Nintendo’s GameCube was a huge commercial fiasco, what’s more, today it is much more loved by the general public than it was when it was on sale, since it marked a turning point in the company that made them have to give a 180ยบ turn with what would be its successor, the Wii, a console that despite being based on almost the same hardware was its inverse in terms of commercial success. However, apart from its sales success for many, it is a much-loved console and despite the advances in emulators like Dolphin, there are people who still enjoy it with the original machine.
What is SDSP2 for the Nintendo GameCube?
Well, it is a simple, very small adapter that connects to the console’s serial port and allows us to use it to load games stored on a MicroSD card. If we take into account that each console disc had a capacity of 1.5 GB, you can already imagine everything you can store inside a card. It is also ideal if you have the console, you continue to play with it and you want to keep your original copies in good condition or you simply do not want to get up from the sofa every time you want to change the game.
As you can see, the device is very small and does not require opening the console at all. Its operation is simple and is based on the fact that you can bypass the console reader to load backup copies on the original system. Of course, it requires a boot disk that we call Swiss that is usually sold together with the adapter, which will make the system read it as an official Nintendo licensed game and will be in charge of executing the game loader from the MicroSD.
The only limitation is that not all GameCube models support SDSP2 due to the fact that they do not have a serial port, since it is an element that no official peripheral used in its day and it reached the point where Nintendo decided to do without. of it due to disuse.
Wouldn’t it be better to use the emulator today?
If you have a powerful enough PC, then yes. But we must assume that if we talk about playing with the emulator on an LCD or OLED screen, then we are talking about playing the games of the first Nintendo disc console at the resolution of our monitor and, therefore, we are not only talking about emulate it, but also run it at several times the original resolution. In any case, a current GameCube can cost you close to 100 euros, but due to retro speculation, games are expensive, so it is a much cheaper option.
Of course, the European version of the console is designed to be used for old tube televisions. However, there are adapters that convert the signal and allow us to enjoy console games without problems. Of course, they do not increase the original resolution, but they solve the classic problems of analog video signals on a contemporary television.
