Even thoughMario Kart Worldwas the only major first-party launch title for theNintendo Switch 2, there’s a lot you can do with the new console. For example, it’s the only platform on which you can access the newGameCubewing ofNintendo’s NSO library, and even if you have been using it already, you may not have realised it has a secret start-up screen.
The GameCube’s start-up screen is considered by many, including me, to be the greatest console start-up screen of all time. The short theme that plays as the purple cube tumbles to form the GameCube logo will be playing in your heads as you read this. You might have been disappointed to discover it wasn’t there for the GameCube library on Switch 2. The good news is that it is, it’s just hidden.
It’s also relatively simple to unlock and experience it, hence it being discovered so quickly. When you open the GameCube library on Switch 2, similar to the other libraries, a Nintendo-red screen with the respective console’s controller will appear, accompanied by the sound of Mario collecting a coin. However, if you hold the left stick in any direction, that rather banal red screen will be replaced with the animated GameCube start-up.
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I’m a little split on whether I like Nintendo hiding the start-up this way, easter-egg style. On the one hand, just having the start-up screen play when you open the GameCube NSO app seems like the normal, sensible thing to do so that everyone can experience it. On the other hand, the unnecessary step it’s hidden behind is so simple, it doesn’t really matter. While there will be people who never know it’s there, or activate it accidentally occasionally and never figure out why, most can now experience that GameCube start-up very easily whenever they like.
The more I write about it, the more I like the start-up being hidden behind a very easy but officially unexplained step. It’s a very Nintendo thing to do. The sort of thing that, if you had discovered it in 1993 and rushed to tell your friends at school the next day, no one would have believed you, and it would have become an urban myth, except in this case, it’s real.
you’re able to stop holding down B when you attempt to catchPokemonnow. It’s okay.
It’s also another reminder that, and I know how old I’m about to sound, console start-up screens aren’t what they used to be.PlayStationgenerated a lot of excitement when it rolled outPS5UIs themed after each of its prior four home consoles. They were so popular thattheir limited availability eventually became a permanent addition. Unfortunately, thePS1start-up screen, a close second in the all-time rankings behind GameCube,didn’t return along with them. Annoying as, for me at least, that was the best part.
