The GameCube felt like a “me-too” system to everyone out there. It didn’t really stand out from the competition when it came out, other than the fact that it had Mario. Wait, no it didn’t… but at least it had that realistic Zelda in development shown at SpaceWorld 2000… no, it didn’t have that either. The Wii on the other hand has been set apart from its competitors thanks to an effectively-used motion sensing wand controller. There’s no doubt that motion sensing helped to set it apart in a good way.
What if it was different? What if the GameCube had motion sensing?
Apparently, it did, and this was the case long before the September 14, 2001 launch in Japan. Factor 5′s Julian Eggebrecht revealed in an interview that his company was working with an early prototype controller that incorporated motion control into the interface. At the time, Factor 5 was working on the GameCube launch title, Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II, thinking how motion control could have been used in flight.
Unfortunately, motion sensing was scrapped from the GameCube, which could have been its trump card at the time. However, I have a feeling that the technology may have still been expensive, unrefined, and clunky with a two handed controller at the time. Oh well.
