GameCube

Some of Nintendo’s consoles had sparse launch line-ups but were carried by heavy hitters. While Super Smash Bros. Melee loomed just a few weeks post-launch, the GameCube’s actual day-and-date catalog was a bit underwhelming. The lunchbox-shaped console was novel with its quirky design and ugly-as-sin controllers that many people still swear by 24 years later, but its first wave of games was pretty weak. Luigi’s Mansion led the pack alongside Super Monkey Ball and Wave Race: Blue Storm, but most of the history books will remember Melee’s fashionably late arrival as the moment the console’s “real” killer app arrived. Sure, I could count it as one of the most culturally significant games in Nintendo history (even if the company doesn’t want you to view it as such), but to keep things clear and manageable here, I’m only considering actual launch games, not games released throughout a console’s ambiguous “launch window.” The GameCube had some real bona fide classics by the time the Wii launched in 2006, but that first month wasn’t so promising. — Kenneth Shepard