Today's mini article is about Dolphin Depot, a new project from developer Webhdx that essentially gives the original Nintendo GameCube its own homebrew app store.

Publicly announced a little earlier this week, Dolphin Depot allows everyone to browse, download and install homebrew applications directly on their GameCube, rather than having to track everything down individually and transfer files from a pc. There's also a website where you can explore the catalogue, which includes emulators, utilities and homebrew games.

You still need a homebrew-capable GameCube and a network connection, of course, but I think it's a fun addition to the console's homebrew scene. Feels and looks like a true hack! I like how it makes older projects easier to discover, like for people who are only just getting into GameCube homebrew. It's just ...nice seeing these sorts of modern things arrive on hardware that's now twenty-five years old :)

Yet again, this is one of those 'niche-within-a-niche' projects I find and write about!

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[–] 26 points 2 days ago (8 children)

an app store for a 2001 console is such a great sentence. curious what ends up being the most downloaded thing on it

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  • [–] 13 points 2 days ago (5 children)
  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)
  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    lol. Young me thought that game would be hilarious. It was not.

    Matt Hoffman’s Pro BMX2 was the better game and it wasn’t even close. It can also boast that it didn’t kill Acclaim.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

    BMX XXX

    Me and some other nerds in my high school horded a pile of "forbidden" games, either games that were banned in the UK or just edgy shit most places wouldn't sell to 11-14yos.

    Our friend with a JTAG'd Xbox got a copy of BMX XXX and invited us round to witness it. You'd think we were meeting to watch a snuff film the way we talked about it. Ended just up being a pretty mid game with mild nudity you'd already catch on late night TV.

    I still get a chuckle anytime someone brings up that game because of that.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    This is exciting. Reminds me that I have to check up on the Pretendo alternate network as well.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    In the article they mention network connectivity without the official broadband, what are they referring to?

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  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago* (2 children)

    https://github.com/webhdx/ETH2GC It's a little thing that does the same job as the official broadband but with a lot less bulk. And it's not prohibitively expensive.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago

    ETH2GC uses Serial Port 2 on the GameCube though, which isn’t present in later models and is also used by the popular SD2SP2 SD card adapter.

    The OEM broadband adapter uses Serial Port 1 so it has better compatibility.

    I think there was a project to combine ETH2GC and SD2SP2 into a single device but I don’t know if it released.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago

    Well, it’s about time!

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