Only recently, I passed on my GameCube to my nephew who was just starting college. He wanted something to play Mario Kart and GoldenEye on with new friends, and apparently it’s proving a hit. But this means I don’t have a GameCube. So let’s check eBay...
OK, let’s be sensible, you can actually pick up one of Nintendo’s classic cuboid consoles for around $60 to $80. That will only get you a regular model, however, and not a pre-release Space World 2000 version of the machine.
Of all the various special edition GameCubes that appeared during the console’s heyday 24 years ago, as IGN reports, the Space World is the rarest. Hence the astonishing (and yet still rather hopeful) price tag.
This particular model was a prototype design, one of five, that appeared at Nintendo’s annual Space World trade show in Japan in the year 2000. It was to be the penultimate Space World, but also the beginning of the adorable machine’s life, as it was unveiled at the event—alongside the Game Boy Advance. The prototype was lost for a couple of decades, and then rediscovered in 2023. It’s apparently 1mm bigger in all dimensions than the final retail GameCube, has a different-shaped vent at the back, and, well, didn’t have a CPU or GPU inside.
Which is to say, yes, this is a $100,000 GameCube that can’t play games. As the eBay description reads, “This is a display unit. The only thing that works is the little LED on top.” And honestly, I’m impressed the light still turns on a quarter of a century later.
The current owner says they’re selling the model in order to fund a place where people can gather to play games, “where the entire family can enjoy, people can meet other people, talk with people who feel uncomfortable with other people, and make the visitors feel young again.” Which sounds lovely.
But be sure before you buy. The sales page makes clear there’s no-takes-backsies.
“I do not run a shop, please, no refunds if the console is not to your liking.”
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