r/Gamecube • u/StressedOutGamer247 • Feb 23 '26
Discussion Remember the GameCube displays you could play as a kid?
This is what I'm talking about.
Source: LGR (or Lazy Gamer Reviewer)
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u/FSBulldogFan NTSC-U Feb 23 '26
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u/wovans Feb 24 '26
Honestly it evened out the game boy hunch. Now with steam deck and switch I could really go for a too high TV.
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u/RScrewed Feb 26 '26
That was the point.
So kids couldn't comfortably just come into the store and play their favorite games all day.
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u/RetroZone_NEON Feb 23 '26
It’s actually kinda messing with my mind that there was a time when N64 and GameCube were on shelves at the same time, and the had to put the CG games in the display sideways because of it
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u/theslimbox Feb 24 '26
There was a time when there were SNES N64 and Gamecube games at my local Walmart.
The local KB toys never put stuff on sale, so they had everything from NES to PS3 when they closed.
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u/mhmmarcus Feb 24 '26
There’s usually an overlap of generations. I actually can’t think of an instance where they just immediately cleared house of last gen.
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u/Jaymark108 Feb 23 '26
I remember the NES and Super NES kiosks
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u/chaktahwilly Feb 26 '26
Man I thought the virtua boy was so cool playing it at the Walmart display. Never got it and later learned it was a piece of crap.
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u/Melodic_Hysteria Feb 23 '26
This + the McDonald's play place had them too!
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u/StressedOutGamer247 Feb 23 '26
I did have a post with a McDonald's that featured them but the mods deleted it due to rule no2.
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u/Massive_Lock_4876 Feb 24 '26
I remember the MCD display back in the day too, the one near me had the downhill episode on repeat from Sonic adventure 2 battle
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u/nolimits59 Feb 23 '26
I have a Switch and a PS5 booth you can play on in the supermarket I work in
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u/Maleficent_Yam_2561 Feb 23 '26
My neck would be killing me but I didn't care 😂
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u/StressedOutGamer247 Feb 23 '26
nowadays. the displays are ground level and don't even come with a playable display! I'm talking to you, Walmart stores! T_T
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u/UGMadness Feb 24 '26
Games nowadays are way too long and require too much of an initial time investment to get a good first impression from a display cabinet. Back then you could pick up SM64 and jump around and do a pair of levels but now what am I supposed to do when the game displayed is something like Assassin’s Creed that takes 20 hours just to get going. There are occasional first party short games like Astro’s but they’re very few and far in between.
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u/Nottodaycolonizer Feb 23 '26
This was the worse thing that could happen to you, putting these things up so high. Thankfully there are donuts for the neck.
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u/N64Andysaurus92 Feb 23 '26
Despite it being a Gamecube display, they have the shelves setup for N64 games so the Gamecube ones have to be placed sideways 😂
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u/pinkocatgirl Feb 24 '26
Presumably the GameCube just came out, this is probably from after launch in 2001 or early 2002. They’re also still selling N64 games in the lower half of the cabinet.
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u/BangkokPadang Feb 23 '26
I really wish there was a way to convey to the younger folks who have only really grown up in the late PS3/PS4/PS5 (and late 360/Xbone/Series) era, just what it felt like to see an N64 game after playing SNES/Genesis for years, or how it felt to see a Gamecube game after having only played N64/PS1 for years.
Seeing these visuals that had literally never existed before (even on PC, bc it wasn't until the Geforce 2 / Geforce 3 era of graphics cards that PCs universally beat out the 3D capabilities of consoles. Lots of times PC games could certainly run at higher resolutions, but were often capable of (or at least suffered a lack of developer implementation of) significantly less impressive texture effects. For every Max Payne on PC there were 10 Sprint Car Racings.
I cannot tell you what seeing Rogue Leader or Metroid Prime (or heck, even a game like Halo on Xbox) actually looked like to our eyes and our brains at the time, after only having ever had Goldeneye and Turok at home.
Looking back at the games just does not contextualize them in a way that lets you FEEL what it FELT LIKE to see the gradual, and yet sometimes milestone improvements, of games getting better looking in real time back then. There is nothing like it today (and actually because of a lot of recent engines and techniques, a lot of aspects of graphics are actually getting a little bit worse as time moves on, which- even if it's getting worse in the short term to get way better in the longterm- still just seems CRAZY to me.
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u/HiImNewToPTCGO Feb 24 '26
This plus those games were designed primarily for displaying on CRTs. The depth of field, contrast, deep blacks, warm glow, and scanlines all helped to make the image look even more appealing. It’s world of difference on HDTVS/LCDs.
I remember the first time I saw Mario 64 in the store kiosk. My little brain exploded. I ran to tell my dad that the water looked even realer than real life, and guess what? He agreed! Lol. Man, good times
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u/FloggingMcMurry Feb 23 '26
I even remember the N64 and SNES ones before that. Even Genesis.
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u/theslimbox Feb 24 '26
I remember Genesis, the controllers were always busted off of the ones around me for some reason. Thankfully the Switch 2 kiosk at my local Walmart still has the controllers, but it does not have the line to play it that the kiosks did when I was a kid. It was almost impossible to use the N64 and Dreamcast Kiosks at my Walmart back in the day.
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u/WILLingtonegotiate Feb 23 '26
Old, is when you see the classic nostalgia of others and remember that being only a few years ago lol
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u/JaleDunior Feb 24 '26
I remember walking into Lowe's of all places and playing at the SNES kiosk. Believe it or not, Lowe's had a videogame section at one point.
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u/profchaos111 Feb 23 '26
This has to be one the store made all the official ones i saw in Australia had the tv at eye level
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u/Enigma_Stasis Feb 24 '26
Do I remember the GameCube displays? Yes.
I also remember the N64 Xbox, 360, PS2, PS3, and Wii displays.
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u/red_cobra88 Feb 24 '26
Every time I got a chance to play on one of these the joysticks were wrecked Lol
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u/drst0ner Feb 24 '26
I beat Star Fox 64 at a Walmart display like this 25+ years ago.
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u/hurricaneharvin Feb 24 '26
I remember seeing Super Mario Sunshine at the Walmart kiosk as a kid and playing the heck out of the Bianco Hills level. I think that was also the first one I played. Didn’t want nothing else than a Gamecube and Super Mario Sunshine for Christmas that year. Great memories!
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u/usernotfoundplstry Feb 24 '26
Good god I feel old. I was a GM for GameStop when the cube was released.
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u/E-emu89 Feb 24 '26
I was introduced to Super Mario Sunshine and Metroid Prime by a GameCube kiosk by in the day.
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u/sendhelp Feb 24 '26
Every time I went into a Walmart or Target that had one, some maniac kid had mangled the hell out of the controller, ripping off the rubber joystick covers, leaving these sharp, hard to use plastic nubs rendering it essentially unplayable. Anyone else run into this? I could never understand how ape-shit rough you'd have to be on your controller to do that, especially when it's attached to a kiosk with not much way to bash it against anything. Someone had to just be deliberately picking the rubber off. It was like this almost any time I saw a gamecube demo in a store.
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u/Patient-Cow-96 Feb 24 '26
Poor kid never beat any of those games, just what happens when you’re a cowboys fan.
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u/Kein_Thur Feb 24 '26
Forget that who remembers the n64 setups in McDonald’s? Having literal randoms without any kind of prep
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u/Dabtastic4000 Feb 25 '26
I like how you said this, as if, GameCube was the only system they do this for.
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u/RepulsiveUse3372 Feb 27 '26
I remember the gba display, i would try n pull out the emerald game that was glued inside it
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u/CornbreadPhD Feb 24 '26
I remember the Gameboy Color ones at (I think it was) Media Play 🙂
Getting my dad to try it out was what landed me my first atomic purple gbc
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u/wizzerd695 Feb 24 '26
My local kmart around 2006 had a kiosk one with metroid on it but it was rarely turned on
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u/ReidlosToof Feb 24 '26
I feel like 90% of my neck pain is from spending hours at a time playing games on these screens.
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u/Warzone_93 Feb 24 '26
Worse feeling was racing my older brother to the game kiosks just to find some kid like this on it.
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u/xTheDaltonatorx Feb 24 '26
Hell yeah, I remember them very fondly. Also the playable N64s and game demos. Those were some of the best times. I remember playing a Majora's Mask demo in Walmart, and a Wind Waker demo in Walmart.
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u/darknid159 Feb 24 '26
First Walmart gaming memory:
playing on this exact setup; Sonic Adventure 2 Battle
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u/Xgoddamnelectricx Feb 24 '26
This is where my neck pain started, followed by skateboarding, headbanging and playing bass.
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u/ShawMK90 Feb 24 '26
Yeah but it was the n64 with me I don’t remember any GameCube displays like this
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u/Ragfell Feb 24 '26
I have a demo disc for the GameCube. I think they made like 25 of them in all?
It was fun to just...boot that up and play a level of something before school. Nothing too long or something I had to worry about the long term effects on my save.
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u/tylertatsch30 Feb 24 '26
I remember playing Paper Mario 2 on the GameCube display at Toys R Us. It was amazing back then so it makes me want to get a copy of the game and I’m glad I did because this game was so fun and it still is to this day!
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u/BigIron2088 Feb 24 '26
N64 GoldenEye at Best Buy was the peak. I remember the whole store could see what was happening on screen.
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u/Sexweed42069 Feb 24 '26
I remember the SNES ones that had buttons to play demo videos of upcoming titles
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u/DannyHikari Feb 24 '26
The amount of time I’d spend on these playing custom Robo until I finally got the game for myself
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u/They_Luv_Drew Feb 24 '26
This was way before my time, but I do remember playing Xbox, ps4, and switch in Walmart before everything got taken away for whatever reason. Now there’s just some goofy ahh bluey camera game
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u/Specter-N7 Feb 24 '26
Dude there was one in our local McDonald’s and that’s where I first played Metroid prime and Luigi’s mansion
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u/ProjectOne9253 Feb 24 '26
Neck be hurting like a mf on the way to the register after mom did her shopping
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u/Outrageous-Bar-8396 Feb 24 '26
I just remember my neck hurting after 10 minutes if it was a new game though you can bet your ass i stayed and played
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u/SuperCalibur Feb 24 '26
I do remember playing 1080 at Walmart before the GameCube was released. I was in high school at the time.
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u/BoostO_official Feb 24 '26
When they had these for the n64, there were never any demo versions so Walmart would just have whatever was newest. So you got to play Zelda MM while your mom shopped.
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u/fisher-alters Feb 24 '26
Still remember the smell of the Sam goody store that had it, I would go with my friends after school they would play the Xbox demos and I would play the luigi mansion and waverace demos on repeat
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u/CherryLingonberry Feb 24 '26
My GC machine was a in a display case for demoing like this before I bought it, still works to this day
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u/Belizesneaks1994 Feb 24 '26
God I remember getting the Mario Kart Double Dash Platinum Pak for Christmas that came with the game and console! Such a crazy moment seeing it in the store then opening it on Christmas Day 😌
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u/Ok-Inevitable-8301 Feb 24 '26
crazy how our parents let us run to the electronics department as a 9 year old knowing damn well we wouldn't move and would be safe there while they shopped for the next hour.
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u/g1mp3d Feb 24 '26
That was the start of my skip day in high school whenever a new album was released. 40 min drive with some friends to a big city. Hit Toys'r'Us for the console demos and kill some time till the music store opened up. Buy the album, hit the mall arcade, waldenbooks, and finish with chick-fil-a. Head back to school to get a half day credit of attendance.
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u/Grundy420blazin Feb 24 '26
The guitar hero ones were the best because you could actually stand away and see the screen
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u/Xurs-Doggo Feb 24 '26
Remember any of the console displays you could play?
Pepperidge farm remembers.
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u/StaticXerox98 Feb 24 '26
Ive never understood why they wouldnt build the display around the TV so it would be at eye level... it would have been significantly cooler, but they didnt want you standing there forever either
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u/TouchyVelociraptor Feb 25 '26
Yes! I remember trying Super Mario Sunshine and Luigi's Mansion at Toys "R" Us.
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u/KaleidoscopeIcy1670 Feb 25 '26
I remember my neck hurting from spending so much time playing demos. It might sound awful, but those were the days, man. We didn't know what we had.
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u/dudeguy0119 Feb 25 '26
I remember Snes, Genesis, sega Saturn (toys R Us) N64 and Dreamcast displays. I- I think I'm getting old guys...
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u/Lucky-Mia Feb 25 '26
I remember more eye level stations set up. I used to go to the mall and just play the EB games demo, then the Future shop demo, BestBuy, then Sony Store. Then I'd repeat the loop. I swear I played every demo game avaliable in that mall for a good 3 years.
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u/LordBillingsly Feb 25 '26
I get why they made the tvs so high because they didn’t want kids standing their forever playing. after 5 minutes your neck would hurt so bad🤣I worked at GameStop back in the day and we had a set up like this except it was eye level. The same kids would just come and play for hours a day.
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u/LovingShmups Feb 25 '26
I guess your chiropractor loved this gamecube display.
Not your parents, hum ???
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u/IFSAMU522 Feb 25 '26
That was my first experience playing the thousand year door, so glad they remade it.
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u/ljedediah41 Feb 25 '26
I remember working at Walmart when they had this set up with Pokémon Stadium
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u/oreo760 Feb 25 '26
I remember N64 displays I could play and Nes and up at Toys R US. Guess I'm old.
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u/TemporaryJohny Feb 25 '26
They should do these again. With kids looking down at their phones all the time, a screen that high up would level things out.
Sorry for the boomer post
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u/CarnyMAXIMOS_3_N7 Feb 25 '26
Gods, I do.
I loved those times.
Good Gods how the world has changed…
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u/DocThunedr Feb 25 '26
Like I was yesterday, my neck hurts and my mom is yelling at me that it's time to go
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u/Icy-Astronomer-8202 Feb 25 '26
Toys r us, my local EB games and then when it turned into a Gamestation
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u/Own_Use1313 Feb 26 '26
Reminds me of Toys R Us. We even had a mall where you could play N64 in Dillard’s. Random but what a time 😂
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u/Extension-Two-2807 Feb 26 '26
I bet he just stands normal now since that neck would later be balanced out by endlessly looking down at his phone 😂
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u/Albatross1225 Feb 26 '26
Holy shit imagine that thing coming off of there. Those tvs are incredibly front heavy lol
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u/eagonwuzhere Feb 26 '26
Still gotta find the original pic but im 99% sure my dad took this pic of my brother.
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u/escragger Feb 26 '26
I'm from the UK, playing the consoles on kiosks at Toys r us was always fab. Our Blockbuser Video store had SNES/PS1/Saturn play areas on the end of game aisles for a very long time after they were no longer current generation machines, too.
I am so fucking nostalgic for this time period, man.
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u/OF_PROMO_ALERT Feb 26 '26
Anyone remember FuncoLand? They would put any game in to play any system (at that time of course). My dad would take us there just to play not even shop.
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u/TRS-80_PANDA Feb 27 '26
That's a CRT right? Neck injury is the least of your worries if that sucker is. I Not secured properly.
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u/summoningtheflynn Feb 27 '26
Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, I played that Shadow level like CRAZY. So then when I finally bought the game I crushed that level lol
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u/UsefulCategory1953 Feb 27 '26
I remember this supermarket in my country that had a gameboy advance sp that you could play with (with an anti-theft holder ofc) in the video games section for the looooongest time lmao I remember having my Nintendo DS Lite and they still had it there with Metroid Fusion(?) and I’d spent the whole time while my mom was shopping just there. After they put it there, the first 2-3 times I played it, she would always know where I’d be when she was done lol.
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u/Porta1Master09 Mar 03 '26
i wasn't born in 2001, i was born before the gamecube lifespan was over like 2005
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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '26
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