A Modder Turned a Fake GameCube Portable Design into a Real Handheld

Back in 2007, a fake GameCube portable design spread across the internet. In 2022, someone has actually made it a reality.

YouTube user GingerOfOz has 3D printed, wired, and modified the handheld to look exactly like the original mockup – and it actually works.

There were a few hurdles, of course. The original design features a disk slot but both the GameCube and Wii disk drives are bigger than the new handheld itself.

Y’know that fake GameCube portable that has floated around the internet for 15 years? Well, I got tired of it being fake. It’s real now. pic.twitter.com/Ihox29CoP0

— GingerOfOz (@GingerOfMods) March 12, 2022

The slot on front of the handheld is therefore just for show, as GingerOfOz instead opted to run all the game digitally using a Wii motherboard.

He admitted this would be a point of contention, as the machine wouldn’t have the GameCube start screen and menus, so modified the software to run both of these as expected.

The video shows GingerOfOz piecing it all together, from the beginning where he reverse engineered (read: smashed open with a hammer) a Nintendo DS Lite, to the casing pieces being sealed together to mark the finished product.

The result is very impressive. GingerOfOz shows the machine playing a range of GameCube games including The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, and Metroid Prime.

He even tracks down the designer who sent the internet into a frenzy in 2007, who explains he made it just for fun and that he’s since gone on to become a game developer at companies including Ubisoft and Epic Games.

Official support for handheld GameCube games is sadly less of a reality. While GameCube controllers do work on Switch, we still haven’t seen any sign of GameCube virtual console games on Nintendo’s hybrid handheld, despite multiple reports saying they were coming as far back as 2016.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale.