racing library was extensive considering the short amount of time the system was viable. And being in the SEGA camp when they were at their creative peak was a gaming experience I’ll cherish forever.
I honestly don’t get the whole ‘Dreamcast is overrated’ thing. I guess it can be attributed to the mainstream flogging the Dreamcast nostalgia to death, but there is so much gold on the system, that I don’t think it could be at all overrated. You can’t tell me that a system with Metropolis Street Racer, Grandia II, Skies of Arcadia, Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi, Shadowman (the best port by far), Shenmue, Marvel VS Capcom 2, Space Channel 5, San Francisco Rush 2049, Gundam Side Story, Tokyo Xtreme Racer 1 & 2, Bangai-O, Sega Rally 2, Record of Lodoss War, Ikaruga, Psyvariar 2, Under Defeat, MDK2, and Tony Hawk 1 & 2 could in any way be overrated. Just owning the console with a couple of any of these games is absolutely worth it.
Even if I never owned one back in the day, these kinds of titles would have me clawing at the walls to get at the system 🙂
That said, I do love my GameCube. I have loved and enjoyed every single minute I’ve spent with it, and it too has a great library. It doesn’t seem to have too much in the way of all the genres I naturally gravitate towards (it’s light on racers, for example), but it’s still amazing 🙂
What a horrible poll… I hate making decisions at the best of times…
As a lifelong Nintendo fanboy, the answer has to be GameCube. But even if I wasn’t, the answer would still have to be GameCube because it’s the best console of all time 😛
The only thing I wish it had was a light gun, and series of games to go with it.
Dreamcast was good but most of the games were very arcadey and lacked substance. Had heaps of repeat value but I found that I mainly used it with friends.
Gamecube was far superior over the dreamcast. I guess a better comparison would be Gamecube vs PS2.
DC will never get the love it deserves!
Both. My god both.
seriously, add to that the ps2 snd it’s best gen ever even without the blight of the original Xbox.
Dat Cube. It was the first console I ever spent my own hard-earned cash on. I remember being the first in line at the midnight launch at my closest Electronics Boutique. Still have the receipt – and the console, obviously. I remember the awe I felt when I first held the controller. That day, I truly learned what ‘ergonomic’ meant. I think.
Definitely GameCube. I have three of them setup for LAN Double Dash in the spare room. And Game Boy adaptors for Four Swords and Crystal Chronicles. 😀
Gamecube.
Besides of siding with Nintendo for so long, it was the first game console I ever bought with money I earned from part-time jobs.
Dreamcast ftw!
Soul Calibur, all the sega arcade ports, MVC2, Shadowman etc etc.
At least there have been new DREAMCAST RELEASES every year and still going!
The one time easy piracy actually had a very meaningful benefit to a machines life span.
A+
Never owned a Dreamcast OR a Cube, but I had friends who had both and can remember playing countless matches of Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast because it was freaking awesome!
Then the cube introduced me to games like Killer7 which I then later had on ps2.
To me a Dreamcast is like how you used to love AND hate your friends for owning a NeoGeo instead of a master system or a snes like everyone else. It opened up your world to new games but you couldn’t get them because your freaking country didn’t sell Dreamcasts or the games.
Oh, and both are excellent machines. I didn’t vote